Transcription
Glad to be back with you all here at Fitchville. I missed you guys the other week. Unfortunately, we got snowed up a little more in Northern Connecticut than I think you guys did down here. So hopefully you guys fared well, but we got slammed at 7. So I'm glad to be here with you again this morning. Uh, if you remember, I mentioned that since you guys, for some strange reason, continue to invite me back, uh, we'll be doing a sermon series whenever I'm here, going called "The 12," where we're going to be studying the lives of the 12 apostles. So, uh, turn with me to the Book of John, chapter 1, and this week we're going to be learning about Peter's brother, Andrew.
Now, a lot of the disciples kind of fall in and out of the limelight. We know there's the big three: Peter, James, and John. They tend to get a lot of, um, scripture airtime. And a lot of the other disciples we very rarely see. And you can imagine being the brother of Peter must have been kind of an almost intimidating thing. Like you can imagine the brothers of Jesus had a hard time being the brothers to Jesus. Imagine being the brother of Peter, especially when you, uh, while in the same fishing boat as him, doing all the, the, the, the jobs, and then all of a sudden now he's the leader of the beginning movement of God's Church. The way and how amazing and crazy that must have been. Um, but we don't see a lot of Andrew, and a lot of times he can fall into the shadow of his brother. But we're going to read today the stories that the gospel shows of Andrew and learn from his life how we can be disciples today as well. So John, chapter 1, is where we're going to find Andrew.
Now I know last time I was here we read the story of Peter—not all of them, because Peter takes a lot of the Bible, and we could have a sermon series just on Peter—but when we read the calling of the disciples, there's that very popular scripture out of Matthew where Jesus is walking by the water and he sees the brothers and he says, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." We love that scripture, and that's where we tend to think is the beginning of the relationship between Jesus and these brother fishermen. But actually, we're going to find that Andrew actually is the first brother called to the mission, and he tends to kind of just take a backseat to his very loud brother. Um, John was, uh, we find it in the Gospel of John. John, like I said, in the calling of the early disciples, we know had some kind of relationship with Peter and Andrew. They're from the same town; they probably worked together, being fishermen in the same community. So compared to the other gospels where we see less of Andrew, I think there's a special place in this gospel for a little bit more of that limelight being shed on Andrew because this is a first-person account of the Gospel compared to, say, Mark and Luke, who were secondhand accounts from firsthand witnesses. So there's a little more personal detail here, I think, about Andrew. So we know this much about Andrew: he's a brother of Peter; he was a fisherman by trade. But Andrew, ironically, was one of the most qualified disciples to follow the Messiah.
Now, all these other men who were called, we don't know too much of their backgrounds. We know some of them were fishermen; some were tax collectors, which, if you know anything of back in the day, to be a Jewish tax collector was basically the social faux pas. You were hated by your entire class because you, um, willingly helped the Romans tax your people. So you were scum to the Romans and scum to the Jews. Um, there was a zealot, who, we knew, was a religious, um, extremist group, but we don't know a lot of everyone's backgrounds. So we know for certain, though, most of the 12 were not traditionally trained Jewish rabbis. These were not the cream of the crop that the other Pharisees and Sadducees were waiting to train and to bring into the fold. These were just, you know, who had some training in their faith because they were in the Jewish community, but they weren't rabbis. And ironically, Andrew the fisherman has more qualifications overall that we know because he—first, we see him in the scene in John, chapter 1; we're going to be in verses 35-42—when we meet Andrew, we find out that he was actually a disciple of John the Baptizer. So let's read the story first. This is the first point we're going to look into. John 1:35-42: "The next day John was standing with two of his disciples when he saw Jesus passing by. He said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God.’ The two disciples heard him say this and followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, ‘What are you looking for?’ And they said, ‘Rabbi’—which means ‘Teacher’—‘where are you staying?’ ‘Come and you will see,’ he replied. So they went and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him. He first found his own brother Simon and told him, ‘We have found the Messiah’—which is translated ‘the Christ.’ And he brought Simon to Jesus. When Jesus saw him, he said, ‘You are Simon son of John; you shall be called Cephas’—which translates to ‘Peter.’"
So, like I said, of all the 12 disciples, we have a very limited background knowledge of most of them, but for the most part, we knew they weren't classically trained, cream-of-the-crop rabbis, critical students, anything like that. Andrew, the guy who we see very little of in the Bible, who was always kind of overshadowed by his brother—the big preacher, the guy who walks on water, the guy who writes his own epistles in the, in the Bible—Andrew, who we barely see any time in the scripture, actually one of the first people to follow Jesus. Now, depending on the timeline of where that whole story of, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men," happened, which probably came a little after, very shortly after, but Andrew ironically is like the first disciple, and we kind of forget about him and kind of get overlapped by his brother Peter. But here he sees that he is a follower of John the Baptizer, that he's already been studying at the feet of the one who's preparing the way for the King, and then just like a good student, when he says, "Hey, I'm here to prepare the way for another," here he is like a good student; he turned right around and he followed him. He didn't say, "Well, I'm being faithful to John the Baptizer; I'm going to stay with you." Second, he heard, "Hey, the guy who I said is coming is here," he went right and followed him like a good student, and he goes and he follows him.
Now, here's the thing we're going to learn about this morning. If I had to summarize this morning's sermon in a sentence, it's going to come down to three words: "Come and see." Peter was this big, bold guy, loud, thought for, uh, did first, thought later. We see a lot of him through the scriptures of doing these crazy things, both for the Lord and kind of against the Lord, and all in between. But Andrew, we rarely see, and even though we see Peter as this loud personality compared to Andrew, we see a soft personality. But what I want to talk about this morning, comparing and looking from the life of Andrew, is that Andrew, even though he wasn't as loud and as outspoken as his brother, the ministry that he did was as amazing as his brother's. See, Peter was a guy who went out and said and preached, and he, he got in people's faces, and he, he performed miracles, and he was, he was loud, and he, like I said, did first, thought later. But Andrew, he is this guy who is an inviter. We are going to see through the three stories we read about Andrew is that Andrew, even though we, we don't know about as much of him as we do Peter, the things he did for the Lord in his ministry with him on Earth was amazing, even though he was quieter and outspoken, he was this inviter and introducer of people to Jesus. The very first thing he does right off the bat is he goes and he finds his brother and he invites him to come and meet the Messiah. "Hey, we, we have found the Messiah," and he invites him to come and meet Jesus.
See, a lot of us think—and this is going to be our first point for this morning—is that when we hear that the Bible tells us to share our faith, that we are all called to, to have a give a hope for the reason that is within us, that we are all called in season and out of season to preach the good news, that when we're all called to do the work of an evangelist, we get a little intimidated because when we think evangelist, our brains go to Billy Graham; our brains go to knocking door to door and handing out tracts; our minds go to street people on the street and standing on soap boxes; and and that's what evangelism means. But that is only one type of evangelism. Evangelism is sharing your faith. In as many Christians as there are in this world, is there's many types of evangelists. See, when I went to Bible College years and years ago—seemed like five minutes ago, I swear—but now it's been over a decade or so—but when we had Bible College, every season of the year we had a focus ministry. Winter and summer were always for camps because that's what the college did; it would become a camp in the winter and the summer. So all of the students would focus somehow on camps, whether it's counselors or cooks or whatever. Uh, but for the fall, everyone had the same ministry as the be as freshman students in Bible College is that we would all be focusing on open-air evangelism. So their practical idea for this was to hike a bus full of college students onto a bus, drive down to New York City, pop us in an inner-city church to sleep for the night on the floor somewhere, and then spend the two days that weekend going and sharing the gospel on the streets of New York. I am from Quiet Corner Connecticut, where there are more trees than people, and I don't like it when there's more than two cars on my road. I barely have been out of Connecticut and out of New England, and now they've shipped me down to, uh, downtown New York, New York—not even some back quiet street of New York, but the first night we go to Times Square, and we go—it's like, "Here's some tracts. You are fresh, bright, bushy-tailed Bible college students; you just had evangelism class; go share your faith." Terrifying! The world's worst thing as an introvert who didn't know yet he was called to be a pastor—that was like, "God, why? Why are we doing this? Someone else—I'm going to—we got to outsource this; this—you found the wrong person to do this." And not only was it me in New York, New York, it was Halloween night of New York, New York, in Times Square. So you can imagine all the colorful and interesting people we met that day. I spent about an hour talking with one of my classmates with a person who I thought was in a vampire costume, who found out they actually just do that all year round, just always have their teeth filed to points and have white eyes. I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting. Um, cool. And, um…" But that is an outside of my comfort zone kind of evangelism. But we can get kind of in a mentality, in a, in a box that thinks, "Hey, if you're an evangelist, that's what evangelism is: you go and you, you knock door to door like the JWs, and you hand out tracts, or you go and you stand on street corners, and you, you stand on your soapbox, or you, you're Billy Graham, and—and that's what we think evangelism is. But evangelism is any way you share your faith. You don't have to be a Peter or a Billy Graham or an awkward Pastor Nick, uh, 19 years old on the street corners of New York City handing out tracts. You can be an inviter like Andrew. We don't see Andrew preach; we, we know he probably did because he sent the 12 out to go to the cities and, and to preach the good news, to perform miracles. So we know at some point he, he definitely preached the gospel somewhere, but we never see it recorded. But what we do see him do is come to the people he knew and invite them to Jesus. He was an inviter. "Come and see" is just as valid as going and telling. Now he brought him to the evidence. So what we're going to see here, the first point is that he invites him to find—Andrew invites his brother to come and see. "We found the Messiah." He doesn't give him a list of reasons why he is the Messiah; he doesn't have any miracles yet to back up; he, he doesn't know his genealogy yet to back up that he is from the line of David; he doesn't have anything. All he says is, "John the Baptizer said this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. I followed him; this is the Messiah. I, I saw him baptized; I saw the, the angel, the, the spirit of the Lord come down as a dove; I, I heard God say this is my son; this is the Messiah." That's all he had was his experience and the word of his master, and he went, but he didn't bring that evidence to Peter. He said, "Come and see. Come and find. We found the Messiah." So whether you feel comfortable as a preacher, as a teller, great. As you feel, "Hey, I, I'm just me. How can I evangelize? How can I share my faith?" Inviting people—"Come and see"—come and see the evidence is just as valid. That might look a thousand different ways for you. You might be the person who's like, "Hey, I read this amazing book; you should read it," and it's a gospel Christian book, a Christian fantasy book that has the gospel embedded in it. "Hey, you know, I see that you guys are having, you know, a hard time raising with your kid; they're just doing something that really struggling. We went through the same thing. I read this book; it was really helpful, and it's got some gospel points in it." You might be a sharer like that. You might be, "Hey, uh, me and the girlfriends from church are going—we're going to go out to lunch; we would love you to come and just have a chance to invite someone to be into that community around near people who love the Lord," and that is okay. Every form of evangelism is as good as long as you are sharing, sharing your faith, as long as you're saying, "Come and see," or you're going and telling, it's fine. But we got to share our faith. But we see from Andrew that he invites him to come and see the evidence that this is the Messiah, that he invites him in to his presence to learn about the Lord. And, um, honestly, the church wouldn't be what it is today if they didn't start with a brother going to his other brother and saying, "Hey, come and see." The church we are sitting here today, the church we know wouldn't be because what Jesus then used Peter to do—this is the rock I build my church on—the one he would use to be the leader of the new church—all of that that flows out from that was from a brotherly encounter saying, "Come and see what we found." So we got a first—see, we invite people to come and find; we bring them to the places, uh, they can see gospel evidence. They might be inviting them to church, may inviting them out to breakfast or lunch or sharing a book or a movie with them, you know, it's all of it is good. We don't have to stand on soapboxes to be evangelists. You don't have to be Billy Graham to be an evangelist; you can be you and still be an evangelist. We see that in the life of Andrew.
The next story we're going to see out of him is again in the Book of John, a couple chapters down in chapter 6, chapter 6, verses 1-15. Now, this is wouldn't be a place you'd think you would see Andrew, but we see him again here as, um, this is one of a very famous story; we all know it is Jesus feeding the 5,000. And now even—it's even more so than the 5,000 because you got to imagine this is the 5,000 men, and they, they mostly hypothesize that they counted the men, but that's not even including the women and the children. There was probably thousands even more so here at this miracle. There were so many people, and we all know how the story goes that there's this little boy who comes and brings his lunch, and Jesus multiplies the lunch and feeds all these thousands of people, and we love the Sunday school story, the Sunday school version of that story, but I don't think we sit down and boil down how crazy that actual encounter is. Imagine going to the Yukon women's hockey game or something, and hundreds and thousands of people are out watching this game, and all of a sudden say, "Hey, let's go feed everybody lunch," and you have nothing to feed them. And that's ridiculous. And someone says, "Well, I have two Filet-O-Fish from McDonald's; maybe we could split these up somehow." Seems like a ridiculous notion, and why would you even bring it up, Timmy? That's not helpful; like we're trying to figure—we're kind of trying to problem-solve here, and you're bringing me two fish Filet sandwiches. But that's kind of what happened is the disciples are told by Jesus, and it says here in the account here, we'll read it in, uh, 1 through 15, uh, chapter 6: "After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee. A huge crowd was following him because they saw the signs he was performing by healing the sick. Jesus went up on a mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, a Jewish festival, was near. So when Jesus looked up and noticed a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread so that these people can eat?’ He asked this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered, ‘Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to have even a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here with five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?’" And then we know the rest of the story. Jesus goes, and he multiplies it, and there's an abundance, and everyone has their fill. But look at this quick interaction. And Jesus sets it all up because he knows what he's going to do, and he wants—he wants to test his disciples. Philip brings what they have, you know, he brings the problem-solving skills to the table; he brings his lack, though, that we, we would need 200 denarii to feed everyone even a mouthful. How, how, how are we going to figure that out? We're going to figure out how we can have 200 denarii just for everyone to have a, a snack. But Andrew, he—once again, he's inviting—he introduces Jesus to the little boy. And even though he has only this much, he brings what he has to Jesus. He invites him, and he says, "I don't know what this is going to do, but this is what I have." Philip brought his lack and his ability; Andrew brought his all and put it in Christ's ability. He invited the little boy in to have this moment of faith. He knew he couldn't do anything; he knew he had nothing great to give. Like, "I, I have this little boy here with his back lunch; this is what I have to give you, Lord, but I don't know what it's going to do." Philip—we, we would need to do this; we would need to have that, but we, we don't have this. Philip brought his lack and his ability to the Lord; Andrew brought all he had, related at Christ, and here—that's the difference. So many of us when we fit into situations where we try and problem-solve our way out of it, where we try to figure out, "What do I have to bring to the table? What could I do? How could I figure this out?" And we don't come to the Lord with our lack, and that's huge. That's the last time you—I was here; you might remember I was telling the story of Peter when he walks on water, and we think, you know, that give the illustration, you know, he stepped out of the boat on faith, and so many of us think now that we've stepped on the boat, I have to continue to walk on water by my ability, and we can't do it. Every step of that walk on water was by faith in God, through the power of God alone. And so here in this story, we could bring to Christ our best problem-solving skills, our best of our abilities and our, and our best-laid plans, but Christ wants us to bring what we have and lay it at his feet. He wants us to invite our—to be invited into faith and faith moments. 'Cause we can't do it by ourselves; we can't—we don't have the power to do it; we were never meant to do it; we were meant to come to Christ and lay what we had at his feet and have that invitation of, "Let's have a moment of faith." He brought that little boy in his moment of faith, what he had, and he laid it at his feet, and we are being called to do the same. We, we could bring our best and our best-laid plans and try and smart our way into situations, you know, "How, how are we going to do that?" There's so many churches around the world who are in struggling moments who like, "How are we going to keep the doors open? You know, we'll be—have more community, uh, applicable message; we'll be more affirming; you know what, we, we will be more financially frugal; we will—we'll do this and we'll do that; we'll do fundraisers and these things," but they won't lay their faith down at the cross and say, "God, this is your church; this is your building; this is your service." They, they bring their best-laid plans when Christ just wants them to bring their faith, then lay it down at him and let him do something amazing with him. So many of us have been in those situations where we are trying to figure our way out, use the best of our skills, best of our knowledge, best of our resources, but when you're standing at the impossible, you have to turn to God, invite that moment of faith in because we can't do it, but we—God—all things are possible. So this miracle wouldn't have happened if Andrew didn't invite a little boy and introduce him to Jesus. There was that moment of invitation. He could have shooed him away, saying, "Hey, dude, we have real problems here, kid. Your five pieces of bread and two fishes aren't going to fix—and like, go—go play out there; let the grown-ups handle it." He could have brushed him off; he could have went with the other disciples, say, "Yeah, our 200 denarii—let's take up a collection, or let's go and find, uh, someone who will donate to the cause of the ministry," like they could have problem-solved like that. That's not the story. He invites a little boy in his faith to Jesus and watches Jesus do wonders. Not saying there's not such a good thing as being steward of and using earthly wisdom, but don't try and out-do a miracle when God wants you to lay it down in faith. So invite that faith in, just as Andrew did with this little boy and his five loaves and two fishes.
The next story where we see Andrew is still down in the Book of John; flip over to chapter 12 with me, 12:20-36. Now, this is one of the last places we see Andrew have a standalone, um, event. You know, like I said, he gets overshadowed a lot by his brother. So the fact that we have these three little stories where Andrew kind of plays a key figure, um, is pretty crucial. But we here in verse, uh, 12:20 through 36: "Now some Greeks were among those who went up to worship at the festival. So they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, ‘Sir, we want to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus replied to them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces much grain. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.’" Once again, we see Andrew the inviter. He first invited, invited, uh, Peter to meet Jesus; then he invites this little boy with his loaves and fishes to meet Jesus; now he's inviting this group of Gentiles to come and meet Jesus. They want to—they want to see this prophet who everyone's talking about; they want to be introduced to Jesus. And Jesus, upon this introduction, tells them this: that those who want to gain their life must lose it; that a seed, when it's planted, must die first for there then it to grow. See, as Je—as the first interaction, we saw Andrew was inviting them to find Jesus, and then with the second interaction, we see Andrew was inviting them to have faith in Jesus, but now he's saying he's inviting him to follow Jesus. See, this interaction between the Greeks and Jesus is that Jesus tells them, "You want to come and find me? You want to follow me? Then you have to be all in. The seed cannot be planted and then keep being a seed; it has to—it has to die for there to be growth. But when it dies, there is growth. If you want to find new life in me, you must lose your life in this world, world to gain your new life, and the next—you can't be half in and out, half out." Like I said many times since I've been here, there are no such thing as part-time Christians. You can't live—you can't live your faith on the sidelines; you can't just observe your faith; you have to participate in it. And this is what Jesus is telling these people are coming and want to introduce themselves to him is, "Hey, you want to come and meet me? You got to be all in. You got to follow. You can't just be half in and half out, one foot in each camp. You follow me; you give your life for me as I'm giving my life for you." We have this invitation into Christ. So many of us and the gospel at the belief at finding Christ say, "I know that he is the Messiah; I know that he died for our sins; I know that I need him and that I need to accept him as my Lord and Savior into my life," and there—now we have a relation—now we have the ticket to Heaven, and there—boom—now I'm—now I'm golden. But Christ is calling us to follow him—not just to find him, not just to have a ticket to Heaven, not just that we would put our belief in him, but that we would give him our whole lives, every aspect of it. At one point in the, the Scriptures, it says, "Good—the, the demons even believe, and they shudder because it is more than just believing; it is more than just having a list of ideology; it is serving with your whole heart, following him with all you have, being all in." As we look at the lives of these 12 Apostles, we are never going to find wishy-washy, part-time Apostles. Peter didn't go back and fish on the weekends as a part-time fisherman.
Matthew didn't keep his his job as a tax collector. And then, when he had some time off, go on mission trips or go back to synagogue. They were all in, fully dedicated, no matter the cost. Now I'm not saying that you know you have to completely sell all your possessions and give up your job and go and and live on alms or something like that. You know, God calls each person to different things, but he calls us to be all in. Whether you are Allin as the best accountant for Jesus there has ever been, or whether you're Allin on the mission field in Papa New Guinea, whatever your Allin is for Jesus, be all in.
Like I said when I told you a couple times ago when I first uh started coming here, I gave my my testimony. And that thing that stirred in my gut as a young man was living for Christ only on Sundays. And then the second we leave the parking lot, living the rest of the week like Christ isn't alive, like the word of God is not the living breathing word of God, and going back to our weeks and living like it doesn't matter. And that stirred in my stomach, and I couldn't Liv like that anymore. And I pray that is the same stirring in each and every one of your hearts, in every one of our hearts, that we would follow Christ with our all, that we would be like that seed, all in, ready to give our lives for him, that we might have new life in him. Because Christ died for so much more than Sunday morning. I've said that many times, and I'll continue to say it because I pray that it stir a fire in your guts. Christ died for you, to use you, to live in and through you, and you to live in and through him.
So when we see this invitation and this conversation with Andrew and the Greeks, this is what Jesus is Calling the people who follow him too—to give their lives completely over to him, every step of the way. Like I said a couple times ago, you know, everything can become holy in God's hands. You know, everything can be part of the mission of your life and living for Jesus. Whether it's having a cup of coffee in the morning, whether it's going to the post office, whether it's listening to the radio, no matter what it is, lay it at the foot of the cross and give it holy importance. Because God wants you to live your whole life right with him, not just the Sunday morning routine, not just when we remember him, because he always remembers us, he always wants for us, he wants us to want always with him.
So I said this morning that the word that I would want you to remember is come and see. Andrew was an inviter. He didn't really intend intend for all of these encounters to happen when he did it, but every situation he came to, he invited someone to come and see Jesus. Come and see. We found the Messiah. Come and see what Jesus can do with your with your faith. Come and see and follow him with your all. Come and sing. Now, like I said, as many of there as there is you, there will be as many of evangelists, there will be as many types of gifts and Ministries, but God has called you, like he used Andrew, to come and to see, to be invited into his pres invited into his presence, and to invite others into his presence. I pray that we would find him, have faith in him, and follow him each and every step of our days, because God has so much planned for you, church. I'm amazed and excited to see the Miracles that flow through your lives and the lives of this church in here in Connecticut. Let's pray.
Heavenly god father, I just thank you for this day, and I thank you for your name. And I pray Lord that we would learn from the life of Andrew, that we would live this comeing SE, that we would be inviters as he was. Lord, that we would invite people to know you, invite ourselves to have faith in you, invite ourselves to follow you with all of who we are. I pray Lord that we would not stand on the sidelines, but that we would live our lives wholly and fully unto you. Thank you Lord for all of who you are, and that's in your son's name I pray, amen.