Let me introduce you John 1:35-49 August 25, 2013 Travis Collins John the Baptist (or John the Baptizer ) was a fire-brand preacher whose life mission was to prepare for the coming of the Messiah God s chosen One. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he knew immediately that Jesus was The One, the One of Whom the ancient prophets had written and for whom John had been looking. So John unselfishly told his own followers (disciples) to attach themselves to this Jesus. That included Andrew and Andrew s unidentified friend, as described in John 1. Andrew and his friend visited with Jesus for a good long while and were deeply and forever changed. Andrew immediately went and got his brother, Simon, and introduced Simon to Jesus. Simon also would be forever changed by that introduction. Even his name would be different. Jesus looked into Simon s heart and saw Simon s potential, so Jesus changed his name to Peter ( Rock ). A similar thing happened when Philip met Jesus. Philip found his brother, Nathaniel, and reported, We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph Come and see. Nathanael was skeptical. For some reason, Nathanael was put off by the fact that Jesus was from the obscure northern village of Nazareth. Nathaniel was hesitant to give this Jesus from Nazareth a chance. So Philip simply said to his brother, Nathanael, Come and see. Not, Don t be stupid, Nate. Not, Turn or burn, Nate. Not, Get right or get left, Nate. Simply, Come and see, Nate. Let s take a look at verse 43, which includes Jesus first recorded one-on-one spiritual conversation with anyone: The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, He said to him, Follow me. Follow me, Jesus said to Philip. In reading what we call the New Testament we find Jesus recurring call: Follow me. The invitation to follow was at the heart of Jesus message to humans. As I count it, the faith decision referred to as following Jesus appears forty-six times in the biblical accounts of Jesus life. If you are having a spiritual conversation with someone and they are wondering what you want them to do, maybe you could say, Follow Jesus. There are many words for a conversion experience, like Born Again, Be Saved, Give Your Heart to Jesus, and Let Jesus Come Into your Heart. But what Jesus said most was, Follow me.
Follow me is not ten easy steps to a better life. Follow me is a lifestyle a way of seeing and interpreting the world, and a filter for all our decisions. Complete trust of the unquestionable One-In-Charge. A passion for drinking deeply from His teachings and following carefully His example. Intimate relationship with a Friend-Leader. What does Jesus want? Followers. Real courageous Jesus-is-the-boss-o -me I m not sure where He s leading, but I am sure who I m following followers Back to the story. What I want us to notice most plainly is that these two guys, Andrew and Philip, just made an introduction. They neither pushed nor rushed nor forced nor coerced. They introduced. Years ago Chris Moore was our Associate Pastor for students. As part of an emphasis on evangelism, Chris wrote a booklet for the teens. Here is part of what Chris wrote: What if God doesn t want a salesman or a debater? What if God just wants an introduction?...what if we are simply to make introductions or facilitate encounters with Jesus? The story for today from John 1 tells us that an introduction is a great way to approach this matter of spiritual conversations. We made a big decision Wednesday night the decision to call Dr. Jim Ailor as our Associate Pastor for Worship & Music. That all started when Tom and Janet Williams, members of our church and now members of The Village launch team, recommended Jim to our search team. Jim Ailor didn t just apply. And no one on the search team knew him. I didn t know him. But the Williamses recommended him. They said to the search team, You ought to contact this guy. He s good. We know him well. We think this would be a really good fit. We know you, we know Jim, and we think you guys ought to get together. They neither pushed nor rushed nor force nor coerce. They introduced. Then the search team went out and did its work. Checked references. Interviewed Jim. Did all their due diligence without the Williamses. Then, Wednesday night, when we were gathered for the vote Tom Williams spoke on video to the gathered crowd. He was out of the country, but he wanted to say to his church, Hey, I think you ought to bring Jim on. He s good. We know him well. We think this would be a really good fit. We know you, we know Jim, and we think you guys ought to get together. But then the church voted. Tom and Janet didn t force, rush, coerce or pressure. They weren t even present when the decision was made. They d made an introduction. Tom had followed up with another thumbs up. And then the church made the decision. That s not unlike introducing Jesus to people. You say, Hey, I know both of you and I think you d be a good match. Then that person has to make the decision. We aren t salespeople who have to close a sale or debaters who have to win a debate. We re connectors. We tell our story. We say, Here is what I believe to be true. We suggest they read the Gospel of John. And we leave the sale and the debate to the Holy Spirit. The story of the Williams introducing us to Jim Ailor and, more importantly, the story we read from John 1, remind us of an important truth: Most introductions to Jesus take place
along relationship lines. Our neighbors, friends, co-workers, family members, teammates, schoolmates, fellow band members, and so on. Of course there are exceptions to this. This week one of our church members, Billy Hoffman, was seated on a plane by a gentleman on a flight to Boston. The man in the next seat was reading Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell. When his new friend explained that the gist of the book is that success is often attributed not to what we usually attribute it to, but to small influences little things chance things without which outstanding successes would not have occurred, Billy saw an opening. Billy had just led a Sunday morning Bible study of Eccl. 9:11 which says, The race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong rather time and chance happen to all of them. That was a brilliant connection. Now, Billy s smart, but that s just plain brilliant. Maybe the Holy Spirit had something to do with that connection! The young man was intrigued when Billy asked him if he is a believer. Upon hearing the question he responded, In what? Billy said, Jesus, He answered no, that he is an agnostic. Billy was able to share what it means to follow Jesus, gave him a booklet that would help, and the man shared his email address with him. The young man is a freshman at MIT, and his family is largely Hindu. The young man gave Billy his email address, and now Billy is going to try to connect him with a student-friendly church he knows of in Cambridge. He s going to try to connect them and the young man. I love that story! But most of the time it is along the lines of relationships that people decide to follow Jesus. People who study this kind of thing suggest that 90% of the people who decide to follow Jesus do so because of a relationship. Most who choose to follow Jesus do so because someone they love, like and respect cares enough to have a spiritual conversation with them. Conversations on planes often are effective. Technology such as the internet or even television or radio frequently is effective. But nothing is quite like someone who loves Jesus having the heart and guts to sit with someone who is far from God and initiating a spiritual conversation with a prayerful hope that the person follows Jesus. So what relationships do you have that might give you an opportunity for a spiritual conversation, to introduce someone to Jesus? You will never know the depth and richness of following Jesus yourself until you help someone else follow him. Listen to Philemon 6. This is perhaps the most important sentence of the entire sermon: I pray that you may be active sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Repeat after me: I will never have a full understanding of all I have in Jesus until I am active sharing my faith. You can have perfect attendance in Sunday School or your small group meetings, and serve on five teams at church, and still not experience the depth that you will by sharing your faith. Nothing is like having an active role in someone considering Jesus. We will never understand every good thing we have in Christ until we share our faith. Where the rubber hits the road is where you and I care enough to turn a conversation toward God.
Every time I have a spiritual conversation my heart races a bit before I speak. I m not different from you. I don t want to be perceived as weird. I want to be a regular guy. And I think I missed an opportunity this week. I saw this guy I ve kept bumping into and I thought to myself, Why do I keep seeing this guy? Then I had the same sense I ve had so many times before. This is an opportunity for a spiritual conversation. And we approached each other. And we greeted. And we said a few words. And I said nothing of importance. I fumbled around with my words and, before I knew it, we were saying, See you later. I blew it. You probably will blow it sometimes, too. But when I muster the courage to speak of Jesus it s worth it! I get to do lots of spiritual things. But I never have a deeper sense of God s presence, and of my role in His mission, than I do when I step out of my comfort zone and enter the world of people who aren t followers of Jesus. I want that for all of you. Let me turn our attention for a moment to our church as a whole. First, I want to promote Back to Church Day on September 15. That is a national event in which we are participating. It gives you a natural opening to invite someone to church. Now, I know that inviting someone to church is different from having a spiritual conversation. But they are close cousins. So put that on your calendars and let s invite people Back to Church. And if they ve ever been to church for a funeral or a wedding, or a recreational event in the gym, or anything else, then you are inviting them back to church! Second, I want to talk a moment about land at 288 and 711. We ve been focusing on getting The Village up and running, and last Sunday we had 187 people in that first service. And there hasn t even been any publicity about the campus opening! So Bon Air Baptist @ The Village is off to a great start. And there are great stories emerging from our Robious Hall Campus. This fall we are going to hold a series of town meetings and a special called business meeting about a piece of property on the southwest quadrant of 288 and 711. It s about a permanent home for what we call the James River Campus and more. This land and eventual building is indeed about a permanent home for those who presently serve and worship at JRC. It s about not having to set up and take down the equipment every week at the high school. It s about saying to the community that the high school was a holding pattern not our landing site. It is, however, much more. It s a strategic move toward the evangelization of our corner of the world and the ongoing effectiveness of Bon Air Baptist. It s about a weekday presence. It s about our church continuing to look to the future. This is an opportunity for Bon Air Baptist to look to the future and establish ourselves with a unique ministry in a really strategic area.
But there are so many good things going on at the original campus! Sunday School and Upward Basketball and Weekday School and Children s Ministry and so on. Why branch out and stretch ourselves and do things like RHC and JRC and The Village? It s hard work for all of us! So why? Because of stories like this Lendy Gay posted the following on her Facebook page on August 11, 2013: My whole family went to the river, and we were baptized. I am so happy we were all able to do this together. It was amazing! I love my family!! Then she quoted Psalm 25:5, Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. John Sawyer said he felt like he was reliving Chapter 16 of Acts which says, And salvation came to the entire household. It s that story, and stories like it On September 8 at the river baptism we will baptize our onehundredth person from the James River Campus since we launched it that s why we do what we do. That s why we risk. That s why we stretch. That s why we go. At the conclusion of this series, Beggars & Bread, let s pause for a moment and look inward. Before we launch into too many spiritual conversations let s ask the Spirit of God to cleanse us, to root out those things that would hinder us from being effective sharers of good news. In Isaiah 6 is the beautiful story of Isaiah s declaration, Here am I; send me! But before Isaiah said, Send me, He said Woe is me. I looked it up. In the first five books of Isaiah the prophet after whom the book is named said Woe eight times. Woe or Doom! to you sinners or those sinners. But in Isaiah 6 he writes, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. Woe to me. Now, he didn t stop saying woe to others; he simply saw himself among those deserving woe. Good spiritual conversations begin with us--with reviewing our own inventory, recognizing our inadequacies, our need for cleansing, and our desperate dependence on grace. People who recognize our need for grace are always going to be more effective in sharing that grace with others who need it. Good news is always best shared by people with humility in their hearts, not stones in their hands. When we see ourselves as beggars helping other beggars find bread we can introduce our own Simons and Nathanaels to Jesus.