PM1 - The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

It's time Cam if you want to come ahead. Make Cam feel welcome tonight after I gave you such a hard time this morning.

Love you. Don't be too hard on me. You know I do get the last word on these things. Yeah, yeah. He says that he teases us, but I am the only one who gets teased, so if you were in second service today, you know what I'm talking about.

And Ty doesn't catch that much flack, and I don't know why, but we'll just leave it at that. Today if you would, we're going to be in John chapter 13, starting in verse 23. I'm going to jump around just a little bit. So tonight's really cool for me, so if you don't know, tonight's service is a replacement of Wednesday night's service because of the Xenia High School graduation.

I myself am a 2020 graduate of Xenia High School, and this is the last class that I went to high school with, so they were freshmen when I was a senior, and so I hope that I was an encouragement then, and I hope I can be tonight as well. So if you would, stand with me for the reading of God's Word. We're going to start in John chapter 13, verse 23, where the Bible says, Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of the disciples whom Jesus loved. If you turn with me a couple pages to John chapter 19, verse 26 and 27, When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son, and then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother. And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. And then one more, John 21, verse 7, where the Bible says, Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord.

Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he gave his fisher's coat unto him, for he was naked and did cast himself into the sea. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we just thank you for today. Thank you for the opportunity to come and to share your Word with the people here tonight. Lord, I pray that you would just be with me in this time. Hide me behind the foot of the cross. Lord, we pray for all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. So as we notice in each of these verses, something that stands out and that is similar between the three or four, is that the disciple whom Jesus loved is said. And it's repeated in each of them. The disciple who Jesus loved was John the disciple. Now what this doesn't mean is that Jesus didn't love the other disciples.

He did, in fact, love them. It says later on in chapter 13, in verses 34 and 35, when he is speaking directly to the disciples, he gives the greatest commandment. It says, John 13, 34, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you. So there it shows that he did, in fact, love all of them. That ye also love one another, by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. This concept that God loves everybody is, in fact, true. Sinners and saints alike, he loves both.

But the world and even some churches today, they mix up this concept into thinking and proclaiming that Christ loves sinners as much as he loves their sin, which is not true. 1 John 4.19 says, We love him because he first loved us. God loved us before we were even created. We were all born with a sin nature, but God loved us before we were even born. We love because he first loved us. We would not be able to comprehend or understand what love is if it was not for God loving us.

A good application of this is with a parent and a child. If you're a parent here, you know you loved that child before they were born. You may have loved that child before you even knew they were going to be born. Love is an action, and just like any other action, it can be taught to us. And the ultimate teacher of how to love is God. God loved us long before his son went to the cross for us. He did not love us because he went to the cross. He sent his son to the cross because he loved us. Some of us may be willing to die for somebody, but how many of us would really be truly willing to send our son to die for somebody else?

Not very many of us, right? And that's exactly what God did for us. Romans 5-8 says, But God commended his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And I'll tell you something about this verse that's really just stood out so much to me in the past few weeks is that we neglect it. We quote it.

We read it a lot. But do we truly understand the context that it was written in and that it was shared in by Paul? Two things have helped me understand this verse in greater depth in the past few weeks.

And the first one is reading the verse before it, Romans 5-7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. For a righteous man one would die, for a good man one might be willing to die, but while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Something that stands out in this is that it says that Christ died for us. Muhammad did not die for us. Buddha did not die for us. Any of the Hindu gods did not die for us. But Christ died for us. And he doesn't just work in hypothetical scenarios. Christ really died for us.

It's not just a thing, well, I would give my life for you. I would. Christ already did.

He doesn't play in hypotheticals. He already did that, right? He actually went to the cross for us. The second thing that really stands out about this verse is this physical image that I got to experience, I'll say, last month. So if you don't know, last month we had Brother Bush again.

He's a minister to the prisons throughout the United States. We did a three-day revival down in Tennessee that I got to be a part of. I got to go in with the revival team and truly see what this looks like firsthand. Over the time there, we had a three-day revival. We had 72 men come to our chapel. We had four men receive Christ on our trip down there, so praise God for that.

The men that I saw in that prison are in a physical prison because they broke the physical law in the state of Tennessee. Another word for breaking the law could be transgressing the law. 1 John 3, 4 says, Whosoever commits sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And Romans 3, 23 says, For all of sin comes short of the glory of God.

So 1 John 3, 4 says that sin is the breaking of God's law, and Romans 3, 23 says that we have all broken God's law. So what my trip did is it showed me the spiritual reality that we are in if you do not know Christ, and that's you're in a spiritual prison. When I was in the prison, I will never forget this probably my entire life. We went in, and we go in with these buckets, and we're handing out different materials to these men. We have calendars that has Bible verses on it.

We have little tracts and stuff that we give out. And I remember standing next to Brother Bushy, and he's asking this man, and this man could not, could not have been over 30 years old. He asked him, he's like, Hey, brother, you want a calendar? The man looks at Brother Bushy, I'm standing right behind him. He goes, No, no, thank you. I have a life.

I don't need one. That man will be in prison for the rest of his life, so he did not think that he needed a calendar. In my head, I was like, Man, that would be so awful.

I could not even imagine that. But then it dawned on me that I did have life in a spiritual prison before I was saved. And that's where we all were. We all had life in prison before we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And we did not just have life in prison, we had life in an eternal hell, according to Romans 6 23, which says, For the wages of sin is death. And the truth is that we were not just in a spiritual prison, but we were on death row, on our way to hell, before Christ went to cross for us.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank God that we have a God that was willing to come get us off of death row. When I read that verse, it almost brings me to tears to understand that that's where we were.

When you go into a prison and you see these men, now I'm not sure if I talked to any of the men that were potentially on death row, but that's a real thing. And when you think of it in spiritual terms, that's where we all were. Every single one of us were there. Some of us tonight may still be there if we don't know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. But, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3 16.

Like I said earlier, and it's not only did God come and get us from there, the price that He had to pay to come get us was more than most of us would be willing to give. And that was His Son on the cross. As I tie it back into kind of the focus of tonight, tonight we're going to look at four different kind of things that John did that separated him from the rest of the disciples. And the first one is that he sat where others did not sit. John 13 23 says, Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved.

So the context here is that we're at the Last Supper, not long before Jesus' death. John sat where others did not sit. He didn't sit a couple chairs away. He didn't sit across the table or at the end of the table. He sat in the seat right next to Christ. John rested his head on the chest of Christ.

He could probably hear his heartbeat, and if I just picture this, imagine being able to hear the physical heartbeat of God. And so I ask you tonight, where do you sit? Do you sit close to Jesus? Do you hear the heartbeat of Christ in your life? Do you sit where others don't sit? Do you mindlessly just read his word, or do you study his word?

Do you ask questions and then look for answers? Do you look for the context and the meaning of what is going on in the scriptures as you're reading and as you're studying, and then further, do you apply those truths to your life? 2 Timothy 2 15, Paul tells Timothy, Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly defining the word of truth.

Obviously, what is truth? John 17 17, Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. So if the word of God is truth and we're told to study the truth, that means we are called to study the word of God. Romans 13 14 says, But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Not only are we to study his word, but we are further to apply his word and we are to put on Christ. So I ask you, do you put on Christ?

How do you respond to trials, tests, and temptations? In Matthew 4, chapter 4, when tempted by Satan, Jesus goes to the scriptures in response. So do you go to the scriptures or do you go to Christ? 1 Thessalonians 5 17 says, Pray without ceasing.

Ye have not because ye ask not. James 4 2. If you want to know if you're sitting with Christ, or more importantly, if Christ is sitting on the throne of your heart, you need to ask yourself, do you study his word, do you apply his truth, and do you seek him in times of need? Or even in times that you may not be in of need but still seek him?

This brings me to my second point tonight. Stand where others won't stand. John 19 26 says, When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son. So the context of where are we here? We're at the foot of the cross. John is here at the foot of the cross because he did not fear the Romans. He was not afraid to be kind of lumped into the same group as Christ.

Where is everybody else? The pastor preached this morning on two men that he healed. The men that he healed, the people that he raised, the people that he fed, or the other disciples. We don't know where any of them are, but we know where John was and that was at the foot of the cross. And the truth is that if you do not know who he is, you won't stand for him.

Think about it like this. If you have a friend that was accused of a crime, and you knew that person very well, your best friend, and you knew they wouldn't do it, when the police came to you and asked you to give a testimony, you would stand up for that person. Oh, I know them. They would not do that. Now, if it was a stranger that you've never seen before, never talked to, knew nothing about, and someone came to you and said, Hey, do you think they did this? You'd be like, Well, I don't know. You would stand back.

You wouldn't stand for them. And it's the same thing with Christ. If you don't know his word and you don't know him, you're not going to stand for him in times of need, or when it's time to stand for him. Ephesians 6 11 says, Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

So do you stand against the wiles of the devil? We face this on a daily basis in this country, especially in 2023, with the LGBTQ community. And I just want to take a second and debunk something that is completely false. The LGBT community says there has always been this many participants, this many gay people in the country, but it was not okay for them to come out as that way because of persecution and things like that. Society wasn't accepting of that.

And that's why they would say they make this argument. They say, Oh, so that's why the suicide rates were so high, you know, back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Because people weren't accepting, so we need to accept people as they are so that they don't commit suicide. According to a Gallup poll done at the end of 2021 US support for same sex marriage has grown over the past 20 years to where 70% of America today think that it's okay for same sex marriage, and that it should have the same freedom as a traditional marriage, which is frightening that the number is so high. That statistic, along with the acceptance and really the promotion of the LGBTQ community across the entire country over the last few years, it's pretty easy to say that America is more accepting than it's ever been. So if what they are saying is true, then we would expect the rate of suicide to decrease in the country because the LGBT community is more accepting of that. But that's false.

We do not see that. The suicide rate in America has steadily increased over the last 20 years, according to the CDC. So the truth is, as America, we have been more accepting of the LGBT community and it has had no effect on suicide rates. The whole thing is a myth, and they do that just to try to get you to feel bad for them. It's a myth. It's not true.

Do the research. It's just not there. In fact, despite all of the affirmation that we constantly see in our society, LGBTQ youth are still, today, four times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers. And we say why.

Why is the rate so high? And it's because they have no hope. Ephesians 2.12 says that at that time, you were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenants of Promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. To not have God is to not have hope. These people don't need to be affirmed in their sin.

They need the transformation and the life-saving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And understand that homosexuality is not the only sin, and yes, it is a sin. The Bible says that. Most of these individuals also commit idolatry.

They identify as these things, and they worship the creation over the creator. And the truth is that what you identify as does not matter. What you say about yourself does not matter.

How much you love yourself does not matter. What God says about you is what matters. And Genesis 1.27 says that we are created in his own image. Romans 1.24 and 25 says, Wherefore God also gave them to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature over the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

That's exactly what's going on. Worshiping the creature over the creator. And this is another myth that I ran into the past week, just studying some stuff out, is that another myth that they will say is, Oh, I was born this way. I was born this way. There is no such thing as a gay gene within the human genome. Matter of fact, up until 1974, homosexuality was looked at as a mental illness. The reason it's no longer looked at as a mental illness is because they took the brains of a homosexual and of a heterosexual and they studied them. There is no difference because they weren't born that way. They fell into sin after their birth. So they can try to use psychology.

They can try to use biology to get you. But the only truth is that theology proves that it's not true. So I ask you, when people are willing to spread mockery and myths about what the Bible may or may not say, are you willing to first study the word well enough to know it, and then therefore stand up for it? And some people will say, Well, I don't want to offend anybody. I don't want people to not like me. James 4 says, Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. John 15, 18, If the world hates you, you know that it had hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world will love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. It's better to be an enemy of this world than be right with Christ rather than right with the world and enemy of Christ. Moving on to number three, my third point tonight. Serve where others won't serve.

If you'll sit where others won't sit and stand where others won't stand, you'll get to serve where others won't serve. John 19, 27, Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother, and from that hour that disciple took her unto his home. When he goes to leave the cross, John is tasked with taking Mary, the mother of Jesus, into his home. He didn't think twice.

He took her. So is God asking you to do something that you're not willing to do? Is there somewhere that he wants you to serve that you're not? Are you willing to step out in faith and say yes to God and say yes, I will serve in that area? We constantly here at the church need help in the greeting, cleaning, those two mostly because I'm in charge of those.

The tech, the media, the music, the nursery, visitation. Pray today about where God is calling you to serve. I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to do that because what God has called you to do...

If you feel like he is not calling you to serve anywhere, you probably should listen a little bit better on that because he is calling you to serve somewhere. And just know if anybody is interested in going into the prison system, the first thing I'm going to tell you to pray. Don't come up to me tonight and say, how did you do that?

Can I get connected with Brother Bush? You need to pray on it. For me to go in there, I prayed for at least a year on it.

Just constantly the availability opened. Everything fell into perfect time and I got to go and it was an amazing experience. And I hope that some of you feel led to do that because it is a very eye-opening experience. But definitely pray on it before trying to jump at that and commit into that. Paul says in 1 Timothy 1-12, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful putting me into the ministry. Paul was thankful that he got to serve a body of believers. And as pastor preached, you know, the past couple of Wednesdays, serving is a mercy of God. Has he called you to teach or maybe even to preach? Or maybe to full-time ministry?

If he has, I encourage you, get plugged into our LBI classes. There's a lot of knowledge to be had there. Be a sponge.

Get into some of these different classes and really soak up and absorb things to grow yourself, to grow your knowledge. Romans 12.1 says, present your bodies a living sacrifice, fully acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. The church is a body, and just like the human body, everything needs to be working right for the body to function properly.

So I don't know if many of you know, but I'm an exercise science major at Wright State and I had two anatomy courses. This sounds horrible, but you can die like a million different ways. If something's too high, you die. If something's too low.

If something else is too high, something else is too low. Everything has to work in perfect unison to keep the body, as well as church, continuing to run the way that it was designed to run. I encourage you to help give some of these other people serving breaks so that they can sit in here and hear the word of God.

We have people that serve, it seems like, every service, and the benefit of having two services a week is that you can sit in one and then serve in one. I think that there's a danger to serving too much and not being fed the word of God enough. And on the flip side, if all you ever do is come and listen to Pastor preach the word, you become a robot full of knowledge but with no application. So I strongly encourage you to get plugged into a ministry if you're not already. When hearing the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, Isaiah did not question, oh, who am I?

I'm not good enough. Look at what he says in Isaiah 6-8. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I, send me. He didn't question, oh, who am I?

Am I good enough to go? He said, here am I, I'll go. God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

I cannot go there for the sake of time tonight, I have to give time, tie a little bit of room tonight. But if you ever feel like God can't use your life, read Luke 8, verses 26-39. I'll say it one more time. Luke 8, verses 26-39. That's the story of where God took a maniac and turned him into a missionary. Are you letting God use your life for the advancement of the kingdom?

And this brings me to my final point tonight. See what others will not see. John 21-7. Therefore the disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, it is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat up unto him. None of the disciples could tell who this man standing on the shore was.

Then when he said, cast your nuts on the other side, they reeled in a ton of fish. John is the one, John is the disciple who identifies the Lord, he says that's the Lord, that's who that is, that's the Lord standing on the shore. The closer you are to the Lord, the more you'll be able to notice what he's doing in your life. And you can see this in the new believers in the room, just go talk to them. The people that have been recently saved or recently baptized, when things come up, they understand, oh I can see the Lord working in that, I can see the Lord there, I can see the Lord here, I can see the Lord there. And I can say that in my own life, and I don't want to be pride or boastful, but I got to baptize my own parents right there.

I had the privilege to do that and to see things that I would not have gotten to see had I not stayed close to the Father. Look at the church for example, the church was founded on God and his word and has continued to do that, continued to praise him and continue to stay close to him and follow him. The Lord has taken this church from eight people in a hotel conference room and grown it to over 600 people on Sundays and planted us on probably one of the busiest corners in the city. When people visit our church, this road is so dry, when people visit our church, those little cards, we actually read those for the most part, those little cards like, how did you find out about the church?

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen the card and they just wrote, I just drove by, the parking lot was full. People see our parking lot because of the corner we sit on, they're like, oh, let's check that church out, there's got to be a lot of people there for a reason. And because of that, we've been able to pull people from what, maybe 20 cities from around the area because God, the church has stayed close to God and God has continued to pour out his blessings upon this church and really the city of Xenia.

Proverbs 28, 20 says, a faithful man shall abound with blessings. Think about all of the things that you have gotten to see or be a part of as being a part of the body of Christ, either at this church or somewhere else or what brought you to this church. I know here, when we saw it today, we saw three people come to Christ today in our church. Look at people who have been called to ministry, look at the Woodworths or look at Braden, men that went from being lost to being all in for Christ that have gotten to see and be a part of bringing other people to Christ.

That doesn't just happen out of nowhere, that's Christ in that. John sat where others wouldn't, he stood where others wouldn't, he served where others wouldn't and because of that, he got to see what others couldn't see. We all wonder what it's going to be like when the Lord returns, but John already saw it. He is the one who penned it for us so that we can know what was coming. The book of Revelation was written by John. He got to see a day where there will be no suffering. Revelation 21, 4, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. That's going to be a good day to see.

Amen. That's going to be a good day to see and John already got to see it. Because he sat where others wouldn't sit, he stood where others wouldn't stand, he served where others wouldn't serve and he got to see things that others couldn't see. So I ask you tonight, it's kind of my closing kind of charge, what are you doing with God in your life and are you following him to the fullest? Are you sitting with him, standing for him, serving before him? Because if you are, then you'll get to see him one day. So that's all I have. Thank you pastor for letting me speak tonight.