A Worthwhile Introduction - John 1:35-42
Shortly after moving to Florence in the fall of 2017, I had a conversation with some FMU students about potentially starting a ministry on campus.
We really got started because some students were concerned about the theology and philosophy of other campus ministries. Initially, we had students over and we studied the book of Romans and eventually we moved on campus with the hope of reaching more students.
And just when it felt like we were starting to gain some traction, COVID hit. Last fall, we met in small discipleship groups in our home and this most recent semester we had a larger gathering here in this building on Tuesday evenings and studied the book of John.
But that’s not entirely accurate because we only made it through the first four chapters of John.
And for whatever reason, this passage really hit a chord with me. It’s fairly short and seemingly insignificant in the whole of John’s gospel. But as I studied it in preparation for RCF, the more I began to see the truths of this passage play out in our college ministry.
Although this passage can easily be passed over in the whole of John’s gospel, it gives us a glimpse at what effective ministry looks like. In this brief passage we see that effective ministry requires three things: humility, the Spirit, and firsthand experience.
Point 1: Effective Ministry Requires Humility (vv. 35-37)
One of the hardest things about ministry is it’s easy to miss the forest through the trees. There’s a tendency in college ministry (but really any ministry, for that matter) to make it about everything but Christ. We talk about the pastor’s charisma, the friends and community, the food.
If you’re not careful, Christ can sort of fade into the background of something that was supposed to be focused on him.
It really sounds simple and easy, but it’s actually a lot harder than it seems because there are distractions all over the place. Sometimes, the distractions are completely unavoidable.
Some of you may not know this but about a year and a half ago I had to kick a student out of the college ministry. She was argumentative, rude and disruptive. She was making other folks uncomfortable.
It was the right thing to do, but as a pastor there’s pressure to hang on to every person because you’re in the process of building this little kingdom… or so you think. You don’t want to see people leave. You want people to stick around and grow in their maturity and walk with God.
But even this way of thinking is self-centered. It can quickly become about me and what I want. Often we have to drink the bitter cup of self-denial. We need to completely remove ourselves from the equation and humble ourselves like John the Baptist.
We want it to be about us, but it isn’t. It’s not about you or me. In verse 36, John refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God for a second time.
The first time he does it in verse 29. The first time he does it, he’s alluding to what Christ is going to do on the cross. And then he uses those same words again in verse 36, but this time he’s saying it specifically to his disciples. He’s reminding them of who Jesus is. He’s subtly encouraging them to follow Christ. The commentator Matthew Henry writes of this verse, “for his two disciples that stood with him; he was willing to turn them over to Christ.”
Do you think that was an easy thing for John the Baptist to do? To encourage his disciples to follow someone else? Before Jesus was on the scene, John the Baptist was attracting big crowds! His ministry was the one growing! People wanted to hear from John!
And he gave it all up for Jesus. You can clearly see John the Baptist’s humility here.
His ministry wasn’t about himself. It wasn’t about getting the biggest following or creating loyal disciples for himself; He wanted to prepare the way for Christ and point others to him. Jesus was at the center of John’s ministry and he humbly submitted to him.
Jesus says in Matthew 11, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
There’s no question that John the Baptist did the right thing, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.
It had to have been a tough decision for John the Baptist to send his disciples over to Jesus. It’s easy to seek your own glory and act like a righteous person in order to win the admiration of others. But we must not focus on those things, we must take ourselves out, I must take myself out, and point people to Christ.
This may look like teaching on difficult passages of Scripture. Having hard conversations. Disagreeing with popular opinions in our culture. But like John, we must humbly submit ourselves and our ministry to Jesus.
Point 2: Effective Ministry Requires the Spirit (vv. 38-39)
This passage plays a significant role in understanding redemptive history. There’s a changing of the guard. John the Baptist, the prophet, the one voice crying out “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD” had fulfilled his purpose. The period of preparation was over because Jesus was now here. Now was the time for John the Baptist to fade into the background so that Jesus could take center stage.
And so two of his disciples follow Jesus. It’s funny how they respond to Jesus’s question. Jesus says to them, “What are you seeking?” And they respond by asking Jesus, “where are you staying?”
Sort of an odd way to respond. They answer a question with a question. But the truth is they probably didn’t have a good response because they didn’t know what they were seeking!
All they knew was they were being encouraged to follow Jesus, but more than that - they were drawn to Jesus. He had this indescribable magnetism.
The heading that most Bibles have added at the top of this passage is “Jesus calls the first disciples.” Those headings are not a part of the original manuscripts but were added to help orient us as to what is happening in each passage. The headings are not inerrant. In fact, they’re often errant.
Like for instance in this passage. Where does Jesus actually “call” anyone? It makes it sound like Jesus actively recruited Andrew and the other disciple. To be fair, Jesus does say, “come and I will show you,” but only in response to their question “where are you staying?”
What’s amazing about this whole passage is that Jesus is drawing people to himself and he hasn’t performed any major public miracles or preached to massive crowds. The Holy Spirit was already at work in the hearts of people before Jesus ever did anything. It’s absolutely necessary for the Spirit to work.
It’s really interesting because this is something that I’ve learned from interacting with college students. For some, no matter how bad you want someone to come to saving faith in Christ, no matter how many times you bring it up or package the gospel differently, nothing seems to get through to them.
And on the other hand, you can have a few conversations in passing with someone and that person gets saved.
It really just demonstrates our powerlessness and the necessity for the Holy Spirit. The Spirit must be at work in the hearts and lives of people. We must pray for the working of the Holy Spirit.
But too often we make subtle attempts to be the Holy Spirit. We think the extra things, the dimmed lighting, the right music, creating the right atmosphere, or a specific ministry will draw someone to the Lord. How is that anything other than an attempt to be the Spirit?
We must be faithful to proclaim the gospel and trust that God will do the rest. God must be at work in the hearts of people for real and lasting change to take place. We must pray for that.
Point 3: Effective Ministry Requires Firsthand Experience (vv. 40-42)
The apostle Peter’s brother, Andrew, was one of the disciples of John the Baptist and it only took him approximately twenty-four hours to be convinced that Jesus is the Messiah.
In verse 41, he tells Peter that “we have found the Messiah.” And then it says in verse 42, that Andrew “brought” Peter to Jesus. If Andrew had to “bring” him to Jesus then it would seem that Peter was less than enthusiastic. But we all know how the story ends. Peter becomes one of Jesus’s closest disciples.
And then Jesus changes his name from Simon to Peter. Jesus renaming Peter is a powerful moment because Jesus redefined who Peter was. Because Peter wouldn’t ever be the same after meeting Jesus.
You know after we kicked that girl out of our college ministry, I felt like we were at a bit of a crossroads. Because pushing forward was going to be difficult. All the conflicts that had taken place were public and the Francis Marion campus is small. Word travels. Would anyone want to come to a Bible Study where stuff like this had taken place?
There was a point where I was wondering if one individual had successfully torpedoed the campus ministry. And then one day a new girl showed up to our Bible study.
And then she brought some of her friends. One of her friends got saved. And a young man got saved. Within the last 6-8 months the Lord has begun to do some really amazing things. And that’s in spite of COVID and all the craziness going on around us.
And it’s funny because when you look at what we’re doing, it’s nothing special. In fact, it’s a joke among all of us about how “basic” Reformed Christian Fellowship is.
At this point, we don’t really have any musicians either. It’s a minimalist operation to say the least.
And yet, students come back. They’re interested in what we’re doing. They’re inviting their friends. I’m not doing any email blasts or social media posts. We’re just doing a Bible study. And that’s when I realized something: In order for Peter’s life to be radically changed he had to experience Jesus Christ for himself.
He didn’t need to hear from Andrew 50 reasons why Jesus is the Messiah. He didn’t need to hear a perfectly crafted gospel presentation. He needed to experience Jesus Christ for himself.
He needed to interact with Jesus. He needed to see what Jesus was all about. I believe the same is true for us today. We need to interact with Jesus. And we need to encourage others to experience Jesus.
You and I can experience Jesus Christ for ourselves through God’s Word. The power is in the Word of God and many of these students are interacting with it deeply for the first time. And they’re being radically transformed. Because it’s through the Word they’re experiencing Jesus Christ. They’re getting the gospel.
And hearts are changing. One of the girls who recently got saved came up to my wife and I a couple months ago and said to us, “I had an epiphany, and it might sound silly to you but I realized the Bible - it’s all true. Like, it’s true for me.” And we were like, “Yes, it is.”
Just how Jesus redefined who Peter was, he’s redefining who this girl is. You can only know who Jesus is through the Word of God. We must believe that is enough.
What we’re doing I think is very different from the way most college ministries operate. The standard operating procedure of most college ministries is to do whatever it takes to attract students. In order to do this you have to have the best band, the most culturally relevant discussions, lots of good food, and the funniest speakers. I’m drawing a caricature but I think you all get the idea.
And there’s nothing inherently wrong with great music, good conversations, delicious food, or having a good laugh. Most of you all know that this is the most serious I’ll be all week. I love all of those things! The problem is when you think you have to have these things in order to see people come to Christ.
If you think you have to have all of those things, then your methodology is driving your theology and that’s scary.
Because you’re implying to everyone that you have control over the Spirit of God and you’re denigrating and minimizing the sufficiency of God’s Word.
And I’m here to tell you all this morning, that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We simply need to trust that God’s ordained means to communicate himself to us is enough.
You don’t need all the extra things. You just need God’s Word. Like Andrew, you can invite people to come, see, and experience Jesus for themselves. He alone can change their hearts through the power of his Word. He alone can reveal himself.
There’s one final thought about John 1 that I want to share with you. It’s rather interesting that Andrew plays a very small role in the New Testament.
He’s only mentioned a handful of times despite being one of Jesus’s disciples. But his brother Peter had a massive impact as an apostle. He’s one of Jesus’ closest disciples, writes 1st and 2nd Peter, and is the primary source of the gospel of Mark.
He preached at Pentecost and 3,000 people were saved. He has this incredible ministry for the Lord. And really it all began with a simple introduction. Andrew invited Peter to meet Jesus. That introduction was Andrew’s greatest contribution to the kingdom.
This is how we should all think of ourselves. We’re just the middleman. The go-betweens. Ambassadors.
You don’t need to be Billy Graham. You need to be faithful with what God has given you to the people he’s placed you around. Be available to explore the Scriptures with someone and trust that it is enough.
Who knows what kind of impact you could have by just introducing one person to Jesus Christ… that’s worthwhile. Remember Andrew.
Let’s pray.