Friends of God: Come and See!

John 1:35-46
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, October 24, 2004)

You know what a “guilty pleasure” is. It’s something that you like, but it may be deemed so stupid by others that you don’t let them know about it. This morning, I’m going to reveal one of my guilty pleasures. I love the old Pink Panther movies starring the late Peter Sellers as the bumbling French police investigator, Inspector Clouseau. Back in my college days, a buddy of mine and I would arrange our schedules so that we could see the latest Pink Panther movie the very day it was released.

In one of the movies, Inspector Clouseau is checking into a resort in the Alps. There’s a little yippy, yappy dog barking at him and thinking he can make friends with it, Clouseau turns to the hotel desk clerk and asks, “Does your dog bite?” The clerk says, “No.” Clouseau leans over to pet the dog and it immediately takes a chunk out of his hand. “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!” he yells to the clerk, who replies, “It’s not my dog.”

Somewhere, in that little scene, there was a failure to communicate some vital information and the result was painful.

Something like that is going on in our lives and in our world today. You and I have vitally important information and we’re not always successfully passing it along to those who need it. The results are painful.

Pastor Gareth Icenogle tells about a couple who walked into his office one day. “What,” he wondered, “are you looking for?” The couple---Tom and Nancy---explained that they wanted to be married and supposed that a church building was a good place for that to happen. “Do you have a church background?” he asked. “No,” they said, “we’ve never been in a church before. We just heard it was a good place to get married.” “Would you mind,” Icenogle asked, “if I did the service in the Name of Jesus?” They said, “Who’s Jesus?” Icenogle thought, “Wow, these people are really out of touch.”

But then he realized something: It was the Church that was out of touch. Nobody in the lives of these two educated adults had ever told them about Jesus or invited them to get to know Him. The Church had failed to communicate the most vital information that any of us can ever know: That God wants to fill the holes in our souls, wants to love us and be with us through thick and thin in our lives, wants to erase the killing power of our sin, and wants to give all who will follow Jesus everlasting life!

So, there in his office, Gareth Icenogle shared the Good News of what Jesus did for us all when He died on a cross and rose from a grave. Tom and Nancy became followers of Jesus and asked Gareth to do their wedding and to just tell the story of Jesus when he did. They were married on the slope of Pepperdine University, looking over Malibu and the Pacific Ocean. After Gareth told the story of Jesus that day, several of their friends decided to follow Him too!

What’s the point? Whether people know it or not, they’re looking for the missing piece of their lives! Tom and Nancy thought that they were looking for a place to get married, Gareth says, but they what they really wanted was Jesus.

The same thing happened to me, as you know. Ann and I had been married for a short time. She worshiped on Sunday mornings and I slept in. I finally went to worship with her. I thought that I was looking for a little peace and quiet from a wife who was upset with me for sleeping away the morning hours. It was only after people communicated the good news of Jesus to me that I realized that He was what I had been looking for all my life.

Whether it was Gareth Icenogle in his way or Ann Daniels and the people of our home church in Columbus in their way, they cared enough to invite others to “Come and See” what the big deal was (and is) about Jesus Christ.

Each of these people, by their invitations, reiterated the incident that our Bible lesson for this morning recounts. It’s early in Jesus’ earthly ministry. His relative, John the Baptizer talking with some of his disciples (or, students) and points to Jesus. “There goes the Lamb of God,” he says, “Who takes away the sin of the world.”

Now, in Old Testament times, God’s people knew that their sins would disqualify them for eternity with God. And so, once a year, they would take pure lambs from their flocks and in effect say, “God, this lamb represents us. We know that we deserve death for our sin. We’re sacrificing this lamb so that by putting our sins on its head and by the shedding of its blood, we will be made clean again.” Jesus was to be the pure Lamb of God Who would shed His blood for the forgiveness of sin for once and for all.

The two disciples--Andrew and probably the writer of this Gospel, another John--didn’t have to be told twice and they tore after Jesus. “Rabbi (or Teacher),” they say, “where are you staying?” You know what Jesus said: “Come and see.” Our lesson says that the two disciples remained with Jesus until about 4:00 in the afternoon. (I have often wondered what the two of them talked with Jesus about that whole day!)

Later, Andrew goes and tells his brother, Simon, whose name is changed to Peter (or Rock Man) by Jesus.

The next day, Simon Peter, Andrew, and John accompany Jesus up to the Galileean region of Judea. On the way, Jesus walks up to a man named Philip and says, “Follow Me.” Philip does and folks, that was a coup! Philip is a Greek name that means lover of horses. So, here’s a guy whose family had fallen so far away from their Jewish roots that they gave their kid a Greek name and a name that extols the virtues of horses, to boot. Historically, Jews hated horses. Horses were the instruments by which foreign armies had exercised dominion over the Jews and conquered their lands. For a Jewish kid to be named Lover of Horses back then would be like an Iraqi kid to be named Lover of Tanks or Lover of Rocket Launchers today. And yet, Jesus reaches out to this guy alienated from God, from his faith, from his culture. Jesus invites Philip and Philip follows. Is that cool or what?

And then, Philip runs to tell a friend named Nathanael, a name that means Gift of God. “Come on, Nate,” Philip says, “we’ve found the Savior we’ve been waiting for all this time. He’s Jesus of Nazareth.” Nathanael is skeptical. He can't imagine that something as good as the Savior of the world could come from a nowhere place like Nazareth. But Philip says, “Come and see” and trusting his friend, Nathanael does just that.

When John the Baptizer told Andrew and the other John about Jesus, it was like throwing a rock into a pond. The news of Who Jesus was kept rippling out further and further, touching and changing more lives. As the logo for our congregation shows, the ripples are still being felt in the world today.

Sociologist and church consultant George Barna says that in his polling among non-churchgoing people, an enormous number of them would be willing to check out a church if a friend they found credible would only invite them.

Those of us who were involved in the Billy Graham Mission several years ago learned from the Christian Life and Witness Class that something like 80% of all new believers in any congregation come there as the result of an invitation from a friend.

Tragically though, in another study I read once, it was shown that only about 3% of all Christians ever get around to inviting their non-churchgoing friends to “Come and see,” to worship with them, or to check out Jesus. There is a failure to communicate the vital news of Jesus Christ and the result is that millions of people enter eternity without Him.

Other studies indicate that every Christian living in the United States has at least seven non-churchgoing friends. That sounds like a low number to me; I encounter dozens of such people almost every day. You do too. And, as Jeff Daniher pointed out to me a few weeks ago, in some ways it’s more difficult for me to reach out to these folks than it is for you. After all, I’m a preacher; people expect me to say nice things about Jesus. But when you invite your non-churchgoing friends to, “Come and see,” they will listen.

Nonetheless, this past week, I invited two of my non-churchgoing friends to be with us for Friend Day, next Sunday. I’ve got six more I’m going to ask this week. I don’t know if they’ll all show up or not. But God doesn’t call us to be successful, only faithful.

This week, please take the time and make the effort to invite your non-churchgoing friend to be with us for Friend Day, next Sunday morning. You could change a life forever!