“BE AN ANDREW!” John 1:40-42
FBCF – 3/12/23
Jon Daniels
INTRO – Lots of interesting names of people in the Bible – Dodo (2 Sam. 23:24), Ichabod (1 Sam. 4:21) , Uz & his brother Buz (Gen. 22:21), Gomer (Hos. 1:3), Mash & Mushi (Gen. 10:23; Ex. 6:19). One man fathered 7 kids & named them Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim, & Caphtorim (Gen. 10:13-14).
Lots of interesting meanings of names in the Bible.
- Some are appealing:
o David “Beloved” –
o Anna “Gracious” –
o Isaac “Laughter”
o Jon – “Gift of God”
- But then there are some not so appealing:
o Lo-Ruhamah – “no mercy”
o Lo-Ammi – “not my people”
o Mishmannah – “fatness”
o Achbor – “a rat”
o So if your mama named you Mishmannah Achbor, you’d be a “fat rat.”
Meaning of “Andrew” – “a strong man.” And as we will see in the sermon today, there are some characteristics of the disciple, Andrew, here in the Gospel of John that are definitely strong & definitely worthy of our imitation.
EXPLANATION – John 1:40-42 (p. 886)
Early stages of Jesus’ ministry. Calling His first disciples to come & follow Him. He’s drafting His team, getting them ready to serve & carry out His mission of being His witnesses, sharing the Gospel, & making disciples of all nations.
Think about the men Jesus called to be His disciples:
- Ordinary men - fishermen
- Sinners
- Not the elites of society
- Even outcasts – Matthew, tax collector
- “I do not know what you feel but I never cease to be grateful to these disciples. I am grateful for the record of every mistake they ever made, & for every blunder they ever committed, b/c I see myself in them.” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones - https://gracequotes.org/?s=disciples)
What does that say to you & me about who Jesus wants to use? It says that He wants to use YOU & ME.
- It says that we don’t have to have impressive credentials.
- We don’t have to great by the world’s standards.
- We don’t have to have talents that wow people, looks that excite people, or intellect that astounds people.
- His call to be saved & to follow Him comes to every person of every race, rich & poor, male & female, young & old, educated & uneducated, to the law-abiding citizen & to the criminal.
- It comes to those who have a stellar reputation & those who have terribly tarnished their reputation, those who are spoken of in high regard & those who are the topics of whispers & gossip sessions.
- His call comes to those who are popular & those who are not; those who are famous & those who will never be famous; those who have been in church their entire lives & those who are here for the very first time today.
And that’s why we should all strive to be an Andrew – a strong follower of Jesus who is most well-known for bringing people to Jesus. And that’s the application…
APPLICATION – Every Christ-follower should strive to be like Andrew & bring people to Jesus.
Andrew should be an example to all of us in 4 ways:
WE MUST OBEY – v. 40 (ANDREW’S OBEDIENCE)
Andrew heard John the Baptist speak about Jesus, proclaiming Him to be the “Lamb of God” (v. 36). Andrew’s response to John’s message was to follow Jesus in obedience. We see him also mentioned in Matthew’s & Mark’s Gospel. Both of them say that, when Jesus called Andrew to follow Him, Andrew did so “immediately” (Matthew 4:20; Mark 1:18).
We don’t know much about Andrew, but what we do know is the most important characteristic of any disciple: He obeyed Jesus.
Obedience to Jesus was costly. Jesus made that clear when He said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves & take up their cross daily & follow me” (Luke 9:23 NIV).
- Jesus’ call to take up their cross daily was a call to die daily. A call to sacrifice. A willingness to give everything up for Him.
- Andrew literally did that. He was crucified as a martyr in AD 60 on an X-shaped cross b/c he considered himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Jesus.
Do we take our obedience to Jesus that seriously? Probably now. For most of us, we obey when it is convenient, when it is not too costly, when it doesn’t affect our lifestyles or our schedules or our plans or our bank accounts.
Vance Havner – “The cause of Christ has been hurt more by Sunday-morning benchwarmers who pretend to love Christ, who call Him Lord but do not His commands, than by all the publicans and sinners. They say they are evangelical but not evangelistic. They glory in being… disciples of the Lowest Common Denominator. They traffic in unfelt truth and refuse to get excited over religion. Their ideal service is “a mild-mannered man standing before a group of mild-mannered people, exhorting everybody to be more mild-mannered”… How many nice, comfortable, lovely people rest smilingly in church pews, their conscience drugged, their wills paralyzed, in self-satisfied stupor, utterly unconscious of their danger while the Lord of the Lampstands warns them, “I am about to spit you out of My mouth.” (https://gracequotes.org/?s=disciples)
Will we be an Andrew & obey Jesus?
WE MUST PRIORITIZE – v. 41a (ANDREW’S PRIORITY)
NIV – “The first thing Andrew did…” –
- Was to pat himself on the back?
- Was to start second-guessing his decision to follow Jesus?
- Was to start making plans & strategies about how to make a name for himself now that he was one of the “in” crowd?
No! “The FIRST thing he did” was find his brother. His priority was to find one of the people he cared about more than anyone else in the world.
- He was motivated by his love & concern for his brother.
- He was moved by his joy of being chosen by Jesus to follow Him.
- His mission was to immediately get to his brother as quickly as he could. He didn’t want anything to happen to Peter before he could get to him.
This must be our personal priority & it must be our church’s priority! The FIRST thing we need to do is to go find those who need to know about Jesus. When Jesus called Andrew from his fishing boat, He told him that He would make him a “fisher of men.” A good fisherman knows where the fish are & goes to them. You & I know where lost people are & we must make going to them a priority!
- That’s why we do “Take It to the Town”, going door-to-door last year on this side of the tracks & why we are going to the apts on the other side of the tracks this Wed night.
- That’s why we go on mission trips.
- That’s why we equip you w/ bracelets & tracts & train you to share the Gospel.
Finding those who need to meet Jesus MUST be our priority! If it’s not, we might as well shut the doors & stop calling ourselves a church, & start calling ourselves a social club.
WE MUST TELL – v. 41b (ANDREW’S MESSAGE)
Andrew had a very simple message for Peter: “We have found the Messiah.” – not some cool teacher, or radical preacher, but the Messiah. What does “Messiah” mean? It means “Christ” – the Chosen One.
Chosen for what?
- Chosen to die for our sins – “The Son of Man must suffer many things & be rejected…& be killed…” (Luke 9:22)
- Chosen to rise victorious from the grave – “…& on the 3rd day be raised” (Luke 9:22).
- Chosen to deliver us from our sins – “For the Son of Man came to seek & to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
- Chosen to give us the gift of eternal life – John 3:16
In short, Jesus is the Messiah, chosen to be the One we know & proclaim as the ONLY Savior of the world. That’s who Andrew found, that’s what his message was, & that must be our message, too!
WE MUST ACT – v. 42 (ANDREW’S ACTION)
Andrew didn’t just find Peter & tell him about Jesus – he BROUGHT him to Jesus. He was intentional in doing this. And who knows if this simple action on Andrew’s part may have very well been the major turning point in Peter’s life, leading him to become one of the leading disciples, the first one to preach the Gospel at the day of Pentecost, leading to 5000 people being saved.
Bring people to Jesus!
- Have you brought anyone to Jesus this week?
- Did you even try?
Bring people to church!
- Have you brought someone to church today?
- Did you even try?
- Gotta make room for them. We need more room. Hard to invite someone to church to hear the Gospel & there’s nowhere for them to sit. Time to build a building?
CONCLUSION – Who will join me today in making a commitment to “Be an Andrew”?
