Come And See

So we've been in the Book of John for the past three weeks. This is the or two weeks. This is the third week in the Book of John. We've been in John, chapter 1.

If this is your first time joining us, I'm not going to leave you out.

I'm going to give you context for every bit of it. I've been enjoying walking straight through Scripture as much as I enjoyed our relationship Series in the month of June. Man, there's a level when you're talking about pop, pop culture. When you're talk about science, when you're talking about what we're dealing with today, there's so much that there is to cover.

That when you go back to God's word, it's just refreshing.

I mean, science doesn't get you where you need to be. I'm not saying science isn't good. Don't, don't leave out of here, say the Pastor said s science is no good. I'm not going to that church anymore.

No, I love science.

I think. I think it's really cool. I think it speaks to the glory of our Incorruptible God. It gives us a very limited amount of excuse to not believe that there is a God, to know what he did and then to think he doesn't exist.

Oh my gosh, that is craziness.

But we're going to be in the Book of John. Let me catch you up. The Book of John starts with this idea that Jesus, God incarnate, right God, made flesh. Dwelling among men was in the beginning, with God, that through him all things were made.

John, chap 1:14, says that he became flesh, and later in John, starting in verse 15, going all the way to- I believe it's it's verse 33- we talked about the first Real Witness to Jesus, who is John the Baptist, and I communicated to you guys last week that, though John the Baptist is probably one of the greatest men that ever lived, According To Jesus, not according to me- According To Jesus, the greatest man that ever lived, for those who were called by God, who were to live according to his purposes, he says, the least in the kingdom is even greater than John the Baptist, and John the Baptist was a great witness.

But what we see in the text is that God has called us to be Witnesses, testifying of the grace of God that we have receive, testifying of the things that God created, testifying of the reality of Jesus's resurrection from the dead. And so what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to jump into the first part of what we would call narrative in the Book of John. I told someone last week I said: if you halfway liked the first two messages, then these next several are going to be very enjoyable to me. Those first two messages were like the hardest to preach, because it's the hardest to understand.

But as I step in today I'm really excited.

I'm amped up to bring you God's word. So, without further Ado, I'm going to begin reading in John, chapter 1, verse 35, and I'm going to leave it here, if that's okay, rather than holding it up because I got a handheld mic. Today. I felt like I just wanted the spirit of you know some rapper to come over me at some point in the message.

I just didn't know what was going to happen, so be ready.

Lean in verse 35. The next day, John the Baptist was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said: look. Other translations might say: Behold the Lamb of God.

When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus 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 they spent that day with him.

It was about 4: .

In the afternoon, Andrew, Simon, Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing that Andrew did, the first thing that Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him we have found the Messiah, that is, the Christ, and he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said: you are Simon, son of John. You will be called sephus, which, when translated, is Peter.

The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee, finding a man named Philip.

He said to him: follow me. Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Betha. Philip found Nathaniel and told him: we have found the one who Moses wrote about in the law and about whom the prophets also wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph Nazareth. Can anything good come from there?

Nathaniel asked: come and see, said Phillip.

When Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said to him: here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. And Nathaniel asked: how do you know me? Jesus answered: I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you. Then Nathaniel declared: Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

Jesus said: you believe because I told you I saw you under a fig tree. You will see greater things than that. He then added very truly: I tell you, you will see Heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. Today I want to give you my sermon title.

It's a very simple sermon title but it is an action step that I think we can live by.

The sermon title is this: come and see. Come and see. Look at your neighbor, do it confidently, say, say, say, come, check it out. Ah, we're working on it.

We're working on it.

I'm gonna do it every week until y'all do it and then I'll stop. I'll stop when you guys do it. How that? I probably won't stop.

Actually, I don't want to lie up here in this Pulpit.

Come and see. I remember before I moved out here in to the Phoenix area, I lived in Arkansas. Well, I lived in Arkansas, then New Orleans and then Charlotte, and so there are a lot of places that I've lived, but most of them were in the Southeast. Now, the thing about the southeast is it gets warm, don't get me wrong, and it's very humid.

But from afar I noticed something about the Southwest, specifically Phoenix, that it gets way hotter out here than it does over there in the South, like we're stressing out when it hits 100 to 105 mostly because of the humidity.

But all I saw from over there was that it gets up above 110 degrees and I saw it and I thought everybody says when they come visit from Phoenix that it's not that bad because it's a see what I'm talking about. Y'all know it's a dry heat. And so I came out here to visit and it was in June and my wife and I we walked outside of the airport and she had a sweater on and it was 112° and I looked at her and she looked at me and she said I love this place. And I looked at her and I'm like it's pretty warm.

And we went through the week and I realized that's true, it's a very it's a dry heat.

It really is. I was here for about 3 to five days. I stayed at some Resort in Scottdale and swam every day and I got myself a little tan, got myself a, a haircut in one of the fabulous haircut place or barber shops over there, and then I left and I was amped to come here. I'm still amped to be here, don't get me wrong.

But then I moved here in February and there was snow.

Y'all remember that last year there was snow on some of these mountains. I was like it's not that bad. And then I got into May and in early June, if you remember this, last year it wasn't that bad, like it was still pretty cool even into the early portion of June. But then late June and July hit and something different happened that that was that was my first exper.

The first day, 110 was cool.

Second day it's like, oh, it stays hot overnight. Then the next day it's like they said the monsoon Seasons coming. And then what was it like? More than 30 or 40 days- is what of over 110.

In the middle of the day it didn't let up.

And then we didn't really get a monsoon season last year that y'all kept talking about. And I'm sitting here into October like when's it? When's it going to cool down? And so then this year, this, there's a- if you see, bright like I don't know what kind of green it is, it's like seafoam green shirts.

They're on a little mission team.

They reached out to me back in, like February or March, and said, hey, can we bring a team out here and help. So if you got a flyer on your door this week, they're the ones who passed it out. So can we give it up? For some of these guys let's go, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyways, I said: y'all want to come when July?

Okay, there's one thing I've got you to do. It's passing out flyers. But it's July, I just need you to prepare for it. So bring some Camel backs, bring some Walkin shoes, bring some sunscreen.

And they say, ah, our team's, our team's got it.

And then we start getting halfway through the week and I'm walking with them and I'm sitting here like yo, we need to, probably, we need chill out, and they went eight hours on Friday, guys. And so I tell you all of that, yeah, kudos to them for working for the Lord in the heat. I say that because it was one thing to view the, the degrees from when I was in the 100, 10, okay, whatever, it's a dry heat, no big deal. But then I lived here for that first summer and I told my wife this: I said it was fine for vacation, but living in this is hard.

From afar, it seemed doable- and I'm not saying it's not doable, but it was miserable.

And it's the same way in our walk with God. From afar, things seem to make sense, things seem to come together. From afar, you, you have these perceptions and interpretations of who God is, but it's not until you live in it, not until you come close to him, not until you're in proximity to his works and his character, that you start to genuinely understand what it's like to live, live in his presence- and I know I flipped it on you, cuz ain't nobody want to live in 40 days of 110° weather- but you can all agree that there is a difference between seeing from afar and experiencing up close. Right, amen is different and I need to tell you from the bottom of my heart- and I know some of you are new, so I've got like this amount of credibility with you.

I'm going to exploit every bit of that little credibility.

I have to say this: if you come close, it is an amazing experience when you get to interact with your creator, when you come close to Jesus. And when I look at this passage, I love it. I think it's super fun for me to read and to preach, because it gives you something super simple: to, to, to follow. And it says this.

I'm going to go back to the verse.

I'm not going to read the whole thing again, but I want to show you a few things. Verse 35: it says: the next day was, John was there again with two of his disciples. So John is doing his typical teaching thing. He's probably baptizing some people in the River Jordan.

He's hanging out.

The day before he had already talked about Jesus, being the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, John the Baptist had already said to his followers this: dude, Jesus, I'm not worthy to untie his flipflops, I'm not worthy to do anything, I'm not worthy to be base level in what he is bringing to the table. I baptize with water, I'm just dipping people, but he will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and radically shift their disposition toward this life, but toward their eternal life. Jesus does so much more. And so the next day, John the Baptist says: look, Behold the Lamb of God.

And I love what it says here.

I think John does this intentionally. If you didn't know this, back in the ancient world, especially when they were, putting the Bible together. Documentation was put on this thing called Papyrus. Papyrus was not cheap.

Papyrus had to be made in a very specific way, so people most of the time were limited in the amount of pap pyus that they had.

And so if John is writing this down, he's being very intentional with every single word. He can't just text it and then edit it like we get to, he gets he whatever Papyrus he has. He's like I got to fit everything on this in order to make sure that I articulate this to the coming generations. And he intentionally says this.

When the two disciples heard John the Baptist say this, what's it say?

They did? They followed. I'm going to give you four points today, and I'll call the fast track to your spiritual success if you want to, because that's the acronym f a s. The first in the acronym is to follow.

It didn't say they understood.

It said that they followed. They heard someone speak and they followed. One of the things that we can learn in this life, specifically regarding our faith in God, is sometimes- not every time- sometimes the Lord- just I don't know. I've never seen him come down physically from heaven and reveal something to me.

I've not heard- heard the audible voice of God.

The best I've gotten is Impressions from God's word. The best I've got is something very clear and poignant from God's people. I've never heard God's voice audibly, but some of you, you've heard it. Some of you have had a radical dream one day and you turned around your life and started following Jesus.

God sometimes does speak to people that way, but the vast majority of the time God invites you to do something before he explains the full extent of what he's going to do.

He says: Behold the Lamb of God and the two disciples follow him. What does it look like for you? I don't have much credibility. I think the Bible has more credibility than anything that is written in the history of this world.

I personally think it's got credibility.

You might have heard from some people who are scholarly in the way that they speak, who say that this is not legitimate. But most solid Scholars have debunked these ideas that these, other Scholars have brought to the table. So I think the word of God is valid. It's helpful.

It's sharper than any two-edged sword.

It can Pierce straight through to your spirit and help you remove sin and take in the conviction of God. Right, I? I believe God's word is powerful and credible, and so when God's word tells me to do something, I am learning that sometimes I have to act or follow before I can understand and even sometimes mentally align to what God wants for my life, I think. I think sometimes we want to understand everything, the full extent of it, before we step into it, and I don't think that's unreasonable.

But I think sometimes it's slower.

And again I'm talking to you about the fast track to your spiritual success. Do you realize how much time you're spending asking questions and hoping that maybe someone would answer those questions, when the quickest way to answer your questions is to step in? I can talk all day about how I need to interact in the Phoenix heat. I can prepare by getting rid of all my sweaters before I moved out here.

I could prepare by talking to people.

All they're going to say is the same exact thing: it's a dry heat, it's a it's it's. It's not that bad, it's a dry he. It's great eight months out of the year. But then I learned it's probably more like six to seven months out of the year.

They're going to say all the same stuff, but it's never going to, it's never going to hit, until I experience it like do you realize how many questions I had before I moved out here and like God?

God was like: Hey, I, I feel like you should probably plant a church, Matt. And the Phoenix, specifically the Buckeye area, it's really growing and there's going to be a move of God out there, so I want you to be a part of it. And I'm sitting here like hold up, Lord. It's like John the Baptist saying: Behold the Lamb of God.

If I'm a disciple, I'm like hold up, can you explain a little bit further about what this looks like?

And maybe they had a base level understanding of who the Messiah would be, but my, my understanding of this passage is that he said: says look, that's the guy, Behold the Lamb of God. And they just they start following. There's something impetuous about what they're doing, something that's super spontaneous about what they're doing. Like if we were looking at them and they just totally picked up and started following the guy that this other guy said to follow, we would think that they were crazy.

Hey, you might want to ask some questions before you start walking with them.

You might want to spend some time seeing how people perceive him before you start following him. You might want to give him, the whole list to make sure he's the guy that John the Baptist says he is. You might need to come up with perfect logic before you start following him. This is what we do.

We say: if God says or does this, then I will follow.

But what God wants you to understand, and what he has taught me, is that he invites us to follow him and then he starts to answer the questions. Let me prove it to you. Says they started following him and as Jesus saw them following him, he turned around and he said: what do you want? Now?

I could take this question super theological, I could take it super spiritual, I could speak it specifically to you.

Like you, you chose to follow Jesus. All of you have so many different reasons for doing so. Some of you want that get out of hell free card. Some of you guys want to rid yourself of the anxieties that keep plaguing you.

Some of you want Community.

I don't know exactly what you came in here for, but Jesus looks at these disciples and he says: what do you want? And when Jesus asks the question question, he's going to answer. I mean, when they answer, he is going to reveal something about himself and so them choosing to follow put them in a position to hear a question from God. That that meant was meant to be reciprocated, like it's.

It's a mirroring question.

This is what. What do you want? Like today, you came here on purpose, like no one. No one forced you to get in your car.

I don't think.

If you're a kid, maybe you did get forced. I think your parents love you. That's why they brought you here today. But most of you did not get forced to show up up today.

You came here for a reason.

I've known people who came to church because they're on the verge of divorce and their marriage is not in the right place, and this is their last shot. I feel that when I'm up here, sometimes there are people who came because their parents forced them. There are people who came because they got a fly on the do. It's like I ain't got nothing better to do today.

I don't know why you came today.

I don't know why you're in the position in life that you're in right now, but when we start interacting with Jesus, he puts that question right at the Forefront: what are you seeking? Because what you're seeking has a huge impact on what you're going to receive, and many people are frustrated with church right now because they were seeking something that God never intended the church to give you. You were seeking something that God never intended to give you. I think when we look at the history of the disciples, we see that regularly they were seeking the wrong things and Jesus had to correct them, but they never get into the conversation if they don't follow some of you.

You just need to take the step.

You're sitting here. You're sitting here right at the edge of this cliff and God's just, hey, just jump, I got you covered, just jump. And you're like: I don't want to jump, I'm scared to jump. I remember when I went skydiving, I almost said for the first time, but I only did it one time, didn't want to do it again.

I remember I went skydiving- it was tandem, I wasn't professional, I wasn't good at it-, I was standing there right at the edge and I had this thing where I really wanted to do a backflip, and so we did a backflip.

But I remember when I was standing there at the edge of the plane about to jump, he was like hey, come on, bro, we got to go. Like plane's moving, we're going to mess our, miss my spot. I'm like, hold up, though I going hold on for a little bit longer. I was scared, I was stressed out.

I didn't know what was going to happen.

I knew he had me covered, but, but I was stressed because, logically, you're not supposed to, as a human being, just like willingly jump out of airplanes. And so I'm sitting here being logical, but my logic was preventing me from the joy of falling freely through the air. It wasn't that fun, it's not, but, but when it comes to your faith, it actually is filled with lifegiving joy. If you can choose to follow first, look at your neighbor again, say: follow first, ask questions later.

You don't have to tell them that, but I'm telling you that ask, ask questions later.

It's, it's worth it. What? What my wife and I talk about, that what's the worst can happen. There's a lot of bad stuff that could happen, but think about it, though: I've learned in my life that when God calls me to do something, and we start looking at the real worst that could happen scenarios, none of them are as bad as my gut tells me when I'm being too logical.

So I want to encourage you.

What's the worst that going to happen? Yes, when we follow Jesus, he tells us to take up his cross. When we follow him, he says it's going to entail persecution from those that are closest to us. It's going to change a lot of the ways that we behave.

It's going to require discipline.

It is hard sometimes, but the joy far outweighs the difficulty. So, follow first. But when, when you follow Jesus, he does not leave your questions unanswered, like this is. This is the false logic of those who are standing on the precipice of Faith, that want to ask the questions and need them answered first.

It's that if you would simply follow and participate and interact, you will have your questions answered much quicker than standing here and waiting until you do it.

This is- this is not just spiritual, this is in everything. You never know how the job's going to be unless you move forward in that direction. You never know what they're going to say unless you ask them first. You never know what's going to happen.

Happen until you take a step, and it is important for us to come up with logical questions and think through.

Even Jesus tells his disciples: he says: think about what you're building, think about the cost that it's going to have on your life. Before you start building this house, think about it, otherwise you might step into it and not complete it. There is logic to it, but sometimes you got to follow first. That's the first step to fast tracking your interaction with God.

The second one is you got to ask.

Here's what it says. We're going to toss up verse 37 again. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus turning around. Jesus saw them following and asked: what do you want?

They said: I need you to hear this like, hear it like a normal logical person who's talking to Jesus here.

They said: Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Now, when I read that the first time, I read it the same way. Some of you might have heard it, which is: yeah, okay, where you staying? That's cool.

John the Baptist had just said: Behold the Lamb of God.

The day before he said he's going to take away the sins of the world. He had indicated that this person was the Messiah. So Andrew and the other disciple- they know that this is the Messiah, or at least they're believing it because they're following him. And Jesus turns to him and says: says: what do you seek?

What do you want?

What are you looking for? And they say: Rabbi, which means teacher, does not mean Messiah, means teacher. Rabbi, where are you staying? I don't know about you, but if I had someone who pointed out that I trusted right, who pointed out that the Messiah was standing next to me and I believed it at some level, then the next question that I would ask them would not be: hey, which hotel you at today, Lord, where you hanging out?

You going to the hook of Lounge?

We're going to come with you like: where? Where are you staying? If I'm Jesus and I'm not, I mean, anyone who knows me for more than five minutes knows that I am nowhere near Jesus. Chief of Sinners over here, Paul was too- I'm in good company, but I am not Jesus.

But if I were and I'm looking at some people who are about to be my first followers in my Earthly Mission that's going to last three years, end in my death, and then I'm going to leave them to start a church so that all of the world might know who Jesus Is Right like, if I'm going to the two- two that started, their first question is: hey, teacher, where you sleeping?

I would think that is probably not the best question. Like, think of the question you would ask. Say you only get one question, what question would you ask I? I would if I got one question with Jesus.

I've thought really long and hard about what I would ask him and I'm not going to give you a funny response, because the serious response, would be something like very personal to me.

It'd be like God, why, like for them it might have been. Why did it take so long for you to come? Why did the Israelite, why did our people have to be sent to Babylon? Why did the Assyrian Empire invade and they were never restored?

Why, why, why, why did the kingdom get divided?

Why, for the last 400 years, have we not heard your voice? Have we not seen your word? Why, now? Why did it happen this way?

Why are we, under the Roman Empire, having to be subservient to people who, in their minds, are pagans?

Why, why, why? I would ask why? And? And knowing the questions people ask us whenever we do different question and answer series, I think that would be a question you might ask God: why all the pain and suffering?

Why did this happen to me?

Why are your people so mean? Why do I have these desires? But your words says that I can't have them or shouldn't have them or shouldn't operate within those. Why this?

But they say: where are you staying?

Here's my point with that: when you follow first, you don't have to have all the answers, you don't even have to know the right questions. When you get close to Jesus, you may not know anything, but your proximity to him gets you where you need to be, and Jesus is always, always Gra? Ious. When I ask a stupid question, he's gracious.

When I live in hostility, he's, he's kind, he's compassionate, he's faithful and just to forgive me of my unrighteousness and cleanse me from it.

That's what first John says. Like when G, when I'm interacting with Jesus, even if I don't know a single thing about him, he is patient enough to hear me. There's a scene when Jesus is transfigured before James, John and Peter. And Peter is standing up there.

He sees Moses and Elijah was supposed to be dead, but they're standing on top of this mountain.

Jesus is being transfigured. He super white, like bright, bright light. And Peter, he says, hey, this is good that we're here. We should build a shelter for you Moses, and for you Elijah, and for you, Jesus, and if I'm Jesus kind of cool suggestion, Peter and many of us, we come into our faith and we don't know, and many times the lack of know, knowledge that we have about Jesus prevents us from taking steps toward him.

But that's why you've got to choose to follow first, but then you get to ask.

That's the second one you got to. You get to ask and the disciples asked and he was gracious in response. I would have asked a different question. I would have just kept following them and said: hey, what's your, what's your goal this week, what you going to do?

Hey, can I sit at your left hand and you're right.

Hey, what is my role going to be in this? That that' be the question I ask. But Jesus probably looks at me asking the wise to evil- and why does evil exist? And sitting up in heaven, knowing his full plan, God is probably sitting there like bro.

I know that's not the right question to be asking.

As I've gotten closer to God, there were questions that I used to ask that he was gracious with, but now that I've been following God for about 20 years, there's some things that I've learned, and when people ask me those same questions I have to. I get to now be gracious because when I get close, in proximity to Jesus, he reveals himself. And when he reveals himself, I know him better, I know me better, I am kinder to other people, I live this life better, I am less anxious and I am sealed for all of eternity in Christ Jesus. When I choose to follow first- and I got all the questions.

This morning I woke up.

I said why, Lord? Like why is it warmer than I want it to be in this Auditorium? I was like, why, Lord? Why are there people in our church right now who are sick with whatever it is?

Why?

Why are there there people who are struggling in our church, Lord? Why are there people who are trying to figure out your calling but doing it in the wrong way? Lord? Why this?

Why this?

I'm constantly asking questions, but because I'm getting closer and closer to Jesus, he is revealing daily, as I walk with him, his will, not just for my life, but for this world. Proximity to Jesus has to be your priority. That's why we follow first and while we follow, we ask. I never forget I would ask my dad questions about his work.

What do you do, dad?

He said he's a radar technician. I was six and I'm like what is a radar technician? And then I go to work with him on that. You know, father, son, workday thing that they do.

I don't know why they do it, but they do it, and I went there with them.

They shouldn't have done it because it was boring, is all get out looking at electronic equipment all day. And then he climbed up the tower. I sure wasn't about to climb up that 800t Tower- not me, - and so I watched him do it and I, as I came close, he was able to answer questions and I actually understood them because of the proximity. So follow first as second, and the next one is: you will see.

Here's what happens in the text.

After they ask where are you staying, he doesn't say hey, I'm staying at the Holiday in. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say I'm staying with your auntie. He doesn't say I'm staying at this place where they got all good bed and breakfast.

I'm staying with a continental breakfast I'm hanging out with, with this crew of people.

He doesn't say that. He says come and you will see come and you will see come and you will see when you, when you start with wanting to know the answers. The hardest part for me as a pastor is to say like: I can tell you some of the answers that I've learned, but you're not going to get them in the context because you're not in the context of a relationship with Jesus. You, you don't get it.

I, I could say things in a conversation with my wife, but innocent bystanders are like yo, what's up with that?

Because they're not in the context of that relationship. They're not close to her like I am to her and they're not she's. I mean, they're not close to me like she is to me. So our conversation looks radically different.

Sometimes it's real awkward for people to be sitting in a conversation with me.

We've worked on that over the years. I used to be a youth pastor and we didn't know how to fight right. We've learned that over the years, haven't we? Sweetie, if you're in here, if you're not, that's okay, I still love you.

We've learned how to fight right.

But early on we'd have youth students in the back of our car and we'd be talking about stuff and we'd be having this conversation out of our closeness, but someone sitting in the back was like yo, what's up with you guys. I'm like, no, we're good. It's like it doesn't look like you good. No, we're good because we've had this conversation internally regularly and that might not be the best example, but that's what I've seen in my relationship with Jesus.

The closer I get to him, the more conversations I have.

One of the funniest things that I've seen in life is that we have this need, I think, to be perceived as spiritual. But as I grow closer to Jesus by reading his word, you go look at some of the stuff that Jesus is. Jesus says he's pretty Savage sometimes and sometimes I, I'm reading the Bible and I'm interpreting it and people are like, they know the freely, the freely compassionate Jesus who's like, yes, I have compassion on you. My spirit was moved, all all these things that they heard from their preacher who was talking with Grace.

But then I'm like, get behind me, Satan.

To Peter, and then I'm like, that that food's only like only suitable for dogs. To a woman, who, who's a gentile? I was like, dang Jesus. But I'm, I'm closer, so I'm cool with it.

I get it, I understand it.

Sometimes his methods look different from afar, but as I get close I'm like, yo, that's what I needed, but you only get it when you're in the context of that relationships. You got to follow. First you got to ask and then you're going to see. Most of you- some of you will, I- I had a conversation with a person who's from Pakistan who had a dream and God revealed to him his nature and he converted from Islam to Christianity.

It was the craziest conversation I had way back in 2015 and it was.

It was very moving for me to see how God spoke directly to him. I wish that had happened to me in a lot of ways and many of us wish for that moment. But for most of us, you follow, start asking and then you see. Follow, start asking and then you see.

This is what we see in the entirety of this passage.

He says: come and you will see. Verse 39 still. So they went and saw where he was staying and they spent that day with them. It was about 4 in the afternoon.

Andrew, Simon, Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard that John, what John had said, and who had followed Jesus.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him. Now, what did he tell him? He says: we have found the Messiah. Now, what did they call him before they saw Rabbi?

They followed, they asked and then they saw he's not just a Rabbi, is he?

He's actually the Messiah. But they would have never understood that if they hadn't spent the day with him, if they hadn't followed him, if they hadn't interacted with him. And I know you've got an image of who Jesus is. But until you connect and interact, you're not going to understand him at the level that he wants to know you and that he wants you to know him.

Follow, ask, see.

And it's interesting. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him. So you got to follow, ask, see. I think this is, this is a necessary thing.

You got to tell.

Not only is there something like visceral that happens when you start telling other people what you've like felt or heard or gotten an impression of, when you tell them, it actually seals within you. So that is just biologically, something that is helpful. They're experiencing Jesus and then immediately they leave and they go, start telling people about Jesus. You see this with most of the people who had a real Encounter With Jesus, like the woman at the well, he told her everything that she, she ever did and she runs to the city in, or the city of sucar in Samaria, and she tells everybody and they all go out and they want to interact with Jesus and ask questions.

When anyone has a true encounter, the first thing that they do is after they experience it.

They've got to Proclaim it. They've got to tell others about what he did. This is just what I see in Scripture. For me, when I first trusted in Jesus, back when I was 15 years old, it was a strange thing.

People were telling me I was going to go to hell.

I was like you, people are mean, stop treating me like that, don't be so judgmental. But then the Lord convicted me that, yeah, you will go to hell, Matt, if you don't trust in me. So I trusted in Jesus and my life started to turn around and I felt so different within myself that I couldn't help but tell other people. But as I become more familiar in my faith- and many of you, as you become more familiar in your faith, it becomes less natural for you to tell others about what Christ has done and more natural for you to think what he has done is common, basic, not a big deal.

But when you see Andrew.

You see him. He goes and tells Simon and then later Philip follows him without knowing anything. And then Philip goes to Nathaniel and Nathaniel's struggling with these questions. He's struggling understand, with understanding how the Messiah could come from a place called Nazareth and Jesus actually reveals himself in a special way there.

By telling him where he was, he says.

He saysi saw you before. You were under the fig tree, right like Nathaniel got that cool opportunity at the end of a question that he asked. But the first few people followed and then they saw. So let me simplify this again: the fast track to your spiritual growth is to follow first.

I'm not saying to follow me.

I'm not saying to follow the people in this room that that maybe are volunteer leaders. I'm not saying to randomly follow people on Instagram or Tik Tok who say that they're preachers or preach the Bible. I'm saying to follow Jesus first, and we know from this text that he is the word of God and the way that we see him is in the Bible. So my encouragement to you in your following first is to open God's word.

I had a conversation with someone earlier this week and- and I was telling them- I said: you know I can talk to you about all of this stuff, but as you open God's word and you start reading it, there's going to be a limit to the amount of Revelation you receive.

That's why read the whole text before I started preaching. It is because there's something that happens when you hear God's word out loud, and so I want to encourage you to start reading God's word. Follow him as you find him in God's word. Follow, ask questions.

There was somebody when I was younger I asked a question about dinosaurs or something like that, and she thought it was a dumb question.

She said: well, I just don't doubt about things like that, and I it bugged me because that's not the grace that I saw Jesus J give to Andrew and the other follower when they asked them: where are you staying? Come and see, so ask your questions. Do not be ashamed to ask those questions. And when someone makes you feel bad about asking questions, be they about the existence of God or be they about how he works, keep asking, because when you keep asking, God will hear your prayer and he will work on it from Heaven.

He may not answer it the way you want him to, but he will still reveal himself to you as you continue chatting and talking with him: follow, ask, I promise you, you will see him as you continue that process, and the more you see him, the more you're going to want to follow.

I mean, picture their motivation to follow him when they thought he was a rabbi versus their desire to follow him after they realized he was the Messiah. Yo, that's a different ball game. Right there, they probably were thinking: let's follow him for a little while, see what happen, see where he's staying at, and if the crew that he surrounded himself with isn't solid enough, we going to go back to John the Baptist. I don't know this.

This is just me kind of vamping on the text, but probably that's how a lot of people come to church, isn't it I?

I didn't have to go there, but I'm going there. It's how a lot of people go to church, just like. Let's go check it out, see how it is. Let's make sure that they fit my preferences and the way that I'm familiar with.

Let's make sure that at least a couple times a year they hit my general Christmas Nostalgia with silent night.

Let's make sure that they do everything that fits my preference, and if they don't, I'm just going to go back or I'm going to keep hopping until I find the right place place. But did you know? Church is not about the preacher, it's not about, the music that they sang, it's not even about the kids ministry. It's about the proclamation of God's word and how it connects and resides in God's people, so that when they go out, not only are they following, not only are they asking, not only are they seeing, but they're also going out and they are telling: if you want God to move in your life, follow, ask, see and tell.

But there are some people you've never made the decision to follow Jesus and, just like me when I used to want to hike Mount Everest, but then I hiked away smaller mountain and realized that it would be too hard for me, you're looking at, you're looking at the peak and you're like that's too much for me.

Or you're looking from afar and you think that it's not what I'm saying, it is I. I want to invite you today to just just go there in your faith, just just walk to the edge and decide to, to step off and see what God might do. What's the worst that could happen like what is the worst that could happen if you follow, ask your questions, there's nothing wrong with it. But what I know is that when you follow and you ask, you'll see.

I know that when you follow, ask and you see you're going to keep following and you're going to keep asking, asking cuz you saw, and then the more that you see, the more that you're going to tell and you will be in this place.

That really implements the vision of our church where you're starting to revolve everything around Jesus. It's not just this honeymoon phase where it was kind of cool for a couple years and then I bowed out of it because I got busy in Life or wanted to chill at the house. No, it's this thing that, like it says in Hebrews, who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, how can they go back to what was average? Nah, those who have tasted get addicted.

They get infatuated.

That's the word. That's the best word. It's not good in any other worldly circumstance. I just want you that infatuation.

That's weird.

Don't do that. You're going to get a restraining order held on you. That's not good. But in your faith, there is nothing better to consume your life with than Jesus.

I'm infatuated with them.

That's why I look like a geek when I start talking about Theology and my wife falls asleep after five minutes of hearing it. That actually happened one time, didn't it? Sweetie? Is she not in here?

That's okay, I won't say it in the second one when she's sitting in.

But for those of you who are at that edge, deciding whether you're going to jump in or not, jump in and then ask: think later, think later and see what God will do, it's not going to hurt you, and the way that you can do that is simply by choosing to follow him right now, and we do this every week. But I'm going to make it as simple as possible. So if everybody could bow their heads and close their eyes. We'll pray this prayer.

We'll do it all together out loud, for the benefit of those who are praying it for the first time.

God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe he died on the cross and Rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin, help me follow you. Let me ask questions so that I can see you all the days of my life.

Today is that day where I follow you.

It's in Jesus name that we pray. Can we celebrate those who just made that decision right now.