Sermon Cloud

Understanding our relational Universe

As you have been attending the last 4 or 5 studies you, may have noticed that we have been diving into the Gospel of John and looking at each verse and it’s implication. This study tonight will be different, in that it is somewhat of an overview of verses 35-51 instead of an expositional teaching of just 4 or so verses. The reason I have chosen to handle these verses in this way, is because we have looked fairly closely at the Baptist John in the last two messages, and it would simply be redundant to teach something about him that you have already learned. Also, I have made comments on verses 19-34 in the last 3 messages on this first chapter.

Tonight we will be spending our time in verses 35 through 51, and I want us to notice a theme that runs through these introductions and comments by John’s new eye-witnesses of the Son of God. What I hope for us to come away with, from this time in God’s Word, is a better understanding of practical evangelism. In other words, how you and I might be evangelists in a simple, practical way, without the pressure of manipulating sinners into a decision, and without the fear of their response to our evangelistic desires.

This can be accomplished by looking at our relational Universe and by understanding different methods that were used in the New Testament to reach the lost.

Most people when hearing the Word “evangelist” think of angry people that like to yell. And though that might work will with people that have grown up in the Church and have heard the truth and are simply lazy and apathetic, it doesn’t work as well with people that know nothing of this man named Jesus, or the Gospel he calls us to believe.

So I would like to teach you from scripture a practical way that you and I can evangelize this lost world all for the glory of God.

Tonight we are going to have some group participation in this message. I have an assignment that should be on your seat with a pencil or pen so you can write.

I. Assignment

What I want you to do is to take this paper and pencil and write your name inside of the circle on the page. Now I would like you to write the names of different relational groups you are connected to that have 10 or more people in the entire group. For instance, if you hang out at a club, write down the name of that club, if you belong to a hobby group, write down the name of that group, church group, Bible study, sports group, cards, bingo, bridge, immediate family, in-laws, etc. Any group that you are connected to that has 10 or more people in that group. It can be friends, workers, or just acquaintances. Go ahead and take a minute to write down those groups.

Let’s stop. For those of you that don’t have any names, we need to pray that God gives you friends!

How many of you have 3 or more groups? How many have 5 or more groups? 10? More than 15?

I want us to look at our list and consider whether or not the majority of people on our list are Christians or non-Christians. So look at each group, and the group that is 50% or more Christian, draw a plus sign next to it. The group that is less than 50% Christian, draw a minus sign next to it.

This little test should teach us something about ourselves. If you are a mature Christian, you may have almost everyone of your groups except work and family as a plus, and those of you that are new believers in Christ, you may find yourself with every group, other than Church to be a minus.

Question, who usually has the greatest evangelical impact on family friends and co-workers, the new Christian or the mature Christian?

Typically it is the new. They are on fire, they have just been set free from sin and have been given new life and are now a Child of the King. They tell everyone. And almost everyone around them are non-Christians.

The more mature Christians have been seasoned and have developed friendships from Church and Bible studies, and usually find themselves having a more comfortable time around other believers. It is less of a hassle for them I their life. How many people do they impact? Not many.

They are a little too comfortable with the way their life is and don’t see the sense of urgency to evangelize those that they did when they were new converts.

Let’s keep this paper in the back of our minds as we study the text tonight.

As we look at Scripture, we see there are two kinds of primary texts in the Bible, those texts that are prescriptive and those that are descriptive.

Prescriptive would tell you not to kill someone, not to steal, to live a holy life, to love your neighbor, etc..

Descriptive text would tell you what happened, who was involved, when did it happen or why it happened. They tell us a story of how God was involved in peoples lives. We can learn how God deals with people and how they react both positively or negatively.

Tonight our text doesn’t tell us how to do something. However, it I want us to look at the description of these events so that we can learn how God works in peoples lives and then try to live that out practically in our own lives.

II. Information Theory

I want us to look at how people come to learn things, and we will take this principal and overlay our scriptures with it.

I want us to consider that we are all connected in some way with others on this planet.

We have people in our lives that we may not call friends and they are not family, however, we know them and have acquaintance with them and we are connected to them by this type of relationship.

We also have family members that we are obligated to by blood, whether or not we are close to them, we are their relative and have some responsibility in their lives. Even if it is somewhat removed.

Then we have our friends. People that we care about deeply that we love and spend time with and talk to. These are people that we have a great sense of responsibility and value in our relationship. We commit ourselves in a relationship with them willingly. We invest ourselves in these people.

These relationships accomplish different things for us in our lives.

There was a study done in 1975 that was related to getting a job. What the study found, was that the majority of people that got their last job, did so through an acquaintance, or friend or family member. Not through the paper.

How many of you landed a job that way?

This is how we get things done. Through people and connections. Usually this comes from someone that we would not even consider ourselves close to. Just someone that knows us or our friend or our family member that seems to like us, recommends us to someone else. These are connections.

How many of you are struggling or just finished with a cold? The sniffles or stomach flu?

How did you get that?

Through someone that was a co-worker, or family member or friend, or even an acquaintance.

Someone was a carrier and gave that to you. That same way that we see the flu spreading is the same way information spreads. Someone is a carrier and then infects other people with their idea.

There is a book called “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, and the subtitle is “How little things make a big difference.” This guy is not Christian, but I think he shows us something that is still true

He says that people don’t buy into to information because of a strong marketing program from media. But rather, the way people come to their conclusions is by word-of-mouth. That certain people bring an idea to you and you become convinced and infected with that opinion.

It is amazing that the average television show today has 4 ½ minutes of commercials in a half an hour. So for every our of television, 9 minutes of that is time being spent marketing to you. You are constantly being bombarded marketing information.

The average person sitting here tonight, is given 254 advertisements on average per day. Billboards, radio, t.v., newspaper, etc.

The more tech-friendly you are, the more you get. If you are on the internet, or read a lot, you may get somewhere around 1,000 advertisements fed into your brain each and every day.

They are telling us that information grow so rapidly now that every 2 to 3 years information input doubles.

Half of the worlds information was delivered from the time of Adam to 1998, the other half was from 1998 to 2001. They are telling us that information may increase so much that within our lifetime, it is doubling every 2 weeks. The amount of advertising will simply continue to grow so that you are bombarded with volumes and volumes of information that someone wants to sell you.

What this creates is a numbing effect on these advertisements. We have picked up a filtering mechanism that we weed out those 1,000 advertisements to only the ones that are important, and that is done through word-of-mouth.

We think things are important, because someone tells us that it is. That is how word-of-mouth works.

That’s what the book “The Tipping Point” shows us, that ideas are spread through word of mouth, until that idea reaches a boiling point that it no longer is the minority, but suddenly becomes the majority thought.

He summarizes this process by looking at 3 kinds of people that are involved in this process.

1. There are people that are “connectors.” These people know everyone. No matter where you go they know someone. From the grocery store to the movies, they are connected. This is someone that is usually involved in multiple communities. Groups of people, that would normally never come together are then introduced by this person that connects them.

2. The second type of person is called a “maven” which is a Yiddish word that means, someone that knows a lot about everything. Someone that reads everything, knows all of the information that you need to know. They help you by simply doing the work that you don’t have to. If you want to know something, instead of learning yourself, you go to them and they answer your questions.

3. The third kind he calls “salesman”, we will call them evangelists. This person can convince you of anything. They can sell an idea whether or not they even believe it. That is good and bad. Becoming a liar certainly isn’t noble. Yet these people are so passionate in their ability to convince, people believe because this person does a good job convincing.

We will see that John is all three in this book. He is in a position that is a connector, he knows everyone in the Church. In revelation he writes to the 7 churches. Everybody knows John, he is the elder statesman. He is well connected.

He is also a maven. He is a person that has information that know one else has. He saw Jesus with his own eyes, and touched him with his own hands and knew him and was loved by Jesus. When he speaks about Jesus he does so because he has first hand knowledge of him.

He is also is an evangelist. He writes in this book in chapter 20:31 “but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” He is telling you that he is writing these things specifically for the reason that you would believe in Jesus and have life in Jesus.

This process begins with the innovator. Someone that comes up with an idea. Who in this Gospel is the first person in Chapter one to get it? Who is the first person to grab this piece of information and own it? It’s John the Baptizer. He is the first one to look at Jesus and say “that is God.”

So John says in his Gospel, from verses 1 through 18, that Jesus is God in the flesh.

Then he goes on by explaining who the first adopters where to that information. The first being John the Baptist. And we will look today at the original converts, the first people that believed.

We will see in this Gospel, that this information moves from John the Baptist, to a couple of disciples to the early majority. A larger group of people that believe this information.

At some point a late majority comes in. These are people that after years of being skeptical, they see what’s happening, they are able to gather more information, and they become believers.

The last group after the late majority are “laggards.” These people that never believe. This is true of information or technology or evangelism.

How many of you have an email address? If you don’t you are the laggards in this room.

There was someone that came up with the idea of getting mail electronically, so that it’s instantaneous without worrying about the information being lost or being received too late. He then became a salesman and sold that to his friends.

People saw that idea and said “that makes sense” and become the first adopters. Then a larger group grabbed the idea and began to use it and were the “early majority.” And of course, in the last 3 years the “late majority” finally bought a computer and are now using email.

Then there is you. Someone that refuses to be conformed by technology and so we call you a sinner! Just kidding.

Some of you may have a good reason, while others are simply adverse to any type of change whatsoever.

With that length backdrop. Turn with me to the Gospel of John chapter 1.

I believe that we will see this same principal come to life as we read the Word of God.

III. Verses 35-51

Chapter 1 verse 35- “Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. 36 And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!"

John is the innovator, or first to grab this information that Jesus is God. He is the first guy to understand this. Then he points everyone else to Jesus.

Verse 37- The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

We don’t know exactly who the two are from this text, but we will learn that one of them is a guy named Andrew. The other is not revealed, and I think it is probably John the youngest and beloved, who then ends up writing this book.

So the Baptist sees Jesus. Points to Him as God and Andrew and John follow Jesus. This is a pretty selfless act on John’s part. John has now lost 2 of his disciples to this man named Jesus.

These are the first two men in Christianity that believe and start a journey with Jesus of Nazareth.

Verse 38- Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, "What do you seek?" They said to Him, "Rabbi" (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), "where are You staying?"

Here we see these two men begin to follow Jesus immediately and we see the response that Jesus gives them. “What do you want?”

What a great question as these two men begin to follow Him. The same question could be given to each of you tonight. As you have turned and began to follow Jesus, a good question to ask yourself as if Christ were asking you Himself, is “What do you want?”

Do you want money or prosperity. Do you want become popular and famous? Do you want to use Jesus as a cosmic genie to grant you all of your wishes? Do you want to give him a try since you tried alcohol, and drugs and sex? Or do you want your sins forgiven by God, with no other promise, other than you know will have eternal life and peace with the creator of all things? It’s a good question to help us understand our motives.

They said to Him, “where are you staying?” This is another way of asking yourself to dinner in their culture. When you wanted to come over for dinner, you would say “where are you staying?”

These two men wanted to know who he was. They wanted to eat with Him and His friend. What a great response. Jesus says “what do you want,” they say “friendship.”

What is Jesus response? Look at the next verse.

Verse 39- He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon ).

I find this to be such a profound answer to their question. Jesus doesn’t give them the entire plan from all eternity right there. He doesn’t say that He is the long awaited Messiah, that He is going to go to the cross and die as a substitute for their sins, and raise three days later from the dead. He simply says “Come and see.”

He doesn’t unload a ton of information and evidence to prove Himself.

Jesus answers their question about where He is staying, or in other words, “can you invite us over for dinner” by saying “Come and see.”

How big is Jesus ministry at this point? 2 guys. That’s it. This is pretty humble beginnings. Where does God start? 2 men.

Andrew isn’t even a player in all of this. He simply brings men to Jesus on different occasions. He is a connector. Then John, the young guy. 2 men.

How many do we have here tonight?

This is how Christianity is birthed. A guy recognizes Jesus as God. He tells his students. They ask God to come over for dinner. God responds by saying, yes. And our great world religion is born.

John is now writing us this Gospel as he sits, years later, thinking about how all these things came to be. And this is the story. One night he had dinner with Jesus.

John didn’t know nearly as much as we know today. Not even a fraction.

Why did John leave his friend and teacher John the Baptist to go and follow Jesus? Word-of-mouth. John said, “This is the lamb of God.” John believed his teacher and left to follow Jesus.

We sit here tonight because of those two guys. We are indebted to those two men. If we were to trace our evangelistic heritage back to the first believers, we would be connected to Andrew and John and their dinner with Jesus. He we are 2,000 years later.

We see how little things can make such a global change.

As we wrote our names in the circle and looked at the other groups surrounding that circle. Think of your conversion.

How many of you came to Christ by a friend, or a family member, or a co-worker, or a teacher, or an acquaintance?

This is how it starts. If you want true revival happening in our city. This is how it starts. It’s simple. It doesn’t have to take a huge crusade to fill a stadium so that a half-saved actor or sports figure tells us a washed down Gospel. It starts by telling those that you are in a connected relationship with, that idea is then grasped and believed and it spreads to everyone around those that are infected with the Spirit of God and the Gospel.

If that is not how it works for you, maybe you’re not infected at all and we have a bigger issue to talk about.

Verse 40- One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ).

How does Peter come to know Jesus? One of his fishing buddies and his brother bring to meet Jesus. Mainly his brother Andrew. But I’m sure he was influenced by his fishing buddies opinion.

Peter is the one named Simon and what does Simon do for a living? He’s a fisherman. Who does he work with? John! Who’s his brother? Andrew!

How are Andrew and John connected? Through Peter. Here we have a co-worker/acquaintance relationship that is now cemented by Jesus.

How did Peter become the head of the Church, and writing books of the Bible and dying upside down on a Cross murdered for his faith?

It started the day his brother and his fishing buddy tell him that they met the messiah.

Verse 41- He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, "You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas" (which is translated, A Stone).

How many people do you have nicknames for? Who are they? They are friends.

You know you are friends when you start giving them a hard time about their name or their character.

Jesus says to Peter. You’re going to be “rock.” And gives him a WWF name.

Peter is told about Jesus through his fishing buddy and brother, then he meets Jesus and Jesus gives him a nickname. I love that!

Verse 43- The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, "Follow Me."

This is unusual because typically the student would come and ask if they could follow the teacher. Here we see Jesus come straight to Phillip and tell him to follow Him.

How many of you have had that kind of experience? Where God simply says to you “follow me”? No family member or friend or co-worker. God simply shows up and tells you to drop what you are doing and follow Him.

Does Jesus explain the plan to Phillip? Not at all, he simply calls Him into a relationship with Him. Again, He doesn’t provide all the answers to Phillip, nor did he with Andrew or John.

Verse 44- Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

What do Andrew and Peter have in common with Phillip? They grew up in the same town!

Phillip probably saw Andrew and Peter and said, “alright” and followed Jesus.

A few years ago, when I was about 21 I ran into someone at Disneyland that I grew up in the same town with, in Port Orchard, Washington.

Now I didn’t really know them growing up. We went to the same schools, knew some of the same people, yet we were only acquaintances, if that. However, when I saw them at Disneyland, all of the sudden they were like family. We hung out the entire day. Why, because we grew up together, and were the only sane ones in Southern California, everyone else was nuts, so we simply hung out the rest of the day.

This is how these three were connected. They were from the same town.

How does Phillips life change? One day he meets some old acquaintances from his home town, and he gets together with Jesus the God Son in the flesh!

If that doesn’t change you, nothing will.

Verse 45- Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

Now we see Phillip going to get one of his friends. Phillip has some deeper learner about Jesus and when he gets Nathanael, he tells him that he found the one that Moses in the law and the prophets wrote about-- Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph

He tells him that the one they were studying about that was going to come and forgive their sins and set up His kingdom is here! I found Him!

How does Nathanael respond to Phillips information?

Verse 46- And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

Nazareth? God wouldn’t come from Nazareth? C’mon? Nothing comes from Nazareth that’s any good.

Phillip makes fun of this little stick town. He makes fun of Santee, basically. Hicks and sticks. People that marry their cousins and have more than two eyes. These are people that think that monster trucks racing is a sport. C’mon from Nazareth?

What’s the difference between La Jolla and Santee? 15 minutes! Is that it? Oh no. They are like two different planets.

This is what Nathanael is saying.

How does Phillip respond? Come and see. Do you think he learned something from Jesus and the others?

He doesn’t argue with his friend. He doesn’t tell him all of the reasons why, he simply says, come and see.

Verse 47- Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!"

Verse 48- Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

Nathanael says how do you know me?

Jesus responds by telling Nathanael that He saw him studying under the fig tree. This is an old way of saying that someone was studying the scriptures. They would say “he is under the fig tree.”

It freaks Nathanael out so much that Nathanael answered,

Verse 49- ….."Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

The skeptic Nathanael when confronted with Jesus words, drops his skepticism and becomes a believer and calls Jesus God! Amazing.

Jesus hits Nathanael with truth that He knew would make him believe.

Jesus knows what it’s going to take for an individual to become a believer. The father draws them to Jesus by the spirit so that they will be confronted by the claims of Jesus and be converted.

It’s not in our hands. We need to bring them to Jesus and let Jesus do the work. We are not responsible for the salvation of men. Nor are we allowed to decide who will or will not be saved. It is God’s sovereign choice. Our job is to bring them to Christ by His word and our lives so that Jesus can deal with them individually. This is done by doing what the first disciples did. They need to be brought to a place where Jesus words are being taught and lived.

Verse 50- Jesus answered and said to him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these."

Jesus tells Him that he will see great things than that if He is with Jesus.

51 And He said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

Here Jesus finishes by referencing a story about Jacob’s ladder in the Old Testament in Genesis 28:12.

Now Jesus gives them a glimpse of the story. He is telling them that He is the ladder that is our access to the God. He is showing that heaven is now opened to earth! He is the ladder to God!

Jesus says that “I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the father but by me.”

He is the only mediator between man and God. He is the only bridge, the only ladder that gives us access.

Yet we should notice that this isn’t man climbing to God, but God coming to man.

This is how our great story of Christianity comes to us:

A freak comes out of the woods, eating bugs and sugar, yelling at people, claiming that his cousin is God!

John gets everyone to repent, to prepare them for Jesus. Then Jesus starts His ministry with two of John’s disciples.

These two disciples, Andrew and John, tell their friend and brother Simon/Peter. The following day Jesus tells Phillip to follow Him and Phillip does.

Then Phillip runs and tells his friend Nathanael. Nathanael comes to meet Jesus and becomes converted.

These first two men’s lives were changed by having dinner with Jesus.

Can you see the connectivity here? How someone told someone who told someone who told us. And this can be traced back to Andrew and John.

Conclusion

Story of Fidel Castro

A friend of mine and Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Shared a story in one of his sermons about Fidel Castro that is hilarious, but very sobering.

He said that one day he had an urge to pray for Fidel Castro. He thought it was strange that he would desire to pray for a Communist dictator, but he would and he did. Even if it would simply be funny if God had Fidel wake up one day and say “Oops, I was wrong, the whole communist thing doesn’t work, Jesus is God.”

He said as he prayed he began to think that there would never be a way to get Fidel Castro the Gospel. He is guarded. We can’t really travel to Cuba very easily and so, it seemed like a pretty ambitious goal.

Then he meets a friend of his who is a church planter. And this pastor runs a cigar shop on Nasau which is a little island in the Bahamas. If you are going to connected, run a cigar bar on a vacation haven, that launders money, in the Bahamas.

This guy sits around all day and tells movie stars and powerful people about Jesus.

One day he is sitting there and he talks to this couple about Jesus. And they tell him that they have some friends that are getting married and asked if he would marry them and be their Pastor.

They introduce him to this young couple and he starts to get to know them and teach them about Jesus, and they ask him if he could be their Pastor and perform their wedding. He says sure.

He shows up to do their wedding at this beautiful mansion overlooking the water. Caviar, fine food, lots of wealth. It’s a Mafia wedding! He is doing a wedding for a Mafia bosses daughter and the son of another Mafia boss.

People are showing up with expensive cars as gifts and he is feeling pretty intimidated. He finishes the wedding and the head of the Mafia family walks up to him and tells him it was beautiful and that he did a very good job and he appreciated him taking care of his kids. He also said that if he could ever do anything for him to let him know and he would be happy to.

So the Pastor says, do you know Fidel Castro? The boss responds by telling him that he does. And the Pastor tells him that he has wanted to plant churches in Cuba. So the mafia guy asks him if he would like to meet Fidel. He of course says yes, because he wants to plant churches. The mafia guy says that he’ll need money and connections to do that, and he thinks he could help.

So his friend is thinking, if I could plant churches in Havana Cuba, with Fidel Castro’s permission, through the connection of a cigar bar and with the money of a mafia boss, God must be sovereign!

He gets flown into cuba and brought into a state dinner with the mafia guys and sits a few table away from Fidel Castro.

He gets permission to plant churches in Cuba. And they are working on getting projects in Havana to plant.

How small is the world? I am now connect by 2 relationsihips to Fidel Castro. If I were to try to meet Fidel Castro, it would only take 3 people, one of which I am friends with, to say yes.

If there is only six degrees of seperation. Meaning that as the psychologist in the sixties determined, that we are connected world wide to every person on this planet by the right combination of six people. We could easily reach the entire world with this information that we have called the Gospel.

If we wanted to change this entire 3 million population in the count of San Diego, we could do it with just the people here tonight. You are that closely connected.

Everyone could hear the good news of Jesus Christ in San Diego, just by you. They are connected, to someone, who knows someone, who knows someone.

How are we going to make a difference in this city? By you telling the story. If you do what God did for you in sending someone to connect you, this City would be turned upside down in a matter of a handful of years.

This is practical evangelism. Media won’t do it. Marketing campaign won’t do it. But word-of-mouth will transform our culture.

Our modern evangelistic methods simply do not work. I gave you some figures last week regarding the percentages of people that come into community and fellowship after the crusades have left town. It is less than 1%, why? Because it doesn’t work. People are tired of being marketed. And the way they filter out the garbage is by word-of-mouth.

Think about a guy that shows up on your doorstep with a girl in a wedding dress in the car and tells you that you need to get married to her or she’ll pull out a 45. and blow your brains out and send you to hell. That’s how we evangelize. It doesn’t work.

People need to hear and see in our lives the Gospel. We then need to welcome them into friendship and show them the Gospel by the conversation of our lives.

I hope this helps us as we pursue God in our lives and desire to bring others to come and see.

Let’s pray.