What Do You Want?

Sermon Context and Opening

• Series: Temple to Temple, preached at Tribe Church

• Text: John 1, focusing on the calling of the first disciples

• Framing note on spiritual warfare: unresolved anger gives the enemy a “topos” (foothold, from Greek topography)

  • Any area of disunity, in marriage, family, or past church, should be brought into the light

  • “Jesus Christ died for the sins I confess, not the sins I conceal”

Central Question: What Do You Want?

• Jesus’s question to the two disciples following him (John 1:38): “What do you want?”

• John’s account is unique: the only gospel where disciples follow Jesus without being explicitly told to

• The disciples’ answer was not a list of benefits, but: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” (Greek: meno, to abide/remain)

  • They wanted proximity, not product

  • “I don’t want anything from you. I just want you.”

• Seven common reasons people follow Jesus (all valid, but incomplete on their own):

  1. Relational allegiance: people they respect follow Jesus

  2. Personal transformation: Jesus makes them a better person

  3. Peace of mind: imputed righteousness, freedom from shame

  4. Prosperity and success: applying Jesus’s ethics yields real-world results

  5. Meaning and calling: everything done in Christ carries kingdom significance

  6. Intellectual satisfaction: Christianity uniquely explains the human condition; the resurrection as the decisive argument

  7. Eternal security: Jesus defeated death four times (raised three others, then himself)

The Heart of True Discipleship

• True disciples don’t follow Jesus for what he can do; they follow to be with him

  • “You can’t live a life of abandonment while holding to a personal agenda”

  • “You chase fruit, you’ll never stay connected. You chase connection, you’ll produce fruit as an accident.” (John 15)

• Each of the seven reasons becomes a liability if it’s the only reason:

  • Relational allegiance can cut both ways when trusted people fall away

  • Morality-focused faith collapses when sin persists

  • Prosperity-focused faith collapses in hardship

  • Intellectual faith gets shaken by doubt

• Anchor: Psalm 27, “One thing I ask, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord forever”

• Personal illustration: at 21, after rededicating his life, the dream written down was “to know the voice of God as well as I know my best friend Corey’s”

  • “I don’t want to do big things for God. I just want to be great before God.”

Closing and Response

• Congregation invited to stand and let the Holy Spirit search their motives for following Jesus

• Honest self-examination encouraged over “right answers”

• Call to those who know about Jesus but haven’t committed: ask why, not just what

• Ministry team invited forward for prayer during worship

• Next week: Pastor Ken preaching on the water to wine (John 2)