Come and See Rerecord
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[00:00:00] We all want to be known. But we work really hard on figuring out what it is that people know about us. This has always been true, but it's even more true today with social media where we can project a certain version of ourselves to the world. Now, sometimes this gets a little out of control, and maybe we don't project the version of us that we want to.
I came across the story of a teenager who as a consequence had an interesting run in with her social media. The first post was posted by her parents and it set up the story like this. This is Maddie. Maddie got herself grounded. She had a choice of no phone for a month or no phone for two weeks, and we have full control of her social media.
She chose two weeks. So be on the lookout for some amazing Instagram posts, Snapchats and tiktoks from her [00:01:00] parents. Now, I can think of few things scarier to a teenager than your parents having access to your social media. And you might wonder, what on earth were her parents gonna post? And it didn't take long to find out like this one where all of a sudden you realize, oh, we're going to meet her dad.
In an entirely new way, or this post where he begins to show off his range and his characters that he has, or my personal favorite, this post where we really get to see what he's capable of. Now, after about two weeks of these kind of posts, they finally posted this one that says, I'm back sweeter than ever, and ready to make good choices.
I love that and I love the fear of what will happen on my social media. What will people know about me and the way that her parents engaged her with this. Now, hopefully you're having [00:02:00] an easier time if you're on social media managing what people are aware of with you, but let's look at today's text that we're gonna see how this affects us in maybe a way that, that we didn't realize in John chapter one, verse 35, we read this.
The following day, John was again standing with two of his disciples. Now, this is very similar to what we saw last week. This is John the Baptist again, with his disciples, and again, he's gonna see Jesus as Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, look, there is the lamb of God. When John's two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus.
They, they're like, oh, we're gonna follow that guy. Then now Jesus looked around and he saw them following. What do you want? He asked them, they replied, rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? Come and see. He said that was about four o'clock in the afternoon when they went [00:03:00] with him to the place where he was staying and they remained with him the rest of the day.
I love this simple response to these early followers. Come and see. I. Now you don't say those words unless you can back it up. Like how many of us would invite someone to come and see our home unless we had time to clean it up first? Right? Like you can come over and see how we live, but as long as we have advanced notice, or how many people would invite some stranger to come and see my finances.
Come and see how I spend my money unless we had a chance to maybe clean things up or maybe direct them in a certain area of our finances. Come and see is a dangerous invitation to the reality of our world, not just what we project to others. Yet, [00:04:00] this is precisely Jesus's invitation. Come and see what I am all about.
We keep reading. In verse 40, Andrew Simon Peter's brother, is one of these men who heard what John said and then followed Jesus. Andrew went to find his brother Simon and told him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ. Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus and looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, your name is Simon, son of John, but you'll be called CFUs, which means Peter.
So Jesus meets him and immediately changes his name, and this is a transformative moment for Peter's life. Now, what we may not realize is what a lot of these young men were doing in that culture. See about the age of five, you would begin your formal religious studies and, and you would continue that till you were about [00:05:00] 12 or 13 years old.
And then you would go and if you wanted to pursue it more, you'd go find a rabbi and you would find a rabbi to follow for the next 17 years or so until you were about age 30. And then you could become a rabbi and you could find your own disciples and begin the process. All over again. Now, if this pattern was consistent with the way that Jesus initiated his early disciples, which we have every reason to believe, this means that many of his disciples were teenagers even during the resurrection and the, the cross and everything we witnessed.
They could have been in their teens, which maybe makes a little bit more sense some of the weird decisions that they make throughout the gospels. But these were young men on a journey to follow this new rabbi, and they are going to be fully known by Jesus. Now, we're not becoming students of a rabbi, but we are on this same journey today.
And, [00:06:00] and I would illustrate it like this. If you are loved but not known, that is the illusion of acceptance. This is what we have with social media, right? You are loving versions of me, but we both know that's not the real me. And so we have an illusion of acceptance. It feels good, but it's not meaningful.
Now, if you are known but not loved. This is our deepest fear that I would let you in, that I would show you what I'm really like and then you would reject me and you would say, you don't want that. That I am not good enough. And if we're honest, this is what we're afraid what happens. This is why we often don't let people know us.
This is why we often don't post reality on social media 'cause we are afraid of that. But the ideal situation would be to be known. And loved, which means we [00:07:00] are thriving when we are known. And that even being known, people decide, Hey, I, I still accept you. I still embrace you. I love you for who you really are.
Gwen Sellers says it like this. Jesus did not just tell people who he was. He didn't even just tell them who he knew they were. He invited them to relate in a real way. He invited them to know him and to be known by him. It is in our relationship with God that we are most known, and it is in knowing him that we have the fullness of life.
This idea of being known and loved is the sweet spot, and this is the relationship that Jesus offers. You and I, Jesus fully knows you. Now again, that even that sentence may sound a little intimidating. Like, oh no, what does that mean? What does he [00:08:00] know about me? No, no. He fully knows you and he loves you, and he chooses you even with all that he knows about you.
This is the condition in which you can thrive. Paul says this in one Corinthians 13, 12, all that I know now is partial and incomplete. But then I will know everything completely just as God now knows me completely. As we continue in this journey with Jesus, we realize that we are being fully known by Jesus.
It's not just that we're learning about Jesus. We awaken to an awareness that we are fully seen. In a way that we don't ever let other people fully see us, but God sees us that way, and then we awaken to an awareness that God is not displeased. God is not disgusted. God is not disappointed. [00:09:00] No, that God loves us.
God embraces us. God welcomes us. And when you awaken to the conditions that you are known and loved, you are in a position to thrive. I will see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
