Sermon Tone Analysis

Pray

Introduction

If you were with us last week, you will know that Paul is off on Sabbatical for the next 2 months, which means that for the next 9 weeks we are going to look at the PCI Essentials series, which is a look at discipleship - what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?

On Wednesday coming, at the midweek at 8 o’clock, we will be discussing this in more detail along with a video clip that PCI has produced, so I would encourage all of you who can make it, anyone who is curious about discipleship, anyone who wants to deepen their walk with Jesus - whether seasoned veteran or just starting out on their journey, or even anyone who isn’t a disciple of Jesus, but is wondering what it’s all about - please come along on Wednesday evening where you can talk about this further.

Today is week one and it has been given the heading, COME.

Come and see.

Come and see who Jesus is.

This is the first step on the road to discipleship…even before Jesus calls the disciples, they come and see him first.

They have an encounter with Jesus.

And this encounter is life-changing.

Pause

The passage that we’re going to look at this morning is in John 1 when Jesus meets some of his disciples for the first time.

And what we need to know about John’s gospel is that John has written his gospel like a courtroom drama.

If you’ve read John Grisham books, or watched the Good Wife, or Suits or any of the other myriad of courtroom dramas, you’ll be familiar with what happens in court.

In a court of law, there are witnesses, who come up onto the stand, who swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

And they give evidence - they testify to what has happened, whether that’s a crime or whatever.

These are people who have been at the seen of the crime - who have witnessed what has happened, who have been involved in some way perhaps.

They are first-hand eye-witnesses.

Sometimes the witness is the perpetrator themselves - being brought up onto the stand to be asked questions and interrogated as to what exactly happened.

As well as the witnesses you have evidence - finger prints, objects found at the scene of the crime - hair follicles, weapons, blood.

These are analysed and assessed - DNA analysis is done to ascertain who’s blood it is.

Fingerprint analysis is carried out and so on.

The evidence, coupled with the testimony of the witnesses provide the case that is brought to the judge.

And it is the judge who presides over the court.

The judge is the ‘main man’ (or woman).

They have the final say.

They are the ones who do the sentencing.

The judge is the one who looks at the evidence, who listens to the witness give their testimony and who makes a decision on the matter at hand.

They are the ones who judge what has happened and pass judgement on the case - guilty / not guilty.

The judge makes the judgement baed on the evidence and the testimony of the witnesses.

Pause

And that’s how the book of John is written.

Now, in the book of John, YOU are the judge.

The reader is the judge.

And what you are judging is whether or not Jesus is the Son of God.

You are judging whether or not Jesus is the Messiah - the chosen one that the Old Testament was writing about.

You are judging whether or not this man, Jesus is worth following.

Is the man worth giving your life for?

Is there any benefit in following this man, Jesus?

And in the book of John, the characters are witnesses.

Jesus is the defendant.

He is the one on trial…what will we do with this man Jesus?

And John has written this book really carefully...

Because, Jesus is the witness to the Father.

A witness to God himself...

And then John the Baptist is a witness to Jesus...

And in our passage, Andrew and Philip are both witnesses of Jesus.

Andrew goes and gets Simon Peter, and Philip goes and tells Nathaniel essentially the same message...

We have found the Messiah, the chosen one of God of whom the Old Testament wrote.

We’ve found him…come and see.

And of course, throughout the rest of the book, the disciples themselves are witness of Jesus - of what he does, what he says.

And Peter himself says this in Acts 2...

…we have seen it with our own eyes.

And so in the book of John, there are all these witnesses of Jesus - people who spoke to him, who saw him, who saw what he did.

People who had an encounter with Jesus and went away changed, and people who witnessed him not only die, but come back to life.

And when you see something like that with your own eyes, you want to tell people.

There’s undeniable evidence there that Jesus is more than human - he MUST be who he says his is, because nobody can do the things he did - especially rise from the dead, and not be something more than human.

And so these witnesses wrote down what they saw.

That’s why we have the gospels - an account of Jesus from eye-witnesses.

And, like I said, in the book of John YOU, the reader, are the judge.

You are the one who needs to take this evidence and pass judgement.

Is Jesus more than human?

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Did he do these amazing things - is Jesus the Son of God?

Does he offer life and life to the full?

Did God so love the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life?

The evidence is there, the witnesses have testified - it’s up to the reader to make the judgement…what will you do with Jesus?

Pause

Now, let’s have a look at what Andrew and Philip did with Jesus...

First of all, at the start of our passage, John the Baptist has his own disciples.

In verse 34 he says something critical...

Once again, there’s the testimony of John - Jesus is God’s Chosen one - the Messiah.

And John points this out to his disciples and they follow Jesus...

And in the text, they literally FOLLOW him.

They are curious about him.

They aren’t disciples YET - they aren’t followers of Jesus as we know it.

They are walking behind him.

And then in verse 38, Jesus turns around and talks to them.

Jesus meets them half way.

He turns around and asks them - what are you looking for?

Or, another way to translate it is, what do you desire?

What do you want?

What do you want?

So these disciples went to see Jesus and he meets them half way - he asks them straight-out…what do you want?

What are you looking for?

And this is the FIRST thing that Jesus says in John’s gospel.

In Mark, the first thing Jesus says is ‘repent’.

In John, the first thing Jesus says is, ‘what do you want?’

And that’s the big question - when we come to see Jesus, what do we want?

What do we expect?

When you go to church, what do you want?

What are you looking for?

When you read your bible, what are you looking for?

When you worship, when you sing, when you pray, what are you looking for?

Pause

These disciples didn’t want a passing word on the street, they wanted a personal encounter - a proper meaningful encounter.

So they asked, ‘where are you staying?’ Essentially saying, ‘I want to stay with you.’

And Jesus replied, ‘come and you will see.’

And they went and stayed with him.

So they went to see Jesus - Come and see.