This past Sunday, I had a situation occur that has been quite rare in all my years of preaching. I only made it halfway through my sermon. As I did some final tweaking to the sermon early Sunday morning, I knew it was on the longer side, but I still thought there was going to be enough time in the service to fit it all in. There wasn’t. Not even close. When the clock on the back wall of the sanctuary displayed 10:10, I knew I had probably 15-20 minutes of material yet to cover, and our service is intended to conclude at 10:15. We also planned for communion after the sermon and the closing song. So I decided to stop the sermon, admittedly kind of awkwardly. Still the service went long past 10:15.
Instead of starting John chapter 2 this coming week on the blog, I’ll talk about the rest of John chapter 1. I didn’t try this, but when I stopped preaching mid-sermon this past Sunday, I had just finished talking about John 1, verse 42. In verse 43, a new day in the life of Jesus begins, which means that I inadvertently ended at a natural break point. In last week’s sermon I was originally planning on covering the events of the next day, as told in John 1:43-51, because in those verses John continues the story of Jesus’ interaction with his first disciples. In other words, there is thematic unity between the two sections.
As we learn in our blog post this past week, starting here, in John chapter 1, verses 35-42, on day 1, Jesus meets Andrew, Peter and the unnamed disciple of John the Baptist (who might have been the Apostle John), and his words to them are “Come and see.”
In verses 43-51, on day 2, Jesus meets two more men, but he has a new phrase, and someone else says “Come and see.” Something is happening between Jesus and these men, even at this early stage in their relationship. What is happening between them? It has everything to do with Jesus’ new phrase and the fact that someone else says “Come and see.” Join us on the blog next week, as we’ll talk about the fascinating and important discipleship principle that is happening between Jesus and these men.
Let's Talk About Sunday 