Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2008 : January 20, 2008

Theme: What Do You Want with Jesus?

Church year occasion: Epiphany 2

You have just died. I know that sounds pretty depressing, but bear with me. You have just died, and since you are a believer in Jesus as your Savior, you went to heaven. As the angels usher you through the pearly gates, you see Jesus walking toward you with a big smile on his face that says, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" And everything is full of wonder for you as you finally see what heaven is like and as you greet all the believers that have gone before you. But as you're walking around, there's something nagging you. Jesus welcomed you into heaven as his faithful servant, and he was pleased with what you did in your life. But you can think of a whole host of times that you weren't very faithful, and you weren't a very good servant of Christ. Then you start to get very uncomfortable and troubled, and no matter what you're shown in heaven, it all seems empty because you can only think of the times you failed to live as a Christian. The feeling of uneasiness and agitation grows and grows until you realize that you just can't stand it anymore or you will explode.

And then you wake up and realize you were dreaming. Then instantly you realize that you still have time. You have time before you get to heaven to live a life worthy of the calling you have received as a Christian. You have time to really show God how much you appreciate his grace. You have time to be a better and more faithful servant than you have been your whole life up to this point. You still have time to show God and others what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Now, obviously, we'll never have that kind of uneasy feeling when we get to heaven because there is no pain or regret or sorrow in heaven. But it brings up an interesting point. If you had the power and will right now to change your life to be a more dedicated and faithful disciple of Jesus, would you do it? Or would you just coast along in life thinking that what you are doing right now in your relationship with your Savior is good enough? In the Word of God we'll look at today, Jesus turns around to find two people who want to be his disciples. And Jesus asks them a very direct and searching question, which is profound in its simplicity: "What do you want?" So today, picture yourself as one of those would-be disciples, seeking to follow Jesus, and Jesus turns to you and says, "What do you want with me?"

We find John the Baptist at the same place we left him a week ago when he baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. Jesus had gone into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan and returned victorious. Now it was time to start showing the Jewish people who he was and why he had come. So he went back to where John was baptizing and allowed John to point to him and say, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" What a statement! John had been gathering his own disciples because his message was unlike anything the people had heard in a very long time. He spoke with the authority of God's Word, and the people recognized it. But he denied over and over that he was the Messiah, the promised Savior. Then, when he saw Jesus, he knew that his whole life had been focused on this moment. He pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God.

Anyone listening to him would have instantly thought of what a lamb meant to them. They would think of the Passover lamb, a perfect lamb without blemish or defect, that each family in Israel was to slaughter at sundown on the day of Passover to remember the deliverance God gave his people when he rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They would recall the hauntingly beautiful words of Isaiah 53:7 which said, "He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth," and 53:12 which said, "He poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." And so John didn't simply say he was the Lamb of God, but that he takes away the sin of the world. Notice the present tense of the verb. Even then, three years before he died, he was taking away the sin of the world because he was living the holy life that he would need to lay down in order to give us eternal life. Those who heard John knew John was pointing to Jesus as the Messiah who had been promised for so long.

Then look at verse 30: "This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " What does that mean? Jesus came after John in time because John had been preaching for some time already, and now Jesus would begin his ministry. But he surpassed John because he is the Lamb of God, the Messiah, the Almighty God. So even though his ministry came after John's, he came before John because Jesus existed in eternity as God. So John pointed to Jesus as the Son of God.

A similar thing happened the next day. "The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, 'Look, the Lamb of God!' When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus." John had been attracting a number of disciples of his own. They realized John was something different, and they wanted to learn what he had to say. But John's main message was, "Don't look to me. Look to Jesus. Follow him." Andrew and John were the two disciples mentioned. They understood John's point. They saw Jesus as their Savior. And we have to shift gears here a bit. Imagine the wonder that these men had in knowing that this was the Savior of the world! They probably didn't know where to begin, except with the obvious -- they followed Jesus.

And then a very important thing happened. "Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, 'What do you want?' They said, 'Rabbi' (which means Teacher), 'where are you staying?' 'Come,' he replied, 'and you will see.' So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour."

Imagine following the Messiah with a small group of others that began following Jesus. Andrew and John probably would have been content with just hanging out in the back and seeing and listening to all Jesus would do and say. But then imagine having the Messiah turn around and speak to you directly! And then you notice he actually asked you a question: "What do you want?" Wow, did that ever have a deeper meaning! What did they want with Jesus? They obviously wanted to follow him and be his disciples. But Jesus wanted them to think about that for a while. Did they really want to follow him? Did they see in Jesus mainly a political savior from Roman imperialism? Did they see him as just a curiosity as most of the Jews saw him? Even now they saw his as their Savior, but that very day they would start understanding what that would mean for them.

They knew that being a disciple of Jesus wouldn't be easy. But they had no idea how this moment of getting to know Jesus would shape and change their lives forever. After all, how could John know that he would be one of Jesus' closest friends and that he would be exiled at the end of his life for telling others about Jesus? How could Andrew know that he would be crucified for telling others about Jesus? Of course, they didn't know these things. They also had no idea how Jesus would change all of human history.

So Jesus asks you the same question this morning: "What do you want with me?" Do we see Jesus as a curiosity and nothing more? Do we see him as something our parents believe in and so we are supposed to do that, too? Do we see Jesus as someone that we can follow one instant but the next follow something or someone else that offers more enjoyment? Do we want Jesus around us only during the good times, but we'll jump ship as soon as it gets tough and life throws us a curve ball? Do we see Jesus as someone we want to know only on Sunday morning, and maybe not even every Sunday morning?

What do you want with Jesus? We want much more of Jesus. We have pinned our hope of heaven and forgiveness on him. We have no hope without him. We are lost without him. We know he is the only way to eternal life and a right relationship with the only true God right now because he is the Lamb of God who did take away the sins of the world, and that means he took away all my sins also. We don't just want to follow Jesus when it's convenient. We want to dedicate our lives to him. Jesus means everything to us because of what he's done for us.

Notice how Andrew and John answered Jesus' question: " 'What do you want?' They said, 'Rabbi' (which means Teacher), 'where are you staying?' " They wanted to hear everything Jesus had to tell them. And Jesus gave them a beautiful invitation: " 'Come, and you will see.' " John even remembers the exact time when they went to the house where Jesus was staying -- it was 10:00 a.m. That's how monumental this event was in his life, even after he writes about it in his Gospel account sixty years later. This changed his whole life. He would now live for Jesus.

The first part of living for Jesus is listening to what he has to say. Make that a part of your everyday life. If you don't do it already, start -- today! He has the Word of life! But when we've heard the Word of life, then something very natural happens, which we see in the last part of our text: "The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah' (that is, the Christ)."

The second main part of discipleship is telling others about Jesus. Notice how easy it was for Andrew to tell his brother Peter. It was natural for him. Why do we think telling others about Jesus is so difficult? In the immortal words of Nike: Just Do It! You'll find it's not so difficult. You know your Savior. Others need to know him, too. He gets you through this life and into the next life.

What joy we have in following Jesus and in living for him who died for us and was raised again! You won't have any regrets of not dedicating your life to Jesus when you get to heaven, and when we sit at Jesus' feet and hear what he's done for us and when we let the power of that Word of God direct and control our lives, we won't have any regrets of failing to follow Jesus wholeheartedly even while we are on this earth. We simply take to heart the words of John: Jesus is "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Amen.