Latest / Finding Jesus Again / Episode 2; Ordinary People
Transcript
- John Smithson: Hey guys, welcome back to the second episode of Finding Jesus with John Mark. Again, where we are looking for Jesus beyond all the religion and beyond all the other things that kind of become piled on us. ⁓ we're gonna start today. We're gonna be reading from ⁓ John chapter one. We're gonna pick up from where we left off yesterday, and we're gonna start with verse 14, and we're gonna read the remainder of the book. It's our plan ⁓ through this. podcast over the next thirty days to read the entire book of John. So we're not going to skip any verses and we're not going to to try to to find explanations from anywhere except for what God gives us and what God gives me as we read this. So let's just start with verse nineteen. He says this is the testimony of John, when the Jews were sent excuse me, when the Jews sent priests and Levites to him from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? And he confessed And did not deny, and this is what he confessed, I am not the Christ. And so they asked him, What then are you, Elijah? And he said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he answered, No. Then they said to him, Who are you? Tell us, so we may give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of the one calling out in the wilderness, make the way of the Lord straight, as Isaiah the prophet said. And the messengers had been sent from The Pharisees they asked him, and said to him, When then are you baptizing? Why then are you baptizing if you're not the Christ nor Elijah nor the prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize in water, but among you stands one whom you do not know, it is he who comes after me, of whom I'm not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals. These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing people. So this is the first mention of of baptizing. Purification rituals were a part of the culture. They would various reasons they would purify themselves and this purification would represent a cleansing from sin. Again, water can't cleanse sin. And and we see that in the old testament and also here in the New Testament that water can't cleanse sin, but it is a a symbol of Purification rituals were part of the culture, but John started this ritual of being baptized for the repentance of sin and the forgiveness of sin. And so he was calling people to repentance. In verse twenty seven, John's purpose was to preach repentance and to prepare the way for the Messiah. So let's read on, starting with verse twenty nine. It says the next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is he in behalf of whom I said after me is coming a man who has proved to be my superior because he existed before me, and I did not recognize him, but so that he would be revealed to Israel, I came baptizing in water, and John testified, saying, I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and he remained upon him, and I did not recognize him for But he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit, and my I myself have seen and have testified that he is the Son of God. So in first John thirty-three, John was Jesus' cousin, first of all, but John never recognized him as the Messiah. So I find it very interesting that John and Jesus they pretty much grew up together, same age, and John never recognized Jesus as the Messiah until that moment that Jesus came to be baptized, and John baptized and then a dove came in in the form of the Holy Spirit and rested upon his shoulder, and God told him the one that you see the Holy Spirit rest upon is the one who is the Messiah. And so that confirmed to John that this is the Messiah. John goes on to prophesy that Jesus will be the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. This is all part of several prophecies in the Old Testament that say that there will become a messenger who will come to prepare the way. Specifically, Isaiah 4 and 3 says that there will be a voice crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord and make straight in the desert a highway for God. And so John is the fulfillment of that prophecy who has come before. To prepare the people or to prepare the people's hearts for the coming of Jesus the Messiah. First thirty five to one fifty one, these are the voice I'm kinda got ahead of myself. Yeah. And so through these verses, John is testifying to us, ⁓ to the people of his time, that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is the Messiah. So let's read on, we're going to read on the rest of the verses here. It says Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned to him and saw them following and said to them, What are you seeking? They said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, Come and you'll see. So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found a Messiah, which translated means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John, you shall be called Caiphus, which is translated Peter. The next day he decided to go to Galilee and he found Philip, and Jesus said to him, Follow me. Now Philip from Bethesda, the city of Andrew and Peter, Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, We have found him who Moses wrote in the law and the prophets also wrote, Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nathaniel said to him, Can anything good come from Nazareth? Philip said, Well, come see. Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and said of him, Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Nathaniel said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered and said, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathaniel answered him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. And Jesus answered and said to him, Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, you believe? You're going to see greater things than these. And he said to him, Truly, truly, I say to he say to you, you will see heaven opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending the Son of the Son of Man. These are the verses where Jesus calls his disciples. Now I like verse fifty, where Jesus tells Nathaniel You believe I who I am because I simply said that I saw you under a fig tree. Well you hadn't seen nothing yet. But it's a it's amazing that these men were willing to drop everything and and follow Jesus. It's widely believed that most of the disciples were teenagers, except for for Peter. Peter was married and was likely in his twenties. John was probably the youngest. It is so interesting that God chose these men to change the world and entrusted. The spreading of the gospel to them. Most most students who would be students of of a rabbi would be would do so between the ages of five and twelve. These were not students of a rabbi, ⁓ they were not students of the Torah, but they were normal, hard working men, everyday men who were working or learning a trade. God called them for where they were, when they were fishing on the fishing boat, doing their trade, learning their trade, and and he called them from these from these places. Normal, ordinary, I say men, young men, teenagers. God entrusted the the the gospel and the commission of the gospel to teenagers. Later of the book in Acts Peter Peter in Acts, Peter and John was labeled as uneducated and untrained. When they were teaching about the word, people are going, these guys are uneducated, they're untrained. They they were never in rabbi school. So it just goes to show you the type of people that God chooses, which brings me to another point that I'd like to make today, and that is that God chooses people like you and me, ordinary people. He, you know, I I I'm not a smart guy. You know, I didn't graduate from from any fancy college. And maybe you, maybe you're working a trade right now. You're maybe you're driving to work. You know, I a lot of us, you know, I do underground fiber optic work. A lot of my family does that. A lot of people, you know, work normal businesses or normal jobs and you think that, you know, because I didn't go to rabbi school or because I'm not a pastor or because I'm not a worship leader, how can I serve God? Well, the thing is God's calling you from where you are. And I love the fact that this isn't just something that that that we're saying. It's something that is proven through scriptures that the first people that the closest people that were to Jesus were just ordinary young men. That he said, Hey, follow me. And they did. And that's what God's looking for you to do is just to follow him, to accept him, to receive him, to believe him and follow him. So my commission to you today is just to do that. Just follow him. Just drop everything and follow him. Don't worry about anything. Don't worry about what the outcome's gonna be. Don't worry about what it's gonna look like. Just follow him. That's what I'm gonna do. I I thank you for joining me today on this episode of Finding Jesus and I Hope ⁓ you'll tune again tomorrow. Thank you.