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Are You a Follower-Really? - John 1:35-42

Taught on | Topic: Christian Walk | Keywords: disciple, follower, obedience, evangelism

You can't make it through much of the Bible without coming to the word Disciple. Just the four Gospels alone use this term 228 times. Basically a disciple is the follower of a teacher: one who observes, learns, and practices what the teacher shares. We now come to the first time John uses this term in his book. So today we assess ourselves by asking, "Are YOU a follower?" Lets look at five characteristics of the first disciples of Jesus and see if they’re reflected in our lives.

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12/13/2009
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Are You a Follower-Really?
John 1:35-42
Skip Heitzig
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You can't make it through much of the Bible without coming to the word Disciple. Just the four Gospels alone use this term 228 times. Basically a disciple is the follower of a teacher: one who observes, learns, and practices what the teacher shares. We now come to the first time John uses this term in his book. So today we assess ourselves by asking, "Are YOU a follower?" Lets look at five characteristics of the first disciples of Jesus and see if they’re reflected in our lives.
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43 John - Believe:879 - 2009

43 John - Believe:879 - 2009

"But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name" John 20:31.

Believe:879 is an epic journey through the book of John led by Pastor Skip Heitzig of Calvary of Albuquerque. As we explore each of the 879 verses of this gospel, we'll grow in grace and in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. From His pre-incarnate existence, to His public ministry, through His death and His resurrection we'll traverse familiar territory and embark on new adventures of faith.

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Outline

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  1. Transition (vss. 35-37) Every Believer Should be a Disciple

  2. Evaluation (vs. 38) Every Disciple Must Sift Motives

  3. Submission (vss. 38-39) True Disciples Respond to Commands

  4. Mission (vss. 40-41) Disciples Want to Make Other Disciples

  5. Transformation (vs. 42) Disciples Don’t Stay in a Rut; They Grow

For Home Fellowships:
  1. Develop and discuss the biblical definition of a Disciple. In your opinion does this describe most people who designate themselves as Christians?
  2. How often do you evaluate yourself honestly? How could a network of others around you help that process? Why not ask one or two others to start this on a regular basis?
  3. Why are we so prone to follow people rather than Christ?

Detailed Notes

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According to Juan Carlos Ortiz, in his book "Disciple," a disciple is someone who follows Jesus Christ. Just because we are Christians doesn't mean we are disciples. Jesus said, "Follow Me." The term is used the first time in vs.35. Follow is used 3x in this text. Our problem is we are not keen on following. We want control. Surrendering our will to another is against our human nature.
GK Chesterton says following Jesus is not always easy.  Luke 9:23 says we must deny self and take up our cross daily.  We live in a culture of self indulgence, not self denial.
Discipleship comes in stages as we are transformed into His image.
Discipleship- A lifelong process of conformity to an alien will.

Five Stages and Characteristics of Discipleship

  1. Transition (vss. 35-37) Every Believer Should be a Disciple
    John the Baptists is handing off his disciples to follow Christ. They believed in God, and followed the teaching of John the Baptist, with messianic hope.  John told them to follow Christ and they did.  We must not follow merely a man teacher or system, but Jesus Himself. Healthy leaderships lead followers to follow Jesus himself,. Unhealthy adherence to a system is characterized by filtering every experience and truth through the system.  1 Corinthians 1 Stop worshiping those who teach, and worship Christ wholeheartedly.
  2. Evaluation (vs. 38) Every Disciple Must Sift Motives
    Verse 38 is the first time Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John and the first words in His public ministry.  He asks a question, "What do you want?" He wasn’t asking for information.  It is an evaluating, thought provoking question. When God asks questions he knows the answer.  He wants us, or the person asked to know the answer. For example in Genesis 3 he asks Adam, "Where are you?", He asks the disciples in Matthew 16, "Who do men say I am? Who do you say I am?", in John 5 he asks a paralyzed man, "Do you want to be made whole?" He will ask Peter, Do you love Me."  He asks these questions to evoke evaluation. Who do you have in your life who will ask you the hard questions?  Is your faith genuine?  AW Tozer in the "Pursuit of God": Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He wants to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long in vain."   A true disciple takes spiritual inventory from time to time.
  3. Submission (vss. 38-39) True Disciples Respond to Commands
    A true disciple responds to scriptural commands.  This is a very unusual introduction. The disciples ask Him where He is staying. Greek word is menó which means abide.  They are saying they want to come closer, to get further instruction. Jesus doesn't give them information, He gives them an invitation, "Come and See." His invitation is met by their submission.  As a disciple you come to Jesus and as you spend time with him and obey you get intimacy and depth. Jesus said come and see and they came and saqw. His command was met with obedience.  They did not question him.  The real test of discipleship is submission. In Luke 6 Jesus asked "wWhy do you call me Lord if you don't do what I say?"  This is the issue of lordship. He is the boss!  We must come to grips with it.  We say "Lord", but our formal theology must meet our practical theology. We must practice His lordship every day. It is one thing to say you are something; it is another thing to Be something. We ought not claim to be Christ followers without a concept of Lordship.  Note: 10th hour. John is reckoning time in Roman time, not Jewish ti8me.  His knowledge of the time and the weight he gives it reveals he is the unnamed disciple in the text.  John never names himself, but he knew the time.  His life changed and some 60 years later when this is written he remembered when he met Jesus, everything changed.
  4. Mission (vss. 40-41) Disciples Want to Make Other Disciples
    When Andrew found the messiah, he couldn’t' keep it to himself. He goes back to his family.  Whenever we see Andrew he is always bringing people to Jesus (the boy with loaves, the Greeks, Peter). There is an automatic chain-reaction when a true disciple is following Jesus - he wants others to follow Jesus.  Andrew means "manliness", Real men want others to know Jesus.  Every Christian loves the gospel, but a disciple is never content to go to heaven alone.
  5. Transformation (vs. 42) Disciples Don’t Stay in a Rut; They Grow
    We should be growing now, and in the future. When Jesus met Peter, he saw right through him.  He saw him as he is and what he will become.  You are Simon- birth name, will be Peter - Rock. Simon Peter wasn’t' solid at all. (Mount of Transfiguration, Garden of Gethsemane, Rooftop in Joppa) but He became rock solid over time (leader in the church, wrote 2 New Testament epistles, source for the gospel of Mark, preached on Pentecost, crucified upside down.  Jesus sees our potential. The more dissolved into Christ and dominated by His will the more useful you'll be to His kingdom.
Keywords: John the Baptist, discipleship
Greek Terms - akoloutheó - to follow as a disciple, menó - abide, cristos - Christ
Hebrew Terms - mashiach - messiah
Figures Referenced: GK Chesterton, Socrates,
Publications Referenced: "Disciple" by Juan Carlos Ortiz, Leadership Magazine, "The Pursuit of God," by AW Tozer
Cross References: Genesis 3, Matthew 16, Luke 6, Luke 9:23, John 5, John 15, 1 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 13:5

Transcript

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Believe:879. How far will you go to find the truth? He is among us.

Would you turn in your Bibles this morning to John chapter one? Let's have a word of prayer together.

Father, we come before Your throne because You alone know everything about us. You know what we think, You know why we think what we think. As David said, You know what we think before the thought even enters our head, before the chemicals come together and form the thoughts. And because that is so, because that is true, we come before You, hiding nothing but praying that you would draw us closer to You and lift us higher in You. Lord, I pray during this holiday season that we as a family of believers would grow closer in love to one another and closer to You. And now, Father, we open our hearts to the instruction that Your Holy Spirit would give through the inerrant Word of God. We thank You that we can study it and apply it. It never gets old. To those of us who know You, we rejoice more and more as we're able to turn open the pages of this Book and make fresh discoveries about who You are and how much You love us. I pray that would be the case this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.

I brought a little book with me this morning. I've had this book since I was a new Christian. Almost, it's almost that old; it's amazing it's holding together. It was given to me by a friend---a mentor at the time---and it made a huge impact on my life. It's a simple title, it's just called Disciple. And that's what I want to talk about today: being a disciple. And it was written by an Argentinean pastor, Juan Carlos Ortiz, and he writes: "A disciple is someone who follows Jesus Christ. But because we're Christians, it does not necessarily mean we are His disciples, even if we are members of His kingdom. In recent centuries, we've been hearing another gospel: a man-centered, human gospel. The gospel of the hot sale. The gospel of the irresistible deal. But all Jesus says to us is, "Follow Me." He doesn't say where or how much He'll pay us. He just gives us the command." So I want to talk about following Jesus Christ this morning because in John's gospel we come to the first use of the word "disciple." It's put in the plural; he uses it twice, in verse 35 and 36. And then he, he even goes further and uses the word "follow" or "followed," three times in our paragraph. So being a disciple, which means a student, a learner, or an intern, you might even translate it, and following Jesus Christ. So the question I ask is: Are you following, are you really a follower of Jesus Christ?

There's a magazine called Leadership magazine and it's for church leaders and there's always cartoons in it that poke fun at us and poke fun at the church and it can be humorous. One that made me smile was a cartoon of a grim-faced preacher and he was interrupted with a little note in the middle of his sermon and so he reads it to his congregation and he said, "We interrupt this sermon to inform you that the fourth-grade boys are now in complete control of their Sunday school class and are holding Miss Mosby hostage." And that's really the problem, isn't it? The real problem is that we aren't so keen on following as we are controlling. Controlling. The idea of surrendering our will to a higher will, a foreign will, an alien will, if you will, is foreign to us. It's against our human nature. The great author G.K. Chesterton once said, "It's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, the truth is Christianity has been found difficult and not tried." What did he mean by that? He simply meant that following Jesus isn't always that easy. When you follow Jesus, it's not like everything just goes "awww" down the river of life. It can be very tough. Jesus defined a true discipleship in Luke chapter nine, verse 23 when He said: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me."

How many do you know that do that? Self-denial in our society? Are you kidding me? I mean, this is all about self-indulgence in our culture. Okay, we might deny ourselves during this little recession, but just wait until it's over. And then, "take up your cross"? That sounds painful. And do it daily? Come on, what planet are you from? And so again the question comes: Are you a follower of Jesus Christ---really? Are you really one? Now discipleship, following Christ, comes in different stages. We know that. We come to Him one way and though we remain the same people throughout our journey with the Lord, we change, don't we? We go from glory to glory. We get changed into the image of Christ more and more. There's periods of growth and change. So I'm going to define discipleship. I define it as this: it is a lifelong process of conformity to an alien will. It's a lifelong process of conformity to an alien will. And we'll see that, I think, here.

Now, we get the privilege, in verse 35 down to verse 42, to look at the first three disciples that followed Jesus. They were not originally disciples of Jesus, but disciples of somebody else and they become disciples of Jesus. And so, we're going to look and watch their journey as they start their process of following, and what it implies. And so, this morning I want to give you five characteristics of being a follower of Christ. Five characteristics. And with each characteristic, I'll give you a principle that goes along with it; a summing-up principle. Here's the first characteristic: transition. Transition. Here's the principle: every believer should be a disciple. Every believer should be a disciple. Back to the words of Ortiz in this book, he said, "You might have a lot of Christians, but not all of them are disciples." But every believer should be a disciple.

Verse 35: "Again, the next day, John [that is, John the Baptist] stood with two of his disciples." These two individuals you're about to read were learners, students, pupils, interns of John the Baptist---at first. But watch: "And looking at Jesus as He walked, he [that is, John] said, "[Look! Check it out!] Behold the Lamb of God!" And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." So this is a transition. John the Baptist is handing off two of his disciples to follow Jesus Christ. The word "followed" means "to follow as a disciple." Akoloutheó is the word. To follow as a disciple. Okay, now these two disciples, these two guys, and I'll tell you who they are in just a minute; one of them is named and one of them is not. They believed in God. They had the hope of a coming Messiah and they were following the teachings of John the Baptist but, though they were followers of God, though they had Messianic hope, though they were following the teachings of John the Baptist, now there's a transition. Now they are told by John to follow completely, wholeheartedly, Jesus Christ. And they followed Him.

And so here's the principle: every believer should be a disciple. No matter what brand of Christian you are, or Christianity you've been brought up with, every believer should be a disciple. Listen to the words of Paul the apostle. He said in 1 Corinthians one: "Some of you are saying, I'm a follower of Paul. Others are saying, I follow Apollos, or I follow Peter." And then he asks, "Can Christ be divided into pieces?" Now we might even add to what Paul said, though I don't want to add to it, really, but we could take John the Baptist and say, "Some are saying I'm following Paul, I'm following Apollos, I'm following Peter, and here, I'm following John the Baptist." But here's the principle again: every believer should be a disciple of Jesus. Okay, let's apply it. You might have, in the body of Christ, some who say, and that's okay to say it, "I'm a Methodist." That's fine. What they're saying essentially is, "I am a disciple of the teachings and lifestyle of John Wesley and George Whitefield. I love the tradition they bring." Nothing wrong with that. Others could say, "Well, I'm a Lutheran." And they're saying in effect, "I'm a disciple of Martin Luther and John Calvin." Others could say, "Oh, but I love the teachings of John MacArthur or Charles Swindoll or Chuck Smith." And all of that is fine but you better be a disciple of Jesus Christ, not just a man, a teacher, or a system. And one of the healthiest transitions is, instead of seeing yourself as an adherent of Calvinism, Arminianism, Smithism, MacArthurism---Jesus Christ. That is a healthy transition. Because those men, those people, those teachers, and those systems are merely discipleship systems meant to point the way to Jesus Christ.

Now, I'll tell you the truth. Any leader knows this to be true. There's always a temptation whether you're a small group leader or a pastor or the head of a denomination, we love people following us. We love it when people say, "Oh, I need you and I learn from you." And we love that kind of dependence; we want to foster this, "Let me lead you and I'll show you what to do." But a healthy thing is seen here in John the Baptist is when we say, "Hey, you've been my disciples---but now be His disciples and follow Him." And that's what John does. He hands them off. They leave his church and they join Jesus. And later on, John the Baptist will say, "I must decrease and He must [what?] increase," and that's exactly what John does. John fades away from the story after this section. You'll only see him pop up once in a little cameo appearance in chapter three. But now it's all about Jesus.

So, it is natural to be drawn to a style of a teacher or a system and that's fine. But it's unhealthy to filter everything, every truth, every experience, through that one little filter or that one little system. So let's stop worshiping those who teach and start worshiping wholeheartedly in following Christ. That's the first principle of discipleship---transition. Every believer should be a disciple.

Here's the second: evaluation. Evaluation. Here's the principle: every true disciple must sift through his or her own motivation for following. Verse 38: "Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, "What do you seek?" They said to Him, "Rabbi" (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), 'where are You staying?'" Now this is the first time Jesus talks in the gospel of John. These are the first red letters if you have a red letter Bible. The first word that John records Jesus ever saying, in fact the first words in Jesus' public ministry, are this. And isn't it interesting the first recorded words are a question; they're not even a statement. He didn't come and say, "Let Me tell you, I am thus and such." First thing recorded is that He asked them a question. He sees them following and He turns around and says, "What do you want?" That's what "what do you seek?" means. "What do you seek?" is an older way of saying, "What do you want?" Now, that question was not given for Jesus' own benefit. It's not like Jesus was asking for information; like He didn't know what they wanted. He was asking it for their benefit. It was meant to be a searching, probing, evaluating question dealing with motivation.

You know what a great study is if you've never done it? Take the time to study in the Bible, on your own, the questions of God. And you'll just discover that when God asks a question, He's not doing it because He doesn't know the answer. He's doing it because He knows the answer but wants you to know the answer, or the person to know the answer, because it's a very deep, provoking statement that He's leading them to. For instance, the very first question is found in Genesis chapter three. Adam and Eve were in the garden; they had just sinned, and remember what it is? God says, "Adam, where are you?" You think God was asking for latitude and longitude? Give Him your GPS setting? He knew exactly where they were but it's a very probing, evaluating question. Meant to provoke thought; meant to deal with motivation.

Now Jesus asked the question, "What are you seeking?" And He will ask several more questions in the Gospels. One of my favorite is Matthew 16. They're all alone up in Caesarea Philippi and so Jesus goes, "Hey, who do men say that I am?" They give Him answers and then He says, "Okay, who do you say that I am?" He wanted them now to get in touch with what they really believed about Him. Here's another question, it sounds kind of odd, Jesus to a paralyzed man in John chapter five, waiting at the pool of Bethesda, he's paralyzed and Jesus comes up to him and says, "Do you want to be made whole?" What kind of a question is that? To ask to a paralyzed guy---hey, you want to get better? It sounds almost like He's mocking him. But He's not; it's a very provocative question. A very pointed question: "Are you sure you want this? Do you know what this could mean if you get better? Your whole identity is wrapped up in what you do now, you're not going to be treated the same; life is going to be very different. Do you want to be made whole?"

Another question He will ask Peter later on, at the end of John's gospel is, "Peter, do you love Me?" And He'll ask him that three times. These are very, very specific questions to evoke an evaluation. So here's what I want to ask you now: Who do you have in your life that will ask you the hard questions? "Oh, I do that myself. I make self-evaluations." That's good; that's a good start. We're told to do that. But who's around you? What accountability person/mentor/partner do you have to ask you deep, provoking questions that will cause you to evaluate and spurn growth? It was Socrates who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." But I think Paul the apostle said it best in 2 Corinthians 13:5: "Examine yourselves to see if your faith is really genuine." And nothing beats having another person to help you do that. And so Jesus asks the question, "What do you seek?"

How would you answer His question if you were to be honest with Him? This could be the most important question ever. Imagine Jesus turning to you and saying, "Okay, what do you want? What do you seek? Why are you here? What are you after? Where are you going in life?" I wonder how we'd answer that. Some would have to say, "All I want is happiness." Others would say, "All I want is success." Others would say, "Well, I'm here because I want to find a wife or a husband" or "I'm here because I'm lonely" or "I'm here because I want to grow and learn more about You, Lord." It's a good question. It should be asked.

A book that I recommend, if you have never read, is by A.W. Tozer, it's called The Pursuit of God. I've read it several times in my life and it's always a deep, searching book. He writes this: "Complacency is a deadly enemy of spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He wants to be wanted. [Isn't that beautiful? He wants to be wanted.] It's too bad that with many of us He waits so very long and in vain." So they're following Him because John said, "Here's the guy---Follow Him!" And they start following Him and He goes, "What are you seeking?" And the principle is that a true disciple will make honest evaluation of their life, take spiritual inventory. And I would say do it from time to time.

Here's a third principle. Not just transition, not just evaluation, but the third principle is submission. Submission. And here's the principle: true disciples will respond to commands. Let me broaden that: true disciples will respond to Scriptural commands. Look at verse 38, the second part: "They said to Him, 'Rabbi' (which is to say, when translated, Teacher [or exalted one]), 'where are You staying?' And He said to them, 'Come and see.' They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him all that day (now it was about the tenth hour)."

When they asked the question, it's by the way a very unusual conversation, wouldn't you agree? I mean, they meet and Jesus says, "What do you want?" And they don't even respond; they ask him a question: "Where are You staying?" And He says, "Come and see." It's a very unusual first introductory meeting. Now when they said, "Where are you staying?" do you think that they wanted the street address or the apartment number? Do you think they wanted something like "Oh, I live at Box 777 Nazareth"? No. It's a very important word. I don't want you to miss this word. The word "staying" in the Greek language is one that you will find over and over and over again in the book of John. It's a key word to discipleship. It's the word in Greek: menó. It means "abide, or remain, or stay." Staying. It's a key word because in John chapter 15, that's what Jesus describes discipleship with---that word, menó. "Abide in Me and I will abide in you as the branch and the vine abide together and you will, by abiding, bring forth fruit." That's the word for "staying."

"Lord, where are You staying?" So what the disciples are doing when Jesus said, "What do you want?" is they're answering it by saying, "Where are You staying because we'd like to come closer and abide with You and get more information directly from You?" That's what they were asking. They want to hang out with Jesus. They want further instruction. And I love it, Jesus says in verse 39: "He said to them, 'Come and see.'" He didn't give them information. He didn't say, "Okay, go down the street, turn left at the third block, and it's the last house on the right." Instead of information, He gives them an invitation. "Come and see. Check it out." It says, "They came and they saw." Jesus' invitation is met by their submission. Before I get into that, this is what I just want you to look at, right here, this little nugget in this verse, here's a beautiful portrait of discipleship. This is what it's like. You come to Jesus for whatever reason, you're searching, you're lonely, you're hurting, and, and at whatever stage for whatever reason you come to Jesus. But then what happens is you read your Bibles, you start to hear His voice in the Word of God and see Him more clearly, and you move from coming to Christ to abiding in Christ. There's intimacy; there's depth. And I would say Jesus today is bidding us to do that---to abide with Him, to grow close to Him, because nothing will satisfy us like that.

But, I want you to look back at the text. Notice the difference, because there's not much, between what Jesus says and what they did. What Jesus said was, "Come and see." Now notice the next sentence: "They came and saw." What does that tell me? It tells me that Jesus' invitational command was met by their obedience to that command. He said, "Come," they came. He said, "See," they saw. And that's because that's what disciples will do. True disciples will do what He said. True disciples won't go, "Why? Well, tell me where it is first. Maybe I don't want to right now." True disciples will submit. In fact, I'll put it to you more strongly. The real test of a disciple is submission. How can you tell if a person's really a disciple? Real easy. Are they submitting to His commands? That's pretty cut and dry; pretty simple. It's really the proof. In Luke chapter 6, Jesus will say, "Why do you call Me Lord and you don't do the things that I tell you?" Okay, I want to apply that. At some point in following Jesus Christ, at some point in our Christian walk, we're going to have to deal with this concept called "lordship." I know you've heard of that. Lordship. It means He's the boss. It means He gets to call the shots. He's in charge. God isn't our co-pilot. You give Him the keys---He runs the thing. We have to come to grips with this thing called lordship and one of the most beautiful things you could ever say is, "Jesus is Lord." We even sing that in our songs. "I love You, Lord, and I lift my voice."

Fairest Lord Jesus. Awesome Lord. However, there can be, unfortunately, a difference between our formal theology and our practical theology. It can be compartmentalized. What we say we believe and what we really believe can be miles apart. So here's the deal and see if you agree with this. If Jesus is your Lord only on Sunday, but not on Monday, not on Tuesday, not Wednesday, Thursday, not Friday night or Saturday, just Sunday, then is He Lord? If you have to be honest, you'd have to say, "Well, He's one-seventh Lord." He's Lord that day. But the test of discipleship is obedience. It's possible to believe something but really believe something else. I love the story about the little goat who said he was a lion. Of course he was lying---he was a goat. But he said he was a lion because deep in his heart he wanted to be a lion and so he believed that if he could talk and walk and go where lions go, that he'd be a lion. So he practiced every day. First day he decided, "I'm going to learn to walk majestically like a lion." So he would try to have that majestic gait that a lion has in the jungle. Can you picture a goat with that little swishy tail trying to be a lion? He believed that he was doing a pretty good job of it; he was walking like a lion. The next day, he thought, "I got to, I got to get the roar down. I got to learn to talk like a lion." So that pitiful little bleat, he tried to, you know, roar. And it just was horrible, but he thought it was pretty good. So the next day he thought, "Okay, I've learned to walk like lions walk, I've learned to talk like lions talk, if I just now go where lions go..." So the next day at twelve noon, lunchtime, he went where lions went. End of story. End of goat.

Because it's one thing to say you are something when you're not something. And my great concern is those who claim to be Christ followers and have no concept of lordship. So hey, when does the Lord part kick in? Submission. Disciples respond to His commands. That's the third characteristic. Now I don't want you to miss this because we're tempted to miss this. Look at the end of verse 39. Notice in parentheses it says, "(now it was about the tenth hour)." Who cares what time it is? It's funny that this is the first time the disciples see Jesus, the Lamb of God, all of this great stuff---oh, by the way, let me tell you what time it was. And if you ask questions of the Bible, and you should, you should say, "What's this about?" Let me tell you what it's about. First of all, some of your Bibles might say "four o'clock in the afternoon." Disregard that. That's because those particular translators believed that John was reckoning time according to Jewish time, when he's not. He's reckoning it according to a Roman time which was ten o'clock in the morning. Matthew, Mark, and Luke do all of their timing by Jewish time, but John does it by Roman time. And that solves a lot of problems in the gospel. Oh, and by the way, it says, "They [went] where He was staying, and remained with Him that day." If it's four o'clock in the afternoon, there's not much of a day left. If it's ten in the morning, which I believe it was, you've got that day to hang out with Jesus. Okay, but back to the point. Who cares what day it is? Who cares what time it is?

Well, who wrote the gospel? John. Who was the other disciple not mentioned? John. Now you're gonna---I'm giving you a little heads-up. In verse 40, we're told who one of the disciples is: it's Andrew. And you read a little bit later and the third guy is Peter, Andrew's brother. But there's this unnamed other disciple that I submit to you is John because John never names himself. And moreover, he puts the time down. Who cares? John cares. John wrote, "It's ten o'clock in the morning" because John remembered what happened one January morning at ten o'clock---his life changed. One January morning, and it was ten o'clock. John's saying, "I'll never forget it." When he wrote John, it was sixty years after this event, but it was to him like yesterday. "I'll never forget it was ten o'clock. It was ten o'clock. It was the dividing point in my life when I met Jesus Christ and everything changed!" Isn't that beautiful? And it was ten in the morning. Because he wrote it and he experienced it.

Here's the fourth characteristic of discipleship: it is mission. Mission. Here's the principle: disciples want to make other disciples. Verse 40: "One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, 'We have found the Messiah' (which is translated, the Christ)." Now I read that to you like we typically read it, but do you think that he said it like that? Do you think he said it like that? Do you think, having found the Messiah, for 4,000 years every Jewish person's been waiting for the Messiah, and he's convinced Jesus is the Messiah, do you think he went up to him and said, "We found the Messiah. Cool, huh." No he said: "We found the Guy! The Messiah!" The Mashiach of the Old Testament. The M'shee-khah in Aramaic. The Christos in Greek; the anointed One. What an exciting moment, what a wonderful statement: We found the Christ.

"And [verse 42] he brought him to Jesus." Here's what I love about Andrew---he couldn't keep it to himself. He had to tell somebody; that's what disciples do. Disciples want other disciples. So he goes back to his own family, he tells Peter. Just a little hint about Andrew. Every time you find Andrew in the Gospels, you know what you're going to find him doing? Bringing people to Jesus. He was the disciple who found the boy with four loaves and two fish and brought him to Jesus. He's the guy who, in chapter 12, takes a group of Greek seekers and brings them to Jesus. I love Andrew because, unfortunately, he's always known as "Simon Peter's brother." He's in Simon Peter's shadow. Because we all know about Peter, but Andrew we don't think much about. He didn't say much, it seems. He didn't write any books, he didn't preach any great sermons, but he always brought people to Jesus. Beautiful, beautiful story. Mission. And he went first to his own family members. That makes sense. I did that. I did that. Now Peter responded; my family was not quite as apt to do that. I remember it was San Jose, California, it was in July, I had prayed to receive Christ, I was so excited, and I thought---first thought was, "I got to tell my mom and dad. They're going to be so happy because they're so worried about me, they think I'm such a flake and I've gone off the deep end. They're gonna be so thrilled when I tell them I'm a follower of Jesus. I'm gonna tell my brothers---they're gonna be so excited." Boy, was I in for a shock. I told them that I had met Jesus and my parents said, "Oh, isn't that nice?" And my brother said, "What are you, nuts?" And my friends wanted nothing to do with me.

But the greater point I want to make is this: there seems to be almost an automatic chain reaction when a true disciple is pursuing Jesus. He just has to tell other people. He wants to spread the good news and tell people about Jesus. By the way, you know what the word "Andrew" means? It means "manliness." He was no wimp. He was a fisherman, blue-collar worker, worked with his brother and his dad in the Sea of Galilee, he was a man's man and he's bringing people to Jesus. Real men aren't ashamed to tell others about Jesus. And this man was telling his brother about Him. Now, I just mentioned a point ago about the difference between formal theology and practical theology, and how we want to bring them together. As we grow in Christ, we want to bring what we believe in our heads doctrinally, cerebrally, and live practically that. Now, every Christian loves the Gospel. You can ask any Christian, who's a Christian, "Do you love the gospel?" "I love the gospel. I love the story of how God came out of heaven and died for my sins and rose from the dead. I love that!" But a disciple wants to share that. A disciple is never content to go to heaven alone. He wants to spread the news. Mission. That's the fourth characteristic.

Here's the fifth and final characteristic in our paragraph: transformation. Transformation. And here's the principle: disciples don't stay in a rut---they grow. They grow. That means today you're growing and next week you'll be growing and a year from now you'll be growing in Christ. Verse 42: "After he brought him to Jesus." Now look at this: "Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, 'You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be Cephas' (which is translated, A Stone)." Jesus looked at Simon. How did He look at Simon? Or how did He look at Him? We say, "Well, we don't know." Well, actually we do know, because the word is very descriptive in Greek. It means He looked intently; He gazed. You might say He stared at him. How would that feel? First time you meet Jesus: "Hey Jesus, how you doin?" You could translate it, "Jesus saw right through Peter." Let me tell you what's going on. Jesus sees Peter as he is, but He also sees Peter as what he'll become. As what he'll become, not just who he is now, but what he will become when he is transformed and changed. Notice the wording: "You are Simon...you shall be Cephas." Which is Aramaic for Petros in Greek: or a small stone or a rock. Now, Simon was his birth name; that's what his dad and mom called him. Simon. Everybody called him Simon. Jesus meets him and says, "I'm renaming you. You get a new name---you get a Jesus name. Rocky. You're a chip off the old rock." Now, if you know Peter, and most of you do, you know the stories about Peter, this was not his personality. He wasn't rock solid at all. He was---maybe sandy would have been a better term for him. He shifted like sand through his whole life, right?

Because you remember Matthew 16? He was the guy who said, he got the answer right: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." But then right after that, when Jesus said He was going to be betrayed in Jerusalem and die, Peter steps forward and goes, "Uh. No way, Lord. That's not going to happen to You." And Jesus says, "Get behind Me, Satan." He goes from getting an "A" on the test to flunking it. He goes from being Rocky to Sandy. That was his whole life. On the Mount of Transfiguration, remember the story? Jesus is transfigured with Moses and Elijah? Remember which disciple was the first one to talk? Peter. Remember what he said? Something really, really profound. Ready? Peter sees it and goes, "It is good that we are here." What is that? Duh. "Yep, this is cool." Then he goes, "Let's build three condominiums, right here, right now." Tabernacles is the Bible word. "One for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." And God has to interrupt him and say, "This is My beloved Son, listen to Him." In other words, "Shh, Peter."

In the garden of Gethsemane, who was it that tried to defend Jesus with a sword? Peter. Aren't you glad he was a fisherman not a swordsman? I know he was trying to cut off his head; he missed and got his ear. That was Peter. And on the rooftop in Joppa, Acts chapter 10, Peter's there and he sees a vision of a sheep being led down from heaven with four-footed beasts and the Lord gives him a commandment: "Peter, rise, kill, and eat." And in his sweet submissive tone, Peter goes, "Not so, Lord." Not so, Lord?! Again, Peter, when does "Lord" kick in? But that was Peter over time before he became what Jesus anticipated he would become---rock solid. He was sandy until he became rocky. Now it took a long, long, long time. But aren't you encouraged by that? Aren't you encouraged by the fact that when Jesus looks at people, He sees the potential? He just doesn't see us for who we are, He knows that, but He sees what we'll become. You are this but you will be that. That's transformation. That is transformation.

Because what happened to Peter? Well, he became a leader in the early church. He became the author of two New Testament epistles. He became the source for the gospel of Mark. He preached on Pentecost and he had such a rock solid faith and rock solid commitment that he was crucified upside down and did not deny his Lord. Appropriately named the rock. Jesus anticipated that. So that's transformation. Disciples don't stay in a rut---they grow. And I'm glad that Jesus knows what I'm becoming and I love that process. I want to close with something right out of this book again, Juan Carlos Ortiz, because I think it sums up everything we've been saying this morning. In this paragraph, the author is referring to the words of Jesus when He said in the book of Revelation, "I wish that you were cold or hot and not lukewarm because if you're lukewarm I'll spew you out of My mouth." And so the author writes this: "Excuse me for this illustration but it comes from Jesus Himself. What things do we vomit? There are things that we won't digest. If something is digested, it doesn't come back up. Vomited people are people to refuse to digested by the Lord Jesus Christ and digestion means getting lost. You're finished---your life ends. You're transformed into Jesus. You are unmistakably associated with Him. Here in Argentina, we have very good steaks. Let's imagine that the steak comes to my stomach and the gastric juices come along to dissolve it and they say to the steak, "Good evening, how are you?" And the steak replies, "Fine. What do you want?" And they say, "Well, we have come to dissolve you---to transform you into Juan Carlos Ortiz." And suppose the steak says, "No, wait a minute. Now it's enough that he ate me but to disappear completely? Ah, no. I'm in his stomach but I want to stay steak. I don't want to lose my individuality. I want to maintain my steak citizenship." So there's a fight. And suppose the steak wins and the gastric juices let him remain a steak in my stomach. Very soon that steak will be vomited out, but if the gastric juices win the fight, the steak loses its personality and becomes me." And then he puts in parentheses: "Before I ate the steak it was an unknown cow behind the hill. Nobody paid any attention to it but now, because it is dissolved, it gets to write a book." I leave that with you to think about.

The more you are dissolved into Christ and lose you and become dominated by an alien will, the more useful you will become to God's kingdom.

Heavenly Father, we want to be followers. We are called to be followers. We are called to be disciples, learners, interns, students, pupils. All marked by what we read today. Transition: all of us being Your disciple. Evaluation: as we sift through our own motives for what we do and why we do it. Submission: obeying Your commands. Mission: telling others how they can become disciples. And transformation: Your promise that we will not remain the same. In Jesus' name, amen.

Additional Messages in this Series

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10/25/2009
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Believe:879
John 20:30-31
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Is your faith in need of bolstering? Do you find yourself saying "Help my unbelief?" The book of John presents a unique, up close and personal look at the life of Christ, focusing on Jesus as God Incarnate. As we dive into a thorough study of each of John's 879 verses, we'll walk with disciples who were eyewitnesses of His ministry, His death, and His resurrection, and we'll experience abundant life in His name.
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11/1/2009
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The World's Most Important Word
John 1:1-5
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It may be difficult to say what the most important word is in any language, but not for the Apostle John. He begins his gospel with the identification of Jesus as, "The Word." Starting with the very beginning of beginnings, John shows us the fundamental truths about the Jesus that he writes about in the rest of this book. The language is simple and unmistakable and yet the truths presented are deep and extremely profound. Let's see how John presents Jesus and Who Jesus is according to one who was closest to Him.
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11/15/2009
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Step Into Son-Light
John 1:6-13
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I love early mornings when sunlight first comes up over the eastern sky. But if you’ve ever had the experience of the sun suddenly shining into your eyes (like when you turn westward while the sun is going down), it's not so pleasant. Most people wince when light is shined in their eyes. Jesus is presented here as being "the light of men" and "shining in darkness". But the world cries out, "Turn off that light!" How can Jesus enlighten your life and how will you respond to Him?
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11/22/2009
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One of a Kind!
John 1:14-18
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It is a mistake to think of Jesus as "one among many" options in the pantheon of deities. He is unique, matchless, unrivaled, singular, and incomparable. From His birth to His Resurrection, there is no one who even comes close to the majestic Christ. Jesus was One-Of-A-Kind! Let’s consider four distinct ways that Jesus was unique and what these mean to us today.
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12/6/2009
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The Greatest Man Meets the Greatest Lamb
John 1:19-34
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Everyone is good at something, maybe even great at something. Maybe you're a great artist or a great mom or even a great leader. Jesus said that John the Baptizer was the greatest man who had ever lived (Matt. 11:11). But John knew Jesus to be the greatest One ever—past, present and future - the Sacrificial Lamb sent to remove sin. Today we discover from John the Baptist how to witness for Christ and we look at the identity and the activity of this most unusual man.
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1/3/2010
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Finding the God Who Found You
John 1:43-51
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When the first disciples encountered Jesus, they chose to follow Him--only to discover that they had already been chosen by Him! Without getting drowned in that theological tide pool, let's consider and marvel at how both of these realities work together. The Bible teaches that God sovereignly elects people for salvation while at the same time teaches our responsibility to believe in Christ. Let’s see how both Philip and Nathanael encountered Jesus for the first time.
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1/10/2010
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The Wedding Guest
John 2:1-12
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How cool (and also potentially scary) would it be to have Jesus as a guest at your own wedding! The unnamed couple at the village wedding of Cana had that privilege. Jesus was the wedding guest who brought the best gift. His first miraculous sign was performed while celebrating that marriage. But far more than just attending a nuptial party, Jesus demonstrated who He was in relation to four entities: His mother, the moment, a miracle, and His men.
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1/17/2010
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Trouble in the Temple
John 2:13-22
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A hymn by Charles Wesley begins, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child..." It’s a beautiful song with a beautiful thought. However, Jesus is anything but gentle and mild in John chapter two. Here in the temple at Jerusalem, He displays His righteous anger as He overturns tables and beats the religious businesspeople with whips! But Jesus was using this trouble in the temple to predict a greater sign—the triumph of His own physical temple—His bodily resurrection!
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1/24/2010
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Uncommitted!
John 2:23-25
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These three verses are some of the most unusual in the New Testament. They describe a scene in the life of Jesus that explains His popularity and fame. The response of people to the miracles of Jesus is understandable. What is not readily understandable is Jesus' response to the interested and excited crowd. Though they believed in Him, He was not too energized over their kind of faith. Understanding this will help us to understand Jesus and His mission.
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1/31/2010
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Nick at Nite!
John 3:1-8
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The meeting of Jesus and Nicodemus at night is one of the most famous and compelling stories in Scripture. This man's inner curiosity and spiritual thirst drove him to want to know more. What he heard puzzled and astonished him, but he heard from Jesus' own lips the only way to be saved. Jesus' words here divide all of humanity into two groups: those who are born again and those who are not.
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2/7/2010
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Extreme Makeover: Soul Edition!
John 3:9-21
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For years ABC has aired two different versions of a show called Extreme Makeover. One is a total body makeover designed to enhance the physical beauty of a selected individual. The other is a Home Edition that rebuilds or adds to a struggling family's residence. But only Jesus can give the soul a makeover; only Jesus can ready a person for eternity. Here Jesus answers Nicodemus' question of how a person can have the New Life that comes from the New Birth.
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2/14/2010
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God's Valentine
John 3:16
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Today we take a look at the Bible's most famous verse and probe its depth while preparing to take the Lord's Supper together. Though most everyone knows this verse, John 3:16 is much more than just a slogan; it is a summary statement of God's love through Jesus Christ. This single verse of scripture gives us the salient truths of God's plan of salvation in abridged form. Let's consider God's great plan for us as we unpack it phrase by phrase.
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2/21/2010
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To Grow Up, You Must Grow Down!
John 3:22-30
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"They that know God will be humble, and they that know themselves cannot be proud!" That's what British Puritan John Flavel once said. And that’s how John the Baptist once lived! John the Baptist and his followers provide some great applicational fodder for how Christians should get along and humble themselves before one another and God. For any Christian believer who wants to spiritually grow up and grow strong, he must first grow down.
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2/28/2010
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The Nail Everything Hangs On
John 3:31-36
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Imagine if everything you valued was in a sack, hanging on the wall from one nail. It surely must be a strong nail, or you're lost! If life could all be boiled down to one thing or one word or one most important principle, what would it be? What is the irreducible minimum for everything and everyone? John answers that here, saying that Jesus Christ is the nail that everything hangs on. He determined what has been and what will be. Thus our knowledge of Him and relationship to Him is paramount above everything else.
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3/7/2010
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Refreshment!
John 4:1-14
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You know the feeling of swallowing ice-cold water on a hot day or after a savory meal—it's refreshing! That cool, invigorating sip revitalizes you from the inside out and makes you say, "Ahh!" Well, that experience is not limited to the physical realm, but is even more satisfying in the spiritual realm when dealing with Living Water. Jesus came to give thirst-quenching spiritual life to every parched soul on the planet. When was the last time you drank deeply?
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3/14/2010
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How to Lead People to Water
John 4:10-30
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The world is thirsty and doesn't even know it, or won't admit it, or will look to be satisfied by everything else but Jesus Christ. So your job and mine is to lead them to water (living water, that is). Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman illustrates perhaps the best approach for personal evangelism to be found anywhere. Leading someone to the place of spiritual satisfaction is a process that rests upon two pillars—the pillar of attitude and the pillar of approach:
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3/21/2010
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What God Really Wants
John 4:20-24
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Worship conferences, worship seminars and worship experiences abound within the landscape of the American church, but in all these there's something that seems to be always lacking—worship is confined to the activity of singing songs. When the subject is brought up in this chapter, Jesus talks plainly and openly about true worship: what it is and what it isn't. Let's explore these few verses to discover what God is seeking after and how to be part of fulfilling that.
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3/28/2010
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Spiritual Farming 101
John 4:28-42
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Farmers live for the harvest season--a time when their crops are taken in and profits are made. But crops don’t grow on their own. Seeds must be sown and plants must be garnered by a whole group of active farm workers. God is the head Farmer and we are His farmhands, all working together to produce a bumper-crop of people who believe that Jesus is the Savior--Are you in?
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4/18/2010
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Everyone Needs a Faith-Lift!
John 4:43-54
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Like any muscle in our physical body, our faith too must be exercised in order for it to develop. Faith is developed in virtually every circumstance in life, but especially in hard times. Peter put it best, "These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold--and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold" (1 Peter 1:7). Let's look at a real-life story of one who came to Jesus in his trial and had his faith lifted to a higher dimension.
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4/25/2010
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Healing Misery with Mercy
John 5:1-16
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One of Jesus' most distinguishing characteristics in His earthly ministry was His mercy toward people who were hurting. This is not astonishing, for the prophet Micah announced that "God delights in mercy" (Micah 7:18). Jesus standing among the squalid misery of sickness and hopelessness while at a feast in Jerusalem is a perfect setting to show how Christians can show mercy to a world in misery. But be warned: not everyone will be sympathetic to your cause!
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5/23/2010
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Like Father, Like Son
John 5:16-24
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The most important question you could ever ask is not, "Who am I?" but rather, "Who is Christ?" That was the supreme question Jesus presented to His disciples when He said, "Who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15). Jesus made the most astonishing claim ever when He confronted the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem here in John 5. What do these claims have to do with us today? Absolutely everything!
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5/30/2010
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Everyone Lives Forever
John 5:25-29
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My mom used to wake me up early every morning with her sweet voice saying, "Rise and Shine!" It took a few times but I eventually got up out of bed. As Jesus declares that He will be in charge of the future judgment, He too will usher the call to everyone who has died to "Rise up!" But not everyone will rise up to shine; some will rise up to suffer. Let’s consider three inevitable and unalterable truths about the future for all of us: We will all die, we will all be judged, and we will all rise again to live forever... but where?
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6/6/2010
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Why Should You Believe?
John 5:30-47
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The theme of John's gospel is "believe." The whole reason he wrote this book is so that people who read it will believe in Jesus (see John 20:31). But why should they believe? And even more applicable, why should we believe? After all, the events of the New Testament are over 2,000 years removed from us today. Jesus' confrontation with the religious leaders in John 5 tells us why we should believe. Like a skilled lawyer, Jesus calls upon four witnesses to testify to His claims and these four give the reasons for our believing in Jesus Christ.
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6/13/2010
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Lessons From a Picnic
John 6:1-14
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This story ranks in the "top ten" of the most famous miracles of Jesus Christ. In fact this is the most famous of all His miracles as it alone is recorded by all four gospel accounts. But this is far more than a Sunday school tale. This extraordinary picnic was not just a free meal for five thousand folks; it provided lessons for both ancient and modern disciples. Here are four profound truths that emerge from this lakeside lunch.
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6/20/2010
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What Storm Goers Need to Know
John 6:15-21
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Have you ever been on the ocean in a raging storm? If so, you know that a well-trained crew follows an immediate protocol until the storm is over. Their knowledge and experience about violent weather are invaluable for those who want to survive. Using the story of Jesus walking on the waves to His disciples, let’s discover a few things about the stormy trials of life.
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7/4/2010
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The Right Thing, The Wrong Way
John 6:22-29
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Our text reads that crowds of people came "seeking Jesus." That sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? And yet Jesus challenges them as to their motive because they were seeking Him (the right thing) in order to satisfy themselves only (the wrong motive). Let’s consider three monumental truths about how people interact with spiritual things in general and Jesus Christ in particular. Let’s also reconsider the starting point for anyone who wants anything to do with Christ.
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7/11/2010
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Wonder Bread!
John 6:30-50
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The Hostess Company has for years advertised that its Wonder bread "helps build strong bodies 12 ways" and that just two slices has the calcium of eight ounces of milk and the fiber of 100% whole wheat. Wow! The crowd that Jesus was speaking to would have loved that! But our Lord presents something to them far greater than what they were wanting. He knew what they needed.
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7/18/2010
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Plain Truths About the Bread of Life
John 6:51-71
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Mark Twain once remarked that "A lie can travel halfway around the world while truth is still lacing up its boots!" This section of John's Gospel has generated much confusion and misunderstanding. Even Jesus' original audience had trouble understanding His meaning, and when they did, they found the truth was difficult to bear. These "hard truths," however, are "the words of eternal life" (v. 68). Let's look at these four realities today.
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8/1/2010
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Seeing Jesus Through the Fog
John 7:1-13
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There was always a fog surrounding Jesus! It was a fog of uncertainty, of unbelief, and of conflicting opinion. He was misunderstood about both His mission and His message. His friends, His family, and His foes were often bewildered about who He was and what He was doing. That remains true even today. But in this passage our view becomes clearer. Jesus had clearly defined objectives that He reveals here and they are extremely practical for us today.
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8/8/2010
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Follow Jesus But Don't Be Religious
John 7:14-24
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Jesus clashed with religious leaders more than any other group of people. He went against their spiritual grain and challenged their legalistic ideas. Christ made it clear that He hadn’t come to establish a new religion but rather to show the way to God His Father. He didn’t give people another “system of beliefs and practices”; instead He said that He Himself was the way, truth, and life. In this public confrontation, we learn how to follow Christ in truth and not be religious.
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8/15/2010
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Standing by a Waterfall (Dying of Thirst)
John 7:25-53
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All the diverse and assorted experiences offered by this world can never satisfy the deepest longing of the human soul. What we really want isn't what we really need. The rest of John chapter 7 illustrates this truth. In the midst of a crowd of people clamoring for deep spiritual satisfaction stands the only One who can provide it. He offers them the drink that really satisfies and all but a few refuse it, preferring rather to die of thirst. How painfully ironic!
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8/22/2010
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Scribbling on the Ground
John 8:1-11
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Can you imagine what a surviving copy of Jesus' autograph would be worth today? Or what about a letter to His disciples? The fact is, there is no existing document or copy of anything Jesus ever wrote. We only have this story of Him scribbling something in transient dust on the Temple stones. Though John doesn't tell what Jesus wrote that day, his account does reveal a lot about Jesus Himself and how He interacted with three different kinds of folks.
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8/29/2010
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Blinded by the Light
John 8:12-20
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When the sun shines right in your eyes, your immediate inclination is to squint, turn away, or put sunglasses on. Light can be blinding! Though light penetrates our world, providing illumination and energy for our very existence, big doses of it can be difficult to handle. That's true spiritually as well. Jesus, by His teaching and work, illuminated this world darkened by sin. Some rejoiced in that light, able to see where they were going. But others, who'd been so accustomed to spiritual darkness, could only wince when Jesus was around.
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9/5/2010
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The Worst Way & Best Way to Die
John 8:21-30
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One person put it this way, "Death is the big flaw. Sometimes we can postpone it, lessen its physical pains, deny its existence—but we can't escape it!" Since that is universally true, why don't people take death seriously enough to plan for it? While we are alive in this world, everyone should be thinking more about the next. But what's the best (and worst) way to die?
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9/19/2010
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The Best Way & Worst Way to Live
John 8:31-36
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Everyone has an opinion on what "The Good Life" is. For some, it's financial independence. For others, it’s autonomy from government control. For still others, it’s the ability to do whatever you want whenever you feel like it. Jesus offers a different kind of freedom and a better brand of life. Here Jesus tells us what the best way to live really is: It’s the freedom to be a genuine disciple. And He tells us what the worst way to live really is: It’s the slavery of a sinful lifestyle. Today consider how free you really are and what areas of life you may still be in bondage to.
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9/26/2010
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The Devil's DNA
John 8:37-47
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Your body has 100 trillion cells. Inside each one is a nucleus and in each nucleus are DNA molecules. DNA is like an instruction manual for life with densely coded information telling each cell what to do. A simple paternity test would prove that my father was really my father. Here Jesus gives His audience a spiritual paternity test that reveals their spiritual father to be the devil himself. No matter what your physical ancestry, you can always tell one's spiritual heritage.
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10/3/2010
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Who IS This Guy?
John 8:48-59
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Jesus had friends and He had enemies. But besides those, He also had some "frenemies" (enemies who pretended to be friends). To this crowd who at first pretended to believe (v. 31) Jesus is both confrontational and controversial. This paragraph highlights three possible identities of Jesus: two of them were his enemies' accusations and one was Jesus' own claim.
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10/10/2010
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Life Hurts! Where's God?
John 9:1-12
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"Why is there so much pain in the world?" is the most frequently asked question ever! We hate it when we, or those we love, are in pain. Today we see Jesus confront a hurting world. As we do, consider these words by Elizabeth Elliot (whose husband was murdered): "If God is in charge and loves us, then whatever is given is subject to His control and is meant ultimately for our joy."
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10/17/2010
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The Truth About Your Neighbors
John 9:13-34
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Those of us who are Christians live in a sea of unbelievers who work with us, live next to us, shop where we shop, and send their kids to the same schools. Some have a mild case of unbelief disguised by religious practices. Others are more demonstrable in their agnosticism or atheism. Let's watch a local Jerusalem neighborhood struggle against faith in spite of clear evidence.
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10/24/2010
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Got Any Blind Spots?
John 9:35-41
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When you drive, you encounter "blind spots"—it could be part of your own car or it could be a tree that hides traffic on the other side. Those blind spots hinder both progress and ultimately, safety. When Jesus healed a blind man in Jerusalem, the same man was also healed of his spiritual blindness. But others who thought their spiritual perception was keen were as blind as a bat! As we consider this story, can you think of any blind spots in your spiritual journey?
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10/31/2010
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The Good Shepherd (and a bunch of happy sheep!)
John 10:1-10
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This is one of the most beloved passages to be found anywhere in Scripture. But it's not a stand-alone passage: The healing of the blind man in chapter 9 was more than a miracle. It was part of the process of Jesus forming His flock. The leadership had cast the healed man out of the synagogue. Jesus found him, accepted him, saved him, and placed him in His own fold.
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11/21/2010
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What's So Great About the Good Shepherd?
John 10:11-21
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"What's so great about being a Christian?" some people ask. The answer lies in the kind of care, provision, and protection we get from Jesus Christ, our Shepherd. Have you ever stopped to make a list of the benefits that are yours as a follower of Christ? Consider this short list of advantages that you, as a child of God, have. When was the last time you thanked Him for being your Shepherd? This would be a great week to do that!
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12/5/2010
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To BElieve or Not to BElieve...
John 10:22-42
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"In all unbelief there are two things: a good opinion of one's self and a bad opinion about God."— Horatius Bonar. It's true, isn't it? Humanism is man-centered and rejects God's existence or His relevance. But Jesus appealed to two things: the plain evidence of His supernatural works and the testimony of those who witnessed them. Jesus here asserts His deity, and the reaction is predictable—some believed while others did not believe. Which camp do you fall into?
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1/9/2011
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The Great Physician's Patient Dies
John 11:1-16
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When a doctor loses a patient on the operating table, there is a deep sense of remorse and sadness in the surgical theater. Doctors are trained to save lives but sometimes even the best trained physicians are unable to control complications that lead to death. But here we discover that Christ, the Great Physician, not only knows that His patient is sick--He allows him to die! Here are three principles about Divine Medicine that we can all learn.
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1/16/2011
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A Tale of Two Sisters
John 11:17-32
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In 1859 Charles Dickens wrote his famous work, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The story before us is set in Bethany near Jerusalem and highlights the personal relationship that two sisters had with Jesus Christ. Their broken hearts provide an excellent platform to consider how Christ deals with people in grief and loss. Let's actively probe not only their responses but ours to the incredible promise Jesus makes.
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1/23/2011
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The Strangest Funeral Ever
John 11:33-44
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According to one source, there are approximately 2 million funerals in America per year, which means that about 5,479 funerals take place every single day! Most of those funerals are pretty typical: a formal service followed by an interment. But the funeral service we're looking at was really different--and not just because of a resurrection. Here Jesus does three things that are pretty normal for most people at a funeral, but strikingly odd for Jesus.
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1/30/2011
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What to Do with Jesus?
John 11:45-57
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Any lawyer can tell you that whenever the star witness is a resurrected corpse, you have a pretty good case! But Lazarus being alive from the dead doesn’t seem to persuade everyone. And so the big issue becomes what shall we do with Jesus? The decisions made here set the clock in motion for an impending hate crime—the crucifixion of Christ. But from heaven’s vantage point, this is all part of God’s plan for redemption. Let’s see the responses and how we can make a difference.
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2/6/2011
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A Meal to Reveal the Heart
John 12:1-11
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If you were to step into the home of Simon at Bethany (Mark 14:3) on that night, you would've seen Jesus and His disciples along with Lazarus and His two sisters reclining at a low table for a meal in honor of Christ. But if you were to step into the hearts of those people, you would discover they were all very different from each other. Those inside the house and outside represent the gamut of feelings about Jesus—from adoring love to intense hatred. What a complicated meal!
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2/13/2011
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A Day, a Donkey, a Deliverer, and a Decision
John 12:12-19
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2000 years ago, on the final Sunday of Jesus’ earthly life before His crucifixion, He did the most unusual thing—He sat on a donkey and was carried into the city of Jerusalem in parade fashion. This formal presentation of Him as Deliverer was both profound and predicted. What’s the significance of such an act as this? What overarching principles emerge for us today? We’ll dig in and discover them, but today you’ve got to write them down yourself:
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2/20/2011
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Living the Right Life
John 12:20-26
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If this sermon was a book and I wanted to sell lots of copies, the title would cause it to fail. Now if it were entitled "Living the High Life" or "Living the Successful Life," then I may have a winner. But many have lived with both success and riches who didn't live right! So what is the right life? Or to frame it with a better question: What kind of life is most pleasing to God? Through a series of paradoxes, John gives us the answer—it wasn't the answer most people are looking for!
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2/27/2011
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Cross-Culture
John 12:27-36
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The term cross-culture emerges from the social sciences and typically refers to interaction of one culture or language with another. But that's not how I'm using it today. I'm thinking of it in the biblical sense, the salvation sense. Jesus' whole life was immersed in the culture of the cross and He referred to His impending death on the cross as "His hour." Let's consider today the culture of the cross of Christ: what it meant to Jesus personally and the world ultimately.
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3/6/2011
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Believe It or Not!
John 12:37-50
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Most of you reading this are believers. Some are not. Both are dangerous positions to take but for different reasons—vastly different reasons! This paragraph in John's Gospel is the summary of all that has been written, from chapters 1 through 13. It reviews the two different responses people have to Jesus and then gives us Jesus' own synopsis on faith and unbelief. Today you will be able to understand the real differences and consequences of faith and unbelief.
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3/13/2011
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A Night Unforgettable
John 13:1-5
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Some days are frozen in time because of the magnitude of an event. You will always remember September 11, 2001 and where you were when the towers fell. The night America bombed Baghdad or the night John Lennon was murdered may be permanent memories captured in your mind. This was the final night Jesus spent with His own disciples and it would be unforgettable. Let’s discover how what seem like ordinary moments can be extraordinary appointments.
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3/20/2011
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Basin Theology 101
John 13:6-17
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At the final Passover meal that Jesus shared with His closest friends, He gave new meaning to the bread and wine, using them to point to His upcoming sacrificial death on the cross. Today we share Communion as a church family and reflect on that meal, as well as the lessons Jesus was teaching His first followers. After dinner Jesus took a basin of water and began to wash the feet of his students and taught them life principles about stooping, cleansing and serving.
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3/27/2011
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Betrayed!
John 13:18-30
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Relationships can withstand an enormous amount of pressure, but betrayal is sure to end most. The old English word means to hand over or to deliver. Think of it: while Jesus was about to deliver the world from sin and its destruction, Judas was about to deliver the Savior over to His enemies. If you've ever felt betrayed by someone, this study will have special application to you.
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4/10/2011
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A Brand New Way of Life!
John 13:31-35
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To follow Jesus is to have a brand new way of life. When these twelve men sitting around the dinner table started hanging around Jesus, they had no idea just how new and different their lives would become. At this final meal on that last night, they were still learning just how new their lives should be. (Jesus can still teach old dogs new tricks!) As present-day followers of Christ, let’s consider three aspects of life that become new once we become His disciples.
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4/17/2011
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F.A.Q.
John 13:36-38
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An old Persian Proverb reads, "It's harder to ask a sensible question than to supply a sensible answer." Many times our questions to God are reactive—based on a sort of knee-jerk reaction to painful circumstances. Peter asked Jesus two questions of this sort. But whenever we ask God questions we must hang around to get the supplied answers. The questions Peter asked are similar to ones we frequently ask. Let's consider and apply Jesus' outstanding answer
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5/1/2011
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A Theology for Messy Lives
John 14:1-6
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Life can be pretty messy sometimes: plans fail, people leave, money diminishes, and taxes rise. There are plenty of reasons to be troubled these days but there are better reasons not to be! Life was about to get real messy for those disciples around that Jerusalem dinner table. At times like that, there are some basic instructions we need to fall back on so our hearts inside us won't be swallowed up by the mess around us.
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5/8/2011
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How Can I Know God?
John 14:7-11
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What a thought—that a mere human can know God! The agnostic asserts this is impossible. The atheist insists that the very idea is an arrogant and purely metaphysical pursuit. But one of the reasons Jesus came was to reveal God's character and nature clearly and perfectly! Let's consider two roadblocks to knowing God and four resources that help us know Him better.
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5/29/2011
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Privileges of God's Employees
John 14:12-14
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Most companies have benefits for employees: things like overtime pay, health insurance, and sick pay. In 2 Corinthians 6:1, Paul calls us "workers together with Him" (NLT renders it "God's partners"). We have been called to a high and lofty task—to be His representatives here on earth. You might say we're part of the "family business." So what has God called us to do? And how has He provided for us in terms of resources? In short, what are the benefits of being God's employees?
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6/5/2011
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Four Part Harmony
John 14:15-18
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Some of the best moments on American Idol aren't the solo performances, but when all the singers join together and blend their voices in harmony. There's nothing sweeter than well-trained voices blended together in first, thirds, and fifths. Spiritual harmony is much the same—when believers blend with the triune Godhead there is an alignment that results in a deep sense of fulfillment. And what is the note we are to sing in this spiritual song? It is the note of loving obedience!
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6/12/2011
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Promises, Promises!
John 14:19-26
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Someone once mused, "Promises may get friends, but it's performance that keeps them." No wonder God has so many friends! He makes promises and keeps them. On this final night that Jesus spent with His friends, as both sorrow and confusion assailed them, Jesus made several promises that would sustain them in the days, months, and years ahead. What about you? Will you dare to trust the promises of God? It's the only way to see if they really work.
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6/26/2011
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Peace Where You Least Expect It
John 14:27-31
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On countless American gravestones this epitaph could be written: Hurried, Worried, Buried. What a sad way to live! Fear, anxiety, and distress have literally become part of our national culture. Odd, isn't it? Though we have such abundance in this country, most don't experience abundant life—especially as Jesus described it. Sure, everyone has his or her share of trouble and anxieties, but let's consider one of the greatest gifts Jesus gives to followers—the gift of peace!
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7/3/2011
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Life-Lessons from Grape-Growers - Part 1
John 15:1-7
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My parents grew grapes on their little plot of land in Southern California. There weren't many, but enough for me to know that getting fruit at harvest depended on three things: the solid connection of branch to vine, the vigilant care of the workers, and the consistency of those things over time. Jesus, walking with the disciples toward the Garden of Gethsemane, gives life lessons to His men using the familiar example of growing grapes. With that analogy in mind, let's consider the three ways our relationship to God is described by Jesus.
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7/10/2011
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Life-Lessons From Grape-Growers - Part 2
John 15:8-11
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As we grow older, we mature. In our spiritual lives we should become spiritually mature. The Bible calls it being fruitful. Spiritual fruit is the indication that we're truly connected to Christ. But there are others, as we'll see today. Last week we examined how the relationship with Christ is described (Connected to Christ, Cared for by the Father, and Consistent Over Time). Today let's consider how this relationship is demonstrated. When we're rightly connected to God we'll be:
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7/17/2011
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What a Friend We Have in Jesus
John 15:12-17
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We can get through almost anything in life with friends to share our sorrow and divide our grief. A Chinese word for friend is peng-yu and it has a much fuller meaning than in English. It means "one who brings completion and sums up beauty." The ancient Hebrews saw true friendship as an ideal to pursue and a blessing to enjoy. In these final moments with His followers, Jesus uses a most tender term for their relationship—they were friends! What does that friendship look like?
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7/24/2011
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Why Does Everyone Hate Me?
John 15:18-25
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There is a flipside to being a friend of Jesus. That's true of any friendship. Whenever you ally yourself and make friends with someone, you will incur some enemies because of it. Likewise, some who don't like Jesus won't like us either—and we discover there are quite a few who don't! Let's find out why, and how we can raise our heads high and prevail.
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7/31/2011
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Two Thirds Is Not Enough
John 15:26-16:15
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We love God the Father who created us and God the Son who redeemed us, but what about the Holy Spirit? We hear His name a lot, but who is He? What exactly does He do? What does He want from us? The Holy Spirit is the "quiet One," active in the life of believers but sometimes not acknowledged as being vital. Oswald Chambers noted, "The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a guest in a house. He invades everything!" Today, we consider Him and His role in our lives.
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8/7/2011
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The Holy Hound of Heaven
John 16:5-11
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Having understood Who the Holy Spirit is (Person not just power; Deity not just dignitary) we now find out what He does in the world of unbelieving people. Since the greatest gift God ever gave to the world was His only Son (John 3:16) it stands to reason that the greatest sin one can commit is to reject the Son (John 16:9). How does the Holy Spirit both sentence the world as prosecutor and lead people away from judgment? And what role do we play in all of this?
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8/14/2011
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When Sorrow Turns to Joy
John 16:16-22
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The flamboyant baseball-legend-turned-preacher Billy Sunday stated, "If you have no joy in your religion, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere!" That's not to say that life is all laughs. Hardly! Jesus anticipated His followers' deep sorrow. He predicted it. But He also assured them that their experience of sadness would be eclipsed by a greater experience of lasting joy.
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8/21/2011
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How to Send Knee-Mail
John 16:23-28
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Today you can be anywhere in the world and send or receive messages digitally via email. Sending email has eclipsed traditional mail for years now. Sending knee-mail is similar (you can be anywhere)—but with better results! You don't need wifi or a modem; you don't need an electronic device or a computer. Before Jesus left His disciples, He wanted them to get "online" with the Father and stay connected through the simple yet powerful means of prayer.
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9/4/2011
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I've Fallen, but I CAN Get Up!
John 16:29-33
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I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail! So said President Woodrow Wilson. Our Lord knows us better than we know ourselves and is not surprised by our weaknesses. We all fall and fail, even though we may commit to standing strong. What can we learn about ourselves and our God in such valleys? Even more, what kind of restoration can we hope for after our bout with failure?
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9/18/2011
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Holy Eavesdropping
John 17:1
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Imagine if you could sit and listen to Jesus talking to His Father—what would Jesus say to Him? In this prayer (which comprises all of John 17) we step onto holy ground. His instruction to His followers is now over. His preparation of them is done. He now turns His attention heavenward to talk directly to His Father about Himself, about His disciples, and about His future church. This prayer is unique for four reasons:
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9/25/2011
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The Gifts That Keep On Giving
John 17:1-5
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It's possible to give without loving but it's impossible to love without giving— Richard Braunstein. Part of God's nature is that He shows His love by His generous gifts. "For God so loved the world that He gave..." (John 3: 16). Here, in the opening lines of Jesus' prayer to His Father, He requests a gift from His Father and acknowledges three other gifts—two given to the Son by the Father, and one given by the Son to us. These are the gifts that keep on giving!
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10/2/2011
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How Followers Are Formed
John 17:6-10
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Okay, so which is it? Did I choose God or did God choose me? Perspective is everything! If you look at it from the divine viewpoint, you'll say God chose. If you're looking at it from a human viewpoint, you'll say we do the choosing. But why can't both be true? I suppose you can sit around, scratch your head, and try to ponder such imponderables, or you can sigh happily and say with a grateful heart, "I'm elated that He chose me!" But you should also ask yourself another question while you're at it—What am I going to do about it now?
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10/9/2011
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Missionaries or Monasteries?
John 17:11-19
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How can you leave your mark on the world? Most everyone wants to be remembered for some contribution made to society. Well, Jesus wants us to do that, too. In fact, He prays for that. God wants you to make an imprint on life's road so people will say, "Hey look! God's kids were here!" We can't do that by isolating ourselves. We have marching orders!
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10/23/2011
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Listen Up! Jesus is Praying—for YOU!
John 17:20-26
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What's God's general will for you? Look no further than this text! Now as we listen to Jesus pray for us, we also find what our priorities in life are to be. These words are the "Last Will and Testament" of Jesus Christ. So pay close attention and you'll get it right from the heart of Jesus Himself.
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10/30/2011
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I've Got It Under Control
John 18:1-11
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Sometimes life appears to be spinning out of control. Events happen we didn't plan for, people do things we didn't expect, we find ourselves in places we never thought we'd be in. But though you can't always control what happens to you, you are responsible for what happens in you (attitudes and responses). What do we really believe about God's authority and power in our lives? Is there ever a time when God can't say, "I've got it under control"?
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11/20/2011
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The Darkest Night!
John 18:12-27
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On a dark spring night in Jerusalem, it seemed everyone was against Jesus Christ. The religious system had long been opposed to and jealous of His burgeoning ministry. The mock trial designed to get rid of Jesus was only going through the technical motions to achieve their end. And Peter, Jesus' closest friend, was in a downward process of disassociating himself from Him. But in the midst of the darkest night, the sunrise of God's grace was beginning to shine!
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1/8/2012
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A King, a Kingdom, and a Courtroom
John 18:28-40
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What kind of a King is Jesus, and what is the nature of His Kingdom? And what does it mean to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done"? These are the questions faced in the text before us. As Jesus nears the cross, a nation denies His reign over them, while a Roman ruler questions Him and then cynically admits his own confusion and despair.
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1/22/2012
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How Do You Handle Jesus?
John 19:1-16
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Pontius Pilate was like every other person who has ever lived. The fundamental question of his life was, "What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" (Matthew 27:22). Everyone has to deal with Jesus, to decide about Him and His claims. In one setting, we can see how one man (Pilate) was influenced to deal with Jesus in three different ways. These three ways are how many people today still choose to deal with Jesus Christ.
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1/29/2012
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Execution of a King
John 19:17-22
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Regicide is the official word used for the execution of a king. Most countries reserve the stiffest of punishments for subjects or assassins who would kill their royalty. John records the execution of the King of kings on a Roman cross outside the city of Jerusalem. But the rest of Scripture reveals that it was more than an execution; it was sacrifice that brought salvation. The next few weeks, we will consider the cross in depth and what it means for the world and for us.
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2/5/2012
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The Cross on the Billboard of Eternity
John 19:23-24
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Did you know that the cross of Christ was always God's plan from the very beginning? It wasn't a reaction to mankind's rejection of His Son, nor was it an accommodation to a Roman and Jewish miscarriage of justice. It was according to "the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). Today we will take a journey back and connect the dots of God's unfolding plan of the cross throughout the ages.
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2/12/2012
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How to Love Your Mother
John 19:25-27
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A mother's love for her children is distinctive and irreplaceable. To watch a child suffer is crushing and almost intolerable for any mom. In this touching scene revealed in three verses, we not only see Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the foot of her Son's cross, we also learn how Jesus cared for His mother. Even from His place of extreme suffering, Jesus was thinking of others and His love for Mary is noteworthy for us.
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2/19/2012
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iThirst
John 19:28-29
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The world is filled with Apple's i-technology, which delivers on its promise to make connectivity and information readily accessible. But there is a deeper need within everyone, a thirst to be right with God, that no app or gadget can fulfill. How ironic that Jesus, the great Thirst-Quencher, would Himself be thirsty. It was part of the great exchange—His temporary thirst enabled yours to be quenched eternally!
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2/26/2012
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It's Done!
John 19:30
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While Jesus was doing His greatest work, He uttered His greatest words! Through the excruciating pain of a tormenting death, Jesus gave the most meaningful statements worthy of careful consideration. John records three of Jesus' seven statements uttered while on the cross. The sixth—and perhaps the most hopeful—is the one we consider today.
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3/4/2012
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Death Under Control
John 19:31-37
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Watching someone you love die is always a heart-wrenching experience, especially when the victim experiences great suffering. For the apostle John, the death of Jesus was likewise difficult-but he saw a glimmer of hope, a silver lining in the dark clouds of death. This death was long ago anticipated and was being carefully monitored from the control center of heaven. Today we see why that's important.
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3/11/2012
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Disciples on the Graveyard Shift
John 19:38-42
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You can find an unending supply of books, pamphlets, and articles on discipleship in Christian churches and bookstores. Many of them will be predictably regimented and conventional, giving solid biblical references and calling Christians to ardently follow Christ—all great stuff. But not everyone's spiritual journey is identical. Some disciples are unexpected, and so is their story. Here are two disciples of Jesus who've been in the background and now step forward to care for the body of Christ after His death. Let's allow their story to inspire us.
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3/18/2012
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A Not-Quite-Empty Tomb
John 20:1-10
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There was a lot of confusion happening on the first Easter morning. The resurrection had happened but it was neither expected nor accepted by all at first. Mary Magdalene ran to tell the disciples what she saw, and they ran to check out her report. What they saw was compelling evidence of a resurrection, but only one of them really connected all the dots. Let's see why.
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3/25/2012
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Hope Rekindled
John 20:11-18
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When people grieve, they usually run the gamut of the emotional spectrum, from denial to bargaining to despair to anger to eventually hope. Mary Magdalene was in hopeless despair as she stood weeping by the grave of Jesus. The resurrected Christ deals tenderly with this woman as he reveals Himself to her and conveys hope for her future. Let's glean some principles for dealing with brokenhearted people.
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4/1/2012
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From Closed Doors to the Open Road
John 20:19-23
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Our relationship with Jesus isn't a secret to be hoarded; it is a story to be heralded! The disciples were seated behind closed doors (sounds like a lot of churches). Jesus wanted them out, giving away what they had been given. Let's see how these early followers went from panic to peace, from perplexity to purpose, and from protection to power. It's a great journey. Are you up for it?
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4/8/2012
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Rise Up!
John 20:24-31
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The apostle Thomas has been noted for his skeptical attitude. In fact, we refer to a skeptic as a "doubting Thomas." In this message from John 20, we consider four ways Thomas was able to rise up from doubt and become a joyful follower of Jesus.
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4/15/2012
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Gone Fishing! (Relating to a Risen & Returning Lord)
John 21:1-14
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I am not a great fisherman. I don't do it often and when I catch something, it's pure luck! My dad was the opposite—he loved it and was great at it. At least seven of Jesus' disciples were fishermen and here we see them plying their trade after the resurrection. Some beautiful lessons can be discovered about how to live while we wait for Jesus to come back for us.
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4/22/2012
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I Failed! Now What?
John 21:15-19
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One of life's harshest realities is failure. The very sound of the word seems harsh to our sensibilities. We even harbor the age-old axiom, "Failure is not an option!" But failure is an option; in fact, it's a certainty. But discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to victory. In a post-resurrection interview, Jesus restores Peter with a fresh commission. If you have failed in your spiritual experience (and who hasn't), these principles will inspire.
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4/29/2012
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Final Instructions
John 21:20-25
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As John closes off his singular testimony of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he features some closing words of Jesus and Peter about himself (John). These final sentences provide some instructions for us as we await Christ's return. How should we live in light of who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and when Jesus will return?
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There are 95 additional messages in this series.
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