“Come and See” – John 1

Let me ask you a question. If I stood up here this morning and told you that I didn’t have time this week to work on a sermon, what would you say? If I told you that I was too busy cleaning the church and mowing the lawn and doing paperwork to actually spend any time in prayer and research to develop a message to deliver, what would be your response?

I think I know how you would respond. I think you would probably be forgiving and loving and overlook it as we all gave testimonies or sang some extra songs and we would still have a good and worshipful time.

But what if it happened again next week…and the next? Then how would you respond? Let me assure you that is not the case and some of you may be disappointed to learn that I did prepare a message for today.

Now, what about this scenario? If you went to work tomorrow at the widget factory where you work and you got there early and you had a good attitude and you were all prepared to work with a clean and sharp work space, all the tools you need were in order and ready to go and at the end of the day, your boss asked you how many widgets you made. “Well, sir, I didn’t actually make any widgets today but I got here early and look how clean my tools are. I’m ready to make some widgets now!”

What if you went to school tomorrow and the teacher asked for your homework that was due? You tell the teacher you didn’t actually do the homework but your desk is straight and your number 2 pencil is sharpened and you have a fresh sheet of paper to make notes on. What is she going to say?

How about if you are a soldier deployed to the front lines but you never engage the enemy because you are too busy cleaning your weapon and practicing your marching? What do you think the sergeant is going to say?

Do you know what would be worse than having to answer to an angry sergeant? Having to answer to Jesus when He asks how many disciples you made. “Well, Lord, I never really made any disciples, per se, but I invited several folks to church. I tithed 10% of my check every week. I prayed every day. I even mentioned your name to several, well, a couple of, ok, one person, sort of…that one time...”

Yes, I think I would rather have a sergeant scream at me than to have to be in that situation. Because making disciples is your homework. It is your job. It is your mission. It is the one thing Jesus told His disciples to do. Go make more disciples. Okay, let’s review. What is a disciple? A disciple is simply one that has learned from Jesus and then tells somebody else what they have learned. It involves continuing the mission of Jesus and becoming more like Him in the process. It’s not complicated…but it’s not necessarily easy either.

The good news is that we have a model to go by. We are going to see that – believe it or not – Jesus is the best model for making disciples. He had a plan and He worked the plan and He developed men who had no background in spiritual things into disciples who looked and acted like He did and He wants us to do the same thing using the same method.

It’s not a program. It’s not one more thing to add to our busy schedules. It’s not about following a curriculum or reading a book. It goes right along with what we are already doing. Turn to Matthew 28:19 and let’s read the command of Jesus. At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has risen from the grave after three days of death. He has shown Himself to lots of people and told the original 11 disciples to go to Galilee and He will meet them there.

It is there that He gives them and us one last word; one last command; one last bit of encouragement. He has poured out His life for them and into them and taught them everything they need to know to carry on His mission. Now He gives them one last and greatest commission. Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

I heard the story of a mother who sent her two little boys outside to play and she watched them and could hear them from her kitchen window. She watched them start to dig a big hole in the yard and listened as some other boys came over as her boys were digging. She heard her boys say something about digging a hole to China and the other boys made fun of them, saying that was impossible.

But one of her boys picked up a mason jar full of bugs, ants and worms and excitedly said, “Well, it may be impossible but look at what we have already found along the way!”

The Great Commission of Jesus may seem impossible for us but in being obedient to what God has called us to do and gifted us to do and entrusted us to do, we will find lots of wonderful people along the way. Most of you know that when this verse says to go and make disciples of all nations, a better translation may be “make disciples as you are going.” It means that as you are going to the store, to work, school, on vacation, and even to church, make disciples as you go.

But how do we do that? That’s a great question. And what better model than Jesus to answer that question? I want you to see that Jesus used four steps in His disciple-making. When Jesus told His future disciples, “Follow Me”, that includes us following Him in discipleship. That 11 men carried on the mission of Jesus to their deaths with a passion for making other disciples was no accident. He didn’t just introduce Himself and hope they would stick around and hopefully, maybe pick up on some of what He believed. He was intentional about it and we should be too.

His first step was to just to engage the curious. Look at John chapter one with me for a minute. In John 1, John the Baptist is baptizing people out in the middle of nowhere. He is preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was coming and they should be asking God for the forgiveness of their sins. Then, right in the middle of his sermon, John is distracted by someone. Let’s pick it up in John 1:35-39.

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" 37When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means "Teacher"), "where are you staying?" 39"Come," he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

“Come and you will see.” And who did Jesus say this to? He said it to two men who had decided to follow Him already. You can’t make disciples out of people who don’t want to be discipled. Discipleship is for believers; believers that want more than to just walk the aisle and pray a prayer.

Some of us got into a great discussion the other night – it happens a lot on Sunday nights - about the word “disciple.” It sounds so churchy, doesn’t it? We discussed using several other words instead like “mentor” or “teacher” that don’t sound so churchy and I have no problem using those if you are talking to unchurched people but when we talk about discipleship, we are usually talking to churchy folks.

We don’t talk to non-believers about “evangelism”. We just evangelize them. We don’t say, “Hello. I’m Todd and I’m here to evangelize you.” No, we say, “Hey, let me tell you about what Jesus has done for me.” It’s the same with disciple-making. We don’t talk to non-believers much about discipleship because they aren’t ready. It might come up, but we don’t have to use that word with them. They aren’t to that point yet and that’s okay. When they say they want to be a follower of Jesus, then we tell them, “Come and see.”

Come and see who Jesus is and what He is really about. Come and see what is going to happen as your life changes. Come and see the incredible glory of the scriptures and what they mean for you. If you are curious and if you want to know more, come and see. But we have to engage them. They don’t know that they need to be discipled any more than a baby knows he needs to learn to walk and talk.

If you left a baby alone, it would never learn those things because it would never know it could or should. It is our job to engage the new believer (the baby Christian) and encourage them to become more mature in the way of Jesus.

Can you imagine what life was like for those disciples the first few days they were with Jesus? Talk about drinking from a fire hose! Jesus said, “Come and see” and boy, the things they saw! They saw Him just in the next few days turn water into wine, run the money-changers out of the temple, speak amazing wisdom and truth to Nicodemus the Pharisee and then utter what would become the world’s most popular verse, John 3:16, that says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Don’t you know the new disciples just followed Jesus around with their jaws open? What is He going to say next? What is He going to do next? It had to be scary and fascinating at the same time. And do you know what? Nothing much has changed. Has it? Jesus and His message and mission is still scary and fascinating, especially to new believers.

That’s what makes discipleship so necessary but also what makes it a hands-on process.  If left to themselves, a lot of new believers will read scripture and not understand it or be scared to death by what they read. I met a guy in jail the other day who was covered in tattoos. His first question to me after starting to read his new Bible was, “Is it really a sin to get a tattoo?” He looked horrified. He probably thought he was never going to make it to Heaven with all his ink.

But we talked about how other scriptures teach that our bodies are temples and we should have respect for them but we are not under the Law any more like when that was written. And there are a lot of folks here this morning that are grateful for that! But this guy needs to be discipled. Without it, he won’t understand. He won’t know the truth and will fall away from the faith.

The first step in discipleship is to engage people who are curious and come along beside them saying, “Come with me and see Jesus. I will help you. I may not understand everything. Who does? But I know some things and I will walk with you as we both learn more. I don’t have all the answers but I know some other disciples that can help us too. So, come and see.”

Do you know what happens when you say that? If the person agrees to come and see, it won’t take long before they tell somebody else those same words. Look at John 1:45 and 46. It says, “Philip found Nathanael and told him, "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." 46"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.  And look at the words Phillip uses. "Come and see," said Philip.

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when we looked at the story of the woman at the well that Jesus talked to? When He revealed to her that He was the Messiah, the first thing she did was run back into town hollering, “Come and see! Come and see the Man who told me everything I had ever done!”

I tell people all the time that it’s worth coming to Christ Fellowship just for the view. When the sun goes down over the lake, it can be just gorgeous. If I see a beautiful sunset, the first thing I do is tell somebody else. “Hey, Lois! Come and see the sunset.” And do you know what she says when she sees it? She says, “Todd, sit down and quit interrupting Bible study!” No. She invites everybody else to come see the sunset. Come and see.

This may come as a shock to some of you but I believe that the average church today is full of mules. Mules work really hard. They pull heavy loads. They don’t complain much…but they don’t reproduce. That’s what disciples do. A true disciple WILL reproduce and make other disciples. The church today has often put church membership and church growth ahead of discipleship, but do you remember what Jesus said? Did He say, “As you go, make church members? As you go, get people to walk the aisle and pray a prayer? As you go, convince people to tithe?” No.

As you go, make disciples. Jesus said He was responsible for building the church. But do you know what happens when we follow Jesus’ model of discipleship? The church starts to grow. It starts to grow in numbers and in maturity. That’s invaluable. I’ve heard it said that the local church is the hope of the world. Well, if you want to be a superhero and save the world, you have to work at it and the first step is to engage the curious people around us.

Let me close with one more scripture from 1 Thessalonians 2:8. Here, Paul says, “Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” That is why we disciple people and what discipleship looks like, all in one. We love other people so we want them to have what we have and therefore we pour our lives into them, one or two at a time. It’s hard work. It takes time and sometimes it’s hard.

Years ago in high school football practice, I remember seeing one of the coaches grab Jimmy Bowman’s facemask and scream at him that he better grow up! Jimmy was about 6’3”, 250 pounds in high school and I remember thinking if he grew up any more we wouldn’t have a uniform for him and that coach was about my height so it made a memorable scene. Have you ever wanted to just grab somebody and tell them to grow up?

Sure, you have. But do you know whose responsibility it is for that person to grow up? Actually, it is ultimately theirs. They have to be willing to change and grow but when they show an interest in growing spiritually, then it becomes our responsibility to help them by just coming along beside them and encouraging them to come and see Jesus as we go through life together.

If you have never started your relationship with Jesus, then don’t expect to grow spiritually. But when you turn away from your sin and ask God to forgive that sin and to come into your life to be Lord and Savior, then things will start to become clear. It is a lifelong journey so don’t expect to understand everything right away. None of us do. But we learn to have peace and joy even in the difficult times of this life and we start to grasp the glory of Heaven that is promised to us in the next life.

Does that sound like something you would be interested in? I invite you right now to come and see Jesus. Then we will learn more about Him together. Do it right now as the music plays.