A Savior Worth Following

Good morning. Our passage is John 1:35-51. Follow along as I read.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to preach the Word at Christ Fellowship. I ask this morning that as we open the Scriptures that your Spirit would enlighten us to your truth and that you would plant your truth down deep in us. Change us from the inside out by the power of your Spirit as the Word is preached. As we look into our passage, help us to see Jesus as a Savior worth following. Help us to proclaim him as Christ and as King. Now, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

INTRODUCTION:

This morning, we’re continuing our series through the gospel of John. We’ve called this series ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ because that’s what we want to do. We want to get together each week, opening up this beautiful account of Jesus’s life, and gaze intently—fix our eyes—on Jesus. And we’re not doing this so that we’ll stay the same. No we’re doing this so that we will believe in Jesus. That’s why John sat down and wrote this book: he says in 20:31 “I have written these things so that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” We are beholding Jesus—encountering him through his word—so that we might believe.

In our passage today, we encounter the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. He is beginning to build the team of men that he would teach, empower, give authority to, and send out. But he starts by calling them. And as we examine these stories of men being called to follow Jesus today, we are going to see that the person and work of Jesus compels people to follow him. In other words, who Jesus is and what he does is the reason that he is worth following. And that’s the main point of our sermon this morning. It’s simple. Jesus is worth following. Jesus is worth following.

I love sports. I love to cheer for several different sports teams. Most Saturdays at our house are spent watching college football, and Sunday afternoons are spent watching Kansas City Chiefs football. What does it mean that I follow the Chiefs? Well it means I follow the stats, the records, and the players and how they are progressing each year. I watch the games. I read some blogs. I am interested in their success. This is a passage that is about following. We see four different men start following Jesus. What does it mean to follow Jesus? It’s different than following a sports team. If the Chiefs go away after this season and cease to exist, I would be upset. I might even be a little angry. But my life will go on. My life isn’t really oriented around my favorite teams. But we will see today that to follow Jesus is to forsake everything else. Following Jesus requires a reorientation. Following Jesus requires change. To follow Jesus is to stake your life on who he is and what he did for you. The picture I want to paint for you this morning is that Jesus is worth following. He is worth following. And staking your life on. How do we see that? Well in two ways, and those will be our two points this morning. First, Jesus is worth following because he compels and calls us. And second, Jesus is worth following because he is Christ and King.

Jesus Compels and Calls

First, Jesus is worth following because he compels and calls us. To be compelled to something means to be driven to do something.

If you watch documentaries about veterans who served in times of war, they’ll often say that they were compelled to serve by a sense of duty for their countries. You hear the same thing when people are drawn in by someone’s charismatic personality and join a movement of any kind. People become compelled to follow because of the greatness of the person or thing they are following.

Look at our passage: In verse 35, John is standing with a couple of his disciples. We find out later that one of those disciples is none other than Andrew. They see Jesus passing by and John declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” Last week we talked about the importance of beholding the Lamb of God. In beholding–or looking at Jesus for who the Bible claims that he actually is–we are led to believe in him as Savior. That was our main point last week. Beholding the lamb of God leads to believing in the Lamb of God. Straightaway after hearing John tell them to behold Jesus as the Lamb of God, these two men left John and followed Jesus. And when they began to follow Jesus, he did not turn them away.

Once Jesus compelled them, and they gazed upon his beauty and his worthiness, they had no other option. I’m 100% convinced of this: That when we see Jesus for who he is and are compelled to follow him, we won’t go any other direction. Why would we? When we believe in Christ we experience life and life abundantly. He has the best way for us to live. When we see the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and we follow his compelling call, we are seeing the best way to live. I think it’s impossible to turn from this call once we see God for who he is. In chapter 1:12-13, John tells us that being born of God means that we are not born of the will of man, but of the will of God. So it takes being born of the will of God–this is being born again and getting new eyes, new heart, and new life–to behold the Lamb of God.

And once we see the Lamb of God with new eyes, we realize that he is compelling us to follow him. And at that point, we can’t not follow him. This is what we’re seeing play out with Andrew.

Andrew beholds (he sees Jesus with spiritual eyes, or is made new by the will of God), and then is compelled to follow Jesus. Jesus is so worthy of worship, of adoration, and of our following him that Andrew leaves John to follow him. Look at the first half of the passage: Jesus never says, “Follow me,” to Andrew. However, Andrew is compelled. This is spiritual work.

Have you been compelled to follow Jesus? Has the Spirit breathed new life into you and compelled you to follow Jesus? You would know if he has. You would have beheld Jesus in his glory and known that you have no other option but to follow him. You might say, “Mike I don’t know. How would I know if I’ve been compelled to follow?”

Look at your life. Look at our passage and Andrew’s life after he is compelled to follow Jesus. Let’s look at three things about Andrew that are some outward proofs that he is desiring to follow Jesus:

He acknowledges Jesus as his discipler

Immediately, Andrew refers to Jesus as ‘Rabbi’ or Teacher. He was leaving his teacher–John–to come under the tutelage of Jesus, the greatest teacher. Sure, John was a great teacher, but his whole ministry was based around leading others to follow the Messiah. Now that Jesus was present, John’s disciples had to go follow Jesus. That meant they would have the opportunity to sit under Jesus’s teachings for the next three years. The disciples were committed to their discipler, the one who would teach them how to live a life that is pleasing to God. So, is Jesus your teacher? Do you run to the Bible when you need to learn? As one who has been given new life, you should see a regular pattern of having Jesus as your teacher, your discipler.

He desires to spend time with Jesus

Andrew also immediately spent the whole day with Jesus. When he was faced with who Jesus was, he desired time with his Savior. It should be the same with us. Do you desire to spend time with Christ? How does that look with us when Jesus doesn’t physically walk with us anymore? We spend time with him in his word, in prayer, and with his people. You’ve been given so many ways to spend time with Jesus. Are you regularly in the Word? Are you regularly calling out to him in prayer? Do you desire to spend time with Jesus-people, the church?

He tells others about Jesus

Lastly, Andrew ran and told his brother, Peter, that they had found the Messiah. Now, Andrew and Peter were Jewish, which meant that they had been raised looking for someone who would be the long-prophesied and promised and awaited Messiah. This person was to be the hope of the Jewish people. Their whole lives were to be centered around devotion to the Messiah. Andrew was confident that Jesus was the Messiah–the Christ–and so, based upon that confidence, he went and told Peter. We see the same later with Philip and Nathaneal. So my question for you is this: are you sharing the gospel with others? Andrew and Philip had an immediate reaction to realizing that Jesus was the Christ: They shared that with others. Is there a regular pattern of sharing the gospel in your life?

Andrew acknowledged Jesus as his discipler, spent time with Jesus, and told others about Jesus. Is that your pattern? Not perfectly. But if you can see fruit in those areas, then you’ve probably been compelled to follow Jesus. As you can see in the life of Andrew, Jesus compels people to follow him.

If we look a little further into the passage, though, we see that Jesus compels and he calls. Look at verse 43: The next day, Jesus decided to leave Galilee. He found Philip and told him, “Follow me.” Let’s look at a few things in this verse. First, Jesus went and found Philip. Jesus as Savior goes to his people and finds them. The other thing I want you to see is that Jesus told Philip to follow him. This wasn’t merely a suggestion or a polite knock on the door of Philip’s heart. No, Jesus found him and told him to follow him. Jesus called Philip out of darkness and into light at this moment. He was in essence saying, “Philip, here I am. I am the Messiah. Follow me. Orient everything you do around me from now on. Follow me.”

And Philip did. Jesus called, and that call was compelling because of who Jesus is. The calling of Jesus to follow him is a compelling call. What I mean is that when Jesus calls someone, that person will follow Jesus. We can look at it this way: If Jesus is perfect in everything that he does, then he is 100% in his calling ministry. Later in John, Jesus says this statement: “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.” In other words, God has called his own people. And when God calls, his people will answer by following him. And when they follow him, they will find a life more satisfying and God-glorifying than they could ever imagine.

So what does it mean to be compelled and called by Jesus? It means that you will lose your life. Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaneal lost their lives that day. They gave up their earthly dreams, goals, ambitions, and followed Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” But the promise of God is this: “That whoever will For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.” Have you answered Jesus’s call? He could be calling you today. If he is, gaze at the one calling and you will find life and life abundantly.

Christians, are you living out your calling? Are you spending time with the Teacher, learning at his feet? Are you orienting your life around his kingdom? Are you telling others about him? Examine your walk today.

Christ is worth following, and he calls and compels people to follow him. But what makes him compelling? What makes him worthy of following? That’s what the second part of our message today.

Jesus is Christ and King

When you read accounts of the people who were around George Washington, you begin to think he was almost mythical. The men who served in the military loved to follow him. They respected him. They would’ve taken a bullet for him. Why? He was full of integrity, intelligence, and charisma. People were drawn to him. This is why he was really the only choice to lead a young nation as its first president. This is why he was a victorious general. We follow leaders because of who they are.

In our passage, Jesus reveals himself as both Christ and King, and that is what is behind how compelling he is. These titles–Christ and King–are far greater than any earthly title. The reasons to follow Jesus are infinitely greater than the reasons to follow any other person. The reason Andrew, Peter, Philip and Nathaneal were compelled to follow Jesus’s call was because they were being called by the Messiah and the King of Israel.

So let’s take a look at what these two titles mean. When Andrew went to his brother Simon Peter, he said, “We have found the Messiah (which is translated ‘the Christ’).” Christ is the Greek word for Messiah, which is a Hebrew word. Christ and Messiah are interchangeable. They both mean anointed one. In Jewish custom, a priest or a prophet would be anointed with oil (meaning that oil would be poured on their head in a ceremonial fashion). The people did this to set that person apart for a specific purpose. So when the Bible applies the title Messiah or Christ to Jesus, it means that Jesus was set apart for a specific purpose. A God-ordained purpose.

What was the purpose that Jesus was set apart to do as The Messiah? He was set apart to be 3 things: Prophet, Priest, and King. These are also the three roles where men would be anointed with oil in a ceremony in the Old Testament. Prophets, priests, and kings all had ceremonies in which they would be anointed for their roles and tasks.

Prophet

Jesus was the Anointed One or Messiah because he was a prophet. Prophets were set apart by God to speak authoritatively to his people in warning and blessings. Jesus came as the Ultimate Prophet, because he is God, and when he spoke, there was no denying his divine authority. He wasn’t speaking on behalf of God; he was speaking as God. Jesus was the Messiah because he was the Prophet.

Priest

Not only was Jesus the Christ because he was a prophet, but because he was a priest. The job of the priests was to make sacrifices on behalf of the people to make purification for them. They had to continually offer sacrifices day after day and year after year. Christ came as the perfect priest and offered a sacrifice that would never and could never be repeated: he gave himself as the perfect and final sacrifice.

King

Finally, and this brings us back to the text, Jesus was the Christ because he was King of Israel. Look at verse 49: Nathaneal says, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel!” What was Nathanael saying when he proclaimed Jesus as King? The Messiah was the one who would have ultimate and lasting authority. Jesus is given all authority on heaven and earth, as we see in Matthew 28:18. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father when he ascends after his resurrection. Jesus will return in power one day to reign forever as King. He is King, he has always been King, and he will always reign as King.

Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one. Why? Because he came as Prophet, Priest, and King. His God-ordained purpose was to come to earth, live a perfect life of obedience, and die a death reserved for sinners. His purpose as the Christ was to rise from the grave and defeat death fully and finally. That is why Jesus came, and that is why he is a Savior worth following. Jesus calls and compels people to believe in him as Christ and King. Is he your king today?

Here’s the last thing I want us to look at today as we consider this Savior worth following: He already knows everything about you. Time and time again throughout John, Jesus stuns his audience by knowing intimate details about the people he is dealing with. When he meets Peter in our passage–in verse 42–he prophesies to him about Peter’s name change. Peter would go from being known as Simon to Peter, which is the Greek term for rock. We see why in Matthew 16, as Peter confesses Jesus as the Son of God, and Jesus says, “Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” Peter confessed Christ as the Son of God, and was known as the Rock because of his confession of faith. This was not because Peter was strong in any particular way (in fact he set the record for public denials of Christ by an Apostle as recorded in Scripture). Jesus didn’t single out Peter because of anything special. The point here is that Jesus is telling Peter that this will come to pass because Jesus knew everything about Peter. It’s the same a little later with Nathanael. Nathanael was astonished that the Messiah would be a Nazarene. Nazarenes were hicks and unintelligent. They were unfaithful partiers. And Nathanael was a righteous Jewish man who had no deceit. But when he encountered Jesus, he found out that the Messiah knew everything about him. He is undone by the depth of Jesus’s knowledge of himself, and is driven to confess Christ as the Son of God and King of Israel.

It can be a fearful thing to think about Jesus knowing everything there is to know about us. But we should take the posture of Nathanael, who was undone. Instead of being horrified, he was comforted to confess Jesus as Lord. Christ knows you better than you know yourself. And yet, he comes to you and offers grace over all of your sins. He says to Nathaneal: You’re shocked that I know you–wait until you see what’s next. You will see me among the angels at my ascension back into heaven.” Nathaneal was about to see miracle and miracle and sign after sign, all so that he might believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

CONCLUSION:

As we wrap up this morning, I want you to know that Jesus is worth following. He knows the depth of your sin. Your sins are many, but his mercy is more. He knows everything about you, and knowing that, he went to the cross to save sinners. If you’ve never followed him in faith, please talk with me after service. I’d love to tell you more about Jesus.

Christians, remember that following Jesus outshines every other pursuit of your soul. A life lived following Christ under his rule and blessing as King is a sweet life. There is no life like losing yourself by finding yourself in Christ. Keep pressing into him today.

Let’s pray.