Sermon Tone Analysis

dogs cellphone collar id

Jesus will go any distance to reach men.

Jesus called Philip to follow him, and this comes from the greek akolouthei which means to become a close companion, a follower, a disciple… not just follow me for a bit… but keep following… there are two ideas in this word that are signficant.... they are union and likeness… and so we realize following Jesus means becoming united to him and becoming more like him....

This was so different than the other two that we had seen over the past few weeks.

Here we see that Jesus is no longer being sought by Philip but instead we see Jesus seeking after Philip.

He had to travel a long distance to be able to find Philip, Galilee was a long distance away and look at we can see the distance that Jesus was willing to go to find Philip and enlist him in Mission.

This should be of a great comfort to you.

I cannot tell you how many people I have heard over the years say the aren’t ready to give their lives to Jesus because their hearts were not right and they had too much in their life to be ashamed of.

They had done too many things wrong in their life.

And you know what is the craziest thing about that?

These type of people above all others have a true idea of who they really are - they are dirty and in dire need of a savior, but then they kind of get it wrong because while they see how dirty they are, and they understand how great Jesus is, what they fell to realize is they cannot clean their lives up on their own.

They can ONLY do it with Jesus.

But let this comfort you, because this shows you the lengths that Jesus will go to find you.

He will pursue you.

He stands at your door and knocks.

This shows you he will keep coming after your heart, because I think if we are being honest, we never find Jesus, he wasn’t lost, we just allow him to pluck us out o the depths of the sin that we are in, and he keeps knocking.

He keeps hitting your heart… he keeps making you realize you need him… and the enemy keeps arguing back that you don’t some of you are having that argument right now.. and he is knocking and trying to get your heart to turn....

I love this too because it shows that Jesus will travel to any place to find you.

What you need to remember… Galilee… far from Jerusalem… This is what people would talk about, they dont get the law right, they dont have a true understanding of what is going on./ they cant possible have the law right… they’re a little dumb… this is like how people have talked about me when I lived up north.., my accent kind of point them to thinking I was dumb… so what you see here is that Jesus is traveling a long distance to enlist a follower to come after him that most people would have never chosen....

He would have b een to stupid for this job, but that means Jesus will meet us anywhere.

If you find yourself far away lost in your sin, Jesus will come after you.... sometimes he comes after you in a memory....

You may remember your grandmother taking you to church… sometimes he comes after you in a person… they will invite you they will remind you of your need… they will enlighten you and tell you your need of him… sometimes from someone speaking to you from a pulpit telling you that your only hope is in him,

He will also come after any person no matter how shameful or guilty… this is hard for us and our idea of Justice… we can jump quickly to murderers on death row and judge them and think they cant REALLY be coming to Jesus, but thats the extreme case, the other case are those people in the room who just feel guilty for the things they have done… i don’t think people realize how deep people hide the secrets in their lives and the things they have done and need help with, but there are people in this room that feel guilty and if thats you I want to tell you something… 1 You need to find Jesus… you need to give your entire life to him and make him the king and lord of your life.... and allow him to take that from you/. 2 if you are a Christian you need to realize if you have sought forgiveness forgiveness is yours and he has given it to you and it is time for you to forgive yourself.

Jesus is going to go after every person… it is his wish that all will turn to God, and he wants everyone to turn to him.

There are many different ways that people can come to making a decision to give their life to Jesus… it can come from another person, a thought, a stirring of the conscience, a memory a writing, or even through seeing nature.

Look at Rom 1:20

The deep thought in relation to all of that is when we feel Christ seeking, when we feel him knocking we have to answer… and for some of you that moment is going to come in a few moments at the end of this sermon, you will begin to feel Jesus knocking at the door of your heart… and you are going to have to answer… because the longer that we put of the decision the less we are able to sense that knocking…tinnitus it eventually will leave us completely, and we can hope it comes back later, but there is nothing to guarantee that.

And I pray that when that moment comes for you you are able to turn to him and not fall victim to the words of Proverbs 29:1

TinnitusDon’t allow this to be you.

2. We, like Jesus should be willing to go any distance to reach people.

WE should be willing to go any distance.

Any distance.

Let me read a couple verse to you.

And lets get down to it, we hear this and our first thought is you thinking I am talking about physical distance… so you obviously begin to think I am talking about lets go on a missions trip, and I think that is highly important, I cant tell you the number of lives I have seen completely changed by taking on a missions trip to haiti.... talk for a moment....

But get this… this is going to wreck you… are you willing to go the distance of reaching the people you disagree with?

IF you find yourself on the right, are you willing to go to someone on the left?

Are you willing to share with the unvaccinated or vacninated? and for most of us we will easily say yes, but willingness is shown with action and not words.

And you know that… Your kids may be willing to take out the trash, but they cant prove that until they actually do it… are you willing to go ?

THen you should be going.

BY going to Philip Jesus is fulfilling his mission Jesus whole mission was to come to see and save the lost.

and more

and

And what is the mission of every Christian?

The same as the mission of the church!

This is why you are here and when you go and share, you are completely and fulfilling the mission of Jesus in your life.

And we see here that Philip was from Bethsaida the same as Andrew and Peter and he would have longed just as well to be delivered… he would have ached to see the messiah and we can see that in verse 45.... WE HAVE FOUND HIM!!

And after meeting Andrew and Peter who knew about Philip and his longing to seee and know the Messiah, Jesus naturally wanted to go get him.

Verse 45 shows us again what happens when we come to know the King of Kings and Lord of Lords… We need to witness.

Following the example of Jesus coming to him Philip goes and finds his friend Nathanael.

Jesus had challenged him to follow him, and he realized that following him meant he had to do what he did, and he did just that… he found a friend to share with.

Remember, church, following means in all the ways.

Not just in word, but in deed.

We cannot HELP but speak of what we have seen and heard.

And look at the message he shares to his friend, I think there are 4 points to what he shared.

1.

And again you can almost feel the joy in his voice....

We have found him!

Which will line up with what he hear later in Jn 15:11

2. Hes telling him, that the scripture is the recorded plan… look this is the one written about… its showing us his word is written so we can know what we are to do with these lives.

Jn 5:39

3. IT shows Philip and Nathanael both knew the scripture… Which is something we fight against more and more today.

4.

He is identifying him as the MEssiah in Scripture, telling him that prophesy was fulfilled