Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You an Admirer or a Follower? | The Gospels | John 1:35–51

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

How serious are you about following Jesus? Is faith just one part of your life, or does it hold everything together? What does it look like to be fully devoted to Christ? In today's episode, Keith shares how John 1:35–51 challenges us to move beyond admiration and become wholehearted followers of Jesus. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 1:35–51

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. When Christine and I were dating, we had a conversation that people back then used to call a DTR. That stands for it, defined the relationship. I don't know if people still do that or not. I will say that back then, it was always a little bit of an awkward conversation. She and I were both 20 years old when she says that I talked to her and says,

said, look, if you're not serious about this, then you just tell me now, but I'm really serious and I could see us getting married one day. The reason that was awkward is we hadn't been dating for that long when I supposedly said this. Well, imagine that it's time for a DTR between you and Jesus. He wants to define the relationship that you have with him. He's wondering, how serious are you? But this, of course, isn't a romantic relationship. Jesus isn't going to propose to you, but he's still want to know where you stand with him. And maybe you could put it this way, Jesus is asking you today, are you an admirer or a follower? And you might wonder, is there a difference between being an admirer and a follower? And yes, the answer is a big, big yes. An admirer is impressed with someone.

A follower is devoted to them. An admirer applauds. A follower surrenders. A lot of people admired Dr. King. Few people marched with him. Not many went to jail. and not many got their houses bombed like he did. A lot of people admired Mother Teresa, but not many followed her to live among the destitute and the dying. Today we're continuing our series for the gospel. We're in the gospel of John, and we're asking, are you an admirer of Jesus or his follower?

John 1.35. The next day, John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the Lamb of God. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. The next day, Jesus decided to leave him. for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, follow me. There's a lot to admire about Jesus. People admire his teaching or his ethics. People admire his character, his commitment to the marginalized. But Jesus doesn't call people to admire him. He calls us to follow him. So what does

it mean to follow Jesus? Following Jesus is going where he goes. It's doing what he did. It's trusting what he says. It's loving how he loves. Did you catch that? Following Jesus is going where he goes and doing what he does, trusting what he says, loving how he loves. The early Christians were called followers of the way. Maybe that's because Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. Following Jesus is a way of life. Think of your life as a pie and you might slice up the pie into different sections. And maybe you slice your life up into family, career, hobbies, faith, other things like that that you fill your time with. And maybe in your life, you say, my faith is really important. It gets the biggest slice. That's great. But your faith in

Jesus was never meant to be a part of your life. Because no matter how big that piece is, it's still compartmentalized. Your faith was meant to permeate your whole life. So if your life is a pie, think of your faith as the crust. It is that which holds everything together. When you follow Jesus and not just admire him, he gets your whole life. John 138. turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, what do you want? So Jesus says to these guys, follow me, and they begin to follow him. And then the very first words that Jesus says in the Gospel of John is him asking a question. Jesus doesn't ask them, hey, what do you guys know about me? Or what do you believe? Instead, he just says, what do you want? That's a penetrating question

that gets in the core of our being. There was an old film at 1979, I think. think, a Russian film called The Stalker. And these men who were trying to get to a room because if you got to this room, it would give you whatever you wanted. Now, here's the scary thing, is the room didn't give you what you say you wanted or what you wanted to want, but it could see into your heart and it would give you what you wanted. If you got to go inside that room, would you? I mean, we know what we want to want. We know what we should want, but what do we really want? want. I mean, I want to live a life that pleases God, but is that my deepest want? There was a guy who wrote a book about that movie, and he has this great line. He says, your deepest desire is the one

manifested by your daily life and habits. Did you catch that? Your life, your habits, your choices, they reveal what you really want. That's because we end up doing what we want to do. Our wants bubble up into attitudes and words and actions and habits. Sometimes I end up talking to people who are getting divorced, and oftentimes that's because of adultery, but of course there are other reasons. But when I'm talking to a man, who is the one I'm usually speaking with, who is committed to adultery, I often ask, what do you want? That's the same question that Jesus asks us. Now, I ask the man that because I want him to be honest with himself, but also because I know that he's ultimately going to do what he wants to do. And the best thing I can do for him is to help him want the right

things. It's the same for parents. As your kids get older, they're going to do what they want. So the best thing you can do for them is to help them want the right things. What about you? What do you want in your life? And you might say, well, I want to be happy. Well, that makes sense. But the key question we all have to answer is what will make me happy? It comes down to it's either Jesus or something else. Now, I'm not sure what I truly want. I don't know if I'd want to go in that room or not, but I want to want to hear Jesus say, well done, my good and faithful servant. What I want to want is to get excited about the things that make God excited. What I want to want is God's glory. But I struggle to want the right things. Too often, I want my own agenda. I want my own needs met.

too often my wants are very self-oriented and self-obsessed. So Jesus asked them what they want, and they ask him a question. They say, where are you staying? He says, come, and you will see. So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. So the best part of following Jesus is Jesus. Like these guys, they got to hang out with Jesus. They got to be with him. Some people get married, and nothing really changes except their last name. they still lead two independent lives. And I think that happens to some of us. Like, we took the name of Jesus, but we really don't live our life with Jesus. You call yourself a Christian, but you haven't merged your life with his. Verse 40. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother was one of the two who had heard what John

had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, we have found the Messiah and he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looks at Simon and he says, are Simon's son of John, you will be called Cephas, which means Peter. So sometimes people get confused about Peter's two names. Seifis is Aramaic and Peter is Greek. Both names mean rock. They're just two different languages. But one thing Jesus is telling Peter is that God is going to change him. And if you follow Jesus, he's going to change you. Luke says, the student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. When we follow Jesus, not just admire, him but follow him. We become more like him. That's why Paul could say, you should imitate me just as I

imitate Christ. So I don't love the WWJD bracelets like, what would Jesus do? I'm not sure that's always the most helpful thing to ask ourselves. And yet, there's a lot of truth in it. What would Jesus do? I want to imitate him, just like Paul did. I think it's okay to say, Jesus, how do you treat people different than you? Because I want to learn from that. Or how do you treat people you don't like? How do you love people that are difficult? Jesus, how do you spend your time, your money? How do you pray? How do you handle conflict? Jesus, I want to handle my vocation or my marriage or my family or my singleness like you would. I want to be like you. Are you to admire of Jesus? Or a follower? A follower obeys Jesus. They believe that true and lasting happiness is found in him. A follower wants to be with Jesus.

A follower is becoming more like Jesus. Let's pray. Jesus, we want to be your fully devoted followers. We don't just want to admire you and respect you and applaud your teaching. No, we want to obey it. We want to be people who find our happiness, our joy, our satisfaction in you. We're people who want to be with you just to spend time with you, to hang out with you, to pray to you, to talk with you, to share our life together.

and we want you to make us more like you. So we pray that you would transform our heart and our attitude, our words and our actions, our relationships. May we become more like Jesus. May we become more Christ-like. So in your name we pray, amen.