In the sermon 'Jesus the Messiah' by Jason Dohm, John 1:35-42 is explored, highlighting the encounter between Jesus and two of John the Baptist's disciples, Andrew and another unnamed disciple. John, upon seeing Jesus, proclaims Him as the 'Lamb of God,' leading the disciples to follow Jesus. This passage marks the beginning of Jesus gathering His disciples. Andrew, after spending time with Jesus, is convinced that Jesus is the Messiah and immediately shares this revelation with his brother Simon Peter, whom Jesus renames Cephas, meaning 'stone.' The sermon emphasizes the significance of the terms 'Messiah' and 'Christ,' both meaning 'anointed,' and explores Jesus' unique role as the anointed one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. It discusses the transformative impact of encountering Jesus and the joy of sharing the good news with others. The sermon also explores the concept of anointing in the Old Testament, noting that while Jesus was not anointed with oil, He was anointed with the Holy Spirit. It concludes with an exhortation to embrace Jesus as the anointed prophet, priest, and king and to share the discovery of Jesus with others.

We'll be reading from John 1, starting at verse 35 and down through 42. Verse 35. Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God! The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, What do you seek?

They said to him, Rabbi, which is a say when translated, Teacher, Where are you staying? He said to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he was staying and remained with him that day. Now 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 the Messiah, which is translated the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, You are Simon, the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated a stone. Well, I'm a preacher, so I'm always eager to preach.

There are some mornings where I just want to push Taylor out of the way and get at the text. And this is one of those mornings. So Taylor, you moved just in time. It's so beautiful. The title of the sermon this morning is Jesus the Messiah.

I finally get to talk about this word. John, the Gospel writer, sort of used the word up in verse 27, I think it was. Verse 17. He says, For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Christ and Messiah are the same word in different languages.

And so I just sort of put a placeholder in that sermon for this. I was eager to talk about this word and all that it means, and I finally get to. Last week we learned about Jesus as a baptizer. We really don't think about Jesus as a baptizer. It's John the Baptist.

Last week we had Jesus the Baptist. Jesus baptizes not with water, It's not a symbolic baptism, but Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He makes you alive by immersing you in His Holy Spirit. And He never delegates that to anyone. Only Jesus can baptize with the Holy Spirit.

There's not a man on earth who can do it. Only Jesus can do it. This week we have our first encounter with any who would become the twelve disciples. We are introduced to Andrew and Peter this morning. And so we're beginning to meet those who will become his disciples and spend three years with him.

And then they'll turn the world upside down. So that's the beginning of that. As we come to our text, let's come to our text in prayer. Our Lord Jesus, what an impact you have on the lives of all who have encountered you. For so many in the room, Our lives have been changed forever by coming into contact with you and seeing, knowing, embracing that you are the Messiah.

You are the anointed one of God. I pray that that would be more and more true in our own lives, that our lives would be changed and changed and changed in a more profound, a deeper way, a sweeter way. And that those in the room who don't know you as Messiah would encounter you today and that their lives would be changed. Oh, let it be so in Jesus' name. Amen.

I'm going to be dividing our text this morning into three different sections. The first section being verses 35-39. Hopefully your Bible is still open to John chapter 1, and I'll be reading that section again. Follow along as I read verses 35-39. Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples.

And looking at Jesus as he walked he said, Behold the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and seeing them following, said to them, What do you seek? They said to him, Rabbi, which is to say when translated teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, Come and see.

They came and saw where he was staying and remained with him that day. Now it was about the tenth hour. In this section of Scripture we have two of John the Baptist's disciples seeking out Jesus. If you are filling in blanks on the handout, there are two blanks, and it is seeking out. Two of John the Baptist's disciples seek out Jesus.

A disciple, the Greek word that is translated disciple here, just means a learner or a pupil or a student. It's someone who is studying the teacher. These are learners of John the Baptist, or pupils or students of John the Baptist. They are learning. He is the teacher and they are the learners.

The text begins again the next day. I'm just reminding you of what we've been saying week by week for a couple of weeks now, which is that we're in a close sequence of days, a consecutive sequence of days. It began In verse 19, where the Jews sent priests and Levites to question John the Baptist. That was day 1. Then in verse 29, it says, the next day John saw Jesus coming.

So that was day 2. Now we have our text. Again, the next day, this is day three in the sequence. And then in verse 43, next week's text, it says the following day, that will be day four. So we have four consecutive days, a lot happening, and Jesus is really being brought onto the stage of world history.

So we're in day three of a four day sequence with a lot happening. John the Baptist is with two of his disciples. He sees Jesus and He says what He said the day before, Behold the Lamb of God. So we have disciples, learners, pupils, students. They are with John the Baptist in order to learn spiritual things that they don't know and they are learning from him.

And the day before he had said it, now he says it again, pointedly to them, behold, consider, think about Jesus the Lamb of God. And they hear their teacher and they follow Him. You might think, poor John the Baptist. He's losing disciples. He was the teacher, the instructor, and now they're following Jesus.

And we're going to find out, at least in the case of one of the two, we never find out who the other one is, at least in the case of one of the two, This is going to end up being a permanent loss in terms of disciples for John the Baptist. But we need not think poor John the Baptist. They are not being bad disciples in following Jesus. They are being good disciples in following Jesus. How so?

Well, John the Baptist's whole purpose in life was to make straight the way of the Lord, to prepare people for the Lord Jesus. What more joy could he have than one of his disciples would actually listen and hear and understand that the one of greater value, transcendent value, the eternal pre-existent God, as he keeps saying, is preferred before me because he was before me. They heard him and They believed him. They took him at his word and they followed Jesus. They were being good disciples.

We find out, at least in the case of Andrew, that he is not after the personality. Sometimes you can have these larger than lives personalities. He's eating locusts, he's wearing camel's hair, he's out in the wilderness, he's sort of a wild man crying out. And people are drawn to personalities like that, but at least in the case of Andrew, Andrew is not there for the big ministry, the big personality. He is there for the truth.

And the truth of John the Baptist is summed up in the person of Jesus Christ. And he's delighted that one of his disciples would follow Jesus. I have no doubt about that. Jesus sees these two men following Him and He asks them, What do you seek? And they say, Rabbi or Teacher.

This is a word that gets translated for us. Rabbi, where are you staying? This is actually one of seven terms that John the Gospel writer will translate for us. His expectation is there will be some Gentiles reading his Gospel. There are words that would roll right off of Jewish lips that a Gentile like me wouldn't understand unless he translated for us.

So he translates for me and for you. We get the sense from John the Gospel writer, and there will be seven terms sprinkled throughout the Gospel of John that he has to translate for us Gentiles. We get the sense that he had a full expectation that Gentiles would be reading this Gospel that he's writing. And Rabbi is translated teacher. And it is a title of honor.

I want to give you two uses from chapter 3 that just help us understand the use of this term. The first is in chapter 3, verse 2, where Nicodemus, who is a leader of the Jews, a big wig, a leader, an important person among the Jews, calls Jesus, Rabbi. He says, Rabbi, we know that you are from God because no one could do what you are doing unless you were from God. It is a term of honor. Nicodemus in the early verses of John chapter 3 is conferring honor on Jesus, recognizing that He is doing things that no one can do unless they are sent by God.

Later in the chapter, John the Baptist's disciples come to him in chapter 3 verse 26, and they are disturbed that his ministry is decreasing and Jesus' ministry is increasing and people are going to him in droves to be baptized. They are disturbed by that and they come to him saying, Rabbi, he is baptizing more. And John the Baptist is not disturbed by that at all as we are going to find out when we get to chapter 3. But He is their teacher. They are His disciples, His learners, His pupils, His students.

And they are conferring in their usage a term of honor. They are honoring their master by calling him rabbi. When you call someone Rabbi, you're saying, I'm looking to you to learn things I don't know, spiritual things that I need to learn, and I know I can learn them to you. In fact, in Matthew 23, when Jesus is just raking the scribes and Pharisees over the coals. He is just rebuking them.

One time right after another, he says that they covet that term. Oh, they love to be called rabbi because It is a designation of honor. They want the honor. So they love it when people call them rabbi. These two disciples are not just curious about where Jesus is staying.

Here's what they're after. They want a place to talk. Not for a brief interaction in the road, but they want to go aside in private with adequate time for a long conversation. They've heard what their Master has said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And they want to talk to this man.

And so they ask him, where are you staying? You should think about this as if they are saying, is there somewhere we can talk? Is there somewhere we can talk? Jesus answers, come and see. He receives them and He hosts them at least for an afternoon.

The text says that it's the tenth hour. So if you're keeping time by the Roman system, they count it from midnight, it would be ten in the morning. If you keep time by the Jewish system, they start counting from 6 o'clock in the morning, it would be 4 in the afternoon. So it's either 10 am or 4 pm. I think it's 4 pm because of how it's reckoned in John chapter 4, but I don't need to belabor that point because it doesn't matter a lot.

The point is that Jesus receives them and takes them in and they have a long conversation. They have the opportunity to have a long private conversation. Let's move on to verses 40 and 41. 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 the Messiah which has translated the Christ." So here's another word that is getting translated for you Gentiles and me.

And they are synonymous. You can use them interchangeably. Messiah means Christ, Christ means Messiah. Messiah is just the Aramaic form of the word, which was in use at this time. Christ is the Greek form of exactly the same word.

They both mean anointed. Here in these two verses, Andrew immediately finds his brother to tell him the amazing news. So if you're taking notes on the handout and you're filling in blanks, that is the blank. The blanks. Amazing news.

Andrew immediately finds his brother to tell him the amazing news. We have no window into what they talked about. What Jesus and these two disciples of John the Baptist talked about. Wouldn't you have liked to have been a fly on the wall? Well, too bad.

If we needed it, we would have been given it. But we have no window into that. We only know that Andrew came out of that time convinced we have found the Messiah. Verse 40 is Very interesting. Look back at verse 40.

This is the narrator, meaning it is John the Gospel writer writing this. He's not recounting anyone else's words. He's not quoting anyone. He's just setting the stage for us. He says, one of the two who heard him speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

Now we have no background to Simon Peter. Poor Andrew is Simon Peter's brother. But what that indicates is that at the time when John wrote this, again this is undoubtedly the last gospel that was written, at that time you would have known Peter. Even a Gentile audience who had Any familiarity with what had been going on in the world with the spread of the Gospel would have known Peter, but might not have known Andrew. That's a clear indication here.

Andrew is Simon Peter's brother, even though We haven't met Simon or Peter. They are the same person. We haven't met either yet, and will in the subsequent verses. It goes to show what the rest of the Gospels and then the book of Acts proves is that Peter rises to the top in terms of notoriety for the twelve disciples. Now look at the first part of verse 41.

He, Andrew, first found his own brother, Simon. John the Gospel writer wants to know, Andrew cannot wait to get to his brother. The first thing that he does, he makes a beeline for his brother Simon, no stops in between, he first found his own brother to tell him this amazing news. This account resonates with me so much. Why?

Because, Because of the part that my sister, whose birthday is today, and I will not tell you how old she is, because you never know when people are going to listen to audio. My sister, whose birthday is today, plays very prominently in my testimony about how God worked in my life. And I began to be seriously discipled because my older sister took an interest in me because she was excited about what Jesus was doing in her life. I read this verse and I say, yes! Yes!

This is how it can work. It's beautiful when it works this way. I just want to take the opportunity to exhort brothers and sisters. Usually when I exhort brothers and sisters from the pulpit, I'm talking about spiritual brothers and sisters, but that's not what I'm talking about at all now. I'm talking about physical brothers and sisters.

Young ones, look up now. I'm looking at you young ones. I'm looking at you. Brothers and sisters, You can have such a powerful influence on your life if you grab hold of what is offered to you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you have conviction and excitement about the most important things in life.

It will matter in the life of your brothers and sisters. I know this as a little brother whose life was changed by a sister who passionately felt about what Jesus was doing in her life that she wanted her brother to see it. This is wonderful and sweet. And we should see it happen a hundred times over here. Have conviction.

And have excitement. If you don't have those things, cry out to God for it so that you'll have it for yourself but also so you'll have it to share. It can mean the world to your physical, genealogical blood, brothers and sisters. Friends, we can have the same impact. Children, your friends in the church, by having conviction and excitement about what God is doing in your life.

Assuming God is doing something in your life, if He is not, you should dig. If God is doing something in your life, let it be known to your friends in the church. Now let me tell you some very helpful things that commentators have said about Andrew going to his brother Simon Peter. I'm going to give you four. I normally don't stack them up like this, but I thought I should do it this way today.

Here's Calvin, John Calvin on this. He says, Andrew has scarcely a spark, And yet by means of it he enlightens his brother. Woe to our indolence therefore if we do not, after having been fully enlightened, endeavor to make others partakers of the same grace." What is John Calvin saying there? He's saying, look at what Andrew has. He just has a spark.

He has a few hours alone with Jesus. He has nothing compared with us. We have the full revelation and some of us decades of walking with the Lord. And yet, Andrew, all he has is this little spark, but he enlightens his brother with it. And shame on us.

Matthew Henry says, Having tasted that He is gracious, having tasted that Jesus is gracious, He could not rest till those He loved had tasted it too. Note, true grace hates monopolies and loves not to eat its morsels alone. What is Matthew Henry saying? He's saying Andrew he tasted and saw that the Lord was good and so he wanted everyone who he loved to taste too. Isn't that how it works?

Even with food. Like, oh this is delicious. You gotta try this. He tasted and he saw that the Lord was good. So everyone he loved, he wanted to taste of the Lord.

Also, I just love how he says this. True grace hates monopolies. What is monopoly? Monopoly is something that grabs onto something and won't let anyone else into it. True grace is not that.

True grace wants Everyone else into it. True grace loves not to eat its morsels alone. That's just such a pitiful picture of this miserly person, this selfish person, hoarding all to himself in a corner, eating alone. No, no, no, no. True grace is not like that.

True grace is a feast that has room for as many at the table as you can get. Listen to what D.A. Carson says, or Don Carson. He's alive. I did this just to prove that I could quote people who are alive.

I can do it. D.A. Carson says, He thus became the first in a long line of successors who have discovered that the most common and effective Christian testimony is the private witness of friend to friend, brother to brother. Isn't that true? Think who are the great evangelists?

Oh Billy Graham, he preaches to stadiums full of people. No, the most common and effective form of evangelism is friend to friend, brother to brother. I have found a Savior. That's how most people get saved. Not in a stadium.

Here's what J.C. Ryle says. J.C. Ryle says, One at least was brought to Jesus by the private, quiet word of a relative. Peter was brought to Jesus by a private, quiet word of a relative.

Continuing. He seems to have heard no public preaching. He, Peter, didn't hear any public preaching. Peter saw no mighty miracle wrought. Peter was not convinced by any powerful reasoning.

He only heard his brother telling him that he had found a Savior himself, and at once the work began in his soul. The simple testimony of a warm-hearted brother was the first link in the chain by which Peter was drawn out of the world and joined to Christ. The first blow in that mighty work by which Peter was made a pillar of the church was struck by Andrew's words, we have found the Christ. That's the first link in the chain. Think of what Peter became to the world in the early church.

The first link of the chain was his brother coming, a warm-hearted brother, coming with affection in his soul for his brother. We found him. No public preaching. No mighty miracles. No powerful reasoning.

He just told his brother that he had found a Savior himself, and at once the work began in his soul. I come away from these four quotes each time with exactly the same thought, I can do that. Even I can do that. I've found a Savior. Can you not do that?

This week and next week, I'm going to say over and over again, maybe it's time that we simplify our evangelism. Like back to the basics with our evangelism. I've found a savior. Does that mean we are not going to get any objections we have to address? No, we are going to get objections we have to address.

So we address it as best as we know how, Maybe insufficiently, but we do our best and then we get back to it. For me, that's not the core. For me, I found a Savior. I'm free. I'm clean.

How are you doing? I'm clean and free. How are you doing in your heart? Andrew tells his brother, Simon Peter, we have found the Messiah. We have found the Christ.

As I said, both of these words mean anointed. Messiah means anointed in Aramaic. Christ means anointed in Greek. You can use them interchangeably. Anointing is a very important concept in the Old Testament.

You did it with oil, The pouring of oil on. You anointed. And it was a symbolic way of commissioning or consecrating. You set apart someone for a very specific purpose or work to be something very specific or to do something very specific, you anointed them for oil. And it was a message to the world, you are set apart for this.

In Exodus 29 verse 7, God commands Moses to anoint Aaron with oil to be high priest. You're set apart. It's a declaration of the world. You're set apart, consecrated, commissioned to be high priest. And That was a pattern over and over.

After that, in the New Testament, you will see priests anointed. It is a declaration of the world. You are a priest. You are set apart to that. In 1 Samuel 10, verse 1, Samuel anoints the first king of Israel.

Oil on the head. On Saul's head. And this is a pattern. Again, so you're going to see it again and again after 1 Samuel 10. You see it over and over again.

Kings being anointed with oil as a declaration to the world, you're king. No one else is king. You've been anointed with the oil, you're king. And so in 1 Samuel 16, just a few chapters later, David is anointed king, and on and on. In 1 Kings 19 verse 16, God commands the prophet Elijah to anoint Elisha with oil and he will be his successor.

God commands Elijah, anoint this man to be a prophet. It's a declaration. You're the prophet now. That's who you are. That's what you're going to do because you've been set apart to be that and to do that.

So overwhelmingly in the Old Testament, prophets, priests, and kings are set apart to be prophet, priest, and king, to do the work of a prophet or a priest or a king by the anointing with oil. Here's the difference. They were anointed. Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, was and is the anointed. They were anointed.

He is the anointed. There is never a time in Jesus' life where it is recorded that anyone poured oil on his head. Turn to Daniel chapter 9. There are several places in the Old Testament that speaks of the Messiah prophetically, foretelling of the Messiah as the anointed one of God, Taylor Redwine. Is that Psalm 45?

Psalm 45. Anointed with the oil of gladness above his companions. By the way, the author of Hebrews quotes that Psalm and says, it's Jesus. It's Jesus. So we know that Psalm 45 is messianic, and that it foretells that he would be the Lord's anointed, above and beyond all his companions, above anyone who had ever been anointed before.

Daniel chapter 9. If you want to hear Daniel chapter 9 belabored beyond belief, you can go back to our sermons on Matthew 24. We took a week because Matthew 24 quotes Daniel 9 as the longest sermon I ever preached in an hour and 37 minutes. So I will only spend about three minutes here today. If you want to hear the Laborer further tortured, you can go back to the archives.

I'll be starting in Daniel 9, chapter 24, and reading through the first phrase of 26. So 24 through part of 26. This is the angel Gabriel being sent to Daniel. And I believe that's so relevant because Gabriel's only mentioned in two places in the Bible. Daniel, he appears to Daniel in several places in the book of Daniel and then he appears in Luke chapter 1.

He never appears anywhere else in Luke chapter 1. It's to Zechariah to talk about John the Baptist, and it's to Mary to talk about she's going to have a son. She's to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. This is Gabriel. Now, verse 24, Daniel 9, 24.

Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Verse 25, Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem, until Messiah the Prince, the anointed one, the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The street shall be built again and the wall even in trouble times. And after sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself." Now at the time I bet they were scratching their heads, what does it mean but not for himself? But we look back through the lens of the New Testament and see that the Messiah is not cut off for his own sins, the Messiah is cut off for my sins.

It's wonderful and it's beautiful and it speaks of Jesus as a Savior, the Messiah, the Anointed One by God, was anointed to reconcile us with God. That's what Daniel 9 says. It's beautiful. This is why when we get to John chapter 4 and the Samaritan woman at the well, this wonderful, blessed interaction between Jesus and the woman at the well. In John chapter 4 verse 25, the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman says, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Even a Samaritan woman had an expectation because of all the Old Testament promises that promised that God was going to send an anointed one to bring truth and peace to his people. Even a Samaritan woman, when we get to John chapter 4, we are going to talk about what a mess their faith was. The Samaritan faith was a messed up, syncretized truth, married together with all kinds of idolatry.

It was terrible, dreadful. But even in the middle of that, she had an expectation. This was the Jewish expectation. That a Messiah would come because God had said it would be so. Listen to Acts chapter 10.

Acts chapter 10 is Peter preaching to Cornelius and his family. So remember, Peter is up on a rooftop. God gives him a vision and the vision means that Peter shouldn't call unclean what God has called clean. And it's really about the gospel going to the Gentiles. Peter ends up going to Cornelius' house and he preaches to Cornelius and his family.

This is part of him preaching to them. Acts 10.38 Peter says, How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him." Jesus was anointed not by oil on the head to mark him out. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit without limit, without measure. And so He can baptize us with the Holy Spirit. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power.

So He went around doing good and destroying the works of the devil. Jesus is the anointed of God. Jesus is the Messiah. In Matthew chapter 16 verse 16, Peter makes the great confession. He says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus had asked, who do men say that I am? Well, some say you are Elijah, some say you are the prophet, some say you are Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. Jesus says, who do you say I am? That is Peter's answer. You are the Christ.

You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Well, the seeds of that are here in our text. Peter heard the first part of that from someone. And actually, next week, Nathaniel is going to call Jesus the Son of God. So All of that great confession we see on the lips of others.

Peter is just putting it together. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now verse 42. Back to John 1. And he, Andrew, brought him to Jesus.

Now when Jesus looked at him, he said, You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated a stone. So we get another translated word here. Cephas means stone in Aramaic. Peter means stone in Greek.

So here's another one of those words that has an Aramaic word and a Greek equivalent and they are used interchangeably. Sometimes in the New Testament after this point, Simon will be called Simon Peter, or he will be called Peter, or he will be called Cephas. And it's really hard to predict what he's going to be called at any given time. It's because they are interchangeable. Simon was the name he was given at his birth, but Jesus changes it to either Cephas or Peter, depending on the language.

And it means rock or stone. Imagine you meet someone for the first time. You've never met them before. They say, your name is Josiah, but you will be called Chris. Imagine how odd that would be.

Well, this is a very special circumstance. Simon is coming, having been told we found the Messiah. So this is not the ordinary circumstance. Jesus calls his name, his given name, Simon, and Jesus calls the name of the one who named him assuming that his father Jonah named him. And then he says, you shall be called Cephas, which means stone in Aramaic.

Also in Matthew 16, right after Peter gives the great confession, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus says in the very next verse, blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, or Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." We read, we are in John chapter 1, with the benefit of having read through all the gospels and knowing how it plays out and how tumultuous Peter can be. Like life with Peter is a roller coaster. He has the highest of highs, and he has the lowest of lows, and the last thing he is in the Gospel accounts is a rock.

But we also know the book of Acts and 1st and 2nd Peter, that he becomes a rock. He does become a foundation stone for the early church. So my understanding of what Jesus is saying is that he actually has a double meaning. He's actually talking about Peter's confession. The rock that the church is built on is the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and yet also it's a double meaning.

Both of these things are met. But that Peter will be a foundation stone for the early church. Paul affirms that in one of his epistles. I don't remember which one. Ephesians, I think.

So in one way we would say it's prophetic. The name change is prophetic. Yes, but that's possibly insufficient depending on how you understand the prophetic. Here's what I mean. It's not just that Jesus sees the future, but that Jesus directs the future.

So if you think of prophecy as just foresight seeing the future, I would say that's insufficient. It's not just that Jesus knows that Peter will become stable in the future and solid in the future, something that you could build structure on in the future, but that he makes him a rock. He doesn't foresee that he's going to be a rock. He turns him into a rock through his work and his life. Think of the history of God changing someone's name.

Abram becomes Abraham and becomes a father of all those who would have faith. Sarai becomes Sarah and gives birth to the child of promise. Jacob becomes Israel, is renamed to Israel. The deceiver, the grasper of the heel, becomes the father of the twelve patriarchs and his name becomes interchangeable with the name of the nation. Or in the New testament, Saul, the violent, blaspheming persecutor of the church, becomes the Apostle Paul, the greatest apostle of them all.

He outworks them all. He outlabors them all. In each case, the name change was a watershed moment in their life. What's a watershed moment? It's an event in your life that totally changes the course of your life forever.

In each case, the name change was a life-changing, life-altering event. And so it is here with Simon who becomes Peter or Cephas. Or consider Revelation chapter 2 verse 17. Revelation 2 verse 17, It's Jesus' letter to the church at Pergamos, but we find in this verse that it's really to all the churches, so it's to you. It's to the Sovereign Redeemer as well as to the church at Pergamos.

Listen to Revelation 2 verse 17. Jesus writes, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except Him who receives it. All who overcome, that's the saved.

All who overcome get the hidden manna, that's Christ, the Bread of Life. And they get a new name. Brothers and sisters, this is the nature of gospel transformation. This is the nature. The wonderful, beautiful nature of gospel transformation.

We were born someone, And what the Bible says of that condition isn't pretty. It ain't pretty. And you follow that trajectory. And the truth is that unless God and His mercy reached into your life, you would follow that right into destruction, right off the cliff, 100, 000% of the time. Of course there is no 100, 000% but I say that just to erase any thought in your mind that there could be any other end to you going down the track that you love in the condition that you are in when you are born.

We were born someone, but by God's grace, God can reach in and change midstream. Change your story midstream. This is what's happening. Simon was born someone and the Bible says it ain't pretty. He's headed down that track.

It's a broad road that leads to destruction. Many find that road. But Jesus, because of His grace, don't think of grace as some sort of disembodied magic that brings good into your life. Grace is not disembodied magic. It is personal love being expressed.

Forever, forever till the end of time now, never think of grace again as something sort of magical that brings good things that you don't deserve into your life. No, no, no. It is very intensely personal love being expressed to you and bringing things into your life that you never could have earned, you didn't deserve, you don't get them because you earn it and deserve it, but Because God is displaying love for you. Real love. Personal, individual love to you.

This is what's happening here. God is reaching into Simon's life to express personal, individual love. To give him what he never could have earned and certainly didn't deserve. He changes his name and he changes his life and he makes this tumultuous man into a rock that He can build His church on. Praise the Lord for that.

Here's a final word before the applications. Final word is there are no parallel passages, meaning I can't go to another gospel and get this account in a little bit different words. Matthew doesn't have it, Mark doesn't have it, Luke doesn't have it. This is not the calling of Peter and Andrew. They are not called to follow Jesus in this text.

The calling of Peter and Andrew comes in Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 5. They're fishing. And Jesus calls them and they drop what they're doing and they follow Jesus. That happens later. How do we know that?

Because we know John is not in prison here. He is right there. He says, behold, the Lamb of God. When you go to Matthew 4 and Mark 1, the Gospel writers point out that John is in prison when Peter and Andrew are called. I didn't know that.

We studied those accounts of the calling of Andrew and Peter in isolation in Sunday School growing up and I thought wow, this is a super natural thing happening here where they've never seen Jesus before and he calls them and they just leave all they can to do because something is just radiant around him or something like that. No! Andrew has had an afternoon with Jesus and then he brought his brother and Andrew has already told Peter we have found the Messiah and Jesus has already renamed Simon and given him the name Cephas or Peter. And so later, now those other accounts make a lot more sense now, as to how that would have worked. Again, John fits hand and glove with Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

They are complementary Gospels giving us the full picture of Jesus and His life. This account in John lays the groundwork for the calling accounts in Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 5. By the way, in Luke 5 it's an extended account, longer account, more full account of the calling of Peter and Andrew. We learn that Peter and Andrew are fishing partners with James and John. They were in business together.

So these two sets of brothers actually had a fishing business together. Jesus called them together. They left their business together to follow Jesus. Okay, applications. I'm going to give you five.

I know I didn't give you enough lines for that. I don't know what to tell you. I never have done the applications By the time I write through the handout. So there you have it. Applications.

The first three are just going to focus in on Jesus' words. So if you have a red letter Bible, that will be easy. Number one, Jesus asks them, what do you seek? So there is a surface level there. Two guys are following him, and he notices that they're following him.

So he says, what do you want? But there's something deeper here. They're not after something shallow, and He's not asking something shallow. They were following Him because of the testimony of their Master. They were His pupils, John the Baptist's pupils.

They're following Jesus because their master said, Behold the Lamb of God, He is greater than me. I am not even worthy to stoop down and undo His sandal. They were looking for something in Jesus and they found it in Jesus. That's a great question. Just ask yourself, what do you seek?

What are you after? And does Jesus meet up with that? This is a question we should be asking ourselves. If I get what I want, will I have Jesus? Or will I have something else?

Go sort that out. Use this as an opportunity to go sort that out. What do I want? What do I want in this life? If I get it, will I have Jesus?

Because if you get it and you don't have Jesus, you've lost everything. You've lost everything. What do you seek? You seek Christ, you'll gain everything. Number two, Jesus says, come and see.

And again, there's a surface meaning here that fits right. I'm not trying to stretch what's in the text beyond. He says come and see, but What we're going to find as we study the Gospel of John is that this is just representative. Here's what I mean by that. Jesus is receiving and receiving and receiving.

He is receiving sinners as fast as they come to Him. Listen to what he says in John 6, 37. John 6, 37. Jesus says, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. Jesus receives everyone who comes to him.

Jesus receives everyone who comes to Him. Jesus receives everyone who comes to Him. Really comes to Him. The fakers have nothing in this promise. The pretenders have nothing in this promise.

But those who really go to Jesus, humbling themselves and desiring, He doesn't turn them away. There's not a class of people, oh, if I could just be saved, but I'm not elect. And oh, those people don't exist. That's not a category in the Bible. People who really thirst.

Jesus says, come and drink. Number three. Jesus says, You are Simon, the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas." Grace breaks in on this man's life. Jesus loves him.

And he takes control of his life. One of the things we're also going to see as we study the Gospel of John is time after time after time after time he acts like he's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Like if he doesn't like the direction that the conversation is going he just changes the direction. He just takes authority over it. And so it is here.

Okay, you've come to visit me, I change your name. King of kings, Lord of lords. Do you desire that Jesus would just take control of you like that. I hope there is something in it. Just have me.

A man said in a men's Bible study, if Jesus is the Messiah, for us it should just be, just take me. Whatever you want to do with this life of mine, just do it. You can make me clean, you're willing to make me clean, okay I'm yours. You reconcile me, you deal with this sin, and then you do whatever you want with this life. Number four, simple evangelism by Andrew.

Simplify your evangelistic scheme by studying Andrew. We have found the Messiah. You can do that. I can do that. Listen to the expositor's Bible commentary.

I had this to say. To encounter Jesus and discover his true identity is to become a missionary. There is no other option for the honest believer. Amen to that. Isn't that true?

How could you be an honest believer having discovered the true identity of Jesus as the anointed of God to save sinners, but not be a missionary. That makes no sense. But I would have to confess, in many ways, my life makes no sense. If anyone should be yelling from the rooftops, we found him! It should be me.

It should be you too. Number five, And lastly, and bestly, we are needy people. Many needs in this room. Many, many needs. And none of us know the tenth of them.

Do you believe that? There are so many needs. We operate on each other at such a level that we don't cumulatively know a tenth of the needs in this room. We are very needy people. But Jesus is the anointed of God.

You need a prophet who gives you truth. Pure truth. Not with falsehood mixed in. So you're on the hook to try to sort out which is which. Just like pure truth.

Jesus is that prophet. Do you need a priest who can mediate between you, you sinful, defiled person, and a holy God? Jesus is the anointed of God as the priest who can mediate. There is one mediator between God and man, the man, Jesus Christ. Do you need a king who will lead you?

Who will rule you? He's the king who lays down his life for his subjects. How can this be? It is though, Jesus is the anointed King for His people. God thank you.

Thank you for the beauty of these gospels. This gospel, this text in this Gospel. You are the Messiah. We have found the Messiah. Praise the Lord.

We live in a time after the Messiah has come. We have all the revelation. Make us happy in Jesus. Let these words roll off of our lips. We have found Him.

We found Him. Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.