Come Series

ENGAGE

I’d like to ask all of you to think for a moment about how you got here this morning. I’m not talking about the mode of transportation that you used, but rather your spiritual journey that resulted in being a part of our gathering today.

For me, that journey began as a small child. Although I don’t remember a lot of the details, my parents took us to church for a period of time when I was a young child. But then when my dad began to work a lot on Sundays, it seems like we kind of just drifted away from that. So for quite a good chunk of my childhood and teenage years, I really had anything to do with church or organized religion and really didn’t know much at all about Jesus.

But after Mary and I started dating, she asked me if I would come to church with her. To be real honest, that wasn’t something I was necessarily real excited to do, but because I liked her a lot, I figured I could do that for a week or two.

But because she had been willing to invite me to “come and see”, I began to be exposed to Jesus and the gospel and over time I committed my life to Jesus and became His disciple.

I know that your story is probably a lot different than mine, but probably all of you here this morning are here because at some point in your life, there was someone who loved you enough to invite you to “come and see” Jesus. For many of you, your parents were the ones who did that. For others it might have been a friend, or a co-worker, or a classmate, or even a boyfriend or girlfriend. Actually most of us probably had multiple people in our lives who did that for us.

TENSION

But right now, I’d like you to think of the one person in your life who was most responsible for inviting you to “come and see” Jesus. Then go ahead and write their name down. And then, if it’s possible, I want you to seek that person out this week, preferably in person, and tell them thank you for doing that.

TRUTH

I wanted to begin by getting you to think about the person, or the people, in your life that first invited you to “come and see” Jesus, because for every single one of us here today, that was the first step in our spiritual journey. So it’s appropriate that it is also the first step in the discipleship path that we introduced last week:

THORNYDALE FAMILY CHURCH

DISCIPLESHIP PATH

As we spend some time explaining and developing this discipleship path over the next five weeks, there are 4 questions that I want all of us to be able to answer at the conclusion of each message:

FOUR QUESTIONS:

1. Have I already taken this step in my personal relationship with Jesus?

• If I have, I need to thank God and the person or people who helped me take that step.

• If not, I then I need to answer the next question:

2. What concrete actions can I take right now to take this next step in my relationship with Jesus?

3. How can I help someone else I know take this step in his or her life?

4. What can we do as a church to help people take this step in their lives?

This morning we’ll look at two passages that will help us answer those questions when it comes to the first step in the discipleship path – Come.

The first is found in John chapter 1. John’s gospel account is the fourth gospel account and you’ll find it near the beginning of the New Testament right after Matthew, Mark and Luke. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there are some in the seat backs in front of you. Also feel free to use the Bible on our church app. If you don’t already have that I encourage you to download it this week from your appropriate app store.

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).