Come and See

I was reading through John yesterday, and I was struck by a profound phrase in chapter 1--"Come and see." The Greek word for "come," erchomai, occurs 11 times in John 1. The word for "see," horaō, occurs 9 times in the same chapter. Obviously, there is an emphasis on "coming" and "seeing."

The words occur together in 1:39, 1:46, and 1:47. In 1:39, two of John's disciples ask Jesus where he is staying, and he replies, "Come and you will see." In 1:46, Philip, a follower of Jesus, goes to get his brother Nathanael. He says to Nathanael, "We have found the one of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth." Nathanael responds, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip says, "Come and see."

To John there is a correlation between "coming" to Jesus and "seeing." He writes about Jesus, "In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" (John 1:4–5 NIV). Those who follow Jesus comes into the light and they see. Those who do not believe remain in darkness. The prototypical example of this is the contrast between the man born blind and the Pharisees in John 9. The man born blind testifies before the Pharisees, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" (John 9:25 NIV) Later, Jesus says, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind" (John 9:39 NIV).

There was something about Jesus that was beyond description. You had to come and see; and then it all made sense.

As I believe that the church continues the ministry of Jesus, I wonder how often people say about us "come and see." Jesus said, "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning" (John 15:26–27). The work of the Holy Spirit in the church is a testimony to Jesus. In short, when people "come" to us, they should "see" Jesus.

"Father, I pray that we would live in such a way to testify to Jesus. The world is looking for answers, and we confess that we have found them in Your Son. May my life, and the life of the church be such that people tell their friends, 'come and see.'"

The Good Life Sermon 8--"What Can This Relationship Do for Me?"

On Sunday, January 4th I taught the eighth message in my series called The Good Life: Redeeming Suburbia through Counter-cultural Living, in which I am contrasting the message of suburbia about living the good life with the message of Jesus about living the good life. We talked about the seventh myth of suburban living, "What Can This Relationship Do for Me?"

In short, we treat people as a means to an end. We don't have friends--we have contacts. We maintain relationships with people because of the things they can do for us.

In contrast, John 4 recounts the story of Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well. The Samaritan woman couldn't do anything for Jesus. He was a Jew and she was a Samaritan woman. By all social mores, he shouldn't have even talked to her. Further, the woman was probably the talk of the town as she had been divorced five times and she was living with a sixth guy to whom she wasn't married. The whole conversation would have been a little scandalous.

But Jesus was always a little scandalous. He didn't care about the kind of social standing a person had. He didn't use people to climb the social ladder. He treated people like people. In the same way, we should treat people like people, not like a means to an end. Maybe we all need a few more friends and a few less contacts.

You can listen to this sermon, others in The Good Life series, or any recent sermons by me or Gary Albert here.

The Good Life Sermon 7--"My Church Is the Problem"

On December 28th, I taught the seventh lesson in The Good Life series. We looked at David Goetz's sixth myth of suburbia--"My Church Is The Problem."

In suburbia, we treat churches like consumers. If we want some pizza, we go to the local pizzeria. If we want a haircut, we go to the local hairstylist or barbershop. If we need our car fixed, we go to the local auto mechanic. If we need some Jesus, we go to the local church. If we don't like the haircut we get at one barbershop, we go to a different one. If the local auto mechanic is too expensive, we go to a different one. If we don't like the Jesus we're getting at First Baptist, we go to Second Baptist.

Is that the role that church should play in our lives? When we aren't connecting to God very well, is our church the problem?

We looked at Jesus' interaction with Simon Peter. In The Gospel of John, Peter is contrasted with Judas. Judas denied Christ; Peter denied Christ. While Judas went off and hung himself, Peter took responsibility for his spiritual life and came back to Jesus. Like Peter, we need to take responsibility for our spiritual lives.

Most of the time, when we are not "being fed" at church, we're the problem, not the church. If we want to live the good life, we need to start taking responsibility for our own spiritual lives.

You can download this sermon, the other sermons in The Good Life series, and all the most recent sermons by me and Gary Albert here.

The Good Life Sermon Number 6

Last Sunday I taught the sixth message in a ten-week series called The Good Life: Redeeming Suburbia through Counter-cultural Living. Every week we contrast a myth of suburbia about living the good life (taken from David Goetz's book, Death by Suburb) with a message of Jesus about living the good life (taken from the Gospel of John).

This past week we looked at the myth, "I Need to Make a Difference with My Life." We talked about how we all have this feeling that God wants us to do something great with our lives. Does He? Maybe He just wants us to be faithful. We looked at Jesus' interaction with Pontius Pilate, the hidden righteousness, and the importance of doing good, even when no one is looking.

You can listen to this, or any of my other sermons here.

The Good Life Myth #3: I Want My Neighbor's Life

The latest message in my sermon series called The Good Life: Redeeming Suburbia through Counter-cultural Living is up on Believers Fellowship's sermon audio page.

In the series, I have been comparing the myths of suburbia about living the good life with the message of Jesus as presented in the Gospel of John. This week's suburban myth was "I want my neighbor's life." Suburbia tells us that the secret to happiness is owning the things that our neighbors own. This leads us to a life of rampant consumerism. In contrast, John the Baptist lived by the mottos, "A man can only receive what is given to him from heaven" and "He must become greater, I must become less." We looked at how these mottos challenged the suburban lifestyle of consumerism.

The Good Life 3

I gave my third lesson in the series called The Good Life: Redeeming Suburbia through Counter-cultural Living last Sunday. The sermon audio is here. This week's myth of suburbia was "I am what I do and what I own." We looked at Jesus' interaction with the woman caught in adultery in John 8 and we talked about our identity in Christ.

The Good Life Myth #1

My latest sermon is available online here.

I am working through a series called The Good Life in which I contrast the good life according to suburbia with the good life according to Jesus. I am drawing a lot of the information about suburbia from David Goetz's book, Death by Suburb. The first myth that we discussed is, "I am in control of my life."

The Good Life Has Begun

On Sunday I officially started The Good Life series. I am excited about it.


In John 20:30–31, John says that he wrote his gospel so that the readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing they might have life in his name. In others words, the purpose of John is to bring life. And to John, life is not just life--it's eternal life, life with God, life in the Spirit. In other words, it's the good life.


In the series, we will be looking at the Gospel of John and contrasting Jesus' message of the good life with suburbia's message of the good life. To John, living the good life is about "staying faithful to Christ, even when it costs you something." So, we are going to look at what "staying faithful to Christ" means in the suburbs. It's going to be all about living counter-culturally.


You can hear the first message here.