The Way of Jesus - Anchor 1 Sermon - September 9, 2018 - John 1:35-51 - “I Have Begun following Jesus and am Depending on the Spirit of Jesus in My Journey”
The Way of Jesus is something we’ve been considering as a congregation for a couple of years now.
Why the Way of Jesus? Simply put, in Jesus there is purpose and meaning. In Jesus we have a moral anchor. In Jesus we have access to the throne room of God. And that’s because in Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Jesus there is abundant life. In Jesus Christ is life eternal. In Jesus life is overflowing with meaning and purpose and joy in the Holy Spirit.
That is why Jesus matters. That is why the Way of Jesus matters. The way Jesus calls us to live our lives matters, because He is God and we ain’t.
The Way of Jesus is a lifestyle that helps you to live moment by moment really aware that you belong to Jesus. It helps you embrace being the beloved of God. (Pause)
But for a lot of Christians, while Sunday attendance might not be too difficult. In fact for a lot of us church is just awesome. We love it.
But after church. Monday morning, and then the rest of the week. There can be a struggle. There can be a struggle to live that abundant life in Jesus.
We can feel a disconnect between our experience of worshipping God on Sunday, and then the rest of our lives.
As well, Sundays, we’re together. We’re the gathered community of the beloved, one of millions around the world that comes together to worship Jesus.
But Mondays we’re alone. Or most of us are off running around or working or in school, often with people who don’t share our faith.
And it can be hard to maintain our passion for Jesus, our zeal for the gospel on our own.
Plus if you’re human...put up your hand if you’re human...if you’re human you struggle with living in a way that honours God.
You struggle with sin at times. And it gets in the way. Sins of commission get in the way.
That’s the stupid stuff we do sometimes despite knowing better. And sins of omission get in the way.
Good stuff that God calls us to do, wants us to do, but we don’t get around to it. Both types of sin are a problem for us.
And again, it can be hard to maintain our passion for Jesus, our zeal for the gospel on our own.
Perhaps you're one of the few who is fine on your own. If that's you, let me give you a snickers bar.
The truth is, we were never meant to do it alone. Not for one second. The early church in Judea literally lived together in community.
The smallness of the towns and villages meant that people who were part of a local congregation would often see each other, meet together, pray together.
A staff member form our daycare at 270 Gerrard went to Mozambique on the continent of Africa for 6 weeks to serve in an orphanage.
She lived with the people, ate with them, grew with them. Loved them.
Then, after only 6 weeks, she came back to Toronto and experienced what sure looked like shock, as she told me how incredibly isolated and cut off from friends and family she felt.
“My sister lives in Mississauga. My Mom and Dad are in Pickering. My best friend is in Thornhill. I feel completely alone. Why do we live like this?”
We’re not meant to live like that. We’re meant to be connected to other believers, and that must be more than what happens on Sundays. It must be.
We have an ongoing group that meets weekly to learn, to encourage one another, to tell our stories of learning to live the Way of Jesus.
In a few weeks we will be running another Intro to the Way of Jesus course as part of Bridges, the church’s midweek gatherings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
We’ll do that 3 times a year.
Why? Because we need the body of Christ around us as we grow in our faith, as we learn what it means to follow Jesus. I need you and you need me and we all need each other.
The Way of Jesus is a lifestyle. One that we’re learning together.
Now, today’s Scripture draws attention to the calling of the first disciples of Jesus. It’s a passage about beginnings, about new starts.
It’s a window into the world of those who came first, the one’s who first believed.
And you might not think it, because there’s a 2000 year difference and a huge cultural difference, but there is this connection between them and us.
Because they believed, and lived what they believed, and passed on what they believed, that message, that started in infancy with them, has wound up taking root in your life, in our lives.
These people - John, Andrew, Simon Peter, Phillip, Nathaniel - and the others we read about elsewhere - are known and remembered by us because of their answer to the call of Jesus, which was ‘Yes!”
We know some things about these fellows, some more than others, but they lived their lives and then died, actually were martyred, and went to be with Jesus forever.
Before going to be with Jesus, their lives spoke. You know what I mean by a person’s life speaking? Martin Luther King Jr.’s life spoke about racial reconciliation.
Mother Theresa’s life spoke about compassion and love for the poor and dying, the forgotten of our world.
Billy Graham’s life spoke about sharing the gospel with the whole world. That’s what I mean by ‘their lives spoke’.
Phillip, Nathaniel, John, Andrew, Simon Peter and the others.
Their lives spoke of the goodness of Jesus, the beauty of the living God, the mercies and love of the One who came to set them free from sin to live abundant lives.
But before their lives spoke, they encountered Jesus on this day that we’re reading about in the Word of God.
Let me ask. When did you encounter Jesus? What was the day of beginnings for you? Think back to that moment when you first understood the gospel.
Think back to that first revelation of the love of God. If you grew up in church you likely have many memories of moments of learning about and growing in your faith.
And you likely have some memory of when you decided as a teen or an adult to follow Jesus for real.
Or maybe you came back, or maybe you're coming back as an adult to a place of putting your faith in Jesus.
The Way of Jesus Anchor we’re looking at today in this: I have begun following Jesus and am depending on the Spirit of Jesus in my journey.
Let’s say that together, if it’s true for you.
This is the first anchor of the Way of Jesus and today’s anchor is about beginnings.
So this might suggest to you that if we can say today: “I have begun to follow Jesus…” we are being continually renewed.
God’s mercies are new every day.
Now your day of beginnings in your journey with Jesus occurred sometime in the past. For some like me it was a long time ago.
For some the fact that it all began much earlier in our lives gives us the feeling they we should be much further along the path than we feel we are. And we can spend a lot of time being down on ourselves for this.
But again, God’s mercies are new every morning. And each new day is the present for us, not the past.
The first anchor of the Way of Jesus says “I have have begun to follow Jesus and am depending on the Spirit of Jesus in my journey”.
It’s in the present. Not the distant past. Not yesterday.
And notice the “I” in “I have begun...”.
This walk with Jesus didn’t happen to me, it wasn’t put upon me by my parents, by anybody else. “I” chose it. “I” am responsible.
At the end of the day, I, as a follower of Jesus must own my responsibility for my journey with My Master:
‘I am a follower of Jesus. No matter what anyone else may do or say, I own MY journey in following Jesus. I am responsible.
Now we walk by faith and we live in the grace of God, absolutely. But we take personal responsibility for HOW we live.
Now, I also value being part of a community on mission, in which WE are helping each other and others on the Way.
That is important...to connect with and remain connected to others who are on the same journey. Yet, I am ultimately responsible for my own journey.
The second part of the 1st Anchor of The Way of Jesus is “(I) am depending on the Spirit of Jesus in my journey.
It makes sense that the first marker is one of beginnings, and one that recognizes the person of the Holy Spirit in the beginning.
The Holy Spirit is always around for good beginnings.
The first book in the Bible, Genesis chapter 1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters”.
Over all good beginnings, the Holy Spirit hovers.
When faith begins blossom in a person’s life, it is the Holy Spirit Who is there, hovering, waiting, working to bring life where there is none, bringing hope where there is despair.
The Holy Spirit is the 3rd person of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and so it’s important for us to remember that the Holy Spirit is God at work in us.
When you first were coming to faith or as a more mature person when you were deciding whether or not to follow Jesus because you wanted to follow Jesus and not because it was expected in your family...
When you first came to saving faith in Jesus, your spiritual life had been formless and empty.
You wouldn’t have known that at the time because we don’t know what we don’t know, but darkness was over your life. There was no spiritual life.
Ephesians 2:1-2 says: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient”.
But the Holy Spirit was at work, preparing your heart to believe in Jesus, helping you break through the doubts that kept you from believing.
The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus was hovering over your life.
Turning your heart of stone, that was unable to be responsive to the movement of the Holy Spirit, into a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26 puts it this way: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
My heart was a rock. Before I came to Jesus, my heart was hard. I was steeped in the atheism and materialism of my parents.
My exterior world - my family, friends, everybody - conditioned me for a life of not-believing in God.
Not being remotely open to the possibility that God was real. I was a true believer in nothing.
But the Holy Spirit hovered. The Holy Spirit worked in some wild ways to enable me to see the futility of believing in nothing.
And the Spirit of Jesus put people and situations in front of me that ultimately caused the grace of God to break through - crash through really - my life.
That’s a much longer story, obviously, but you have your own story.
Maybe yours doesn’t involve believing in nothing and then coming to Jesus. Maybe yours is about turning to Jesus from another faith tradition.
Maybe you grew up in a toxic church environment and got hurt there, but Jesus brought you out of that, helped you to see that He was not responsible for whatever hurt you there...and you choose to still follow Him.
Your story is important. Your story is important because it’s real.
It’s the story of God creating spiritual life out of spiritual death, and that is nothing less than a miracle.
Your story is how the gospel has impacted your life and how Jesus is at work in your life by the Holy Spirit.
And this Anchor, Anchor 1 reminds us that all in that we do and all that we are depending on the Spirit of Jesus.
When we can return to beginnings, when we can receive God’s mercies fresh today, then when can accept that we need Jesus. We are dependent...on the Spirit of Jesus, on the Holy Spirit.
How does being dependent on the Holy Spirit help you? (What I’m about to say is available in written form on the information table)
The Spirit of Jesus (The Holy Spirit):
? gives us understanding of the gospel and makes it effective in our lives (1 Cor. 2:4, 12; 1 Thess. 1:4-5).
? is the agent of our sanctification, spiritual cleansing, and renewal (2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 6:11; Titus 3:5).
? causes us to abound in hope (Rom. 15:13).
? Joins us to the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13)
? inhabits us as his new temple through the Spirit’s indwelling of the church (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:22).
? secures our salvation by sealing us for the future day of redemption (Eph. 1:13; 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:22).
? Is the down-payment and guarantee of our inheritance in Christ.
? assures us that all of God’s promises will be fulfilled (Eph. 1:13-14; 2 Cor. 1:19-22; 2 Cor. 5:5).
? gives us assurance of our sonship by causing us to cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15-16; Gal. 4:6).
? opens the eyes of our hearts to know God better (Eph. 1:16-19)
? strengthens us in our inner being (Eph. 3:14-16)
? fills us with the fullness of God (Eph. 3:17-21; 5:18).
The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in our hearts and enables us to put sin to death, promising to give life to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:9-14).
Back to our passage today that introduced us to the first followers of Jesus
When he began to follow Jesus:
? Simon was a fisherman who was to become a fisher of men
? Thomas was a doubter who was to become a worshipper of Jesus and, traditionally is understood to have brought the gospel to India
? Paul, a later follower of Jesus, was a religious man, a Christian-hunter and murderer, who became a key apostle or leader in the early church and wrote most of the letters in the NT
? Andrew went to what is now the Ukraine and Russia. Christians there claim him as the first to bring the gospel to their land. He also preached in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, and in Greece
? Philip had a powerful ministry in North Africa
? Matthew served the Lord in what is now Iran, and in Ethiopia.
Since they entered glory in the presence of Jesus, millions and millions of people have begun their journey with Jesus and lived their lives depending on the Spirit of Jesus.
Because they began to follow Jesus, their lives took a whole different turn, just like the first disciples.
That’s those guys. What about us? What about you?
If you are not a follower of Jesus today, will you begin to follow Jesus today?
If you just begun your walk with Jesus recently, will you take the next step and embrace the way of Jesus as your lifestyle?
If you’ve been following Jesus for some time now, will you grow with those who wish to follow the way of Jesus, making yourself available to the young-in-faith to help them grow? Will you mentor those younger in the faith? Will you
If you’ve been walking the line, neither fully committing to following Jesus, nor walking away from Him, will you fully embrace God’s best for you, will you start your fresh today? Let’s pray.
