Transcription

Chris
So you snap one, snap twice, then hit it. See? Look. I just taught you something. Wow. Thank you. You were my disciple.

Jeff
There we go. I was.

Chris
And that’s what we’re talking about today. Jesus choosing his first disciples. Oh.

Jeff
That’s sweet. So he’s Chris, and I’m Jeff, and I’m his disciple. We’re the Bible guys. And now I have a new skill. If the ministry doesn’t work out for me, maybe I can figure out how to apply that somewhere.

Chris
Yeah, well, you need to keep that in the back pocket. So we’re going to do a thing, a segment called this or that, which is really. Oh yeah. Yeah. Which one would you rather do. Rather. Yeah. All right. Now last time I did this I regretted some of my answers okay. So I’m going to don’t.

Jeff
Live don’t live a life of regret.

Chris
I’m going to make sure to think about this, okay? Okay. Yeah.

Jeff
I don’t want you to regret because.

Chris
Yeah. Okay. So here it goes. Here’s the first one. Would you rather be the fix it person or be everyone’s shoulder to cry on?

Jeff
Fix it person?

Chris
T because. Because the thought of being everyone’s shoulder is so repelling to you.

Jeff
I just like fixing problems.

Chris
Okay? That’s a good answer.

Jeff
If it’s fixed, you don’t have to cry anymore.

Chris
So there you go. Yeah. Um, so I think that both are true for me. Yeah. I don’t want to be the shoulder. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that. It’s just that I only care about people that I really love. Yeah.

Jeff
Well, I have a predisposition to fix things. So sometimes Bonnie comes in and she’s. Just need somebody to talk to or to vent with. She doesn’t need me to fix it. So there’s times where she’ll come and say, listen, I’m not asking you to fix anything. I just need you to listen to me. Yeah, and then she’s mad about something, or she’s sad about something. But I have a predisposition to fix things.

Chris
Yeah? Yeah, well, you know what you should do? Every guy does. Usually. You know what you should do, right? That’s.

Jeff
That’s me, number two.

Chris
Would you rather sit in a loud part of the office or a quiet part?

Jeff
I prefer the quiet part.

Chris
Yeah, this is tough for me. Um, because. Because it’s extremes. Right? So, uh, I want to say I lean toward the loud part, but if it’s not, as long as it’s not. Yeah, it’s not as long as it’s not too, uh, you know, too loud. Yeah, but the loud part is bisiness people talking. I like to.

Jeff
Go into the loud part and then come back out. Yeah, yeah. But for for see, most of my day is quieter.

Chris
I’d rather type on a computer in the middle of the commons area. Yeah, with people around me. Yeah. Uh, number three, would you rather pick the good news first or the bad news first? Hmm. I’ve got good news and bad news. What do you want first?

Jeff
Tell me good news.

Chris
Good news first. Are you good news? Yeah. I don’t know what I am. I think it depends on my mood. To be honest. I think that’s my official answer. But I have a tendency to lean toward knowing the bad news first. Um, I don’t know why.

Jeff
Yeah, I think this is kind of a self-awareness test. You can’t just be everything all the time, right? Oh, both. I like it loud and quiet. Right? I like people to cry on my shoulder and to be left alone to fix it. You can’t be both every time.

Chris
Well, that’s why it’s a game. So. Yeah. They’re asking you, which one do you lean towards?

Jeff
Which one do you lean towards.

Chris
Then I, then I, I guess I would have to say.

Jeff
You want to know the bad.

Chris
News? I want to know the bad news first.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would say that’s probably true. Yeah. How about you?

Chris
Yeah. Well, why?

Jeff
Oh, I’ve just noticed it. I’ve just noticed. Like, if I say, uh, it hasn’t happened a lot, but if I said something along the lines of I have some good news and bad news. The good news is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s the bad news?

Chris
Right, right, right.

Jeff
Yeah. Whereas for me, I tend to have a a very positive outlook on life. I’m not normally worried about life. And so tell me the good news, right. Because we’re not going to dwell on that one.

Chris
And of course that implying I don’t have a positive outlook.

Jeff
No, I’m not saying that.

Chris
I’m saying that you didn’t say the word opposed.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn’t saying I’m opposed to you. I was just saying that that’s my outlook. Yeah.

Chris
All right. That’s all right. We can move on.

Jeff
She’s looking for trouble today, isn’t he?

Chris
Yeah, I am, number four. Would you rather be able to teleport or have a private plane teleport? Oh, easy. Yeah. Easy. Teleport.

Jeff
Because the private planes still going to take you five hours to get to the other side, right?

Chris
Yeah, yeah, I’m going to Star Trek myself. Everywhere.

Jeff
Oh, that would be awesome. That’s the one I’m waiting for. Yeah, we got the. We got the communicators. We got the. They’ve got lasers. They got all that stuff. Now I just I’m waiting for the teleporting.

Chris
Yeah. In light speed would be light. Speed is good. Would be a big thing. Warp speed. Yeah. And then, um, number five.

Jeff
Isn’t warp faster than light?

Chris
Uh, I think so. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah. Warp warp speed, I don’t know. Um, well, I mean, I can go into a Star Trek nerdy answer right now.

Jeff
Yeah. We’re not looking for it.

Chris
But you don’t want it. You don’t want it. I know everything there is to know about that answer. All right, number five, would you rather sleep in a tent or sleep under the stars?

Jeff
Well, it depends on where, but more than likely in a tent.

Chris
Yeah, I would say in a tent, probably because I know under the stars you’re going to get eaten more. Yeah. More bugs, more bugs.

Jeff
Yeah. Um, there’s been many, many, many, many, many times. All of my tents that I buy always have a, uh, a see through roof. Yeah. Anyway, so as long as you take your rainfly off, you can see the stars anyways, right? But, yeah, as long as it’s not raining, it gets a little colder that way. But yeah.

Chris
I think that my answer for that last question is I’d rather sleep in a hotel. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s truly my answer.

Jeff
Yeah. Uh, I, I sent my wife a meme the other day because she’s, she’s kind of in that same boat right now, and it’s this very sophisticated lady saying, uh, if by asking me if I want to go camp in the wilderness, if you mean do I want my hotel window to be facing the woods, that’d be fine.

Chris
That’s awesome. That is awesome. That’d be fine. That’s really well written. That’s us. That is us.

Jeff
Yeah, well. Good man. Hey. That’s interesting. It’s always interesting to get to know a little bit more about you, Chris. Yeah, just.

Chris
That’s the goal, not you. Me.

Jeff
It’s phenomenal. It’s so exciting. It’s fulfilling. As a matter of fact.

Chris
You’re funny, man.

Jeff
So we are going to read, uh, this one today where John the Baptist declares that Jesus is the Son of God, right? And that he is the Messiah. Mhm. Uh, only comes up in, in John. Right. So you’ll notice those other stories that we’ve told, the temptation of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, uh, all those things. Um, John didn’t tell those things. Uh, Matthew, Mark and Luke, they’re just telling the facts here. John’s purpose is really about identifying the deity of Christ, and that he’s the one that everybody was looking for. Right. And so John writes a different way. And so he has this whole thing of, of the Jesus as the Messiah. And then he’s the one who starts off the recruiting of the disciples. So, um, and I think there’s a reason for it. We’ll talk about that in a minute. John chapter one, verse 29 says, the next day John saw Jesus. This isn’t John the author, this is John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, he is the one I was talking about when I said, A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me. I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel. Then John testified, I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. I didn’t know he was the one. But when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, the one on whom you see the spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Jeff
I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the chosen One of God. The following day, John was again standing with two of his disciples, and as Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, look, there’s the Lamb of God! And when John’s two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus. Jesus looked around him and saw them following. What do you want? He asked them, and they replied, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you going? Or where are you staying? Come and see, he said. It was about 4:00 in the afternoon, when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of these men who heard that John said what John said, and then followed Jesus. Andrew went to find his brother Simon and told him, we found the Messiah, which means the Christ. Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus, looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, your name is Simon, son of John, but you will be called Cephas, which means Peter. The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip and said to him, come, follow me. Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew, and Peter’s hometown. Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, we have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about. His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nazareth! Exclaimed Nathaniel, can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see for yourself, Philip replied. As they approached, Jesus said, now here is a genuine son of Israel, a man of complete integrity. How do you know about me? Nathaniel asked. Jesus replied, I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.

Jeff
Then Nathaniel exclaimed, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel. Jesus asked him, do you believe this just because I told you I’d seen you under the fig tree? You’ll see greater things than this. Then he said, I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open, and the angels of God coming, going up and down on the Son of Man. And then the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.

Chris
That’s awesome.

Jeff
So it’s interesting.

Chris
Yeah. So, um, I if you allow me for a second, go ahead. Let me tell you about how.

Jeff
I have to allow you.

Chris
I first went to go to church, so, uh, my, my youth group, I mentioned this before. My youth group at the time was running a contest called the top five contest. Top five people who bring the most visitors by from January to May gets to go to Ocean City, Maryland for free. Um, so, uh, so I really started going to church because of a contest. Yeah. And I went back because of pretty girls. So, um, with a guy named Dave Davis who really wasn’t, you know, that strong of a Christian, to be honest with you, uh, wanted to win this contest, and he invited me. Well, what ended up happening was I found out I could bring people and be counted and go to Ocean City, Maryland for free. So I bought my buddy Jeff, who, by the way, became a pastor with me. Uh, later on, he, you know, become, you know, a Christian. Yeah, yeah. And then I brought, um, my brother Jim, who then became a pastor with me as well. Uh, and then I ended up bringing, um, I think I, I won, I won every year that I was in the youth group. I ended up bringing the most visitors from January to May. For all the years that I was there. They ran this contest, and I think I won with like, uh, I think it was like 75 guests that I brought in, like four months. Yeah. Okay. But the point is, is that it was just it was just a strength of mine, but, um, but, uh, but it’s all started with Dave Davis inviting one person, which was me. And, uh, what’s interesting is that we we used to tell that story over and over again, and then I used to think about, uh, me being a pastor over quite literally thousands and then tying it back to Dave’s invitation.

Chris
Right? Yeah. Okay. So so here’s the message for lay dare to be an Andrew. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Dare to be an Andrew. So Andrew goes immediately and finds his brother. Uh, Peter. Right. So Simon. Simon who later became Peter. Yeah. Andrew goes and finds Peter and then Peter comes and then meets Jesus for the first time. He says, and by the way, what does he say? Come and see. Come and see. Peter says, wait a minute, I have questions. And Peter and he’s like, no, no, no, no, no, listen, you just have to come and see for yourself. And then what ends up happening is Philip comes because it says he’s from Simon Peter and Andrew’s hometown. Well, you know how small it was back then, right? So, I.

Jeff
Mean, so we’re not exactly sure where Bethsaida is, but the two places where they think that Bethsaida may be both of them are very small towns.

Chris
So. So naturally, Philip has heard with the rages, right. He hears Jesus. Well, his good friend Simon and and Peter have have already gone. So he’s going. And then what does he do? He finds Nathaniel. Right? And then when Nathaniel says, I have questions, can anything good come out of Nazareth? What does he say? Come and see. Yeah, come and see. And I think that those those, those words are really powerful because a lot of times Christians don’t feel qualified to, you know, hey, I can’t lead somebody to Christ. I don’t know the Bible, I don’t know, uh, you know, I’m not a scholar. I’m not a Bible guy, whatever. And I would just say, but you have the power to invite. Right? Right, right. And so, at the very least, hopefully you and I create our weekend services at Heritage Church, uh, designed for your guest, your neighbor, your coworker, your friend who’s far from God. And you may not be able to lead them to Christ, although the goal should be that you should lead them to Christ, right? You should know all that. But if you don’t feel qualified, the very least you can do is say, come and see so that they can have an opportunity to have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

Jeff
Yeah, I would, I would go so far as to say Andrew and Philip weren’t qualified. They didn’t even really know for sure what they were. Hey, listen, they just found out from John that John just figured out that Jesus was the Messiah, right?

Chris
Because this is right after he said, right, behold the Lamb of God. In other words, he’s saying, follow him.

Jeff
And John admitted at the beginning when we were reading, John said, I didn’t even realize he was the one. Yeah, until the baptism. And then at the baptism that God had already told me that when the Holy Spirit came down, that on the person that I baptized, that that was going to be the Messiah, he said, until that moment, I didn’t know that was Jesus. Yeah, Jesus and John were cousins. And what’s interesting is John had said, you know, it turns out he was he was he existed before I did. But John is six months older than Jesus or nine months older than Jesus. Whatever. Six months. Six. Yeah, six months older than Jesus. But he immediately realized who Jesus really was in that moment, just hadn’t wrapped his head around it. So it’s in that context immediately that John and, uh, Andrew or perhaps John, Andrew. And then later on, Philip find out that who Jesus is. But they didn’t have any depth of theology with regard to explaining how the gospel works. They just the only thing they had was we think we found the guy we’re looking for. Come and see. Yeah, right. That was it. And that’s all you need. Don’t wait until you take an evangelism class. You don’t have to wait until you can answer all the. Questions that Jeff and Chris can answer instead. You know what I did for the longest time? Because I was intimidated about sharing my faith, because I felt like I had to be that guy who had all the answers. And I’m kind of a studier reader guy, so I just like, okay, I’ll start sharing my faith when I have more information, right? Finally, my youth pastor said, you don’t need to.

Jeff
I’m like, what do you mean? He said, okay, so let’s say that you’re you engage with one of your high school friends and you’re trying to share the share the gospel with him, and he asks a question you can’t answer. Now, you do know that Jesus is the Son of God. You do know that everybody’s a sinner, that salvation is by faith through grace, by by grace through faith. Um, uh, that it’s a gift from God that you have to receive, that everyone who calls the name of the Lord be saved. You know those things. I’m like, yes. He says, so then he’s going to ask you some question about, you know, can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it or whatever? And you go, whoa, wow, I don’t know. I don’t know that answer. So you’re afraid to share the gospel because he might ask you a question you don’t know? Yes. He said, just say that’s a good question. I don’t know, but I know a guy who does. I’ll ask him. I’ll come back and talk to you next week about it. Right. And then come and ask me. And he said, if I don’t know, I’ll go ask the pastor if the pastor don’t know, we’ll start calling around till we find the answer to the question. Somebody has the answer to that question. You don’t have to know it. Right. And and so what he wanted me to do was to stop waiting until I knew it all and just start sharing what I did know, and then just use that deflective answer, I don’t know, but I know a guy who does. And so hey, you don’t know the answer. But hey, you know the Bible guys and the Bible guys know people, right?

Jeff
So we’ll go ask. We don’t know. Or that’s why you need a pastor. That’s why you need a small group leader. People that are further down the road than you spiritually is so that you do have somebody. But man, don’t wait until you have all the answers.

Chris
Yeah. And by the way, it’s important to notice that Jesus was the first one to offer the phrase come and see. Yeah. Uh, because they went and said, Rabbi, where are you staying? And so what they were saying was, give us information. Yeah, yeah. And Jesus is like, I have a better idea. Come and see, come, come and experience with me. Right. And I think that information and experiences is two radically different things. Yeah. I think that when you’re, uh, you know, if your goal is just to, uh, you know, uh, you know, sort of dispel information to people about Jesus, it’s much better to live life with them to, to, you know, dive into their lives in conversation to care about them. Um, you know what it reminds me of when I first got hired at, uh, uh, Fairview Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, uh, we had this, uh, administrative assistant there, and she was really old, and you’d call her and she had this southern drawl, and she turned Fairview Baptist Church into, like, several syllables. Yeah, she’d say Fairview Baptist Church, and we’d say, uh, you know, we’d ask her a question. So here’s what I did is I had to do a hospital visit. I was only in Atlanta for one week. I said, can you give me directions to the hospital? And she says, all right. She says, take a left at the church. And she goes and then turn right by the big rock. And I said, well, what’s the name of this road? She said, oh, I don’t know the name of the road. She’s like, and then you go down the street and she goes, and you’re going to turn left where the post office used to be.

Chris
And I said, used to be, I’ve only I’ve only lived here a week. Right. Because she didn’t know the names of the roads. Right, right. And I was like, this is crazy. Yeah. And I looked at her husband, Tom.

Jeff
And the roads down there aren’t straight roads. They’re twisty roads around hills. Yes, yes.

Chris
And so I looked at her husband, Tom, and I said, Tom, can can you give me proper directions? And he said, I have a better idea. I’ll take you there. Yeah, yeah. And so he jumped in the car with me. And then along the journey he said, take a left here, take a right here. And it was like it made all the difference in the world. Right then. Then all of a sudden I didn’t have to worry about all the information. Yeah, I think that that is a great, uh, thing that’s happening here where the invitation to to say, come experience it, it’s not about, you know, Christianity is not about knowledge. It’s not about knowing more about God. And by the way, it also reminds me of a lot of soapboxes that I could go on about. But sometimes Christianity, uh, sometimes Christians think that their spiritual maturity is based on learning something new, right? But really, your spiritual maturity has everything to do with your application, has everything to do with your experience. It’s about like implementing the Word of God and experiencing what it’s like to follow him and to, you know, walk in his way. It doesn’t matter how much you know, it matters how much you do. Yeah. And by the way, it’s important to know more. Yeah. As long as the stuff that you learn gets applied, right. Because if it doesn’t get applied, then it’s no good. So I just think that there’s a lot found in this little phrase that Jesus models. And then in turn everybody follows, which is come and experience as opposed to get knowledge. Yeah.

Jeff
This idea of getting knowledge, if you ever took any did you ever take any writing classes? I did, yeah. So when it comes to writing, uh, it’s the it’s the questions who, what, where, why, when, how how often to what extent? Those are the big things that you’re supposed to be answering and when you’re right. Mhm. That’s how you. Law. That’s how you find answers. That’s how you do investigations. It’s it’s all those questions. Who? What? Where? Why? Why. So they start off with a where that’s an informational question. Right. And Jesus invites them to move beyond information into relationship. Yep. Hey, why don’t you just come stay with me, right, right. There’s a totally different thing. And so discipleship happens, but we want discipleship to be more information, right? That’s what we want. And Jesus wants discipleship to be more relationship with him. And discipleship happens best in the context of friendships. Right. And that’s what happens. So they don’t all start following Jesus for the rest of their life. Here. He has to go back and re recruit them. But this is the beginning of them pivoting off of John and over to to to Jesus. And then one little incidental, two incidentals. One we didn’t even get to talk about Jesus. The first day Jesus meets Peter, he goes, yeah, your name’s not Simon anymore, it’s Peter. Yeah.

Chris
What the heck? Right? You should be called Cephas, right?

Jeff
Right. So that’s funny, but, um.

Jeff
The other one was, uh, so it says that there were two disciples of John. There was, uh, Andrew one. And then historically, for 2000 years, Christians have believed that the other disciple was John, the disciple John, um, uh, who would have been the youngest of the disciples. And, uh, the reason was John never references himself, but he’s quick to tell all the other names and never says himself. Right.

Chris
And so he refers to himself in the third person. Yeah, yeah, like like like Jimmy. Jimmy don’t get played.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. Or the one Jesus loves.

Chris
Yeah, the one Jesus loves.

Jeff
Yeah. So, uh, in this one, historically, for 2000 years, Christians have believed that it was Andrew and John were the two first two. And then, uh, John, because he would have been young enough, he probably didn’t have a permanent job yet. And so hanging out, he could hang out around John the Baptist quite a bit. Andrew being the younger brother, Simon, though, uh, was an older guy. Simon was maybe Jesus age or older at this point. He was definitely the oldest of the disciples. And so it’s kind of the spectrum right here at the very beginning. And Jesus comes in and begins changing John or, uh, Cephas or Peter, right then. Yeah. And it’s pretty cool. So all these changes begin to happen in the context of relationship. If you really, really, really want to grow in your faith, it’s not about having more information, although information is important. It’s about spending time with Jesus. And I think that that’s the benefit of us doing this. Uh, you know, it’s going to take quite a while to get through all of these events in Jesus life. But if you spend some time every single day with Jesus, you’ll start thinking like he thinks, because Jesus didn’t just want his disciples to know what he knew. Jesus wanted his disciples to live like he lived. There’s a big difference between those two things.

Chris
Yeah, very big difference. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with discipleship and Bible study, uh, that, you know, where you accrue new information.

Jeff
You need it. You need information.

Chris
We all do. We all do. But but the idea that, like, uh, you know, to say, like, this wasn’t enough for me, this, this command wasn’t enough for me. This biblical truth wasn’t enough for me. The only question we should be asking ourselves is not did we learn anything new today? But am I applying this? Right? Right. Because that’s the reason why we could be Christians for 2030 years. Read a simple Bible verse and say, I know this, I just haven’t lived it in a while.

Jeff
Well there were thousands multitudes of people who heard the same words, right? They got the same information, and then they left Jesus and went home. But there were a dozen or so who lived with Jesus and, and, and and lived like Jesus lived, did what Jesus did. And they’re the ones who changed the world. That’s it.

Chris
Yeah. Well, that’s a fantastic thought for today. We will see you next time, hopefully on The Bible Guys.