503: Come and See | Landon Dermott

Introduction

All right. Good morning. If we haven't met before, my name is Landon Dermott, and I have the privilege of serving as the area director of a ministry called Young Life locally here in Roanoke, Virginia. And I just want to say this as we begin. I am really thankful. I'm really thankful to get to be a member of Church of the Holy Spirit, and for my wife and I to raise our kids in this church. I'm thankful for the leadership that exists here at Church of the Holy Spirit. I'm really thankful as the leader of an organization called Young Life to get to partner with this church and the way that this church has impacted the ministry of Young Life and really changed my life. I feel really grateful for that. And I feel really grateful to get to look at this passage. I would say this is perhaps my favorite passage in the whole Bible. It's definitely top three, but maybe my favorite, and I'm so excited for what we're going to look at this morning.

So if you've got your Bible, flip it open to John chapter one, and we're going to start in verse 35. And if you've been here the last few weeks, you've always been the last month, kind of in the chapter, the first chapter of the gospel of John, and we're doing a study on the book of John right now. And the first week we did a little bit of an overview, and then Sloop talked about that kind of prologue of the book of John where he says, "In the beginning was the Word, and that's Jesus, and the Word became flesh and made its dwelling among us." And then the last two weeks, we've talked about John the Baptist and the significance of him.

In this morning, we're going to close out all of the rest of chapter one, which if you're like me, you heard Bob read that, and you look at it and you're like, that's a long passage, and we're going to move quickly through it. And what we get to see in this gospel account that's unique from others, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, don't include some of these stories, is we see four invitations to five people from Jesus to follow him.

And as we look at these passages this morning, and we walk verse by verse through each of those invitations, I want to ask you this question to consider as we talk this morning. Why are these included? Why does John include this in his gospel as he shares it with us? And what's it matter for me and you today in 2025 to hear and see these invitations that Jesus gives to these five disciples? What's it matter? We're going to walk through those.

And the first one that we're going to see, we'll pick it up in verse 35, and it says this:

The next day John was there again. That is John the Baptist with two of his disciples. And when he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God."

Now, if you're here this week and you weren't here last week or if you haven't had the chance to listen to it, I hope that you will go back and listen to what Sloop shared because that phrase, "The Lamb of God," is really significant. And what John the Baptist says is really important. But for time's sake, we're not going to dive into that, but I'd encourage you to go back and listen to what Sloop said last week and why that is significant.

And it says, "When two of John's disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus." Now, to set the scene for you, John the Baptist is a guy we talked about in the last couple of weeks, and he's got his own followers. And these people are following Jesus and they are—excuse me—they're following John, and then John sees Jesus and he says, "Behold the Lamb of God." And essentially what he's saying is, "Here's the guy that's going to be the Messiah. Here's the guy that you should follow, so leave me," which is crazy, "and go and follow Jesus."

And two of these disciples, one of which we find out is named Andrew in verse 40, and another who we don't know the name of—we can throw that first slide up, but we'll put the placeholder there of John because there's some people who would contend that maybe it was John the gospel writer who was the second disciple here. We don't know, but it was Andrew and a mystery disciple who are interacting with Jesus here because John the Baptist says, "Behold the Lamb of God," and they follow Jesus, but they follow him from a distance. And they're kind of poking around and they're following, maybe they're hiding behind trees. I don't know if they're close behind or if they're just kind of walking where he's walking.

It's kind of a funny scene to imagine, but I'm not sure if because of Jesus knowing everything or because they were bad hiders—or sometimes you just have the sense that someone is following you, you know what I'm talking about?—Jesus realizes that these people are following him, and he turns around. And up into this point, Andrew and this mystery disciple have only followed Jesus from a distance. They've only kind of seen his back, but now he turns and he looks at them and he asks them, "What do you want?"

Now, some of you have the ESV and it says, "What are you seeking?" But when I hear this question, when I hear, "What do you want," I can't help but hear a little bit of a sarcastic tone, right? If I ask someone, "Someone's following me," I turn around, I'm like, "What do you want?" And that's how I hear this. In fact, I'm reminded of the conversation that I have with my wife Caroline. Every time we hop in the car, we try to decide where we're going to go out to dinner on a date night, right? And we're kind of talking about that. It usually looks a little something like this.

You can roll that clip.

What do you want?

That's an art conversation every time we go out to eat. And I don't know if any of you have the similar experience, but I don't think that's what Jesus is saying when he looks at these two disciples and he says, "What do you want?" I think perhaps it was gentle. I think perhaps it was inviting as he looks at them and he says, "What do you want?"

And there are three things that I hope that we'll notice about this question that Jesus asks to these disciples in this moment. And the first is this. We've spent the last few weeks talking about Jesus. We've talked about the intro of the book of John. But do you know this?

These are the first words that Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Messiah, the Christ, all of these incredible things, the Word who was with God in the beginning—these are his first words. I like to think that if it were me and I was showing up in the first line, I would say, I'd be like, "Here I am! I'm the Lamb!" Like it's me. I'm walking in. But he doesn't. What does he do? He asks the question. He says, "What do you want?"

The first words out of Jesus' mouth is to be curious and ask a question and invitation. The second thing that I think is worth noticing about this question is that Jesus is constantly talking on two levels. There's kind of a physical thing that's going on and a spiritual thing that's going on. I don't think he's just asking, "Hey, do you want a bite to eat or what are you actually doing here?" I think he's asking, "Hey, what do you want at a heart and soul level? What do you want?"

We see this in John chapter three when he talks to Nicodemus and he talks about being born again, and Nicodemus is confused and is like, "Do I actually have to go into my mother's womb?" And then in John four, he'll talk about water with a woman, and he's not just talking about physical water. He's talking about spiritual water. And I'll save you the rest of them, but there's tons of places where we see Jesus talking on two levels. And he's not just talking about the immediate, the physical, the things that are right there. He's also talking about what's going on on a deeper level. And he wants to know, "What are you looking for?"

And the third thing that I think I want us to know about this is Jesus is all knowing. And so Jesus already knows what they want. In fact, Jesus probably knows what they're seeking or what they want better than they even do. I don't know if they knew in that moment. They're like, "Well, John just told us to follow you." So we did. But he's inviting them to take a look and perhaps discover for themselves what they're seeking and what's going on on the deeper heart and soul level.

And I wonder if you've done that for yourself. Where are you seeking? What are you looking for? And so they answer Jesus and they say, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" Which I think is a funny thing, right? To have the Lamb of God, the Word, look at them and say, "What do you want?" And they say, "What's your address?" And I think it's curious to me.

And some people would say maybe they whiffed. Maybe they missed the point or maybe they just got so nervous. But I've read some studies that would say that reply of where are you staying is their way of saying, "Hey, can we talk in private?" Because I've heard some things about you. John just said, "You're the Lamb of God." And I'd like to know more about that. And I'd like to hear who you are and what's going on.

And Jesus gives this wonderful invitation. He says, "Come, and you will see." And at that point, they'd only follow Jesus from behind, but they go and they stay with him. And it says it's about four o'clock in the afternoon. And they go and they spend the day with Jesus. And I don't know what happened that day. I don't know what they saw. I don't know what Jesus said. I don't know what He did.

But what I do know is where they spent that night. And it was with Jesus. Because that was the same place they spent every night for the rest of their days following Jesus and sitting at His feet.

Because when they came and they saw, they realized that He was exactly what they were looking for. And so, that is Andrew and this mystery disciple. And Andrew is so excited. We pick up the story again in verse 40. And it says,

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two that had heard about John. And the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him we have found the Messiah, that is the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus.

And so, Andrew is so excited. He runs and he finds his brother, Peter, and he says, "Hey, you've got to see this guy, Jesus." And we'll come back to that later. But it moves us into our interaction between Jesus and Peter. And we see in this moment that Peter walks up to Jesus and it says,

Jesus looked at him and he said, "You are Simon, son of John, but you will be called Cephas."

Which translated means Peter. It's pretty interesting. It's not like there's a guy named Tim and he walks up and he's like, "I'm going to call you Timmy." It's not like a nickname that makes sense. He sees him. He says, "You're Simon, son of John. You're going to be called Peter."

What's interesting here is we see from other accounts in Scripture what Jesus does is he gives Peter a new name. He says, "You're Simon now, but I'm going to call you Peter," which means Cephas, which means the rock. And what we know is we can throw this timeline up on the screen.

Peter is given a new name right here. And what Jesus does in this moment is he looks at Simon for who he is. And he says, "Right now you are Simon, son of Jonah. But I see you for who you are going to become. And who you are going to be is Peter the rock."

And what he means by the rock is later in Peter's life, after Jesus dies and is resurrected and ascends into heaven, Peter is one of the really integral disciples in the explosion of the gospel into the world. Peter is someone who leads the church. Peter is someone whose faith is so strong that he ends up even being killed for his faith.

Peter becomes this rock. And perhaps the reason you and I know about Jesus is because Peter unashamedly took that gospel and led it into the corners of the globe. But if you've studied the Bible a little bit, you know that in between those two moments, Peter didn't always act like the rock. In fact, if you didn't know, there are some times that he messed it up pretty royally.

There's one time where Jesus is walking on water, and Peter is like, "Hey, Jesus, can I come out and walk towards you?" And Jesus is like, "Yeah, come on." And so he gets out of the boat and he starts to walk on water. But then he takes his eyes off of Jesus, and then he sinks, and Jesus kind of scoops him up and he's soaking wet and he puts him back in the boat.

Another time, Jesus is telling his disciples his plan. He says, "Hey, here's why I came. I came so that I can die and then I'll be resurrected. Everything will be okay. But that's the plan. I'm going to come and I'm going to die." And Peter is like, "Hey, Jesus, respectfully, bad plan. I think you shouldn't die. And I'm going to tell you how it's going to go."

And Peter goes, or excuse me, Jesus says to Peter, "Hey, keep behind me Satan." How about that for a rebuke?

And then another time, Jesus tries to wash his disciples' feet. Peter doesn't want him to. Another time, people come to arrest Jesus. He cuts the guy's ear off.

And then it all culminates in this grand royal mess-up when Jesus is being put to death and Peter denies that he ever knew him three times.

I wonder if there were times like that when Peter had messed up and he thought, "Man, I know Jesus said I was going to be the rock, but right now I'm anything but that." Or Jesus called me to be something great, but I screwed it up. Or I'm not good enough for that, or I'm not living into who Jesus called me to be.

But thank goodness that when Jesus saw Peter, he saw him for who he was and he saw him for who he would be. And Jesus has a sustained vision. And he has that same sustained vision for me and you. He sees this for who we are, but he sees this for who we're going to be.

In fact, I think this passage is so particularly beautiful because it's almost as if we see the author of the story, meaning one of the main characters. We know that Jesus is the Word who was with God in the beginning. Nothing was made that has been made without him. He was there when Peter was made.

And it's almost as if Jesus, the author of the story, says, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're Simon right now. We'll just wait until chapter 12. You're going to be Peter, the rock." And he does the same for me and you. He sees this as we are, and he sees this for who we're going to be.

And we pick up to the next account in verse 43. And what we see is it says that the next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee and, finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me."

It almost feels like there's a break between these two accounts, and now we all of a sudden see Jesus with a guy named Philip, and he shows up kind of randomly, kind of suddenly, and he says, "Hey, Philip, I want you to follow me."

We don't get a ton of this. It says in verse 44, "Philip like Andrew and Peter was from the town of Bethsaida." That's really all we get in this account.

But here's what I want you to notice about this passage in particular. Those words "follow me" had a lot of cultural significance back then.

So, what would happen is, when Jewish boys would study the Word, there were kind of three levels of school that they would follow in. So when they were like three until 12, you had level one of school. And so, almost as early as you could talk, you would go and you would study the Old Testament, you'd study the Word. That was kind of level one. Everyone was in that.

But then, if you were really smart, if you were kind of an A-plus Bible student, then you were invited to kind of level two from 13 to 18. If you weren't, you just kind of went and studied a trade with your dad or did something like that.

But the second level was 13 to 18, and you would go and you'd study there. And then, the third level was for even the best of the best in that second level. What they would do is they would make an application. And they would say, "Okay, I've really studied well. I've kind of known my stuff." And so, they would go to a rabbi and they would say, "Here's my resume. Here's who I am. Here's my SAT scores. Here's my GPA."

And they applied to follow this rabbi. And the rabbi kind of looks over all the applications and they select the best students and they say, "Okay, you are good enough. Why don't you come and follow me?"

And if you got selected to follow a rabbi, then you would go where they go. You would do what they do. You would say what they would say for 12 years. And to be a good follower, John Mark Comer talks about this. You were known for being covered in the dust of your rabbi because you would follow them so closely.

But scholars would say it's likely that Philip was not selected, whether it was from phase one to two or two to three, but he likely wasn't selected by a rabbi to follow him. But what's interesting here is Jesus invites Philip to follow him. He shows up and he says, "Hey, I want you to follow me."

And here's what I want you to see. Jesus has said in this, he's showing us that he's flipping the system on its head. He says, "The world says you fill out your application and you show me what you have done and who you are. And if you're good enough, I will accept you."

I've heard it said that religion is mankind's pursuit of God. But Jesus says, "I've come to flip the system on its head." In fact, it's not about your resume. It's not about the good things you have done. It's not about who you are. It's about me. He says, "I will do all the work. You just come and follow me."

And he calls Philip off the bench. He invites him off the JV team to join the varsity. He says, "Hey, it's not about what you've done. It's not mankind's pursuit of God. This following Jesus is God's pursuit of man. And I want you to follow me." And he does.

And it says this in verse 45. It says, "Philip found Nathaniel and he went and he told him." And we'll come back to this too, but I want you to see this.

I love this because Philip is asked to follow Jesus and he says, "Yes, but hold on just a second. Let me go get my buddy." And he runs and he finds his friend Nathaniel and he runs up to him.

I imagine an excitement because he's just been called up from the JV team. He's been called into the game. And he says, "Nathaniel, we have found the one who Moses wrote about in the law about whom the prophets also wrote. It's Jesus of Nazareth."

And we get this funny quote that you probably have heard before from Nathaniel. And he says famously, "Nazareth, can anything good come from Nazareth?"

And I think there's two possibilities as we move into the last interaction of Jesus and Nathaniel, of what Nathaniel is saying here. He says, "Nazareth, can anything good come from Nazareth?" And the first is this. Perhaps Nathaniel, a skeptic, is he's prejudice. That he says, "Nazareth, well, I'm from Cana of Galilee, and Nazareth is another small town. And these two towns kind of have a little bit of a turf war."

And he says, "How could anything good come from this town?" You're probably familiar with a turf war. If you're from Roanoke, you don't like Salem. If you're from Salem, you don't like Vinton. And Vinton or Baratat. You fill in the blank for you. I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but we're aware of these prejudice we have of people from certain places, right?

And he says, "Nazareth, can anything good come from Nazareth?" I wonder if you've ever interacted with a seeker who's had a little bit of prejudice. Who would say, "Jesus, can anything good come from Jesus?" Because every time I've interacted with a Christian or someone who goes to church or a religious person, they're usually just telling me how I'm a horrible person or they're usually just trying to do good, but they're really hurting other people in there. They're all no-good people who are just judging everybody.

I wonder if you've ever experienced a seeker like that. The second option is that Nathaniel was just logical. You see, they'd been studying and they'd been taught their whole lives that a Messiah would come and that Messiah would be from Bethlehem. The king would come, he'd be from the line of David, and he would come from the city of David, which was Bethlehem, not Nazareth.

So there's a likelihood that Nathaniel is like, "Well, I just don't understand," because I've been looking over here in Bethlehem for the Messiah my whole life. And you're telling me it comes from Nazareth? How could that possibly be so?

I wonder if you've ever met a seeker like that who's just logical, that would say, "Jesus, how could what I'm looking for actually come from Jesus?" Because I've been looking over here my whole life. I’ve been looking in my bank account, in my marriage, in my job and success in my identity. Fill in the blank. They say, "I've been looking over there for satisfaction and meaning and belonging and purpose." And you tell me it comes from Jesus.

He says, "Can anything good come from there?" And it's this beautiful moment where Nathaniel the seeker asks really hard and really good questions of his dear friend Philip, and Nathaniel's salvation seems to hang in the balance.

And what does Philip say? Come and see. He doesn't know the answer. He just says, "Come and take a look for yourself."

And Nathaniel does. And it says that Nathaniel approaches Jesus. And Jesus sees him and he says,

"Here is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false." — John 1:47

And what does Nathaniel say? He says, "How do you know me?"

You see what Jesus is doing is he's naming his personality. He says, "You're a guy who tells it like it is. You're a guy who shoots it straight. You're an honest guy." And he names his personality. It's almost like if you walked up to me and you were like, "Landon, you're in Enneagram 4." And you like the Jacksonville Jaguars, your favorite movies for his gum. That's who you are. And I'd be like, "How do you know me?" You nailed it.

And then Jesus says, "Well, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree." And all of a sudden, Nathaniel's tone changes. He says, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel."

It begs the question, "What the heck happened underneath of that fig tree?" I mean, Nathaniel goes from a skeptic to, in that moment, saying, "You are the Son of God, the King of Israel."

Tim Keller says this really well, but what we see in this passage, in this interaction between Nathaniel and Jesus, is that what Jesus is doing is he's showing Nathaniel that he fully loves him and he fully knows him.

You see, the fig tree moment surely wasn't just kind of a moment in passing that anybody would have seen Nathaniel. This was a moment of intimacy, a vulnerability, a powerful moment that Jesus would have said he was seeing, right?

It's like, if you came up to me and you were like, "Hey, Landon, I saw you the other day at Taco Bell." I would be like, "Which time?" Because I was there a lot last week, okay?

But this isn't one of those moments. This is a moment where Jesus says, "I saw you under the fig tree. No one else saw it. Me."

And what Tim Keller talks about in this passage is so beautiful as he's saying, "Jesus is showing Nathaniel. He knows everything about him from top to bottom. He was there and even the moments that were vulnerable and intimate that no one else knows about. He says, 'I know you top to bottom and I love you bottom to top.'"

He says, "I fully know you and I fully love you." And I think that perhaps this is our greatest desire. You see, Tim Keller would go on to say that our greatest fear is that we're fully known and then we're not loved. That if you really got to know me and you saw who I was, and then you decided not to love me, "Oh gosh, that's my greatest fear."

He would say, "To be loved but not known. That's most of our relationships, right?" You might love me but it's because you don't really know who I am. But to be fully known and to be fully loved, I mean, that's everything we're looking for.

And when Nathaniel sees that, that Jesus fully knows him and fully loves him, he says, "You are the Son of God, the King of Israel." And then Jesus says, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree, and you shall see greater things than that."

He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

We don't have time to dig into that verse fully. We could probably spend 35 minutes here unpacking it, probably not the most qualified person to do that. But here's what I want you to do: If you're taking notes, I want you to write down Genesis 28 and Daniel 7. There's references to both of those in what Jesus says right here.

But what Jesus is saying is he's pointing back to a dream that a guy named Jacob has in the Old Testament in Genesis 28. And Jacob's on the run, and he finds himself in this place and he lays his head on a rock and he has a dream. And in that dream, he sees this crazy thing happen where heaven opens and angels are ascending and descending. Heaven has opened, and there's this sort of ramp or ladder that exists between heaven and earth in Jacob's dream.

Here's what Jesus is saying when he points to this dream. He says, "You'll see greater things than this." You remember Jacob's dream? You remember that? Heaven broke open, and there was a ladder connecting heaven and earth, the spiritual into the physical. Jesus says, "Guess what? I am that ladder. I am that ramp. Light has shined into the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. I am heaven breaking through to earth in this moment."

He says, "That's me. I'm not a good teacher. I'm not a nice person who held the ladder or propped the lamp up. I am the ladder. The way to heaven is Jesus."

And that's it. That's the end of chapter one. And I hope as you hear Jesus say, "I am the ladder. I am the ramp into heaven," you wait with baited breath till next week and you come back excited to hear about John chapter two because the story just keeps getting better.

But I asked you the question earlier. What's it matter? What's it matter for me and you today on a Sunday in 2025, all these invitations to follow Jesus? And what I would say is this: two things as we close.

Number one, the Lord has called you. And perhaps today what I would ask you to do is remember the way in which the Lord rescued you. Remember the time. Remember the place. Remember what it felt like. Remember what it sounded like. Remember when the Lord called you.

And I bet it was a little bit unique. Similar to how each of these stories, as he calls these five men in four different ways, was unique. But perhaps it included some elements that were similar to this. Or perhaps today is the day he calls you. Today is the day he says, "Follow me."

But in a moment, as we close, I hope you'll remember what that was like. Or I hope you'll say yes. And I wonder if you've been following Jesus from a distance because of what somebody else has said, "Behold the Lamb of God," and you're like, "I'll take a look for myself." And you're just kind of poking around.

But perhaps today he turned his gaze towards you, and he asks you, "What are you looking for?" Or perhaps you remember that he called you and he called you to be something new. And today, you feel a little bit like Peter soaking wet in that boat, or sulking down the mountain after Jesus said, "Get behind me, Satan," or after he wouldn't let Jesus wash his feet, or after he cut a guy's ear off, or after he denied Jesus three times and went back to fishing.

But I hope you know that Jesus has a sustained vision for me and you. And he calls you not just for who you are, but for who you're going to be. Or perhaps like Philip, like me, he's like called you off the JV team. And you're like, "I'm not qualified." But guess what? The Lord doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

And then lastly, perhaps you're a seeker, a questioner like Nathaniel. But if you come and see, you would see that Jesus fully knows us, and he fully loves us.

So the first thing I want you to do is don't forget to remember that the Lord has rescued you and he has called you perhaps today for the first time. And the second thing I want you to know is this: that the gospel made its way to you on its way to someone else.

You see, the Lord has rescued you, but he also wants to use you to rescue someone else. We see this with Andrew and with Philip. They're so excited about what they've seen and heard that they run and they tell someone else—they say, "You've got to see this."

And the Bible is full of people who see and experience Jesus, and what do they do? They run and they tell someone else. I think a lot of the times we get overwhelmed by this, and we're like, "Man, I've got to follow Jesus. Then I'm going to go spend five years studying it, get all the answers to the questions. Then I might be confident enough to go and tell someone else."

But that's not what the Bible shows us. The Bible is full of people who experience Jesus, and they run and they tell someone else because the gospel made its way to you on its way to someone else. The gospel made its way to you on its way to someone else.

Thank goodness it didn't stop before it got to me. Thank goodness. I think sometimes we get a little overwhelmed because we think we have to be an attorney, right? If you think about a court of law, a lawyer is someone who puts together a large, eloquent argument, right? They gather the evidence. They put this story together and they say, "This is my case. This is why you need to know the truth."

And we're scared. We're like, "I don't know all the answers to be the lawyer. I don't have enough evidence. I can't do this. There's going to be hard questions." Like Nathaniel asks of Philip. And judges and lawyers in the room, forgive me if I get this wrong. But I don't think we're called to be attorneys as much as we are witnesses.

The attorney puts the case together, gathers the evidence, shows the story. They tell the case. What's a witness's job? They go to the stand and give an honest and accurate assessment of what they've seen and heard. I think that's what we're called to do—to give an honest assessment of what we've seen and we've heard.

Last thing I want to share is a quick story of a guy named Jim Rayburn, who started the mission of Young Life. He was a theological student in Gainesville, Texas, and he wanted to take the gospel to teenagers at a local high school. And so, he started this thing called Young Life. They were gathering in a meeting, a little Bible study for some of the high school students, and they were doing this thing called campaigners and planning the first club.

Jim Rayburn was talking to these high school kids about who they might want to be at the first club to hear about Jesus. And he says, "I really want a guy named Burr Nichols, the captain of the football team, to come to this first-ever Young Life club."

And the story goes that in that room, there was a little blonde girl, and she raised her hand and said, "I'll get Burr." And she was dating Burr Nichols at the time. So, the next week comes, they have this first Young Life club, and the night is almost over. They've crammed 75 people into a room that ought to fit 50, and at the end of the night, Jim Rayburn looks around, but he doesn't see this little blonde girl or Burr Nichols in the crowd, and he's a little disappointed.

He's about to talk about Jesus, and he hears a knock at the door. The door opens, and in walks Burr Nichols with that little blonde girl. There's nowhere to sit in the back where Burr probably wanted to sit, so what does he do? He sits right at Jim's feet, and Jim says he was shaking in his boots and he told the gospel the best he could that day.

And then Burr came back the next week and the next week and the next week. And he says, "In about the fourth week, Burr closed in with the Savior. He met Jesus. He started a relationship with Jesus."

The story takes a sad turn, and about a year later, Burr is driving home from college where he's gone, and it says he gets in a car crash, and Burr passed away.

Thank goodness the gospel got to Jim Rayburn on its way to someone else, and Burr got to know about Jesus. And Jim Rayburn finishes that story with this quote—and then we'll be done. He says this, we put that up on the screen:

Burr grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and was a regular ruffian, and the Lord was waiting for somebody to get a little bit interested in Burr. And it was a little blonde beauty queen and a little pipsqueak theological student. Burr was a precious soul for whom the Lord died. And this country is full of people like that. There are thousands of people in this country who know a Christian has ever said a kind word to, and just like Burr Nichols, they never heard the story, and I can't stand that.

So my last question to you is, who is your Burr Nichols? A regular ruffian who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks that no Christian has ever said a kind word to? Would you go and would you tell him?

Tomorrow at about 3:25, I'll show up at Cape Spring High School, and I'll walk in the front doors, and I'll tell a few of those ruffians about Jesus, and you can come with me if you want. But what I would suspect is that you know some of those ruffians because they're living across the street from you, or they'll be in the office with you tomorrow morning, or you'll encounter them in some way tomorrow.

Who is your Burr Nichols? Would you remember that the Lord has called you and he wants to use you to call someone else?

Let me pray.

Lord, thanks for this morning. Thanks that you love us. Thanks that you called us. Thanks that you've asked us to be witnesses to what we've seen and experienced. Every day that we go and tell our Burr Nichols about you. Amen.