We continue our series that we've entitled, Read the Book, Now Meet the Author, and we are thinking together these Wednesdays about the story of John the Apostle. And we come to look at three passages today, and you'll see very quickly the connectedness among these three passages. First of all, Mark 3, 16-17, Jesus appointed the twelve, Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder. And then in Luke chapter 9, let me read just a couple of verses before the ones that are printed today. John said to Jesus, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us. But Jesus said to him, do not stop him. for the one who is not against you is for you." When the days drew near for him to be taken up he set his face to go to Jerusalem and he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? They were remembering what Elijah the prophet had done. But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village. And then back to Mark's Gospel, chapter 10. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus and said to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to them very wisely, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory. Jesus said to them, you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant. but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all for even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many." I wonder how many of you in the room today either have today or did have at one time a nickname Perhaps when you were at school, they gave you a nickname of some kind. Perhaps it was just a very simple variation on your name. For example, often when Australians give people nicknames, they'll just add an A onto an abbreviated form of your name. There are Fergusons in this world whose nickname has quite simply been Fergie. And you probably know at least one of them. I was never, at least never to my face given the nickname Fergie. Although I did have a nickname that I will not in this company divulge to you. And it's often true, isn't it, that it's at school that we give each other these nicknames. It's in that kind of special environment where we've our own secrets, where we're a community isolated from the rest of the world and we kind of create our own universe. And probably the other place that happens most of all today in the world is in rural communities. where people have grown up together, where they stay together. You often, certainly in Scotland, in rural communities, people within that little world that they own for themselves will have their secret names, they might call them, their pet names for each other, that they've used since childhood. And some of those names, you think about the names some of your children have given to their friends at school when they've come back home and they've referred to these people and you think, who are these people? people. I, when I was a student, worked one summer with a minister in a part of Scotland that I won't mention because he may still be alive, and as he took me round one part of his parish, he used the nicknames of all the people, now most of them were geriatrics. and I remember him going round all the houses with me and then at the end of the day he said you know they just love me using their nicknames and so I started going round them every single home they would say to me the one thing we hate about our minister is the way we use his nickname and unknown to him they actually had a nickname for him that they told me but I was sworn to secrecy that I would never divulge it to him Well, the Apostle John had a nickname. The Apostle John had a nickname. And I want to notice about this nickname several, I think, very interesting things. Number one is the origin of this nickname. Where did he get the nickname, Son of Thunder? Where did he get the nickname, Son of Thunder? Actually, the origin of a nickname is kind of interesting, isn't it? I mean, we sometimes give nicknames where it's very obvious why a person is given this nickname. We might call somebody who's red-headed, Carrot Top. You know, and you can see the connection. Amazingly, in Australia, if you're red-headed, they'll call you Bluey. And you can understand there's a kind of subtle twist there. And we sometimes give people nicknames that say almost the opposite of what they are. One of our boys, when he was at school, he would often speak about his gang of friends, one of whom was called Fat Alfie. Fat Alfie. And eventually I met Fat Alfie. And he was neither fat, nor was he an Alfie. I mean, somebody who's an Alfie in my culture is somebody who's a bit dim-witted. But he was actually a very bright boy. and he was called Fat Alfie because he was thin and he wasn't really like an Alfie. I could never quite work out why my boy's friends had given him the nickname that they had for him and I never really wanted to ask, but do you know where John got his nickname from? My guess is that Although you've known this nickname a long time, it's actually quite a surprise to discover where he got it. He got it from Jesus. It was Jesus who told this in the text. It was Jesus who gave John and his brother James this nickname, Son of Thunder. Now, that tells you something about John. Doesn't it? That's not the kind of nickname you give to somebody who is the very reverse of his nickname. The other interesting thing I think about this particular nickname is this. What does it tell you about Jesus? What does it tell you about Jesus? Is your understanding from the Gospels of the Lord Jesus that he is the kind of person who would give people nicknames. I think that's actually not the way many Christians understand the Lord Jesus. You know, the Lord Jesus in the minds of some Christians is always totally formal. Totally formal. The idea that he would seek the kind of intimacy with people that would create that kind of bonding that gives you the opportunity to, come on Son of Thunder, come on Son of Thunder. So even the origin of this nickname, Son of Thunder, I think is extremely illuminating. Not only so, but the significance of the name is fairly obvious, except that it's not the nickname that we usually associate with the Apostle John. Nor does it express the kind of character that you and I normally associate with the Apostle John. Right throughout the history of the Christian Church, the nickname that the Apostle John has always been given is the Apostle of Love. The Apostle of Love. And most of us as Christians think of the Apostle John that way. He wasn't actually like Peter. In fact, he wasn't actually like Paul. He was the Apostle of Love. And what this nickname tells us is that he wasn't that by nature. That what John is described as being in the whole history of the Christian Church is not what he was by nature. What he was by nature was a son of thunder, which probably means that he acted impetuously, strongly, vigorously, publicly, and oftentimes, just like Simon Peter, foolishly. You know, we are accustomed to thinking about Peter and John as being completely different characters, but perhaps one of the reasons that they were such fast friends was because they were really just mirror images of one another. They understood one another. The interesting thing is, of course, that when John speaks about the Lord Jesus himself, one of the first things he says about him in the second chapter of his gospel is, Jesus knew what was in a man. Jesus knew what was in a man. And this nickname that he gives to the Apostle John is actually a disclosure of the truth about that man's life. That's why we read these several passages in the Gospels, because they give us illustrations of why he merited this nickname. Remember, three different incidents. Number one, there was the man who wasn't one of the twelve apostles, and he was casting out demons in Jesus' name. And John was hopping mad about this. And he wanted to stop this man casting out demons in Jesus' name. And then there was the situation with the Samaritan town that refused Jesus because they had some sense about him that he was heading through their town to Jerusalem and they were so opposed to everything that was focused upon Jerusalem and John with his brother wanted to Elijah-like call fire down from heaven and consume them. He was angry that anyone would stand in the way of Jesus going to Jerusalem. And then the third incident, which is differently described in the Gospels. of James and John coming to Jesus, perhaps at their mother's instigation, or perhaps coming to Jesus through their mother, or perhaps coming to Jesus separately from their mother, and asking for the two positions of honor in Jesus' kingdom, one at your right hand, one at your left hand, when you come into your glory. Now there's something very fascinating, I think, about each of these three requests. Let me just go over them again so that we see what I think is so interesting. They wanted to stop this man casting demons out in Jesus' name. Now, clearly this was a man who trusted in Jesus, wasn't one of the apostles, but had some connection with Jesus. Jesus says to them, if he's not against you, then he is for you. But why should they be so angry? You know what the interesting answer to that question is? The answer is that just after Jesus had come down the mountain of transfiguration with Peter and James and John, there was a boy there. We're told in one of the Gospels that this event happened the next day. It was juxtaposed with their experience on the mountain of transfiguration. Do you remember how the father of that boy, who had a spirit, who had an evil spirit that made him behave in all kinds of strange ways, came to Jesus and said, can you help me? Can you help my son? Because none of your disciples has been able to cast out this evil spirit. Isn't that interesting? And isn't it illuminating and illustrative of human characteristic? Stop him doing that! And you see, that's all a mask to hide our own inability. And then the similar thing with the second incident, the antagonism of the Samaritan town. If you're going to Jerusalem, we are going to stand in your way. It's almost laughable that John wanted to call fire down from heaven on a town that was going to stand in the way of Jesus going to Jerusalem, because John was one of those who stood in the way of Jesus going to Jerusalem. The Via Dolorosa. the way of suffering, where he, with all the other disciples, as the Gospels tell us, would desert Jesus. It was almost as though the anger in them was a revelation not of their superiority to the Samaritans, but a a revelation of the deep-seated spiritual weakness in their hearts, and they were masking it. By pretending to be against the Samaritans, they were really masking the fact that they were themselves reluctant to go with Jesus to Jerusalem. And then they have this ambition to sit at Jesus' right hand and to sit at Jesus' left hand, and Jesus now probes them and says to them, are you really fit for this? Are you really willing for taking up the cross and following me and not looking back? And of course the months that followed between that incident and our Lord's crucifixion would demonstrate to them how absolutely unready they were. But the interesting thing I think is this, it's that this son of thunder thundered chiefly to defend himself against the call of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it often happens that way, doesn't it? We react that way humanly. We mask the truth about our own lives by reacting, often very judgmentally, about others, when in fact the very same things that are present in others are deeply embedded within our own spiritual lives, our own spiritual failure. But John was gloriously changed. Jesus radically transformed him. And later on we discover, for example, in one of John's letters, he writes to warn one of the churches against an individual who is behaving the very same way he himself behaved with respect to the man who was casting out demons. He says, there's a man called Diotrephes among you. And actually it's breathtaking that he actually mentioned the name. He exposed the man in the congregation. We would be deeply alarmed if that happened. But it's It was something the apostle of love did for the sake of the church. He said that man betrays a spirit that is contrary to the Lord Jesus Christ. And really it was partly a confession of how contrary to the Lord Jesus Christ his own spirit had been. And then you remember how in the Acts of the Apostles, do you remember this? Do you remember when God visited Samaria and the Samaritans were converted to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you remember who was sent from Jerusalem to welcome the men? It was the Son of Hunter, because he was beginning to be known as the Apostle of Love. And later on, right at the very beginning of his gospel, he would say this, we beheld his glory and we were no longer interested in our glory. Now here's the question. How did this transformation take place? I think John himself gives us the clue. Because not only did he have a nickname given to him by Jesus, he had a nickname he gave himself. And I think it's just possible that that second nickname was actually given to him by Jesus. Do you remember how in the book of Revelation, in Revelation chapter 2, the Lord says to the one who by my grace begins to overcome, I will give a new name written on a stone that no one else will know. a new name written on a stone that no one else will know." And you know, as you read through John's gospel, it's an interesting thing that at no point in John's gospel does John say, I, John, wrote this gospel. And when he refers to himself, he specially In fact, I think actually only from chapter 13 to the end of the gospel, and I think that's quite significant, should you remember the nickname he gives to himself? The Disciple Jesus Loved. The Disciple Jesus Loved. Now let's try and put these two things together. The Son of Thunder who became the disciple whom Jesus loved. What does that tell us about the Son of Thunder? I think it tells us this, that every time he manifested this spirit of being a Son of Thunder that was such a spiritual malady in his life, actually what he was revealing was that he didn't really know that Jesus loved him. My friends, you see that time and time again. Interestingly, not least in the company that surrounds the Lord Jesus, in the company of the church. You see a spirit sometimes emerging in an individual or in a group of individuals. And it's almost always a very negative spirit. And sometimes it will just suddenly explode. And it seems at first, if you're on the receiving end of it, it's overpowering, it's emotionally overpowering. And we sometimes make the mistake of thinking, here are really, here are really strong individuals. But you know, the whole thing exhibits the fact that this is an individual who, deep down in his heart of hearts, has not been able to rest on the simple truth, I am beloved. of the Lord Jesus. I am beloved of the Lord Jesus. Was it yesterday some of us were singing that we were resting, resting in the joy of what he is? Now you see, we've all kinds of ways of dealing with this. It's just the way I am. And Jesus says, I know it's the way you are. but I'm not going to leave you that way." Or we say, well, you know, my father was like this. I don't know how, I mean, if I had a dollar for every time I'd thought, I'm like this because my father was like this, I'd probably be a multi-millionaire at this great age. You see? And Jesus is saying, well, John, your father may have been like this. But I've got a new name for you, the disciple whom Jesus loved. What can we learn from all this? Well, several things. Number one, that Jesus doesn't call us on the basis of what we are by nature. Jesus does not call us to himself because of what we are by nature. John by nature was disqualified from following Jesus because he was so unlike Jesus. But of course that's the very people Jesus calls. The moment I think the reason he called me is because of something in me, that's the moment I've actually radically destroyed the gospel of Jesus Christ. So Jesus doesn't call us because of anything in us. It teaches us another lesson about the fellowship of the church. We need to be very cautious about the judgments we make on others. He was a man that Jesus had genuinely called, but he was months, indeed years away, of becoming what Jesus was going to make him. Here's another lesson. We need to learn to see people's sicknesses. and not be overwhelmed by the manifestation of that sickness in what appears to be a strength. That was the case with John being a son of thunder. was actually his last bastion of protection against the fact that Jesus knew him through and through and saw that he was really, spiritually, a very sick man. And we need to understand that if we are to minister to one another. And we need to learn from this nickname of the Apostle John that there is only one remedy for this kind of spiritual sickness, and it's learning to know that Jesus loves you, that Jesus loves you. Now, of course, in our sophisticated world and sometimes in our pseudo-sophistication in the church, we say, must be more complicated than that, must be more difficult than Actually, for many people, that's the most difficult thing in all the earth. To accept that the only reason, the only reason that their lives can ever be transformed is that Jesus loves them. Well, I wonder if Jesus has a nickname for you. I wonder if you know, so many of the disciples have nicknames. I think it shouldn't surprise us that Jesus is a nickname for every single one of us, and it perfectly sums up the truth about our life. Now here's the more important question. Do you know the new nickname? that he wants to give you. Maybe the new nickname is actually the same for all of us. And just because it's a secret, none of us knows that anyone else has the nickname. It's the disciple Jesus loved. And the astonishing thing is that he loves all of his disciples. in exactly the same way, so that we can say, not with John, but with Paul, the Son of God loved me and he gave himself on the cross for me. So, what's your nickname? I wonder. Heavenly Father, we thank you that our Lord Jesus knows us far more thoroughly than We can never imagine or often, alas, we know would be prepared to confess. We are ashamed of the fact that we spend so much of our energy dodging the Lord Jesus. Dodging the Lord Jesus. And yet He knows us through and through. He has His own name for us. And in our heart of hearts, we know what that is. We know it's a name that describes our natural spiritual sickness. We pray that by your word and through your spirit and in your grace, we may be drawn to hear him say, I have loved you with an everlasting love and drawn you to myself. Help each of us, we pray, through faith in Christ to be able to leave this room and live the rest of the day, the rest of our lives, knowing that we are the disciple that Jesus has loved. And this we pray together for his great namesake.