Over 20 years ago, before the iron curtain fell, there was a movie called “Red Dawn.” It portrayed the overrunning of the US by a communist invasion in the first few minutes. The rest of the movie follows the lives of some who are part of “the resistance” in occupied America territory. It was an interesting movie because it caused you to imagine an America that has been subdued. I suppose if someone were to make one today, it would simply shift to a Muslim extremist invasion.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine the US’s moral demise finally weakening us so that our once “Christian” nation is overrun then ruled by an oppressive anti-Christian government? Imagine being overtaxed and forced to work for government projects. Imagine all religious activity being government controlled and completely reduced to ritual. Imagine seeing your children mistreated, but always having a clenched fist of power held over your head so that you have only two choices: comply, or be killed.
There are revolts -- courageous ones, but each one ends in a bloody failure. People watch and talk about the kind of leader we’ll need if we’re going to regain our country. They talk about the qualities he’ll need to possess to lead us out of oppression. Then suddenly, there arises a leader who seems to have all that’s needed. The more you hear about him, the more your hopes are renewed. He has the caliber. Could this be the beginning of a new day for you and your people?
This is 1st cent. Israel’s story, except it’s a lot longer than US history. They neglected God and were overrun by a pagan nation. They were under oppression for over 600 years. During that time there were several gallant resistance movements. All of them had been crushed. Imagine, for all those years of slavery and exile you’ve been reading about the arrival of a Deliverer. He’s the Messiah – the Anointed One. He’ll bring an end to the injustice. He’ll usher in an age of peace and prosperity greater than your nation ever enjoyed before. Many arose who seemed to be great deliverers, but they all were cut down. Then there’s this other. He seems to have the qualities. Finally, your hopes are renewed. “Could this be the beginning of a new day for us and our people?”
John wants the readers of his gospel to know it is. He wants us to know Jesus. In Jn 1 he wants us to know...
I. Jesus is Needed & Looked for
Now, we’re not living under Roman oppression, although we’re faced daily with the reality that we’re at war with an enemy willing to go to extremes to destroy our nation. So, at this point, you’re saying, “What’s this to me?” Here’s what this is to you:
3X in the past 8 years – once with each of my kids – I’ve had the opportunity to see George Bush make an appearance and a speech. If you ever get to go to a big gathering where the President is going to appear, you’ll understand the excitement they purposely drum up as everyone anticipates his arrival. Long before you see him, someone will be at the mic saying, “The President just stepped off of Air Force One at the airport.” And the crowd yells while I just think to myself, “Enough, already. I’m here to see the President! “ Then later they’ll say, “Ladies and gentlemen, the President has entered the building!” And the crowd yells. Someone official looking comes out and puts the seal of the President of the US on the podium, and the crowd yells. – all of that yelling, and no one has even seen him yet!
How many times have you heard someone say, “Elvis has left the building”? What’s the big deal? It’s this whole idea of “someone’s coming!” When that Someone is going to make a profound impact on your life, his arrival becomes even more important. The same thing has been happening through history.
Galatians 4:4
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son
Take your Bible. Open it to Matthew 1:1 – the beginning of the NT. Right there, between Malachi and Matthew is the end of the OT and the beginning of the NT. Now, put your finger in it and close it and look at it. Do you see that? About ¾ of the Bible is OT. About ¾ of that book can be summarized with 2 words: “Someone’s coming!” That’s the main message of the OT. Peter says,
I Peter 1:10-12
Concerning this salvation, the [Old Testament] prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing...
Even those who were predicting His arrival were searching for the time when the Christ would appear. What’s the big deal? Well, someone was coming!
JB enters the scene. He’s a lot like that guy who comes out and puts the seal of the President on the podium. God has sent John to prepare the way. So it’s no surprise when we read
Luke 3:15
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ.
JB said, "I am not."
The people of John’s day were looking for someone, some thing. We sing about it at Christmas time: Oh Come! Oh come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel! Today, we get a quick look at how some of John’s followers were waiting...
John 1:35-40
The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" "Come," he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.
Andrew and the other guy were ready to find the Messiah. He was needed, and they were looking for Him. People are still searching for something! How else do you explain what’s come to be known as “extreme sports”? the running of the bulls every year in Pamplona, Italy? the short-lived glimmer of the New Age Movement? Psychic hotlines? new illegal drugs? body piercing? The things that they print on the sides of cups at Starbucks?
Ill - Fremont, Calif., 11 years ago. A 17 year old girl named Karen Cheng achieved a perfect score (1,600) on both sections of the SAT, and a perfect (8,000) on the tough University of California acceptance index. No one had ever done this before. Karen, who had just graduated, described herself as a "typical teenager ’ one who eats junk food and talks for hours on the telephone with her friends. She claimed to be a procrastinator who doesn’t do her homework until the last minute. She wanted to be a lawyer and then a judge. She was accepted for admission to Harvard University. Bright girl, right? A national news story about Karen included a short but significant interview with a reporter. When she was asked, "What is the meaning of life?" she said, "I have no idea. I would like to know myself."
Karen is typical of millions of young people growing up in the US today. She has been given incredible wealth and opportunity to excel, but hasn’t been taught who she is if she’s a child of God or what she has been placed here to do.
Word Publishing assembled "focus groups" in various cities to discover the stress points and needs of today’s youth. The most common characteristic found was: not being able to find the meaning in life. Most of these kids profess to be Christians, yet they’re struggling to determine the substance and purpose in living. In .22 seconds I can call up 472,000 web pages on the internet to tell me how lightning bugs glow, but hardly anything about what that means for my life.
Francis Schaeffer said it like this: "The damnation of this generation is that it doesn’t know why it has meaning." We’re glutted with information and clueless about what to do with it.
Some of you are here this morning because you’re searching. You’re looking for solutions. Information is being amassed, but not many solutions are being found to some of life’s most basic questions. In fact, the availability of information over the internet is creating problems that our Supreme Court doesn’t know how to handle.
Polls of the last decade have shown us that we are at a crossroads. The American Dream has changed. People are at least saying that there are things in life that are more important to them than wealth -- like their family and their leisure time. There’s a need. There’s a search for the deeper things of life, and many people are wondering in their hearts if Jesus might not be what they need to be delivered from a life where they feel trapped in their freedom. Every new outrageous fad is just a cry for help and diversion from a terrifying reality – apart from Jesus, life has no real meaning!
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see: Just like then, Jesus is needed, and people are looking for Him. Many just don’t know that He’s what they’re looking for. John also wants us to know...
II. Jesus is Available and Waiting vv(38-39) 41-42
When Andrew and the other disciple (probably John) first followed Jesus, they spent the better part of the day with Him. I wonder what Jesus said to them in those hours. It must have been pretty convicting - look how Andrew describes Him to his brother Simon
John 1:41
The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ).
They found that Jesus was available, and He was waiting to make them a part of His plan.
Simon is led to Jesus by his brother. Jesus looks at Simon - not at his rough, fish-smelling exterior. He sees the heart of a man who‘s given to violent outbursts; a man who’s often too quick to speak -- foot-in-mouth disease; who has good intentions, but has a hard time following them through.
His name is the same as the Jewish forefather Simeon. It was Simeon and Levi who strapped on their swords and killed an entire city of the Hivites because a man had defiled their sister. Jesus looked at this man, named Simon, with his explosive nature and said to him (v42), “Right now, you’re a Simon. You’re going to be a Peter – a Rock. You’re going to become something solid and strong." And John’s gospel follows the transition of his life -- the transition that began the day he met Jesus; because when he was led to Him, Simon Peter found Jesus waiting.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what your name is or whose genes you inherited. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve put Him off. It doesn’t matter how far off the edge you’ve gone. The Bible shows us that everyone who turns to Jesus always finds Him waiting. He’ll challenge you. He’ll change you, but He won’t turn His back on you.
John 6:37 “...whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”
John 7:37b , "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.”
Matthew 19:14 "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Jesus is available and waiting for you today. John also wants us to know...
III. Jesus is Someone We Naturally will Share vv(41-42), 43-51
Let me mention how great it was to see over 20 people show up Wednesday evening to pass out over 450 flyers in our neighborhood! The neighborhood blitz was great! Every one of you who participated has some kind of story about your experiences. I just want to commend you and say, “Good job, guys! Several hundred people know that we’re here and what’s going on here because you made the effort to Share Jesus.
Did you notice how naturally these guys in our text went from meeting Jesus to sharing Him with someone they knew? In vv35-36, JB is sharing Jesus with 2 of his disciples. In v41, Andrew is sharing Him with his brother Simon. In vv45-46, Philip is inviting Nathanael (probably AKA Bartholomew) to see Jesus.
This was just the first of a few times for Andrew. He was always leading people to Jesus:
John 6:8
...Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"
John 12:20
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. "Sir," they said, "we would like to see Jesus." Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
See how far the effects of simple sharing can go? I think that most Christian people would like to have this effect on people. I think that most of us really would like to share Jesus with other people. Am I right? But the fact is most of us aren’t doing it. What do we do? Well, you can wait around until the next neighborhood blitz, help send out new resident letters, or you can look at this text and learn from it:
What does it take? (application here - 2-step process): Look at these disciples...
1. They were convinced of who Jesus was!
I don’t think they understood much about the nature of His kingdom yet, but their words are pretty strong: “Look, the Lamb of God!” “We have found the Messiah!” “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote!”
Nathanael was convinced too, once he heard the testimony of his friend and met Jesus for himself, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!”
It wasn’t "This guy’s pretty good." or "You might like Him." It was, "We’ve found Him!!!"
Whether or not we’re going to share Jesus starts here. Are we convinced of Who He said He is? Are we persuaded that He has the power to change people from the inside out? Do we really believe He died and rose and is coming again?! If we’re not convinced of those things ourselves, why would we share them with anyone?
We need to reexamine our convictions and restudy our own hearts. We have to believe something ourselves before we’re going to make much effort to share it. Right? So start there. If you haven’t become convinced of Who Jesus is yourself, you need to sort through that 1st.
2. They cared about others!
What Andrew and Philip did was simple. They thought they’d found the Messiah. They went to someone they cared about. They told about Him.
If we’re convinced that Jesus is the answer to life’s most pressing questions, and if we really want to help people with their problems, evangelism will happen!
Don’t get me wrong. We need good methods, but a method won’t take us anywhere until we have the heart to use it! We need to care about people finding their way. I believe the reason we fail to share Jesus is less one of knowing how to do it and more one of caring about doing it!
We know that people are looking for someone who cares - psychic hot lines, 1-900 numbers, internet chat rooms, clubs, counselors, superficial and painful relationships. We also know that as long as they find people in the Church caring they’ll stop looking elsewhere.
Ill - A young man accepted Christ. A little while later, a Christian teacher asked him: "What have you done for Christ since you believed?" He said, "Oh, I’m a learner."
"Well, when you light a candle do you light it to make the candle more comfortable, or to have it give light?" He said, "To give light."
"Do you expect it to give light after it is half burned, or when you first light it?" He replied, "As soon as I light it."
"OK," said the teacher, "go and do likewise.”
Ill - Can you imagine winning the lottery? And not only that, but having 2 winning tickets in your hand -- but, you can only win once. For the other ticket to do any good, you’ll have to give it away. Can you imagine sitting there at home, "I don’t know if I ought to tell anyone or not. I could offer it to my neighbors, but they might think I’m strange. I could offer it to someone in my family, but what if they don’t believe me? I could call one of the guys at work, but I’m not sure how I would say it." No way! You’d be on the phone! You’d be saying, "Hey! I’ve got something, and I want to give you something that you’ll appreciate!"
Jesus is someone we naturally will share.
Conclusion Guess what: I’ve got something, and I want to give you something that you’ll appreciate!
Many of you have been searching for something -- Jesus is what you need.
Many of you have wondered if Jesus would accept you like you are. He will.
And He’ll make you want to share Him with other people who are right where you are this morning. He’s waiting for you. He’s calling you this morning.
