Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers. And hear us today.
Today's presenter, Pastor Ashley Smith. So today's message. We've got a series, Boris and I, and we've been going through the disciples and we're not looking at every single disciple because, I mean, what do you have to say about Thaddeus or Simon the Canaanite? Like, there's certain things that you just.
I mean, you could do a word study on the name. So we're only looking at some select disciples and so key disciples that you find throughout the scriptures that have the most information about them. And there are a lot of lessons to be learned because I think when we consider these disciples, we find that their lives and their stories often intersect with our stories.
And we can resonate with the stories and the experiences that these men went through, because their experiences are very similar to ours. Because I don't know if I'm anything like you. I make a lot of mistakes.
And when you consider the disciples, they made a lot of mistakes. And so John was one of those disciples. Often when we think of John, we think of somebody that was a whole lot better than Peter, at least, but he made a lot of mistakes.
And before we jump into God's Word this morning, I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray. Father in heaven, it's such a blessing to be here to study youy word this morning. And as we do so, I for myself ask for the Spirit, that Father, as we study the things that Father, are not of this world, that Father.
Your spirit may transcend this world, Father, and bring us into communion with you. That Father, we might hear your voice. Silence.
Distractions in our lives, Father, we might hear the still, small voice. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
So the question is, who was the apostle John? Now we know more about John than what we probably do. A lot of the other disciples, there are certain disciples, like I said before, that we are familiar with. There are others that we are not familiar with.
We see John popping up in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then his own gospel he wrote, which was John. John, apart from Paul, he wrote more letters than any other writer in the New Testament. He wrote obviously the Gospel of John, which actually was the last book that was written in the New Testament canon.
He also wrote first, second and third John. And he wrote the Book of Revelation, John is well known but there are some certain things about John I guess that we need to consider. John when you look at the gospel narrative, John was one of three intimate disciples with Jesus.
And I've heard people talk about Jesus favoured disciples. Have you ever heard that before? Peter, James and John as the special guys that got special privileges because they were favourites, they got to go behind the scenes more so than any other disciples. Whether it was the raising of Jairus daughter, whether it was going up the mountain of transfiguration and seeing Jesus in his glorified state, or whether it was going to the garden of Gethsemane and seeing Jesus in his trial, they got I guess a window, a perspective that the other disciples never got.
And some people think it's because they were favourites. I think, well when you look at the Gospel account they probably had a lot of rough edges that needed to be shaved off. And so when I was in school I'm not that analytical.
I'm not good with math but there were certain kids in my class that were really good with math. They were able to figure out the concepts and they understood calculus like that. I'm just sitting there looking at the board trying to figure it out.
I'm, I'm getting there slowly, I'll get there in my time but the class would often finish and I don't really fully grasp or understand the concepts. That's not how my brain worked and I had to work really hard at it. And something that my parents helped me with is they got me an after school tutor who would sit with me and go through the processes with me to give that added information that I hadn't had.
And it's interesting when you look at Peter, James and John, they've got an extra tutor that's taking them aside to teach them the things that they're failing to learn with the rest. Because a lot of the things that Jesus is trying to show them they're struggling to comprehend and they're struggling to understand. And yes, the other disciples are very similar in I guess you could say their inability to grasp what Jesus is communicating.
But Peter, James and John were very stubborn, were very strong willed, were very exclusive, were very ambitious. We're very intolerant and we're very proud. If you go to the Gospel of Mark chapter one and verse 20, I invite you to open your Bibles with me to Mark 1:20.
And if you don't have a Bible today we do have Bibles in the pews, just look down at the shelf in Front of you. And you can use one of those Bibles there. In Mark chapter one, in verse 20 we actually find the calling of Peter, James, John and Andrew.
They were fishermen. And in the Gospel account here we find something very interesting about James and John. And their father zebedee in verse 20 says, and immediately he called them, this is Jesus who was calling them into discipleship.
And it says, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and went after him. What does that tell you about Zebedee? What does that tell you about James and John's family? They were able to afford hired help. Would this have been common in that day in that culture? John's family was well off.
And of course we know the story, they followed Jesus. Something else that you can see we're not going to turn there, but you can see that suggests that John's family was well off. John's mother actually follows Jesus with the other women and ministers.
This is when Jesus is in Galilee, this is when Jesus is in Jerusalem. She ministers to Jesus out of the substance of her life. This is a well off family.
And in fact not just a well off family because I mean, well, people who are well off tend to get more privileges than people that aren't well off. And when you go to the Gospel of John, chapter 18 and verse 15, we find that when Jesus goes and is arrested by the priests and the rulers and he's taken from trial, he goes to the high priest's home, John follows. And look what happens In John chapter 18 and verse 15 it says, and Simon Peter followed Jesus and so did another disciple.
This is how John refers to himself. He never refers to his name. We're going to get to that at the end of our study here today because there's an interesting point, a powerful point about that.
Now that disciple was known to the high priest. You have to have some kind of societal privilege and you have to be esteemed somewhat and have a good standing to be known by the high priest. John's family was known by the most powerful man in the land.
And guess what happens? He gets special privileges. And he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest. John came from a highly esteemed family.
So when we consider the Gospel of John and we consider John, who wrote that John wrote a whole lot about the love of God. It would be interesting to see from you guys. I'd like to see a raise of hands of those that have the Gospel of John as their favourite gospel.
Raise your hand if the Gospel of John is your favourite. Okay. A significant portion of you.
And 80 times throughout John's writing, the word love is used. Love is the central theme of John's writing. And I mean one of the most famous texts, the most well known text, whether it's people who are religious or irreligious.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. It's, it just, it's something that is so well known to us as Christians. It's a well established verse and it's one that we just probably haven't even tried to memorise.
But we've memorised it. John was the apostle of love. And often in mediaeval art they picture him as effeminate because he talks about love all the time.
I don't know if you've seen any mediaeval art, but you see all the disciples around Jesus at the Passover table and they've got beards and they're rock rugged because beards equate to manliness often. And so they got beards and, and they're all. And then here's John.
He's smaller in stature and he's resting on the, the bosom of Jesus. John was not effeminate, he was not sissy. He was a rugged, tough fisherman and he was very abrasive in character.
We often don't think that when we read his writings, do we? But there's going to be a number of stories that we're going to be looking at today that show you that John came across and he was quite obnoxious and quite arrogant. It just testifies the reality that the miracle of transformation is a miracle that comes from God and his grace. Because for someone who exemplifies and uplifts love so much, he is also one who desires fire to come down from heaven to consume a whole village.
Somebody who is teaching in the name of Jesus, he has the audacity to go to that man and say, hey, please stop teaching in the name of Jesus because you're not one of us. And then him and his brother, they go up to Jesus and say, Jesus, can you give us whatever we ask of you? We want to be better than the rest of the disciples. This was John, but yet he spoke a lot about love.
And the question I want to suggest to you here today is why? Why did he behave the way that he behaved? And I believe fully the reason why he behaved that way is because what we believe about God affects how we treat others. So if John thought that it was appropriate to call fire down from heaven to stop people teaching in the name of Jesus, to want to be at the right hand or the left of Jesus at the expense of all of his fellows, is because that's who he perceived God to be. During the Dark Ages, if you disagreed with the church, the consequences were pretty dire.
And the reason why the consequences were pretty dire is because what the church believed at that time, the institutional church, the Roman Catholic Church, is that God will torture people throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity. What we believe about God often determines how we treat others. Does that make sense? And so if God does that forever, then what's the issue if we do a little bit of it here? And so with John and his obnoxious, callous ways, this is who he believes God is.
I want to suggest to you here today something quite radical. Not radical, it's just a conclusion I came to in my mind as I studied John's story. I believe that John was the first Pharisee to follow Jesus.
When I say Pharisee, I'm not talking about Pharisee in the literal sense. Someone who was trained and, you know, a part of the religious establishment. But I would say that he was one of the first Pharisees in spirit, Pharisees in heart.
He had a Pharisaical spirit within him. And what I find so remarkable and so amazing in all of this is Jesus knew this, yet he still chose him. John was fully known to Jesus, yet Jesus fully reached out to John and said, I want you to be a part of the most intimate followers of this movement.
I want you to be a pillar in this journey, this mission, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to go to the world. In fact, if you've got your Bibles, I invite you to open with me to the Gospel of Mark again. And we're going to go to Mark, chapter 3.
In verse 17, Jesus actually had a. He had a name for James and John. Mark, chapter three and verse 17, it says, James the son of Zebedee.
This is the listing of the 12 apostles here. James the son of Zebedee and brother and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Bernard Jesus, or whatever that says. That is the sons of thunder.
That's what it means. They were called the sons of thunder parents, if you're looking for a babysitter, and their description was sons of thunder, do you reckon you'd let your kids go and stay with them? How do we reconcile Sons of Thunder. With the Gospel of John, it's same same.
Jesus chose this man and it's a miracle of divine grace because the gospel changed this man so radically changed this man. He never went from being strong. No, no, no, he was still strong, but he was converted and he was converted and he still had the same strength that he had when he was unconverted.
What Jesus does is remarkable is he finds the weaknesses that you have and he actually turns those weaknesses into strength for his glory. And that's what he did with John. It's kind of like those cars, I don't know, you pull them back and you pull them back and you pull them back and then you let him go.
And John was going this direction thinking that he was fully sincere. Don't get me wrong, he fully thought that he was doing God's will and he was going 100 miles that way. But Jesus grabbed that car and he pointed it in another direction.
And often it's a lot of difficulty and a lot of hurt and a lot of pain for us to recognise that we're actually not on the path that God wants us to be on. But Jesus never gives up with up on us. He persists with us.
Isn't he good? So the first thing I want to have a look at today is the exclusive nature of John. Ellen White says in Acts of the Apostles about the disciples. She says this for the carrying on of his work.
Christ did not choose the learning or eloquence of the Jewish Sanhedrin or the power of Rome passing by the self righteous Jewish leaders. The master worker chose humble unlearned men to proclaim the truths that were to move the world. That's a really good description of what they became, but it's not what they were when Jesus called them.
They were proud, they were ignorant and they were rude and they had significant character flaws. And not just significant character flaws. They had a lot of blind spots in their life and they did not naturally possess humanity.
Humility, they had to learn it. And they often learnt humility the hard way because humility is something that is always learned the hard way. To learn to be humble means that your pride needs to be challenged and their pride had to be challenged and their pride was challenged.
And so in Mark chapter nine we find, I guess you could say one of the first incidences of John and one of his character flaws. And we're going to be moving quickly through the story here of John. It's like this is your life.
John. In John chapter 9 and verse 38 we see this. And what's interesting, before we read this passage, the only time that you see John speaking by himself, which means he's not speaking with his brother James in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The Synoptic Gospels is here. And this gives you a window into what John thinks and what John feels. Let's have a look into what John thinks.
Now, John answered him, saying, teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name. And we forbade him because he does not follow us. Would you say that's quite an exclusive spirit? He's not one of the 12.
He hasn't been chosen by you. He's doing great works, yes, but because he's not one of us, I told him to stop. John possesses the very same spirit that the Pharisees possessed.
When you look at the Gospels, do you see the Pharisees intentionally trying to disrupt the ministry of Jesus? They come to the synagogue where he's teaching, or they go to the temple where he's teaching, or whether he's just teaching in some other location. And their intentional focus here is to stop what Jesus is saying, to challenge what Jesus is saying, to question his authority. They're trying to silence the voice of Jesus.
That's what you see here, isn't it? John has the same spirit that the Pharisees have concerning others that aren't of the innermost fold. It's quite an exclusive spirit, an exclusive focus. And the reason why is because he's jealous.
John was exclusive. He wasn't just exclusive, he was also intolerant. We come to Luke 9.
51. Luke 9:51. We're going to read through to verse 56.
Jesus is making his journey here towards Jerusalem. And when you look at the structure and the narrative of Luke, you see from verse nine, as he sets his face towards Jerusalem, Jesus is journeying to his death. And so from Luke 9 onwards, Jesus is really journeying towards Jerusalem slowly, and he's journeying towards his death.
That's how it's structured. It's a powerful, powerful thought. And as he's journeying towards Jerusalem, you see that he's going through this place called Samaria.
Now, just a little bit of information on Samaria. Samaria, the Samaritans, the people, the inhabitants of Samaria and the Jews, they didn't get on too well together. They butt heads a lot.
And there was reason for that. There was a lot of history and it went way ways back. There was a northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom.
Don't want to kind of get bogged down in the weeds too much. But there was a northern part of the kingdom and the southern part of the kingdom, the northern part of the kingdom, went into exile because of apostasy. They came back into the land after some time and they intermarried the tribes and the nations around them.
And consequently they adopted some of the practises and the gods that those nations around them had. They had apostatized. They weren't pure.
And so when the southern kingdom came back from their exile, the Samaritans and them. Well, because the southern kingdom saw that they were compromised. They didn't want to accept them with open arms, and so they rejected them.
And that led to a bit of opposition and the Samaritans tried to oppose the rebuilding of the temple. There's a lot of history here. There's a lot of prejudice here.
In fact, you have Galilee, where Jesus came from and did majority of his ministry. In the north, you have Judea in the south, where the temple was and the religious establishment were. And in the middle you have Samaria.
Quite convenient. Is it quite inconvenient? Because what you would find is those who were travelling south would have to go through Samaria. Those who are travelling north would have to go through Samaria.
So you're confronted with your prejudices. And so what the Jews typically did is they would go around. But guess what Jesus did, He went straight through.
Why? Because there's some rough edges in the disciples. There's some lessons that they need to learn. And the best way to learn your lessons is to be confronted with things.
Because often what we do is we like to live and exist in our own echo chambers that we hear the things that we want to hear, that we're around the people that we want to be with, and we're never fully confronted with our prejudices. But what Jesus says, like, let me be. Let me confront you with a mirror, and this is what you are.
And so he takes them through Samaria. In fact, if a Samaritan shadow was to fall on you, you would be unclean. You were not supposed to have conversations with Samaritans.
And so as Jesus is journeying towards Jerusalem, he sends messages in front of him. And this is what the messengers do. Now, it came to pass in verse 51, when the time had come for him to be received up, that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.
That verse, there is a fulcrum in the Gospel of Luke. He sets his face towards Jerusalem. Jesus resolutely is going towards the cross.
And he's journeying. Then he's taking people with him. It's a beautiful picture.
And he sent messengers before his face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him. But they did not receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem.
And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did? Amen. Like how that even pops into your head? Like how that even arrives there. And it's not just the thought.
You know how you sometimes have a thought that pops into your head, like, yeah, no, that's not appropriate. But then to actually voice that and verbalise it communicates that what they thought and what they said they believe was fully appropriate. What was Jesus response to them? You don't know what spirit you're of.
I did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Is that very, very similar to another disciple? This rebuke, remember Peter last week when Pastor Boris shared Get behind me, Satan. What Jesus says to James and John here is, you don't know what spirit you have, so it's not the spirit of the Lord, it's the spirit of Satan.
You have the spirit of Satan in you. And because you have the spirit of Satan in you, you are intolerant to these people that I've actually come to say. And it's not just intolerant.
I would actually say that it was also quite hypocritical. Were there other towns and villages that Jesus went to where he was? Re Nazareth, for example. Bethsaida, Capernaum.
Do you see John asking for fire to come down and burn those Jewish towns? No, but let's burn the Samaritan town. Well, if he was consistent, then they all should be burnt. But the reason why he wanted that Samaritan town, men, women and children to be burnt up is because of his disdain for the Samaritans.
Does that make sense? Church? John was intolerant, but he wasn't just intolerant, he was also ambitious. There's nothing wrong with ambition if it's sanctified ambition. But John's ambition was unsanctified.
Turn with me to the Gospel of mark. Mark, chapter 10. I know we're skipping through the story here.
I was thinking that I could have, in the preparation for this, I was thinking, oh, I could look at all the good stories of John, but you guys know those ones. I want to show you who the man was because that's who Jesus worked with, and that's who Jesus moulded and shaped to be one of the most remarkable leaders the church has ever seen. Mark, chapter 10 and verse 31, 35.
Sorry, Mark 10, 35. And just a bit of context before we start reading this. In Mark, there are three instances where Jesus predicts his death.
The first time, Jesus predicts his death and his suffering, what we actually find is we find Peter pulls him aside and says, this is not going to happen to you, Jesus. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. The second time, Jesus predicts his death and he's suffering.
And each and every time it gets more detailed and becomes more focused. The second time, the disciples hear what Jesus has to say, they go on their journey, and then they're talking about who's going to be the greatest. Jesus is talking about giving his life.
They're talking about who's going to be the greatest amongst them. Talk about missing the message, misunderstanding what Jesus is trying to lay down. Here.
They're consumed with their own kingdom, and they're missing the kingdom that Jesus is trying to introduce to them. And this is the third time that Jesus reveals to them his suffering and his death. And you can see this in verses 32 to 34.
And again, it's getting more and more detailed. And then after Jesus said that if they. And what makes this the worst out of all of them is the fact that there are those two instances before it.
This is the third time, and you haven't learned your lesson. After three goes at it. And verse 35 says, Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.
Do you find a problem with that request? It's like treating Jesus as a cosmic vending machine. I ask and I get, who is the focus here? It's them and it's what they get from this relationship. It's very transactional.
We want you to do for us whatever we ask. And look how patient Jesus is. He's like, what do you want me to do for you? And this is their request in verse 37.
Grant us that we may sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory. Do you know what they were thinking of when they were talking about Jesus? Glory? Well, when Jesus would come into Jerusalem riding on a stallion. Well, a colt, not a stallion.
And he would overthrow the Romans, establish the utopia that they were looking for, and Jesus would sit upon the throne, son of David, and we will be at his Right. And we will be at his left, his ruling men. And the other disciples, they'll be.
Yeah, they'll be there, but they'll be lesser. Jesus says, are you about. Are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink and be baptised with the baptism that I'm to be baptised with? And what was their response? Absolutely Jesus.
If they knew what they were asking, they never would have asked it, because to be Jesus right and Jesus left, that was set aside for the thief on the right or the thief of those criminals as Jesus hung upon Calvary. I'm just glad that Jesus doesn't give you what you ask you. Imagine James and John hanging up there next to Jesus saying, hey, John, is this what you're thinking? He doesn't give you always what you want, but he will give you what you need.
And there's a number of things in this passage, this request, that are extremely inappropriate. Number one, they're demanding Jesus. The second thing is that they have this selfish motivation behind it do for us.
The third thing is they have a lust for power. And the fourth thing is that they esteem themselves too highly. We are able, Jesus, we're qualified.
But what they don't realise is that what qualifies them for such positions is not power, but it's character. They misunderstand the kingdom that Jesus is preaching. According to them, the kingdom is about power and dominance.
Jesus kingdom is about sacrifice and love. It's not about you, it's about others. John was ambitious.
He was the first Pharisee. He had a Pharisaical spirit. And like I said before, he was absolutely sincere.
He was following Jesus and he was totally sincere. But that does not negate the fact that he was exclusive, that he was intolerant and he was ambitious. He was a proud man and his life aligned with those principles because that's who he thought God was.
Because what we believe about God determines how we treat others. That's not how the story ends, though. Praise God.
That's not how the story ends. And what I love about scripture is what we have just read concerning the beloved disciple John is recorded for us these words, although they are sanctified by the Spirit, it does not mean that those things that we do not appreciate or we do not like or the things that are unsavoury are not recorded. It is a true testament to the reality of what has happened.
This was a man that had significant issues, but he was touched by the hand of God. Turn with me to first John, chapter four. With all that background Information.
Let's read something that he wrote. John 4:7, 1 John chapter 4 and verse 7. Thanks Phil.
First John 4:7. It says this. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this, the love of God was manifested towards us. That God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him in.
This is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.
Do you see a significant conflict and contrast between how John was acting in the Gospels and what he's just written there? Does it sound like a changed man? This is a change man. Something happened to this man and I know what it was. He met somebody.
But isn't it interesting that it wasn't just one interaction with Jesus? It was three and a half years and he was still as hot headed as he was at the end of those three and a half years and what he was at the beginning. Because the character traits that we often have inherited and the ones that we have cultivated, they cling to his heart and they don't like to relent. But Jesus persists and he persists and he persists with this man.
And John as he, as he comes to the place of conversion, he recognises, he fully grasps what Jesus has done for him and who Jesus was. And it transforms absolutely everything. And the penny drops and the Gospel just becomes clear.
He had to unlearn a lot before he could learn the truth. In John 1:14, and I'll paraphrase it, he says something along the lines of this and God became man. And he lived with us and we saw him and he was better than what we thought.
He was different than what we thought, but it was infinitely better. And we beheld the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He saw love and this love so radically changed him that he could write the words in the Gospel of John to uplift Jesus in such a way that I believe no other gospel does.
He had an encounter with the man of the cross. Ellen White says that love begets love. You could put it another way, love awakens love.
And the love of God awakened the love within John. It crushed him and it changed him. You see a significant change in John in the last week of Jesus life.
It's interesting, you see all this jostling for position and power. But in the last week of Jesus life, I think the reality starts to come home for him and he starts to see things he hadn't seen before. In John 13:23, you see him leaning on Jesus chest at the Last supper.
In John 18:15, you see John sticking close to Jesus during his trial when everyone else had run away. In John 19:26. And I believe that it was this moment just here where it all made sense to him as he stood at the foot of the cross and he saw Jesus suffering on that tree, the only disciple to be there.
In John 19:27, he's entrusted the care of Jesus mother. In John 24, he reaches the empty tomb of Jesus before any other disciple. In John 28, he's the first to believe in the resurrection.
In John 21:7, when the disciples are fishing on the Sea of Galilee again and Jesus talking to them from the shore, he's the first one and the only one that recognises it as Jesus. In John 21:20, he calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved because something happened at the foot of the cross. And I believe it was at the foot of the cross that it all made sense for John.
Because as he stood there at the foot of the cross, he realised that love is not found in exclusivity. As he watched Jesus minister to that thief who in his dying breath, who is putting saving faith in the Lamb of God, who was slain from the foundation of the world, even though the blood of the Passover lamb was still pulsing and coursing through Jesus body, that thief put saving faith in Jesus. And in that moment, I believe John watching Jesus interactions with death, he sees that the kingdom is not exclusive, but it's inclusive.
Jesus came to save. When Jesus says, surely I say to you, this day you will be with me in paradise, the paradigm shifts. I believe that for the cross, John also began to see that love is not found in intolerance.
When Jesus was being persecuted by his tormentors, do you remember what he prayed for them? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And John came to the realisation as well that love is not found in ambition because he was of the mindset that I be served. And in that moment, Jesus in his moment of greatest agony, he looks at John and he says, john, behold your mother.
Mum, behold your son. Serve my mother. And everything just so radically changes for John.
And what you see is you see a different man. A different man. Why? Because when you spend time at the foot of the cross, it Changes you church because love awakens love.
And in that moment where John was there, the kingdom of darkness was strong, but a new kingdom was being ushered in. And whilst it appeared as if the kingdom of light had lost, the kingdom of light was penetrating the stony, steely heart of John, testifying to the reality that love had once. So much so that when John writes his gospel, we see a different man altogether.
He's no longer exclusive for God. So love the world that whoever believes in him, he's changed. He's no longer intolerant.
Remember what he was calling for the Samaritan village? They'd burn up. In John chapter four, guess what he devotes the whole chapter to The Samaritan woman. This is a different man.
And he goes into more depth with the Samaritan. There are two stories of significant depth with interactions between Jesus and an individual. And it's Nicodemus, and it was the Samaritan woman.
And here, this Samaritan woman, a race that he once despised, he puts in the front row position in. In his gospel, that powerful. And John, a man who was so, I guess, enamoured with ambition and being the best when he writes his gospel church, how many times does he call himself by name? He calls himself.
He relates to himself according to his relation to Jesus. The disciple whom Jesus loved isn't that powerful because he no longer sees himself, because who he now is is altogether different to who he was. And instead of seeing himself, he sees Jesus and he can't even call himself by name anymore because he's altogether a different man.
Love awakens love. He met Jesus and he stopped trying to be the hero of the story because he discovered that Jesus was the hero of the story. And tradition has it that John was the only one of the apostles that did not meet a martyr's death.
Not that he was not persecuted in Ephesus. He was preaching the message, teaching the truth. And they essentially said to him, if you don't stop, we're going to persecute you.
And he said, bring it on. And so they took him to Rome and threw him in a basin of boiling oil. He miraculously survived that.
And they wondered what they could do to this man. In fact, he didn't just miraculously survive. It was a powerful witness and testimony to everyone watching that there's something about this God that he's preaching.
So we can't really kill this guy. We don't want to try again because there's so many people that came to faith watching him survive, that the boiling oil was Supposed to kill him. So let's just send him to some mines on the island of Patmos.
Let's get rid of him, get him out of mind, get out and get him out of sight. But guess what happened on the island of Patmos? Just when you think that my ministry is done and my influence is finished on the island of Patmos and you can actually go to the island of Patmos today, there is a cave there, and the cave is supposedly where John lived, where he received the vision of the Revelation. And he writes, he pens that wonderful, wonderful book.
And after a period of time, probably because of old age, they let him go back and he goes back to Ephesus, where he later dies from old age. This is the apostle of John. He was a man who was transformed by love.
Where love came upon him. And who he was at the end was fundamentally different to who he was at the start. John's reality can be your reality.
There was nothing special about John. Nothing. Look at his life.
Look at who he was. Look at all the roughness around the edges, all the things he wanted to be, all the things he wanted to do. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees in the spiritual sense.
But Jesus says, I want you to be one of my most intimate followers. You know what that tells me? Nothing is ever wasted with God. And God took his greatest weaknesses and made them into his greatest strength.
Remember that car that's pulled back and pulled back and pulled back? God redirected it and focused it on his mission. If God could do that for John, God surely can do that for you. But you know what it took John to come to that place where he came to that realisation? It was the foot of Calvary.
The foot of Calvary. Becoming all that God wants you to be is not you pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or you trying really hard. No, that's what John was before the changing influence.
Where the change takes place is where you behold the man on the cross and you see him for who he truly is. And it does not make sense to you. How does this say.
But you know deep within yourself, as the Spirit speaks to you, that this is the only way to be saved. And it communicates something to you, that you are loved more than what you could ever know. And that doesn't even make sense, that God would love me, that he fully knows me at my best and at my worst.
And he still loves me. And not just he loves me and he wants to save me, but the fact that he wants to use Me? Does he trust me? Well, if he trusted John, who wanted to burn up a whole village, surely he could trust you. I want to share a story to close.
There was a man by the name of Nicholas Zinzendorf. And there's a number of years ago, hundreds of years ago, and he was a man that was born into a very, very wealthy aristocratic household in Germany. I think it was.
He was well off. John was well off. And he was a young man.
To have money when you are young is a temptation that seems to be great. And what he did with the money that he had, the money he possessed, that he. He loved to get with his mates and they would travel from place to place to place, and he loved to go to museums and galleries and look at beautiful sculptures and artwork.
That's what he loved to do things riveting. He was living the dream. And he went to this certain place.
I can't remember the town or the city where it was in, but he went with his mates. And as they're going through and they're looking at the various pieces of artwork, he comes into this room and he recounts his stories. He comes into this room.
There is one piece of artwork in this room, and it stands alone. And no one's going into that room because the artwork isn't all that amazing. It's not a great piece of artwork.
It's still much, much better than anything I could ever do. But it's not the reason why people are going to this gallery. But something draws him into it and he goes into this room and all his mates have gone into various other places to look at other things.
But something draws him into this room and he goes into this room and he beholds this image. And as he beholds this image, something starts to happen in his life. It's a painting of Jesus, Jesus with a purple robe around him before Pilate and just stands there looking at this image.
And the title underneath is called Behold the Man. Remember, Pilate brings Jesus out and says, behold the man. Underneath that, it says, this I have done for you.
What will you do for me? He couldn't shake it. And there in that art gallery, when everyone else was following their own pursuits, he there in that moment, gave his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he actually, through his wealth and through his influence, he actually opened up an area of land in his estate where people could come and worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.
In Europe, of all places. The thing is, when you behold Jesus on Calvary and you consider what he has done for you, it changes fundamentally, changes everything else in your life. Because everything else is seen for what it truly is.
And the kingdom of this world loses, truly loses its lustre. As you see Jesus in the fullness and the beauty of all that he is and all that he offers, then there is nothing, nothing in this world that compares to it. Nothing.
Everything else that says that it is better is lying. They are all just a facade. Jesus is the only way.
Jesus is the only truth. And Jesus is the only love. And no one, no one comes to the Father except through Him.
And so my question for you as we close is simple. John was transformed by love. Have you been transformed by love? And if the answer is, well, I don't know, I encourage you to go where John went, to the foot of Calvary to behold the man and to see love for what it truly is, that God so loved you that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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