February 22, 2019

“Five Who Followed”

Have you ever met a person that changed the direction of your life? In 1976, I encountered a Christian musician God used to alter my life plans.  That musician was Andrae Crouch and I’d never heard music like his nor a presentation of the Gospel as powerful as his.  On my way to becoming a high school band director, after  studying music at the University of Northern Colorado, God used that one encounter to forever change the direction of my life. That Thursday night in August changed everything.  Truth be told, it wasn’t really wasn’t Andrae that changed my life, it was Jesus.  When I encountered Jesus, everything in my life began to change.  The way I viewed the world changed!  The way I prioritized my life changed.  The way I acted changed! While studying my text for Sunday, I noticed the ways in which one encounter with Jesus changed everything in the lives of five who followed Him – John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. Please read their story as recorded in John 1:35-51.  While there’s certainly a lot packed into those 17 verses, we’re going to focus on one primary question:

What does it really mean to follow Jesus?

I look forward to a deeper exploration of this question when we gather for worship on Sunday. The journey continues, pastor jamie