Bringing people to Jesus is one of our main goals as believers, and Andrew accurately understands and obeys that call the moment he meets Jesus.
In John 1, John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus by making disciples of his own who believed in Jesus’ coming.
John the Baptist introduces Andrew and John to Jesus shortly after Jesus’ baptism. Immediately, John, and Andrew especially, are eager to spend the rest of the day with him and are the first two disciples to follow Jesus.
John 1:41-42a says, “He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus.”
Andrew wastes no time in finding Simon Peter, his brother, and sharing the news that the Messiah has been found. He not only tells Simon Peter of this news, but the verse says he physically brings Peter to Jesus.
His eagerness to introduce the lost to the Savior should ignite a passion in us to do the same. Our goal on earth is to proclaim Christ and bring others to know him.
Charles Spurgeon, a well-known 19th-century preacher, once said, “If sinners be [doomed], at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
Andrew has the attitude described in this quote. He is not going to let the people he loves go a single day without meeting the person he knows can change their lives and save their souls.
In John 6, we see another story of Andrew’s eagerness to help people. The crowds have surrounded Jesus as he is teaching and they are hungry. There are over 5,000 men, plus their families. The disciples scramble to find food for these crowds. Another disciple, Philip, simply complains about the vastness of the circumstance. Andrew, on the other hand, begins to find solutions. He finds a boy with a small lunch consisting of two fish and five loaves of bread and brings the boy to Jesus.
Andrew is more interested in helping solve the problem rather than waiting for someone else to take action.
When we follow his example of eager faithfulness, we will see the results of God’s work. God doesn’t ask for us to know all the answers; he just asks for us to bring others to him and be willing to help.
