All right, that's good to be back and it's good to be preaching with y'all. And today we're going to go back to John chapter 1. This passage where Jesus is walking around calling people to himself. It's a precious passage and I can't wait to share it with you. I want to start out by telling you a story of my nephew. He's actually my second cousin once removed for those of you from the south and care. My nephew's name was Drake. His name was Drake because his father's favorite thing in the world to do is hunt ducks. And so he named his son Drake. And Drake had one dream in life. His one dream in life was to play baseball. From the time he was four years old, he was the best baseball player that he knew. And he loved playing. And as he got older, he got better and better. And his dream was to play baseball at the college level. But as he came to a senior year of high school, he realized that dream would probably never be realized. First of all, he was just short. He was just too small. He wasn't the kind of player the college programs were looking for. And secondly, he played in Union City, Tennessee, a little single-A school in West Tennessee. And there's just not a lot of college scouts who can even find Union City, much less shop there. And so he kind of got this melancholy spirit about him. And he realized that he was never going to really probably fulfill that dream. And one day, he walked off the field. He had had another great game. But instead of being excited about the win, he had this kind of empty feeling to him that his career was coming to an end. And as he was kind of walking and thinking that, he looked up and a man extended his hand. A man with a big goofy Vanderbilt flat-build hat stuck out his hand and said, hi, my name is Tim Corbin. I'm the coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores. Now I would love to have you come and play for my team. And he was overwhelmed with this feeling, the spirit, that the thing that he had been looking for his entire life was looking for him. The thing that he had been hoping for had come looking for him. What if the thing that you've been looking for your whole life is actually looking for you? Our text today will see men of all ages confronted with that amazing situation. Men who have been waiting for the Messiah, families who have been waiting for the Messiah for generations are going to find that the Messiah has come looking for them. And before we jump into that, I want to ask you today, what are you looking for? Some of you may think that you came here today because you're searching for something. Maybe you think you're searching for truth or you think you're searching for hope or you think you're searching for love or for forgiveness or for a second chance. But I have got some really great news. The real reason you're here today is not because you're looking for those things. The real reason why you're here today is because Jesus is looking for you. Because God is searching for you. He brought you here. Jesus is graciously calling us all to Himself. And our question is simply this, will you follow Him? Will you follow Him? Please stand for the reading of God's Word. Reading from John chapter 1 verses 35 through 42. The next day, John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and he said, behold, the Lamb of God, the two disciples heard him say this and so they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, what are you seeking? And they said to him, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him for that day for it was about the 10th hour. One of them who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ, and he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon the son of John, but you should be called Cephas, which means Peter. This Father reading of God's Word, Father, we pray that Jesus would be speaking to our hearts even as I preach through this silly mouth of mine, would you be calling your people to follow you? Amen. You may be seated. Isaac, can you go get me a bottle of water? There's something to see you room over there if you can't find one. Jesus is calling each of us to himself. Now, theologians talk about two different calls. There's a universal call, which the call that God offers to all people, that his Word has gone out to all of creation, and you hear God say things like in Isaiah 55, everyone who thirsts come to me, or you hear Jesus say, everyone who is weary and heavy laden come to me and you'll find rest. That is a universal call that goes to all. There's also an effective call. An effective call is when Jesus puts with that universal call, that call to come to him, he puts with it the power. He empowers that call so that with those words comes the ability to respond. He attaches to those words a conviction of sin so that you're convicted of your sin and your need for a redeemer. He puts with those words the power of faith so that you're able to believe him. He puts with those words this renewing spirit so that he renews you and he makes you after his own image and he enables you and persuades you to embrace the gospel. That's the effective call. That's what we're looking at today. We're looking at Jesus not just simply calling out, but calling out with the specific power to empower people to respond and to bring them to himself to say three or four things about that call. First, I want you to see that the call is gracious. The call is incredibly gracious. Now, you may not see that in this text unless I give you a little context. Look at verses 38 to 39. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, what do you want or what are you seeking? We're going to get to that in a minute. Great question. And they said to him, rabbi, where are you staying? Now, the grace may not be obvious, but let me explain to you this. Rabbis did not recruit. Rabbis did not recruit. Rabbis were the university of their day. They were the schools and every father who was worth his salt would bring his child up his sons up in that day, teaching them the word as children, teaching them the law, and they would have the bar mitzvah, which means son of the law when he would turn 13. And then after that, they would take their children to the rabbis and the rabbis would examine them. They would examine them daily. It was a very strict, heart, oral school and the oral tradition. How well do you know the law? And rabbis did not say, follow me. They said, go home. They said, you're not good enough. You're not smart enough. And in this text, we see Jesus only calling those who weren't following another rabbi. He's calling the people who were not good enough. He's calling the people that nobody else wanted. The men who followed Jesus with one exception ended up being older. They had other professions. They were the ones who had been sent away. Jesus is picking the ones who never got picked. He is picking the ones who went to their dances in high school and stood by the wall all night and never got asked to a single dance. He is picking the kids who were always the last to get picked for the team and as soon as it was possible, started getting cut from the team. He is picking the ones that nobody else wanted and he is telling them to follow him. I want you to see that this call is gracious. It doesn't vary about how good you are. There's no one that he doesn't want. And I also want you to see that this call is various. It's not a single repetition of the same story. It's interesting. If you compare the callings of these people in John with the callings and the other New Testament books, you'll see they look different. For instance, Matthew, when Jesus calls Peter, he's in his boat. And I've told you before that John was written long after those other books and so I think really what's happening here is not Jesus' final call to discipleship. I think John is giving us their first meetings. John is saying, look, don't get the idea that this spooky guy walked up on the beach and said, follow me and these people just left their fathers and go, okay, like a cult leader. He knew them. He spent time with them. This is how he met them and I think it's important to see that it's different. It's not the repetition of the same story. John Thendors told you last week about the calling of Nathaniel and how Jesus talked to him about his prayers and how he saw him under the fig tree. A couple of John and James and John were following John the Baptist and they came to follow Jesus and Jesus looked at them and said, what do you want? For Peter, Peter was brought to him by his brother. The stories are all different. For Matthew, Matthew was collecting taxes and he just walks up to him and talks to him about the gospel. The stories are all different and that's important for us as evangelicals to recognize that conversion stories are not the same. There's no one size fits all to conversion or to following Jesus. And the reason why that is is because Jesus knows you. He knows you specifically. He knows your name. He knows your story and he knows how to call you. For one person, they may have been called by the prayers of their mother. Another has a neighbor driving to Sunday school. Another has this overwhelming loneliness in college and they find R.U.F. for another group to be a welcoming fellowship. When I was an R.U.F. campus minister, I had one older man tell me he was a ruling elder to them and he said, I went to R.U.F. looking for a girlfriend and I ended up finding Jesus. I had a woman tell me that her lawyer called her to tell her that her divorce was final. And in her overwhelming loneliness and desperation, she reached for the Bible and found Jesus. They call us different because we are different and he knows us and he knows us. And I do want you to see one interesting thing and this is just a side note, little footnote that you can stop the clock, this doesn't count against me. But I want you to see this character named Andrew. Andrew went, was called by Jesus and wanted to follow him but he stopped and when he got went and got his brother Peter first. The reason why that's fascinating to me is this. Andrew is in four stories in the Bible. His name is listed a few other times when it's just a listing of the apostles but he does four things in the Bible that I'm able to find. And in those four narratives, he's doing the same thing every time he's bringing somebody to Jesus. It's really fascinating. He stops to go get his brother Simon and bring him to Jesus when they're faced with 5,000 people in no food. It's Andrew who brings a little boy to Jesus with loaves and fishes. When Greeks come to see Jesus at the end of his life, it's Andrew. It's really funny. They find Philip. Philip goes and finds Andrew. It's like, Andrew, you're good at this. Will you take him to Jesus and Andrew brings them to Jesus? I just thought I don't know. I thought that was interesting. Andrew is the one who's mentioned, every time he's mentioned in the Bible, all he ever does is bring somebody to Jesus and introduce them and I think it's worthwhile for us just to ask ourselves this question. Just what the heck? If God uses such a great variety of ways to bring people to Jesus, is it possible that you could be one of those ways? In the realm of possibility, we're not a church that says, be like a Daniel, be like an Andrew, but is it possible that maybe God has somebody in your life that He wants you to bring to church? He wants you to introduce to Jesus. I'm not talking about going out and finding strangers or even crazy like that. I just think there's probably one person in your life who knows you. There's probably one person in your life who admires you, who thinks you kind of, you have something about you, they appreciate, out bet there's one person in your life who's heard you talk about your church, how awesome your church is, that's a joke, and is waiting for you. It's actually waiting for you to invite them. How about there is, I don't know, maybe you'd be fun to bring them with you this year. Maybe this could be the year that we stop keeping River Oak to secret. What do you think? Maybe? I don't know. Let's get back to the text. All right, so the call comes to different people in different ways and yet, and it comes to different people at different times. It comes to different people at different times. Peter was old. We know that because he was married, his mother-in-law waited on him. We know that since he was married, it would be just crazy strange if you didn't have children. And since Jesus calls him to follow him, it would be crazy strange if those children weren't old enough to take care of themselves. Everybody who know, the theologians who like to spend their life studying this thing, think that Peter was probably at least, he was at least Jesus' age, and it is very likely that he was older than Jesus. And I think that's important because some of us, you kind of regret not getting called to Jesus earlier. There's a tendency to want to regret that. John was a boy. He was younger than James. He was one of James's names always mentioned. He was still with his father when ultimately he followed Jesus. He was following a rabbi. He hadn't been sent home. His rabbi was John the Baptist. John the Baptist sent him to Jesus. He was very young, most likely a teenager. His mother still came and visited him and spoke up for him. I mean, not too many grown men are going to let their mom go and speak to Jesus on their behalf. That would be very awkward. But if he was a teenager, it would make sense. And we know also that John was the youngest because he lived the longest. He was the last living disciple by a long shot. I want you to see that both of them were right on time. Jesus needed an old disciple. Why? Because he was going to die. He needed somebody who could be a leader for the rest of his disciples when he was dead and he was in heaven and someone who could preach the gospel and be immediately recognized as a leader. And so he went and found Peter. And he needed somebody young who would grow up and who would watch over the second generation and make sure they got their theology right. And make sure they understood who Jesus was, who could maybe write a longer gospel, this more theologically precise, and so we went and found John. And what I want you to see though is this, he was right on time. They were both right on time. There's a tendency on behalf of people who are converted at an older age to say, I wasted my life, I ruined it. I got good news for you. God has known you the whole time and you're right on time. And there's a tendency of people who were converted at a young age as a goofy tendency but a lot of us had it. Well we think, man, I wish I had a cooler conversion story. I wish I hadn't have grown up in the gospel and knowing it, growing up in the church. I wish I had done drugs or done something cool like that. And I mean, you felt that you were right on time too and you're not missing a thing. And I want you to at least just think about that a little bit. Don't regret the age you are when Jesus calls you. But instead investigate, why did He call me at this age? Why do I have the experiences I have? Did He call me at a young age so that I could train up to go into the ministry? Did He call me at an older age so that I would be able to witness to people who couldn't, I couldn't otherwise. One of the biographies that made a deep impression on me last year was called Fallen. It's a story of a converted prostitute named Annie Lobert. And you know, her ministry now is called Hookers for Jesus and she goes out on the strip of the Vegas, the stripping Vegas every night to witness to Hookers. That's not a good ministry for me. But she can do it because she knows what their life is like. He was right on time and you're right on time. So ask yourself why, not, don't regret the what. Jesus calls us graciously and individually and He calls us right on time and He asks us to weigh the call. I love this conversation. We're going to look at two kind of just funny conversations here. I want you to see the humor in them. So James and John, John the Baptist says, there's the Lamb of God right there. The one you've been waiting on. That's him. And when, like teenagers were supposed to do, right, you're just like, oh, okay. And Jesus looks at back at them and says, what do you want? They were not ready for the question, right? They did not have a trained ready response. So they were like, where are you staying? And I just think there's a deep wealth of wisdom in the question. Jesus asked this question a lot, asked it blind men were calling out, scream out in the crowd. They couldn't quiet them. And then they finally get to Jesus and Jesus looks at him and says, what do you want? A man who has been laying on a mat for about 40 years, he looks, Jesus looks at him and says, what do you want? And I think if you're serious about coming to Jesus, you need to be ready for that question. He's looking at you and saying, what do you want? And this is not a time to feel guilty for question is if your answer is selfish, I don't see Jesus rebuking a single person for their answer. Everybody comes to Jesus for selfish reasons. Wanting to go to heaven instead of hell is selfish. That's okay. He doesn't rebuked that. He just wants to know what do you want. He wants you to know what you want, and I think the reason why that question is so valuable is this. If your answer is nothing, if your answer is you don't want anything from him, then you don't really know who he is, and you don't know how much you need. If you believe that you are in the face of the one who is the source of all light in life, the giver of every good and perfect gift, then it is impossible to want nothing, to want nothing which show a sinful self-sufficiency. I believe that you already have all you need, a desire to not be any better. A friend of mine was trying to minister to a girl in the Mississippi Delta, and she drove her 100 miles each way to go to see a counselor, and after about the second or third time she took her to see the counselor on the way home, she asked, what did y'all talk about? And the girl said nothing, and she said, what do you mean nothing? She said, we sat in silence for an hour. I didn't want to talk in the counselor, said if I wasn't willing to talk, she wasn't willing to talk either, and we sat in silence for an hour. That girl didn't think she needed a counselor, she didn't want help, so she didn't get it. If you come to Jesus wanting nothing, that's what you'll get. Do you want healing? Do you want life? Do you want grace? That's what you'll get. He asked what they want, and they said, well where are you staying? And he tells them come and see, and it's funny, it's twice in this passage and a couple of other passages, we see this phrase, come and see, come and see, and I think that's valuable because Jesus is a person, and you have to walk with him to know him. Jesus is not a pill that you can take, he's not a proposition that can be explained, he's not a prayer that you pray, you have to walk with him to get him. You know my answer is if you want to know about Christ, come into the church and see. You have to walk for a while in the fellowship, you have to experience not only the worship, not only the message, but the people, the community, come and see. We are the body of Christ, come and see. I mean if you feel like you need to pray a prayer so you can feel like you've become a Christian, that's fine, I'll give you one to pray. But I just want you to start with trying him out, see if he's real, spend time with other followers, and then a while you find out what you believe, you find out, Jesus is like sailing on the ocean, you can't get him in a proposition, you can't understand him by reading about him. You can study all the pictures, you can study all the maps, all the books you want, but if you've never been sailing on the ocean, you've never been sailing on the ocean. And you can read the Bible and read all the theology you want, it's actually helpful, but if you've never come with Jesus, if you've never followed him, if you don't know him, you don't know him, come and see, come and see. So Jesus calls us graciously in the demands that we weigh the call, asking ourselves what we want and experiencing time with him, and then we respond and we respond by receiving a new name. I can't funny conversation, if you're reading John 1, you're not laughing, you're not really paying attention, this is a funny conversation, okay? Andrew brings Simon to Jesus, and Jesus looks at him, and we are to believe this is the first time they've ever met, okay, that is an accurate reading of this story. Andrew introduces his brother, Jesus, I'd like to introduce you to my brother, this is Simon. Jesus looks at him and says, oh, you're Simon, son of John, we're going to call you Peter, what? You can't just call me Peter, you can't just change my name, what does that mean? It means a lot, it's a name that is a destiny, you're going to become something out of who's strong, you're going to become somebody who's a foundation, but it's also, it's not just prophesying about his future, it's a term of dominion, what I mean is this, when Adam was told to take dominion over the animals, what did he do? I brought them to him and he named them. When you name something, you have dominion over it, it's yours, and I do think Peter was older than Jesus, and I think Jesus looked at him and said, Peter, I want you to follow me, but it's going to be on my terms, and you're going to admit to this by my terms right now by letting me call you Peter, we're going to call you by the name I give you, to follow him is to submit to him, to follow him is to acknowledge that he is the Lord, and I will accept him as Lord, and he is in charge, and he determines not only what I am called, he determines who I am, Jesus, I'd like you to meet Simon, hi Simon, I'm going to call you Peter, you're mine, but it's also Simon, I'd like to give you a name, I want to give you a name, it's not only a sign of Lordship, it's not only a sign of dominion, it's also means that you're receiving a father, you don't name things you don't care about, farmers have a saying, you don't name the sheep before the slaughter, when we got a puppy for our family over Christmas, it took us forever to name her, came up with the name Gladys, a long story, but we had to name her because she was ours, when parents are having children, they think and they think and they pray about what they're going to name him, but they have to name him because he's theirs, when Jesus names Simon, he's saying, I will be a father to you, welcome to my family, you're going to be important to me, Jesus calls us to take the name and he gives us, he's saying to us, you are precious to me, you're precious to me, hear these words from Isaiah 43 as I close. Now, thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name and you are mine, when you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you, and when you walk through the fire you will not be burned, and the flame will not consume me, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior, and you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you, that's the call, that's the call to you particularly, that is the call that is coming to you at exactly the right time, that is the call to you that you have to submit to, and that is the call to be loved, and what's left for us is to respond, will you respond, please pray with me.