WWUTT 796 Jesus Calls Andrew and Peter?

The Personal Love of God in Calling His People by Name

When Jesus called his disciples, he called them by name. And the scripture says this, that the Lord knows his own by name. This is the personal love and affection that God the Father shows toward us when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Jesus Calls Andrew and the Meaning of Seeking Christ

Thank you Becky. Hey, so we're continuing our study of the gospel of John chapter 1, which we'll finish up this week and even get into chapter 2. Today we're going to be looking at Jesus calling his first disciples, which we kind of started a little bit last week in verse 35.

And that's where we'll begin and read all the way to the end of the chapter. So the apostle John writes, the next day again, John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, behold, the Lamb of God.

The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, what are you seeking? And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?

He said to them, come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day for it was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter.

The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit.

Nathanael said to him, how do you know me? Jesus answered him before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered him, rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel.

Jesus answered him because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree. Do you believe you will see greater things than these? And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.

So there are three disciples, the callings of these disciples to follow Jesus that I want to focus on as we look at this section. And that's verses 35 all the way to the end of the chapter, verse 51. And those three disciples are Andrew, Peter and Nathanael.

We have other disciples that are mentioned here, but it's specifically those three that I want to focus on. So beginning in verse 35, John was standing with two of his disciples. We know that one of them was Andrew, who was the brother of Peter.

And he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, behold, the lamb of God. The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, what are you seeking?

And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? And he said to them, come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the 10th hour.

Now, one of the things that that is indicated to us by Jesus question, what are you seeking? Is that they were seeking something? So it's not just Jesus asking, what are you doing following me? He's asking them what they're looking for.

So this implies that these disciples were seeking after something. Now, when we read in Romans chapter three about the condition of man before God, that there is none righteous, we also read in verse 11, Romans 3, 11, no one understands and no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside together, they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. So if no one seeks for God, how could these two disciples be seeking? Well, it's because this is by the providence of God that they would be seeking after Christ, that they were actually looking for the Messiah.

The spirit of God had worked upon them to desire these things. It's why they were with John the Baptist. So it wasn't because out of their own will, they were seeking God. It's because God was so working in their hearts to seek after Christ and find him.

This was all according to the will of God. Remember what we read at the start of the gospel of John. We read in verse 12, all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So we keep that even in mind when we read about these disciples who were following after Jesus. This was all according to the will of God that they would so desire in their hearts to seek after the Messiah and find him.

So they follow Jesus when he says, come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying and he stayed with him that day for it was about the 10th hour. Now keep in mind here to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be among the 12 specifically you're talking about the 12 apostles who were closest to Christ.

One of the requirements was that they had to have been with the Lord Jesus beginning from the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up into heaven. How do we know that? Because that's what it says in Acts 1 .22.

They're trying to pick an apostle to replace Judas who had betrayed Jesus and killed himself. So now there's 11, there's no longer 12. Verse 21. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

And they put forward to Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice and Matthias. And then they cast lots for the two men and the lot fell on Matthias. So he became the 12th apostle to replace Judas, all right.

So these were the requirements of the apostles, those 12. There were many other disciples. We read about the 72 that Jesus sent out. We know that there were 120 in the upper room in this particular story that we read about in Acts chapter one.

So there were many who were followers of Jesus, but there were only the 12 whom specifically Jesus had chosen as his inner circle. They were the ones who were with Jesus in the last supper in the upper room.

But more specifically, they had to have been a witness to Christ's baptism and also his resurrection and his ascension into heaven. So as we're reading this story here, when we're reading about these two disciples of John's who are following Jesus, they were there when Jesus was baptized.

So why is it that they did not follow Jesus, though they would have actually seen the heavens open up and the spirit of God descend upon Jesus as a dove? And they hear the voice of the father say, this is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased.

Why did they not become followers of Jesus right there? Well, it's because of something John said. John the Baptist said in his testimony in chapter one, verses 33 and 34. John the Baptist said, I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, and he's referring to God, said to him, he on whom you see the spirit descend and remain.

This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. So John only knew what this signified because God told him what it would signify. He said, this is how you're going to know who the Messiah is. So then John the Baptist, having been told by God who the Messiah was, then told his disciples that's him.

That's what the whole thing signified with the dove coming down and us hearing the voice of God from heaven say, this is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased. It was not, it did not automatically occur to the disciples, oh, this is the Messiah.

It was God having said this to John the Baptist, and then he said it to the disciples who witnessed that. And it's likely that Andrew was not, Andrew and this other disciple that are mentioned here, they weren't the only ones either of John the Baptist disciples.

Even Simon Peter was one of them who was there. He's being described here in this passage as another seeker, though he's not with Andrew when they first follow Jesus. So let me come back to that again here.

Having just finished up verse 39, we go to verse 40. One of the two men who heard John speak and follow Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ.

Now notice here that Andrew is incredibly excited about the fact that they have found the Messiah so much so that he doesn't keep it to himself. What we read in verse 41 is he first found his own brother, Simon.

This means there were other people that Andrew told, but the first person he went to was Simon and for him to say to Simon, we have found the Messiah means that Simon was looking for him too. And so Simon may have been there.

He may have been out there listening to John the Baptist preach and was hearing about this coming Messiah, the voice of the one in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord. So he heard this testimony proclaimed by John the Baptist, even saw Christ baptized and the dove come down and the voice of God from heaven.

And so Andrew's coming to Peter and saying, we can confirm this now. This is the guy. This is the Messiah that we are looking for. So Andrew found his own brother and said, we found the Christ so changed and transformed by the fact that he found Jesus and followed him and, and saw what he saw with him.

Remember, Jesus said, come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day. And what they saw while they were there confirmed for him that he was the Messiah.

We're not given any details there. We don't know, but we know the fruit of the change that happened in the life of Andrew resulted in him going and telling other people about it. This was not the sort of a thing where he's kind of like, Oh, okay, well, we found him.

There he is right. Yay. Zippity-doo-da. No, he went and found someone and told them, here is Jesus. The exuberance in the life of Andrew at, at having found the Messiah. He goes and tells his own brother and he brought him to Jesus.

And Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter. So he looks at Peter and what he does is he calls Peter by his name and not just any name, but even tells him his surname.

He tells him who he is descended from, who his father is. You have a personal acquaintance going on here. This is, this goes all the way back to Exodus chapter three, when God called out to Moses from the burning bush.

He called him by name, Moses, Moses. And this is condescending of God to do this. God is higher than us. He is holy. He is great. He is separated from us because we have sinned against him and he is perfect and his eyes are so holy.

He cannot even look upon sin as it says in Habakkuk one 13. So God has no obligation to communicate with us whatsoever. It would be for him to step down from his place to come to us and say anything to us.

He would condescend himself that he might communicate with us. And so that is exactly what Jesus has done here for our benefit and on our behalf. He shows his love and his affection for Peter by speaking with Peter and calling him by name saying, I know your name.

And we're told in the scriptures that the Lord knows those who are his second Timothy chapter two, but God's firm foundation stands. This is a second Timothy two 19. God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal.

The Lord knows those who are his and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. And so Jesus shows that he knows that Peter belongs to him and he knows him by name. And more than that, Jesus adopts him.

That's also what's being signified here by giving him a different name. So he says, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas because I'm, I'm adopting you into my fold. And here's what you're going to do for me, you, Peter, which means rock, you are going to be a rock.

And you, you know, Peter had a personality anyway, that was very strong and stubborn and resolute. Okay. That was just his, his personality nonetheless. And even though that would be a detriment to him at times, that was a weakness for him that Jesus would tell him one thing and Peter would refuse or he would deny it or do something else, something to that effect.

Even though that at times was a downfall, it was one of his, his little idiosyncrasies about Peter. There were ways in which that was going to become his strength as well, because Christ was going to work through him to make that a strength.

And Peter told Jesus that he would never deny him. Remember that Jesus said before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times. Peter said, even though all these will turn away, I will never turn away.

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus says to Peter that the devil has asked to sift you like wheat, but I'm going to pray for you. And after all this is said and done, when you come back around, encourage your brothers.

So Jesus was already telling him, you're going to deny me, you're the shepherd's going to be struck. The sheep are going to scatter. You're one of them. You're going to run away. I'm telling you that now.

But when you are grieved over this sin and when you seek repentance and you are granted forgiveness, then come back and encourage your brothers. So in this way, Peter is kind of a rock for the rest of the disciples and apostles after Jesus is crucified and then, of course, rises from the dead and the tomb is found empty.

Peter becomes an encourager of his brothers in this way. He's one of the greatest witnesses of the Christian faith ever in history. Peter is having been crucified just like Christ, just like his Lord.

But he was crucified upside down because he didn't consider himself worthy to die in the same manner that Jesus Christ did. So Jesus identifies Peter by name, personally calls him by name. And he says, and I'm going to call you Cephas, which means Peter Rock, because I'm adopting you into my fold.

And there's a work that I'm going to have you do that particularly links to that name that I am giving you. My daughter was downstairs in my study last week and she was working on her cursive. So she wrote four sentences out in print and then she wrote those four sentences again in cursive.

And I don't know where she got these sentences from, because I don't believe Becky gave these sentences to her. Becky, my wife, didn't give these sentences to Annie to write them. I think she just did it on her own.

And here's what she wrote. She wrote, I love God because he loves me. I love God because he cares for me. God loves everyone, sick or healthy. God loves everyone, especially me. That's what she wrote in print and in cursive.

And Annie, my daughter, who is 10 years old, knows that as one who belongs to God through Jesus Christ, he would know her by name and he has adopted us into his family. We who are followers of Jesus Christ and we are his children.

David said in Psalm 139, Lord, you have searched me and known me. You knew me before I was knit together in my mother's womb. Verse 13, you formed my inward parts. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. And you are one of those works. We also read in Psalm 91, the Lord saying to us, because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name.

When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him with long life. I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. That's what God does for his children.

Those whom he loves, whose names he knows you are delivered from this world. You are protected because you know the name of God. Who knows the name of God? Those who are his sheep, those who follow him.

Jesus will say later on when we get into John chapter 10, he says the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all of his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice.

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him for they do not know. They do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Why is it that they did not understand what Jesus was saying? Because they weren't his sheep. Those who are his sheep will follow the good shepherd. And we know that Andrew followed Jesus because he was one of his sheep.

We know that when Cephas was called and he followed Jesus, it's because he was one of his sheep. They know the voice of the good shepherd and Jesus knows his own and he calls us by name. We have fellowship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And what a beautiful treasure and benefit that is. When he calls to us, we answer him. And when we call to him, according to Psalm 91 15, he answers us. God says, I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him with long life.

I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. Amen. Well, that's as far as we're going to get today. And I still had Nathaniel that I was going to get to. I thought I was going to fit it into the 20 minute devotional, but didn't get that far.

So we'll continue with that tomorrow and look at verses 43 through 51. Let us pray. Our wonderful God, our heavenly father. We thank you for such personal attention that you have shown to us. You love all your children the same, but you give us such personal nurturance and love and care.

We are loved the same and yet we are loved special as well. And you have called us by name and you have shown us your affection and you have given us salvation through your son, Jesus Christ. We know that we are loved by you because we look at the cross and we see the love of God demonstrated in the sacrifice of Christ and his resurrection from the grave so that all who believe in him are forgiven their sins.

We have adoption into the family of God. We've been promised your eternal kingdom. Let nothing that happens to us today discourage us from that. For we know that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

And we pray for your continued guidance upon us today. In Jesus name.

Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.