The Expansion
January 19, 2020*
By Pastor John Partridge
Isaiah 49:1-7 John 1:29-42 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
How many of you know how to drive a stick shift?
I want to be clear, what I mean by that is, how many of you have driven a stick shift truck or automobile?
I make that clarification because when I first got my driver’s license, I thought I knew how to drive a stick. I had been in the car with my Dad and with my brothers on countless occasions. I had a driver’s license, and I understood the principles and the mechanics of how a stick shift operated. But the first time I tried to put that knowledge into practice, I drove my father’s Mustang into our garage door. Thankfully, I didn’t do much damage to either the garage or the car, so I wasn’t in a lot of trouble. But this was a great learning opportunity that reinforced the idea that there’s a big difference between knowing and knowing. There’s a difference between hearing about something, or knowing about something, and having knowledge that comes from doing that thing. There’s a difference between knowing how to drive a stick shift and physically driving a stick shift long enough to become skilled in doing it. In the same way, there’s a difference between knowing about a person, and knowing that person because you’ve spent enough time together to genuinely know them.
As I found out when I drove my dad’s Mustang into the garage door, the difference between these two kinds of knowing can be critically important. A few years ago, while our son Jonah was shopping for a car, a friend from school wanted to sell him one. Jonah liked it but, since it was a stick shift, and since he didn’t know how drive a stick, Jonah asked me to test drive it with him. It looked nice enough and to Jonah, the car seemed great. But when I got behind the wheel, something about the way the clutch worked and the way that it shifted seemed wrong to me. I admitted that it had been several years since I had regularly driven a stick, but even aside from my slightly rusty skills, something just didn’t seem right, and my hesitancy caused Jonah to look elsewhere. There’s a between knowing about and knowing from experience and that difference in knowledge often causes a difference in behavior.
It is this difference in knowing that we see in several of our scriptures this morning. We begin in Isaiah 49:1-7 where we hear the story of how God called Isaiah to be the prophet of Israel and how God intended to use the nation of Israel, and Israel’s messiah, to call the world to repentance.
49:1 Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the Lord called me;
from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver.
3 He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,
and my reward is with my God.”
5 And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength—
6 he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
7 This is what the Lord says—
the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,
to the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you and stand up,
princes will see and bow down,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
Isaiah says that God called him before he was born, prepared him, and set him aside to be his servant. But he did the same for Israel. Israel was called by God before it was born and was set aside to display the splendor and glory of God to the world. It was God’s intention to restore Israel, and to make that nation, and her messiah, a light to the Gentiles, a people that would go out, extend itself into the world, and expand the kingdom of God so that the kings, and the people, of the world would bow down and bring honor and glory to God. It was God’s plan for the world to know him because they had known Israel.
And, in a much more personal way, we see this same idea play out in John 1:29-42 when two disciples of John the Baptist, Andrew and (probably) John, meet Jesus for the first time.
29 The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”
32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”
So, they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).
As disciples of John the Baptist, Andrew and John would have heard stories and preaching about the messiah that God had promised to the nation of Israel. They would have been told that the arrival of the messiah was imminent, and that John the Baptist had been called by God to prepare for the arrival of the messiah. But, at that moment, John makes it plain that Jesus is the one about whom he had been preaching and that Jesus was God’s Chosen One and the Lamb of God. And immediately, those two disciples had a different kind of knowledge. Knowing that the messiah was coming was different than knowing that the messiah had arrived. And then, having met Jesus, and now actually knowing Jesus, something else was required of them. Now that Andrew genuinely knew Jesus, just knowing wasn’t enough. Now that Andrew knew Jesus the first thing that he did was to find his brother Simon and tell him that they had found the messiah and the very next thing that he did was to bring Simon to meet Jesus for himself.
Knowing the messiah was coming, and even knowing that the messiah had arrived, were different than knowing the messiah. Once Andrew and John had met Jesus, once they knew him, that knowledge changed their behavior and demanded something from them. It wasn’t enough to know Jesus. Knowing Jesus demanded an expansion, knowing Jesus demanded that they tell others about what they knew and introduce others to him.
And, just in case we are tempted to say that this was only true for the disciples of John the Baptist, or was only true for the first few disciples, in 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, Paul explains that knowing Jesus changes the rest of us as well.
1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul says that once we know him, Jesus pours grace into us and enriches our lives by giving us all kinds of speech and knowledge in order to confirm the testimony about Jesus by the changes that are evident among the people of the church. Once the people came to know him, Jesus poured out gifts of grace, speech, knowledge and, according to Paul, the church receives every spiritual gift as we wait for the return of Jesus Christ. And just in case we weren’t sure what every spiritual gift means, Paul provides a list later in this same letter in 1st Corinthians chapter 12, where he lists some of these gifts as being wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, spiritual discernment, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.
Paul is clear that knowing about Jesus, and genuinely knowing Jesus are different things.
Knowing Jesus changes us.
When we meet Jesus and get to know him, when we experience the changes that are evident in his people and in his church, and when we receive the gifts that Jesus gives to his people, we are no longer the same people that we used to be. Knowing Jesus not only changes us, it calls us, and it demands something from us. Like Andrew, once we meet Jesus, we are unable to keep that knowledge to ourselves and we are compelled to introduce him to others so that they can know him too.
From the beginning, it has always been God’s plan for his people to be a light in a dark world. God has always intended for his people, for his church, to go out, to extend itself into the world, and expand the kingdom of God so that the people of the world would bow down and bring honor and glory to God.
We have met Jesus and we have been changed, transformed, and blessed because of it.
And now that we know him, we are called to tell others about him so that they can meet him and know him too.
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