S2 Ep.22-Follow Me Part 3: The Jesus You Know Is Just The Beginning

You can memorize the stories and still miss the moment God is trying to open your eyes. That’s the tension we sit with as we talk about Jude, traditionally understood to be the brother of Jesus, and why his journey is so unsettling and hopeful for modern faith. When you’ve known someone forever, familiarity can feel like certainty and certainty can quietly turn into blindness. 

We explore what it might have been like to share meals and ordinary days with Jesus, then be asked to see him as Lord. Along the way, we examine the way we label people, replay old memories, and reduce complex lives to neat categories. Jude’s introduction in Scripture stops us cold: he doesn’t lead with “brother of Jesus,” but with “servant of Jesus Christ.” That single decision reframes identity, credibility, and what Christian discipleship really looks like when the risen Christ reshapes your understanding. 

We also bring it home to church life and everyday relationships. Longtime communities can be beautiful, but routine can create blind spots where we stop noticing growth, stop expecting surprise, and stop listening. If you’ve felt stuck with who people think you are, or if you’ve realized you’ve been holding someone else inside an old box, this conversation offers a practical, grace-filled way forward: look again, stay curious, and trust that God is still at work. 

If this encouraged you, subscribe to Ancient Truth for the Modern Heart, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. What’s one person you want to see with fresh eyes this week?

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Transcript

Why Jude Matters In Follow Me

Speaker 0:07

Hello, friends, and welcome back to Ancient Truth for the Modern Heart. I'm Steve Pozzato, and as always, I am grateful that you are here to spend this time with me. Well, we're continuing our series called Follow Me. We're now in week three, a journey through the lives of those who encountered Jesus and chose to walk a different path because of that encounter. So far, we have spoken about Matthew, the tax collector, who left behind a life that others defined for him and discovered a new identity in Christ. And we have talked about Simon, Peter, and Andrew, who dropped their nets to follow him, to become fishes of people, and what it means to follow the love of Jesus, and to understand that different is not entirely about fearing change, but it is about embracing something new. Today we're going to spend some time in a somewhat overlooked period with a somewhat overlooked figure in the New Testament. Jude. Not Judas Iscariot, not Jude Thaddeus, but Jude, the one traditionally understood to be the brother of Jesus and James. And as we explore Jude's story, I want to consider a question that I think touches every one of our lives. How do we follow someone that we think we already know?

Familiarity Can Block Real Faith

Speaker 1:51

Because sometimes the greatest obstacle to faith is not ignorance, sometimes it's familiarity. Most of us know what it means to place people into categories, right? We think we know who someone is, we remember who they used to be, we think of them as names. Oh, a kind person. Oh, kinda mean. We remember who they used to be. Oh man, they did this thing one time when we were out at a restaurant. And oh yeah, I saw them down at the soup kitchen this one time years ago. We remember the things that they have done that made us happy, and we remember the mistakes that they made as well. It's a common phrase that we may not remember all the things a person does, but we will always remember how they make us feel. What are the roles that they played? What are the histories that we share with them? We categorize people this way. It makes it neater in our minds. And because we know them, we assume that we understand them. Sometimes we assume that we understand them completely. Adults do this with children. Children do this with adults. Friends do this with one another. Churches do this all the time. We say things like, oh, that's just who they are. Or, well, yes, they've always been that way, or I know them. And perhaps we do. And perhaps we don't. Because people grow and people change. We know that. We have done it ourselves. How many times have we said ourselves, oh, if they knew me now, I'm not the person I was back then? Or boy, I've been through so much since the last time I spoke with this person. How would they recognize me? People change, people grow. People encounter God, and sometimes God reveals something new through someone we've known all along. It's not always easy to overcome our categories. And it is definitely not easy to forgive another person or ourselves. And it is really not easy. Really, really not easy to be asked to follow someone that we think we know.

Growing Up With Jesus As Brother

Speaker 4:45

So, with that in mind, imagine for just a moment what it must have been like to grow up in the same household as Jesus. Just think about that, right? Jude knew Jesus before anyone called him Rovoni or Rabbi or teacher or Lord. Before the crowds followed him, before the miracles, before the sermons, before Palm Sunday, before Easter morning, Jude knew Jesus as a brother. He knew daily life, he knew shared meals, family conversations, ordinary moments. If anyone could be tempted to dismiss Jesus as the Messiah, as the Savior, as the Christ, it might have been Jude. After all, if you have brothers or sisters, how do you suddenly see them as the Christ? Just imagine that for a moment, and if any of you have chuckled, you know what I'm getting at. How do you reconcile years of familiarity with a growing realization that God is doing something extraordinary? The Gospels even suggest that Jesus' family did not always understand him. There were moments of confusion, moments of skepticism, moments where those closest to him struggled to grasp what was happening. And honestly, that makes perfect sense. Because seeing God at work in strangers is one thing. We haven't categorized them yet. Seeing God at work in someone you have known your whole life is something else entirely. But then something changed. Although I guess it's fair to say that the resurrection changed everything. Whatever doubts existed or questions that were lingering, whatever uncertainty remained, something happened that transformed Jude from a brother who knew Jesus according to the flesh into a disciple who followed Jesus as Lord, as the Christ. One of the most beautiful details comes in the opening of the epistle of Jude.

Jude Chooses Servant Over Status

Speaker 7:25

It's the things that he doesn't say. He does not introduce himself as Jude, the brother of Jesus. Instead, he writes, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. Now that has fascinated me for some time. If I were trying to establish credibility, I might mention being Jesus' brother. Right? That would place him at the head of the line, above all his other disciples, above all the other apostles, above those four who had written gospels that came before in the Bible, I knew him best. But Jude doesn't say that. Because maybe the Jesus that was his brother, the Jesus that he grew up with, maybe he didn't know him best after all. Maybe he thought he knew him. Because my friends, we know this from ourselves and from those that we care about, from those we have revisited, from those who have come back into our lives. Knowing somebody the longest doesn't mean knowing them the best. So Jude does not try to establish credibility that way. Instead, he identifies himself first as a servant, not a sibling and not a family member, but a servant, a follower, a disciple. Something profound had happened there. His identity was no longer rooted in family connection alone, but instead it was rooted in love and in discipleship. And I think there's a lesson there for us as well. Many of us spend our lives trying to fit people into boxes. We spend our lives trying to put ourselves into boxes. We assume that we know exactly who they are, who we are, and how that relationship works or doesn't. Yet God continues to surprise us. Sometimes the person we underestimate becomes the one through whom God speaks to us, and sometimes the child becomes the teacher. Sometimes the struggling person becomes the source of wisdom. And sometimes the one we overlooked becomes the one who changes our lives. Our life is changed by someone perhaps we overlooked. What does that mean to you? Perhaps sometimes we ourselves are transformed in ways that others never expected of us. As I've spoken about in past podcasts here, I did not expect this calling from God to any form of ministry. Never something that I'd thought of. And I gotta tell you, there's a great number of people that I know in my life who didn't see it coming either. And there were definitely a good number of conversations I had when I told people, and they said, What? Because they thought they knew me. Even the ones who had known me longest apparently did not know me best. And I have lived this life my entire life, and apparently I also didn't know me best. Is that true of all of us? But following Jesus often requires us to let go of our assumptions about others or ourselves. And our assumptions are not only about the Christ when we follow him, but it is about one another. And I think this is what he was trying to teach his disciples all along. And even after the resurrection, he was still teaching. Because there were still others who were yet meant to follow him, like his brother. And one of the things that recurs throughout the Bible, one of the themes in Scripture, is learning to see things differently. Right? Samuel sees a shepherd boy, God sees a king, the crowd sees a tax collector, Jesus sees a disciple, the world sees a cross, and then God sees resurrection. Again and again, Scripture invites us beyond surface appearances, beyond first impressions and beyond old assumptions. And now Jude has had to learn to see Jesus differently. And perhaps then we are invited to do the same, not because Jesus has changed, but because our understanding has deepened. I mean, many congregations have known their community and one another for years and years. If you've ever been to a church, you know that people sit where they sit and nowhere else if they can help it. You probably know where they sit too, if you've been going often enough.

When Church Routine Creates Blind Spots

Speaker 13:50

Sometimes these people have known one another for generations. Their parents and their grandparents came to this church, and now they come to this church. Their children go to this church. That can be a beautiful thing. But it can also create blind spots because we assume we know one another. We stop listening. This person must know this church best. The church must know them best because they have known one another the longest. We assume we know one another, and so perhaps we stop listening. We stop expecting growth and we stop anticipating surprises, and yet the spirit is always moving, always shaping, and always transforming. That person sitting next to you in worship today may not be the same person that they were five years ago, or even last year, or yesterday. God has been at work, and God is still at work. They may not be the same person tomorrow. And the challenge comes. And that challenge is whether or not we are willing to notice. And then there's another layer to Jude's story that many of us have known Jesus for a long time. Perhaps since childhood, we've heard the stories, we know these stories. His birth in a manger outside of Bethlehem, all the way to the cross, the stories of the wheat and the weeds, the miracles of Cana, Jesus walking across the surface of water, and Peter walking across the water to meet

Meeting Jesus Newly Across Life Seasons

Speaker 15:55

him, the resurrection of his friend, the healing of a woman who had been troubled for years. So many of us think that we have known Jesus for some time. Again, we have heard those stories, we've told those stories, we have explained those stories to ourselves and what it means to us. We have sung the hymns, we have read the scriptures, and sometimes familiarity becomes routine for us that way, too. We start to speak with certainty about the message of Jesus Christ. Maybe we even begin to think we know everything there is to know. We expect when a minister, a pastor, or a priest or whoever is leading service, a rabbi, an imam, that we are going to hear a story and a message that we know. Yet every season of life reveals something new. The Jesus who speaks to us at 20 is not encountered in exactly the same way at 40, 60, or even 80. As we age, the scripture ages with us. The words of Christ become new, they become reflective of the time in our lives. And sometimes when we follow him, it does not matter the age that we follow him, mind you. Sometimes when we follow him, the words mean something different every single day. How is that true? The gospel has remained the same. It's because our understanding grows. Because Scripture understands, because when Christ spoke the words and when the gospels were written, it was because they knew that as we grew, the words would mean something different. The words do not have to change. Our experience, our lived experience, the way we learn as we live our lives, that changes the message, even though the words are the same. Our lives deepen and faith matures, and Christ continues to meet us where we are. And Jude's story reminds us that following Jesus is not a one-time realization. It's a lifelong unfolding. I mean, think about someone that you have known for years. A friend, maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's a sibling or a parent or a child. Think about how easy it is to define them according to old memories. If you're a parent and you have done that with a child, whether that child is ten years old or twenty years old, you still remember the diapers you changed. Is this person so different from that person? Well, you might say yes, of course. But will you ever stop thinking about them as your child? What about your parent? What about a friend? You remember the things you did ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, fifty years ago. Oh, we used to ride our bikes and we played with sticks and we had this tree for it, or whatever the story is. Yeah, I remember he was always the one who wanted to play Luke Skywalker when we played Star Wars outside. Yeah. Who is that person? Now, for this person that you have known for so long, whoever they are, imagine choosing instead to become curious about them, to listen, to ask who they are becoming, to look for God's work in their life. That kind of seeing requires humility. It requires love and it requires grace. But it is also how relationships remain alive. And maybe that is the heart of Jude's Witness. He reminds us that Jesus is not merely someone we once knew, but that Jesus is someone that we continue to discover. The living Christ continually invites us deeper beyond assumptions, beyond certainty, beyond familiarity, into relationship and into discipleship and into transformation. Jude followed not because he had all the answers, he followed because he encountered the risen Christ. This is still Jesus that he has known his whole life. But today, he's something different because Jude has seen the difference. And once that happened, everything changed. And that's good news because do you know what that means for us? And that person that we have known forever. It means that every day is a chance for us to get to know them all over again. God is still at work. We get to witness them in a new way, again

Fresh Eyes, Prayer, And Sending

Speaker 22:10

today. And we get to do it tomorrow, too, and the next day, and the next day. And God willing, they get to see us differently as well. So perhaps Jude's example also shows us that we don't have to define those that we love or even ourselves in the same way tomorrow as we do today. Because God is still working and everything changes. And so maybe there is someone in your life that you need to see with some fresh eyes. I know I do. Maybe there is someone God is still shaping, and again, maybe that someone is even yourself. Perhaps today Christ is inviting you to encounter him anew. Not as a distant figure from history, not as a collection of doctrines, but as the living Lord who continues to call ordinary people into extraordinary grace. Jude's story reminds us that discipleship begins when we are willing to look again, to see beyond what we think we know, and to trust that God is still revealing something beautiful. Because I assure you, He is. Let us pray, friends. Gracious and loving God, you continually surprise us with your presence. You reveal hope when we expect despair, growth where we expect stagnation, and life where we expect endings. Help us to see one another with fresh eyes. Free us from assumptions that limit our love. Teach us to recognize your image in those around us. And help us, like Jude, to follow Christ not merely because of what we have known in the past, but because of what you continue to reveal in the present. Open our hearts to wonder, our eyes to grace, and open our lives to the transforming love of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Thank you, friends, for joining me once again and carry that love with you. Because wherever you carry it, there will you go in peace. Until next time, be well, friends, and farewell.