Called to Follow: A Savior for the Ordinary

They're very complicated. In fact, they're very, very simple. This morning, it's just the Scriptures we have listed in the inside of the bulletin. We've been talking about what it means to follow Jesus and how he calls us to follow him, and we've seen Jesus call and be a savior for the skeptical Nathaniel. We've talked about those who are kind of halfway between hope or struggling with hope to follow Jesus, whether it is the physical things of life or the fears about the future, the comforts that we have right now. We've talked that Jesus is the one who calls us to follow him. Last week we looked at Matthew as he was called to follow Jesus from his tax booth and how Jesus calls those whom in many times we see as unwanted. So we're going to pray, and we're going to talk about how Jesus calls the ordinary, or as we've had it and kind of announced it last week, those who are unseen.

And what we mean by that are those who are sort of faithfully following Jesus, but not always with the greatest fanfare. And so we're going to take a look at the Apostle Andrew this morning. So let's go ahead and have a word of prayer, and we'll dive into it. Father in heaven, be with us this morning as we open your word, as we look at these three texts from the life of Andrew. May you help us to see that you have called all of us, that you don't just simply call some, but you call the ordinary. So help us as we look at our faithfulness, that the call to follow you is for everyone. So give us strength this morning. Encourage us. Help us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. There are times, I think, when it feels like life just throws sort of roadblock after roadblock at you, and this week, at least for me, was one of those.

It seemed like everything that I started to do needed about three things done before I could start to do it, and so it felt like, in a lot of situations, I was doing the things that needed to be done before I could do the things that really needed to be done, and I was struggling to get over from being sick, and then some of the kids started being sick, and there was trips to the doctor, and so by the time we got to Friday, I felt like I was just kind of wrung out. I was kind of done with everything, and I had ordered some groceries for pickup. I went to do that, and to help with the busyness of the week, I said, "I'll pick up dinner on the way home," and I drive by, and I get the food in the car, and it was ready to go, and I was like, "Right, it's home free. I'm going to come out here,

and I'm going to take a right-hand turn and another right-hand turn, and it's just a straight shot home." And as I was coming down the road to where I would normally turn right, I look, and there's just a whole bunch of flashing barricades that say, "Road closed," and there's a sign, you know, with all the words on it saying something about it, "It's closed till next year," and I'm just going, "Well, isn't that just sum up the week? There's nowhere I can go." So instead of the nice, straight, quick route home, I'm going the other way through the back roads, finding a way across town, and it was fine. It was just kind of summing up the week in one roadblock. I just want to go this way. I just want to do this, and everything just seems to not work. And when Jesus calls us to follow Him,

there's times where it feels like that. Or we feel like maybe we're not strong enough, or the problems that are in front of us are too big. And so the struggle is too big, and our strength is too small. Or maybe we think, like Moses, I'm not qualified enough, or I'm not good enough because when God calls Moses, Moses immediately begins to make excuses about all the reasons why he is not qualified. And so we have before us this roadblock that says in our minds, "I don't know if I can do this." Or maybe even as we get to the bottom of Moses' excuses, he says, "I don't even know if I want to do this." And so we're called to follow Jesus. And when we hear those words to follow him, we say, "I don't know if that is for me. I'm not

big enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not important enough. I'm not good enough." And we struggle with what is in front of us. So very simply this morning, I just want to encourage us. I want us to see as Christians in following Jesus. We're not stuck. We're not detoured. We're called. No matter where we are, how important, how strong, how good we are, we are called to faithfully follow Jesus. And I want to encourage us this morning by looking at one specific follower of Jesus. In John chapter 1 in verse 35, we find two people who are following Jesus. They've been disciples of John the baptizer, and they are actually standing with John as Jesus walks by. And John has already made this pronouncement that Jesus is the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world. And these two disciples

are standing with John, and they see Jesus walk by, and John the baptizer goes, "The Lamb of God." And these two guys just start following Jesus. The very first disciple that we know the name of to follow Jesus is one of these two. And John 1:40 gives us his identity, simply saying this. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He's the first named disciple, the first named follower of Jesus, and this is the last time that he is at the beginning of any list for the rest of the Bible. And if you think about how we measure importance, and one of the things we're really good at is we are very good at conflating fame, how well known somebody is with how important they really are. And by that measure of importance, how famous and how well known you are, Andrew is one

of the least important followers of Jesus. He's only mentioned a few times, and we're going to look at those three texts this morning, apart from group settings. In fact, most of the time he's mentioned is in those lists of the apostles of Jesus, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and in the book of Acts, and he is never first in any of those lists. He's not the most famous. He's not the well-known. But what Andrew does is he faithfully brings people to Jesus. He is truly ordinary in all of his ordinariness, but he has this remarkable testimony of bringing people to Jesus until his very dying breath. So what I want us to do is to see how this ordinary man, and hopefully he will encourage us as we seek to follow Jesus. The first thing we find about Andrew as he follows Jesus, Andrew's very intentional about

bringing people to Jesus. I'm going to pick up in John 1:40, and it simply says this: "One of the two 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. 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." And almost immediately we began to see the obscurity of Andrew. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, and John goes, "You're probably not going to know about him except that he's Peter's brother." And almost immediately the picture shifts to Peter. But what I want you to see is Andrew's first reaction upon following Jesus was to go home and get his brother and bring him to follow

Jesus. He's intentional with what is around him. He doesn't, like many of us, sort of think about what is out here. He looks around him and says, "What is close to me?" And then he goes and gets the closest thing and brings him to Jesus. One of the remarkable testimonies of Andrew was his faithfulness in the ordinary everyday things of life. And I want you to consider just for a moment the impact on the kingdom. Because Andrew, immediately overshadowed by Peter, he is the one who brings Peter to Jesus. Andrew, an ordinary man, but selflessly, runs to his brother Peter with the good news of Jesus Christ. And we see what a difference it makes. And you have this wonderful picture of the faithfulness of the guy who is almost immediately overshadowed by the famousness

of Peter, but he is at the heart of bringing Peter to Jesus. And what's remarkable is that this quiet faithfulness in following and sharing the gospel is not something that ends here with Andrew. Probably many of you know that out of the last couple hundred years, my favorite and one of the most helpful pastors to me has been Charles Spurgeon. And I've shared a couple times with you the story of when he first really sees the gospel. Let me just share with you Spurgeon's story. He said, "I think sometimes I might have been in darkness and despair now had it not been for the goodness of God sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning when I was going to a place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a court and came to a little primitive Methodist chapel. And in that chapel there might be

a dozen or fifteen people, and the minister did not come that morning because he was likely snowed in." The guy who gets up to preach, Spurgeon says this of him, "He was a poor man, a shoemaker, a tailor or something of that sort, and he went up to the pulpit to preach. And he was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had nothing else to say. And the text was, "Look unto me and be you saved all the ends of the earth." And he did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in this text. And this man preaching this sermon says, "My dear friends, it is a very simple text indeed. It says, 'Look, that does not take a great deal of

effort. It ain't lifting your foot or finger. It is just look. Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, yet you can look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look. A child can look. But this is what the text says. It says, "Look unto me." And he said in his broad accent, "Many of you are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You'll never find comfort in yourselves." Then this good man followed up the text in this way, "Look unto me. I am sweating great drops of blood. Look unto me. I am hanging on the cross. Look, I am dead and buried. Look unto me. I rise again. Look unto me. I ascend. I am sitting at the Father's right hand. Oh, look to me and look to me."

And when he had gone on about that for a length and managed to spin out 10 minutes, he was at the end of his rope. And he looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say with so few people present, he knew me to be a stranger. And then he said, "Young man, you look very miserable." And I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck. And he continued, and he said, "You will always be miserable, miserable in life, miserable in death if you do not obey this text. But if you obey now, this moment you will be saved." And he shouted as only a primitive Methodist could, "Young man, look to Jesus Christ." And Spurgeon says, "Then and there the cloud

was gone. The darkness rolled away. And in that moment I saw the sun. And I could have risen at that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, the precious blood of Christ." And this wasn't the end of Spurgeon's journey, but it was the beginning. And he goes on to be one of the most influential preachers and pastors in the last 200 years, because he shows up at a tiny church in a snowstorm with a guy who's not the preacher who simply points him to Jesus. This is the legacy of Andrew, faithful with what is in front of him. What's interesting is the next time we meet Andrew, he's on the other side of the Sea of Galilee with Jesus, and there is a massive crowd. And what we see is not only is Andrew faithful, but he looks

where it seems that nobody else is looking. Jesus lifting up his eyes then and seeing a large crowd was coming toward him. Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?" And he said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. And Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii are not worth, 200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little." One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" The problem here is far too big for Jesus's disciples. Jesus has been growing in popularity, and we learn later on that there are at least 5,000 men, and it's

likely because they're coming and seeking healing. We learn at the beginning of chapter 6, likely they're bringing their families as well. So most commentators think that in this moment there's 5,000 men, but the whole crowd could have been anywhere from 15 to 20,000 people. And Jesus turns to his disciples, specifically Philip, and goes, "Hey, where are we going to get bread to feed all these people?" And Philip goes, "I can't even do math because the numbers don't go that high. I could work for more than half a year." And they would only be able to have a tiny bite. And then Andrew does the most surprising thing. There's a little boy here who has his lunch with him. And that's not a remarkable thing if you're going to see Jesus and you want to take some food because you don't know how long you're going to be.

It's reasonable to pack some snacks. And so this little boy brings his lunch. It's not surprising this boy is here. It's surprising that Andrew finds and knows and sees this boy. This boy in the view of the first century world would have been unimportant. He would have been viewed as a nuisance. If you remember the times before where Jesus has been speaking and children want to come see him and the disciples go, "Whoa, he's way too important for you kids." And Jesus corrects them. But here Andrew brings the one that everybody would overlook. And there's been a lot of people speculating about what kind of person Andrew must have been to do this. And one of my favorite descriptions is from a commentary written in 1928. And the author is speculating on the character and the person of Andrew. It was like

Andrew, of course, to notice the small boy. Andrew was the kind of person a little boy could approach. And while the other disciples were busy with bigger things, Andrew was chatting with the boy, patting him on the head, asking him where he had caught the fish. Or did his mother buy them at the market? A scruffy lad with no special promise, but Andrew, the brotherly type, visits with him and somewhat ridiculously thinks that his lunchbox will interest the master. Andrew looks to this one, and he even very specifically expresses his doubt. "I've met a boy. He's got five barley loaves, and we're not talking about big loaves of bread. We're talking about kind of cracker-sized loaves with just a little bit of fish on top. And Andrew says, "I've met this boy, and he has a lunch, but it's not big enough."

But he still brings it to Jesus. And here is Andrew in the testimony of his life bringing someone else to Jesus. And what does Jesus do with this lunch? He turns it around and feeds all these people. And not only does he feed them until they don't want anymore, they pick up 12 baskets of bread that are left over. With Andrew's faithfulness and willingness to look around and to bring people to Jesus. You see his intentionality, but you also see that he looks at those who everyone else overlooks or dismisses. We find that even Andrew is willing to help, even when he is not at the center of what is happening. In John chapter 12, there is a lot of things that have happened. This is the third Passover of Jesus in Jerusalem that we have recorded. And if you remember what happens on Sunday, Jesus comes down

the Mount of Olives riding on a donkey where everybody cheers Hosanna. He fights with the religious leaders. The next day, he cleans out the temple. There's questions. There's people wanting to talk to him. It's just a fervor over Jesus. And on top of that, he's just raised Lazarus from the dead, and the religious leaders are plotting to kill Lazarus and to kill Jesus. And it's just chaos. Everything happening all at once. Everybody wants to see Jesus. Everybody wants to talk to Jesus. And here comes some Greeks, and they worship the God of Israel, maybe like the Ethiopian. They're converts. And if they are converts to Judaism, Jesus' cleansing of the temple would have been remarkable for them because it takes their place of prayer and restores it to a place of prayer, not just simply a shopping

mall or market. And these Greeks want to see Jesus, but so does everybody else. And they find Philip, a follower of Jesus with a Greek name, and they go to him and they go, "Any chance we can see Jesus?" And what Philip does is so remarkable. Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida and Galilee, and they asked him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." And what does Philip do? Philip went and told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. So what does Philip do? He brings him to the guy who evidently historically has a history of bringing people to Jesus. He says, "Andrew, there's some Greeks who want to see Jesus." And Andrew, it seems, doesn't hesitate. He just grabs Philip, and they go to Jesus. It's this remarkable, wonderful picture.

Of Andrew, once again, bringing people to Jesus. He brings the guy who's bringing the people to Jesus. You and I, we like to set up kingdoms and territories, right? This is mine. This is yours. I'll deal with my stuff. You deal with yours, but not Andrew. If there was someone he could bring to Jesus, he would. Not selfishly. Not caring about status or greatness. Just wanting people to see Jesus. We don't know a lot about what happens next in Andrew's life. In fact, in terms of Scripture, he's mentioned in the book of Acts as being part of the list of the disciples and the apostles. What we do know from church tradition is that Andrew continues this habit of bringing people to Jesus. And at one point in his sharing of the good news about Jesus,

a wife of a provincial Roman governor becomes a Christian and infuriates her husband. And so he demands she recant her devotion to Jesus, and she says, "Absolutely not." And he goes to Andrew, and in revenge for sharing Christ to his wife, Andrew is then crucified on an X-shaped cross. It's the symbol of Saint Andrew, the X-shaped cross. And the historical tradition passed down through the church is that while Andrew suffered for two days, dying on that cross, with every breath, he proclaimed the good news about Jesus. From the beginning in John, chapter one, where his. To seek to bring people to Jesus. To his dying breath. Andrew sought to bring people to Jesus. I want us to see this morning as we follow Jesus, sometimes we can feel pretty small, pretty unimportant. And I simply want to say this, we don't overlook smallness when we have a great God.

And that's what Andrew does. In fact, it doesn't even seem that he thinks about himself. All he can think about is the greatness and the goodness of Jesus and helping everybody that he comes in contact to see him.

Also, don't minimize the power of consistent faithfulness when your faithfulness is to a great God. Andrew, although he's never at the beginning of a list except in John chapter one and immediately is superseded by his brother, his faithfulness is a testimony to those who trust in Jesus, who are strengthened by Jesus, led by Jesus, and seek to steward what God has done for them. This picture of simple, intentional, faithfully willing and seeking to bring people to Jesus, to trust in the power of God for your own strength and for the hope of their salvation. And as a church, what's around us? What are we called to be faithful to? We don't know much about Andrew other than he brings people to Jesus, an ordinary man inviting ordinary people to follow Jesus, their savior. And maybe this morning,

whether you're a Christian or not, you look at that call to follow Jesus, and the simple thing is not strong enough. Well, God is. And maybe it's like Moses, "Well, I'm not articulate enough, or I'm not smart enough." But the good news of the gospel says that you aren't, but Jesus is, and that he leads you and he strengthens you. So I would say both to those of us who are Christians and those who are seeking, that the one who calls you is faithful. He is faithful in your salvation. He is faithful in equipping you. He is faithful in leading you, and he will bring you safely home. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for Andrew. May you encourage us this morning with his life

that we would put all of our hope and trust in you, and then like Andrew, let it overflow into sharing the good news to bring people to Jesus. Thank you for Jesus and for grace. It's in your son's name we pray.