The Domino Effect
THE NEXT DOMINO
When we meet Andrew in John 1:35, he isn't even mentioned by name. We know nothing about him except that he is one of two men standing there, listening to John the Baptist say things that could get a man arrested.
Then we come to verse 36, where John the Baptist points the two men to Jesus. And Andrew and the guy he was with just start walking behind Jesus, following him.
Jesus turns around, finds them trailing him down the road, and asks what they want. They don’t have an answer ready, so they ask where he’s staying. Jesus invites them to come and see. They spend the rest of the day with him.
Which brings us to our Scripture reading today, John 1:40–42a.
"Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of these men who heard what John said and then followed Jesus. Andrew went to find his brother, Simon, and told him, 'We have found the Messiah' (which means 'Christ'). Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus..."
John the Baptist introduced Andrew to Jesus.
Then Andrew introduced his brother to Jesus.
That is his contribution to the story.
He went and got his brother.
When Andrew's brother Simon met Jesus, Jesus renamed him Cephas (Peter).
Remember this: Peter, at this point, is a complete unknown. No religious standing. No rabbinic education. Outside the fishing community of Capernaum, population 1,000-ish, Peter is nobody.
So when Jesus names him Peter, the name points to his calling, not to anything Simon had done to deserve it.
Our first domino: John the Baptist.
Our second: Andrew.
Our third: Peter.
Now let’s look at where Peter goes from here.
LOANING HIS BOAT
A few pages later, in Luke 5:1–11, Jesus is teaching on the shore of Galilee. The crowd keeps pressing in until Jesus runs out of beach. Peter and some other fishermen are there washing their nets, and two boats are pulled up along the water. Peter owns one of the boats.
Jesus climbs into Peter's boat and asks him to push out a few feet from shore for a better teaching position. Then Jesus sits down and teaches the crowd from the water.
That is the first recorded request Jesus makes of Peter.
Let me borrow your workspace for an hour.
And many of us know what happens next. Through a miracle, a workspace loaned to Jesus becomes a boat overflowing with fish.
Here’s my point: If you let Jesus into your workspace, your work will start overflowing into ministry.
Our first domino: John the Baptist.
Our second: Andrew.
Our third: Peter.
Our fourth: Peter’s obedience to let Jesus into his workspace.
SMALL SITUATIONS
Several more New Testament pages to the right, Acts 9. Peter is inland on the coastal plain of the Mediterranean, ministering from town to town.
There he met a man named Aeneas, who had been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. Peter said to him, 'Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you! Get up, and roll up your sleeping mat!' And he was healed instantly. Then the whole population of Lydda and Sharon saw Aeneas walking around, and they turned to the Lord. -Acts 9:33-35
And the dominoes keep falling. Because of Peter’s ministry in the town of Lydda, one paralyzed man is healed, and a region turns to Jesus.
Joppa is eleven miles away, on the coast, close enough that word from Lydda gets there fast. A believer named Tabitha has died. They have washed her body and laid her in an upstairs room, and two men are already on the road begging Peter to come.
The domino that fell in Lydda tips toward that little room upstairs.
Peter walks the eleven miles. He clears the room of people, kneels and prays, and God raises her. She opens her eyes.
"The news spread through the whole town, and many believed in the Lord. —Acts 9:42"
Obedience does not stay the size of the room it happened in.
What about us?
We often wait for bigger assignments from God.
Jesus didn’t give Peter a regional ministry assignment. Peter got a paralyzed man in one town and a dead seamstress in an upstairs room in another.
But he kept walking into small situations and letting God decide how big they became.
Our first domino: John the Baptist.
Our second: Andrew.
Our third: Peter.
Our fourth: Peter’s obedience to let Jesus into his workspace.
Our fifth: Peter’s obedience in small situations
THE DOOR HE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO WALK THROUGH
One page after that small room comes the roof in Joppa, where God gives Peter a vision of a sheet full of animals lowered from heaven and hears a voice tell him three times to kill and eat. Peter spends the whole vision arguing with God about lunchmeat. (Acts 10:9–23)
While Peter is still in Joppa, about thirty miles up the coast in Caesarea, a Roman centurion named Cornelius had already received a vision from God. He has been told to send men to Joppa, find Peter, and bring him back to his house. So while Peter tries to make sense of what God has just shown him on the rooftop, Cornelius waits for him.
And understand what Peter is being asked to do. Entering a Gentile household was not a minor social awkwardness for a first-century Jew. It carried real fear of ritual defilement, and it could cost him standing with his own people (Craig Keener, IVP Bible Background Commentary).
Peter walks in anyway, and then says out loud exactly what God has been doing in him:
You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean. (Acts 10:28)
Peter starts preaching. He doesn’t even get to finish.
“Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message.” (Acts 10:44)
That's the moment everything changes. The Jewish believers who came with Peter are stunned. These are Gentiles, standing in a Gentile house, and God gives them the Holy Spirit, the same gift the Jewish believers received. Peter has the believing Gentiles baptized.
Then he has to go back to Jerusalem and explain himself.
In Acts 11, believers there criticize him for entering a Gentile home and eating with Gentiles. Peter tells the whole story: the vision on the roof, the men arriving from Caesarea, Cornelius waiting, and finally the Holy Spirit falling on them. His defense is basically this: God did this. Who was I to stand in His way?
And years later, that living room in Caesarea is still evidence on the table at the council in Acts 15. That's where the church finally decides that Gentiles do not have to become Jewish to belong to Jesus.
And that truth did not stop in Caesarea.
It moved from house to house.
City to city.
Generation to generation.
FROM ANDREW TO YOU
The discipleship dominoes just keep falling.
From John the Baptist to Andrew.
Andrew gets his brother.
His brother is obedient in small places.
From there:
The gospel crossed boundaries Peter once thought could not be crossed.
It reached people he once would not have entered a room with. And then those people carried it to somebody else.
And somebody carried it to somebody else.
Until, two thousand years later, somebody carried it to you.
Somebody invited you.
Somebody taught you the name of Jesus.
Somebody told you the story.
Somebody handed you a Bible.
You are somewhere in the middle of a line of dominoes that included Andrew going to get his brother to introduce him to Jesus.
“No one can foresee, when he brings a man or woman to Jesus, what Jesus will make of that person.” —F.F. Bruce
WHY DOMINOES FOR MY ANALOGY?
A domino can knock over another about one and a half times its own size. Line up a row that gets larger as it goes, and a domino small enough to lose in your pocket can eventually bring down one you would need a crane to lift.
But no domino in that row knows what it started.
Each one only ever touches the one standing next to it (that’s a callback to Andrew!).
Now look at the domino in your hand.
You do not have to knock over an entire generation. You just have to present Jesus to the dominoes God has put next to you.
When Andrew introduced his brother to Jesus, he had no clue that Peter would:
preach at Pentecost and see three thousand accept Christ and be baptized that day
open the door of the gospel to the Gentiles at Cornelius's house
become a pillar of the Jerusalem church
write two letters that would strengthen the church for two thousand years
He just went and got his brother.
And I think we sometimes make our discipleship harder than Jesus ever intended. We ask, “What is my calling? What is my big assignment? What does God want to do with my life?”
Andrew teaches us to maybe start smaller.
Who has God already put in your life?
Who’s next to you in class?
Who lives across the street?
Who texts you when their life is falling apart?
That’s your next domino.
And you may never know what happens five people down the line.
You may never see the ministry that grows out of one conversation.
You may never meet the family changed because you invited somebody.
You may never know the people who eventually hear the gospel because you were faithful enough to speak to one person.
So when you walk out of here today, take that domino with you. Put it somewhere you will see it. Or keep it in your pocket this week and think about Andrew. And when you do, ask God one question:
Who is standing next to me?
Make the invitation.
Have the conversation.
Be obedient in the small situation.
Then let God multiply your obedience!
©2026 Greg McNichols. All rights reserved.
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