Would You Be Willing to Come and See How Jesus Saves?
Good Morning Friends,
Calling someone the Lamb of God for a Jew in the time of Jesus was really a more impressive comment than we give credit to the title today. It was a Wow!!! statement that prompted excitement and emotions. It was an invitation to a spiritual feast and a discovery of something very valuable and nothing less than the answer to the question on the minds of Jews looking for the Messiah and yes, finding God’s gift of the second Adam and second Eve. For all of us today who, do not have the same cultural heritage, the question might be a little different and initially less exciting but not at all boring. The experience of becoming righteous in a relationship with bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh is the enthusiastic story of life in the called-out assembly of God. So maybe for those who have yet to get it we should ask something like, Would You Be Willing to Come and See How Jesus Saves?
Scripture: Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.
1 John 3:7-10 (NRSV)
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
John 1:35-42 (NRSV)
Message: When it comes to sin and being a Christian, on the surface of it, there seems to be a contradiction, for all the Christians I know still sin. The Jews had sacrifices to deal with the contradiction but even that was not enough. The revelation is that we tend to get better at being good when we love, for God desires our love more than our sacrifices. But still we all fall short. We need something to engage us in getting better for we are typically not a great attraction for the faith on our own. Thankfully God provides a solution to the problem by providing the sinless Lamb of God. Here God provides the opportunity for us to offer others the chance to experience forgiveness and to come and see the depth and breadth of this movement that started as a tear in the Father’s eyes and turned into a flood of emotion designed to baptize us in the Spirit and fill our cup with overflowing joy. It starts out like a single snowflake, for my frozen chosen friends up North, that turns into an avalanche of love. For in this experience of life we are to discover that Jesus is the Son of God…the answer to everything of importance. We are to discover that we have been made in the likeness of the Second Adam, Jesus, not just the first. So, friends we need to try out not sinning and see what happens. Perhaps we might just find that the love of God is so prevailing a match that we no longer desire to sin. Realize that Jesus is calling us. Jesus sees us and knows us and will praise us. Friends, Jesus is such a good lover of people and wants to know us even at the expense of his life. All the stories in the Bible are about Jesus. The gap between what the world is and what the world needs to be must be bridged. Jesus is the way to bridge the gap.
And So, we are to trust patiently for Jesus to deliver love. We are to trust Jesus our Lord to make us to do what we are called to do and cannot do alone. Friends, today we see how Jesus met his first disciples and the patterns here can help us to close the widening gap between a spirituality that people seek and the growing rejection of organized religion. The offer is to come together and think and come and see what Christianity has to offer in groups of seekers. And so, what Jesus is asking us to do is to accept the offer to not just come and see, but to come and believe and think it through intellectually with others reading the Bible. Look what happens in the text and the witness of John in what he sees and says about Jesus. The data is specific, and the evidence clear. John was a game changer on his own but still brings people to Jesus and so should we. The text today is an eyewitness account. Read the surrounding text and you will see. You can come and see too with others. Read the account and realize that you must be pushed to the extremes of credulity if you do not sort it out and learn to read it marveling that either the writers of the Bible saw it happening and witnessed the amazing power of Jesus or they came up with an elaborate system of lies and died for them. The only logical thinking is to believe what they said is true. Be a person of intellectual capacity. Come and think but also come and follow Jesus with others. Spirituality alone does not transform. The thing is not just to believe, but to be changed in the following of Jesus. Being a fan and being married to someone is very different. This is all in stuff. Then you might just discover that to be a follower of Jesus it has to be his heart and not our own making the decisions. Process this with friends. Do it together. You have probably tried a product or purchased an item because someone else said they thought you would enjoy it or because they said it was fantastic and it made all the difference in their lives. That is what is happening in today’s text with John the Baptist. And what makes all the difference in how we respond is in how much we trust the person making the recommendation. Jesus calls us to personal transformation. Jesus calls us to an adventure to consider the affirmation of Jesus in our lives. All of it is about Jesus. We are to be moved by those things that bridge the gap between what we see and the cosmic reality that is the reality of what the Bible and life stories that move us point too. The story of true. The spell can be broken. The key is Jesus. Believe in the amazing grace of Jesus. Come and see.
Pray we be patient. Pray we have courage. Pray we be a friend to others. Pray we help others to come and see. Pray we have friends that practice their faith with confident humility. Pray we have friends that come and wonder and worship with a sense of excitement that is more amazing than what we can imagine alone. Pray the adventure of personal and collective transformation is truly wonderful for us and others. Pray we realize that the way to find Jesus is though friends who have found Jesus. Pray we stop deceiving ourselves. Pray we practice righteousness and in this realize that Jesus is never boring. Pray we answer the call of Jesus, the lamb of God, and that he purposes our hearts to point others to way of salvation.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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