Come and See

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

0 views

0 comments

00:10
I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 1. And this morning we are going to continue our study of the
00:33
Gospel of John. We began this study back at the early part of the
00:40
Advent season, leading into the time where we celebrated the birth of Jesus back in December.
00:45
And I said at that point that the first 18 verses of John's Gospel would take the most amount of time because we literally walked one verse, sometimes one word at a time through that important foundational prologue which expresses to us the truth of Jesus's divinity, the truth of his incarnation, the truth of his relationship to the world that he created, and even to those who would believe on his name.
01:17
To as many as received him who believed in his name, to them he gave power to become children of God.
01:24
These are the things we learned during that opening portion. Well now we have moved more to the narrative section of John's Gospel, and so we will at times be taking much larger sections as we look at them, not because we want to give it any less attention or because it holds any less value, but because narratives are more difficult to preach one word or one verse at a time.
01:49
You have to see how the story folds together. And today we're going to look at the story of the calling, or if you will, the introduction to some of Jesus's first disciples.
02:04
And a phrase we're going to see come up throughout this section is the phrase, is come and see, come and see.
02:16
And so the theme of today's message, if you will, is the attitude of come and see who
02:22
Jesus is. Come and see who this man from Galilee is. Come and see this
02:28
Jewish carpenter. Because when you come and see who he truly is, you find that this one amazing and miraculous life, this one amazing man can change your life.
02:42
So come and see. Let's stand and read the text together.
02:52
And the text I'll be reading from is the English Standard Version. It will be on the screen.
02:59
And it says, The next day, again,
03:05
John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said,
03:11
Behold, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed
03:19
Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, What are you seeking?
03:26
And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? He said to them,
03:32
Come, and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, and it was about the tenth hour.
03:44
One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
03:50
He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus.
03:58
Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means
04:05
Peter. The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee.
04:11
He found Philip and said to him, Follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
04:21
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote,
04:28
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathanael said to him,
04:33
Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him,
04:39
Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
04:46
Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him,
04:52
How do you know me? Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree,
04:58
I saw you. Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel.
05:07
Jesus answered him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?
05:14
You will see greater things than these. And he said to him,
05:20
And truly, truly, I say to you, You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.
05:38
Father in heaven, as we open your word together and seek a better understanding,
05:43
I pray, Lord, first and foremost, that you would keep me from error. And I pray this,
05:50
Lord, not to be repetitive or because I have nothing else to say, because I pray it every Sunday, but Lord, I pray it every time, because as was reminded again this weekend,
05:59
Lord, it is a fearful thing to stand behind your pulpit. It is a fearful thing to stand and proclaim your word and say,
06:08
Thus saith the Lord. And as Brother Mike preached this week,
06:14
Lord, that we ought to tremble at your word. So I pray,
06:21
Lord, that you would keep me from error. Lord God, that you would open the hearts of your people to understand the word, that your spirit would be the teacher, and Lord, that I would decrease and Christ would increase.
06:36
And Lord, as we look at this introduction of the disciples, who would later be named apostles,
06:46
Lord, I pray that we would see this important underlying truth, that coming to Jesus involves seeing who he truly is and being enraptured by his presence.
07:06
I pray, Lord, that today the believers in this room would be absolutely moved, having been under the teaching of the word and in the presence of our
07:18
Lord. And Lord, for those who do not know you, that they would be moved to come and see and taste and see that the
07:29
Lord is good. And it's in his name we pray. Amen. Do you remember the first person who ever told you about Jesus?
07:57
If you became a believer later in life, you may just remember the moment you first heard about Jesus.
08:05
If you grew up in a Christian home, like I did, I was brought to church at six years old, seven years old.
08:14
It was this church. I've been here my whole life, never been a member anywhere else. And I heard about Jesus from a young age.
08:23
But I do remember a moment in my life when I was a teenager.
08:30
I was very serious about karate. As many of you know, I still teach karate. And at that time,
08:35
I was going to seminars and all these different things to try to be better.
08:41
And I remember a man teaching a seminar who said, before he began, this was not a
08:48
Christian karate group. It was just a karate seminar. And one of the men who was there, before he taught, he said,
08:56
I just want to stop and say that I'm a Christian. And Jesus is my
09:04
Lord. And if you don't know Him, and you want to know
09:09
Him, please come and talk to me when I'm done.
09:16
Now, at the time, I'm going to be very honest with you, because I was probably 15 years old at that time, even though I had to go to church because Pat made me,
09:29
I didn't have an interest in Christ, really, outside of the occasional prayer when
09:35
I thought I needed something. But that man said, if you need to know about Jesus, come and talk to me.
09:44
Well, I didn't go that day. Four years later, I was working at America Online.
09:54
Yeah, that's everybody laughs, remember? And I was sitting next to Scott. Scott was an atheist.
10:03
I had never really met an atheist before. Again, grew up around church folks, even though I wasn't a Christian at the time, thought
10:09
I was. And I mentioned God in a conversation, and Scott said to me,
10:15
I just know too much to believe in all that. So Scott was one who thought his intelligence meant that he didn't need to believe in God.
10:27
Certainly not Jesus. Well, that sent me into a time of absolute, utter desperation.
10:35
I've told my testimony before, and today's sermon is not my testimony, but just bringing you to the point that matters here,
10:41
I fell into a time of deep despair, because I realized
10:46
I was not saved. And I realized if I was to die, I had no idea what was going to happen.
10:52
Wasn't even sure if hell existed. I didn't know anything. And for the first time in my life,
10:59
I was absolutely scared to death. But I remembered that a few years before, a man said to me, if you don't know who
11:16
Jesus is, come and talk to me. So I picked up the phone, and I called him, and I said, can
11:29
I come and talk to you? Absolutely. He worked at Murray Hill Theater.
11:36
For those who don't know, that's the Christian nightclub in town. Yes, there is such a thing.
11:44
And so I went. He was the doorman. A Christian nightclub doesn't really need a doorman, but he was the guy who took the money at the door and let people in.
11:54
And I stood outside the door of Murray Hill Theater for about three hours, asking him to tell me about this man and why he believed in him.
12:09
And he did. And over the next few weeks, I began to realize my desperate condition, the fact that I was a sinner, the fact that I needed a
12:22
Savior, and Jesus Christ was the only Savior. And while driving home from America Online, on Broward Road in my 1990 -something pickup truck,
12:34
I pulled over to the side of the road, and I cried out to the Lord, and God saved me. But all of that was the result of a man who said, if you want to know who this man is, come talk to me.
12:50
Years passed between he asked and I came. Years separated his call and my coming.
12:59
But God used that moment, that come -and -see moment in my life, to change who
13:07
I was. Well, today we're going to see how in the life of these apostles,
13:14
Christ uses this come -and -see moment to change their lives and begin what would become his apostles.
13:25
Now, this is not the official call of the apostles. This is something important to distinguish. John's Gospel is much different than Matthew, Mark, and Luke when it comes to Jesus calling the apostles.
13:37
We remember the story of Peter. What is he doing? He's fishing, and Jesus walks out, and he says, put the net on the other side.
13:43
You remember the story? This story is much different, but it's not a contradiction. It's just telling a different part of the story.
13:51
This is the introduction of Jesus to his disciples. This is their first time coming into contact with this man from Nazareth.
14:03
And we see each one has a little different response. Of course, Nathaniel having the most famous response.
14:10
Can anything good come out of that place? He's from Jacksonville. No. So we're going to walk through this text.
14:22
We're going to see how everything fits together, and the story tells us about what we might call the first evangelist.
14:32
Andrew runs to tell his brother who Jesus is. All of these things we're going to see as we walk through this text.
14:39
So let's begin again at verse 35. It says, the next day.
14:46
Now, if you have been here the last few weeks, you'll know that I have mentioned that John is following a pattern of days which begins with the
14:57
Pharisees coming, or sending their delegation of Levites and scribes who come to John and challenge him.
15:05
Who are you? And John says, I'm not the Christ. I'm not Elijah. I'm not the prophet.
15:11
And they say, well, who are you? I'm the one crying out in the wilderness. In John's narrative, that's day one.
15:18
Okay? It's going to end on day seven with the wedding at Cana. So this is, in John's narrative, this is a seven -day period in the early ministry of Jesus.
15:32
This would have followed the 40 days in the wilderness because what happened when
15:38
Jesus was baptized? He immediately, the Bible says, the Spirit thrust Him into the wilderness where He fasted and was tempted during that 40 -day period.
15:52
Well, now we see Jesus return. We see Jesus come onto the scene. The first day,
15:59
John is talking to the Pharisee delegation. He's telling them, I am the voice in the wilderness. And it says, the next day, he sees
16:05
Jesus coming. And this is what we learned last week. He saw Jesus and he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
16:14
That's day two. Now we come to day three.
16:21
Now we come to day three. The next day is day three. It says, the next day again,
16:27
John was standing with two of his disciples. Who are these disciples? Well, we know who one of them is.
16:34
One of them is Andrew. We know this because later Andrew will go get his brother Simon Peter.
16:40
We are not told who the other disciple is. I am of the mind that it's likely
16:48
John himself, John and Andrew being disciples of John the
16:53
Baptist. But he never identifies himself in that way. In fact, John never really identifies himself in the book at all except saying he was the one whom
17:01
Jesus loved. So it says, the next day again,
17:08
John was standing with two of his disciples. Again, Andrew and another disciple, probably John.
17:15
And he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, behold, the
17:22
Lamb of God. Now if you were with us last week, we broke down the meaning of the
17:30
Lamb of God because John has already said that the day before. He's already announced the
17:36
Lamb of God. And he said, this is the one that God told me was his son. He said,
17:42
God told me when I baptize this one, I will see the Spirit descend upon him. And when I saw the
17:48
Spirit descend upon him as a dove, I knew he was the one. I knew that was him. And I can declare unto you, this is the
17:56
Lamb of God. Why Lamb? Lamb is synonymous with sacrifice.
18:03
Throughout the old covenant, lambs were used at the Passover. Lambs were used at the daily and other sacrifices.
18:10
Lambs were synonymous with sacrifice. So in one sense,
18:17
John is saying, behold, the sacrifice of God. Behold, the atoning payment that God has provided.
18:25
Behold, the Lamb of God. And then we get to verse 37.
18:36
The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed
18:42
Jesus. Now, just for a moment, I want to say, and I think this probably goes without saying, but it needs to be mentioned,
18:53
John was not offended that his disciples became the disciples of Jesus.
18:59
Because the purpose of John's ministry was not to create followers for John, but rather was to pave the way for Jesus Christ that people would become followers of Jesus.
19:14
Beloved, I must simply mention this, that this is one of the telltale signs of a dangerous and false ministry.
19:24
When a man is so concerned with winning followers for himself and not for Jesus.
19:32
What is the definition? Well, one of the definitions of a cult. A cult is usually run by a cult leader.
19:40
One who becomes the very object of worship. The one who becomes the very object of following.
19:46
The one who is the one who has all the answers and all the things that are necessary for salvation.
19:56
Be careful under whose teaching you place yourself.
20:04
There are dangerous men in this world who are seeking a following for themselves.
20:11
John was not concerned with a following for himself. We'll see in chapter 3, and we'll talk about it more when we get there.
20:19
In chapter 3, he says, I must decrease. He must increase.
20:27
My mission in life is not to build up myself, but to build up Christ. This was John's words.
20:33
And prayerfully would be the word of every pastor, every evangelist, every man who seeks to minister the name of Christ in the world that he would seriously consider the fact that the goal is not to build a kingdom for himself.
20:52
And it's easy to want to do that. It's easy to become fascinated with the applause of men.
21:02
And it is a drug that many men get addicted to and chase after.
21:12
John is an example to us of the humility needed to be a proclaimer of Jesus.
21:19
For when his disciples followed after Jesus, John was not offended, but I would say he was elated.
21:29
Go, for that's the Lamb, not me. Remember when the delegation from the
21:34
Pharisees asked him, Who are you? First words out of his mouth, I'm not the Christ. We didn't ask you who you weren't.
21:40
Yeah, but I want you to know. We didn't ask who you weren't. Yeah, but you need to know
21:45
I ain't him. I'm not the Christ. So, Andrew and the other disciple are now following after Jesus.
22:00
Jesus didn't call them to follow him, but he was just passing by.
22:06
They hear John say, Behold the Lamb of God. They immediately leave John. Now they're following after Jesus.
22:13
And Jesus turns to them, saw them following, and he said, What are you seeking?
22:22
What are you seeking? In the
22:28
King James Bible, this interaction is a series of three -word sentences.
22:36
What seek ye? Where dwelleth thou? Come and see. As I was looking at it,
22:43
I just thought that's an interesting... It kind of fits a nice symmetry there.
22:49
Jesus turns. What seek ye? And their answer is rather obscure. Because you would think they would say we seek knowledge.
23:01
You would think they would say we seek theology. You would think they would say we seek the kingdom.
23:09
You would think they would say we seek philosophy. He said,
23:19
What are you seeking? And they respond to a question with a question.
23:25
Where are you staying? Where dwellest thou? You see, and don't miss this, they wanted
23:40
Him. They wanted to be with Him.
23:48
All of those other things, there's nothing wrong with the seeking out of knowledge. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be theologically accurate.
23:55
There's nothing wrong with seeking to understand the great truths, even of philosophy.
24:01
But the main thing is that we know Christ. The main thing is that we know
24:08
Him intimately. So they said, Where are you staying?
24:16
With the implication, and can we come? Where are you staying?
24:26
And He says, Come and see. A good reminder to us that these men did not want, as Ellicott says in his commentary, these men did not just want a passing interview.
24:43
Albert Barnes says, They probably asked Him in order to signify their wish to be with Him and be instructed by Him.
24:49
They wanted to know Him. And Jesus has come. Can I say to you this morning, if you want to know
24:56
Jesus, Jesus will not turn you away. The Bible says,
25:01
All the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will in no way cast out.
25:10
If you truly desire the Lord Jesus Christ, I can say with the authority of God's Word, it is because God has placed that desire in your heart, and He will not turn you away.
25:23
So I say, if you want to come, come. You don't even have to wait until I'm done preaching.
25:29
You can right now bow your head and say, Lord, I want to know You. It doesn't require an invitation.
25:38
It doesn't require a bench for you to come lay your head on. Those things are not necessary for you to know the
25:43
Lord. He says, Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
25:51
If the desire to come is in your heart, come and see.
25:59
And so they came. They came. It says,
26:08
And they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. Now, there's some debate about what the tenth hour refers to here.
26:16
If reckoned in Roman time, which is very much our own reckoning of time, this would have put it at ten in the morning.
26:25
But if reckoned in Jewish time, this would have been four in the afternoon.
26:31
If you remember Jesus, the third hour to the ninth hour, that's 9 a .m. to 3 p .m.,
26:36
right? Third hour to the ninth hour. So what's the tenth hour? 4 p .m. So the question is, is this 10 o 'clock in the morning?
26:44
And Jesus is saying, Come spend the whole day with Me? Or is this 4 o 'clock in the afternoon and Jesus says,
26:50
Come and see, and they stayed with Him throughout the night? The answer?
26:58
Does it matter? I think it's probably reckoned in Jewish time. I think it's probably the 4 p .m.
27:05
number, and I think they probably stayed the night. But again, if you have a different understanding and you want to go and talk about it later,
27:14
I'm happy to do that. But either way, they were with Jesus this whole time.
27:20
And I have thought about this all week. Can you imagine just sitting down with Jesus for just a few hours and having
27:39
Him unfold the mysteries of God to you? Just to sit and listen.
27:51
You know, there's always that question that people ask. As you know, I do a podcast and oftentimes on podcasts, we'll have just simple questions to get banter going.
27:59
And one of the most popular questions people ask was, If you could have dinner with any historical figure?
28:09
But you know what we always have to say? Other than Jesus. Because everybody picks
28:15
Jesus. If you ask that, the assumed question, if you could interview anyone, if you could sit in a house with anyone, who would you want to sit with more than Jesus Christ?
28:34
Even Larry King, who was not a Christian, was asked, having interviewed thousands of people during his career, he said, of whom would you want to interview?
28:46
Who was the one interview in history that you would want? He said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth.
28:59
He goes on kind of more sadly, because they said, what would you ask Him? Did you really rise from the dead? The answer is yes.
29:12
But there's something about being in the presence of Jesus. These men had that opportunity to sit with Jesus.
29:21
What an amazing reality. And so, as it were, they were with Jesus.
29:32
Now, I bypassed one thing and I just want to mention, notice they call Him Rabbi and John feels the need to interpret that for us.
29:42
This is one of the indications that tell us that John's Gospel was probably meant to go to a wider audience than just the
29:48
Jews. Because Jews would have known what a Rabbi was. But he says Rabbi, and then he says, which means this.
29:54
Later he's going to say Messiah, which means Christ. Right? He's translating for his audience because he wants his audience to be more than the
30:04
Jewish community. He wants his audience to be the world. These things have been written so that you all may believe.
30:16
Now, we move on to the first evangelist. It says in verse 40, one of the two who heard
30:23
John speak and follow Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother
30:34
Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ. Always keep that in mind.
30:40
Messiah and Christ are the same word in two languages. The anointed one. Now, before we get to verse 42,
30:51
I just want to mention something about Andrew. If you ask someone to name the 12 apostles, oftentimes people will begin with the two sets of brothers who among the apostles were most well known.
31:09
Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Unless you ask some people, they'll say Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
31:15
Say, wait, that's not. Those are the gospel writers, not apostles. That's kind of long. Two of them are apostles, two aren't.
31:22
But if you ask people who are familiar with the 12 apostles to name the 12 apostles, almost immediately rolling off their tongue would be
31:29
Peter first and then his brother Andrew, James, and John.
31:35
Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Then they get lost. They might come up with Thaddeus or somebody else. You know, a couple of Simons in there.
31:42
But they know those four. But really, if you step back and you consider how the narratives of the gospels come to us, really only three of those four are named the most.
31:55
Peter, James, and John. It was Peter, James, and John who were with Jesus on the
32:01
Mount of Transfiguration. It was Peter, James, and John who were near Jesus in the garden.
32:06
Peter, James, and John were, as some people have defined, the inner circle or the closest ones to Jesus. Of course,
32:12
Peter being the mouthpiece. I like Peter the most because he didn't know when to be quiet and neither do I. So I feel connected to him.
32:23
So we have Peter, James, and John, but this man Andrew is not mentioned a lot except in John's gospel.
32:36
John's gospel mentions Andrew here. And we find that Andrew is the first one to hear the message of Jesus, to learn of Jesus, and believe that it is his mission now to go and bring others to this man.
32:54
Several years ago, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association started a program called
33:03
Operation Andrew. Operation Andrew was a, basically it was an evangelistic crusade which encouraged people to go into their towns and invite people to come to the crusades that Billy Graham was preaching.
33:26
And the reason why they called it Operation Andrew, and if you're like me, you remember Hurricane Andrew, and there can be a disconnect there because if you live in Florida, you know there was once a hurricane called
33:36
Hurricane Andrew and it created a lot of devastation in South Florida and therefore we think of Operation Andrew as helping pick up a hurricane.
33:44
Well, they used this Operation Andrew and they took Andrew as the person, as the biblical figure.
33:51
Because in John's gospel, we see Andrew in several places and it seems like every time we see him, he's bringing someone to Jesus.
33:58
He's bringing the little boy with the meal to Jesus or he's bringing the Greeks to Jesus in John chapter 12.
34:03
He's bringing people to Jesus. This is his desire. Come and see. So again, the
34:11
Billy Graham Association said we're going to use him as our model. And there's a story behind that.
34:21
Years ago, there was a new Christian. He was 24 years old. His name was
34:26
Albert McMacken. And he made it his mission to load a pickup truck with his friends and drive to an evangelistic campaign in his city.
34:40
And one of the people in that truck was Billy Graham. And he said, if it were not for McMacken, I would not have gone.
34:52
And so he sees this man in his life as the one who said, come with me. Let us go and see.
35:01
So Andrew goes to his brother and he says, we have found the
35:09
Messiah. Can you imagine Peter's response? Your brother runs in the room.
35:18
We found the Messiah. Sure you did. Sure you did. But I'll go.
35:29
So he brought him to Jesus. Verse 42. Now this part of the narrative, this is difficult because in the other
35:44
Gospels, Peter's receiving of this title,
35:53
Cephas or Petrus in Greek, Petra, rock, is accompanying his confession.
36:04
Caesarea Philippi. Jesus says, who do they say that I am? Some say you're Elijah. Some say you're the prophet.
36:10
Some say you're this. Some say you're that. But who do you say that I am? And Simon says, thou art the
36:15
Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, blessed are you
36:20
Simon Bar -Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven has revealed this to you.
36:29
And I say to you, thou art Peter, and upon this rock
36:34
I will build my church. That's the time we think about Jesus giving
36:41
Peter that name. When we come to John's Gospel, it's right here in the first meeting.
36:50
Jesus sees him. You're Simon. But I'm going to call you
36:55
Rocky. I tried to get
37:00
Jennifer to name Theo Peter because I wanted to call him Rocky. And he doesn't know that.
37:09
He's only two. Don't tell him. No, I really like that. Rocky is a nickname for Peter Rock.
37:15
Right? So I have some thoughts on this and I've thought about this a lot this week.
37:23
Is this John giving us an absolutely strict narrative account or is
37:30
John including something here that would actually happen later? And I think that's possible.
37:37
I think it's possible. It's also possible that he just called him Rocky Rock from the beginning and later emphasized the meaning.
37:47
It's hard to know because one of the things we know about John is he's not too terribly concerned with chronology.
37:54
He's more concerned with theology. And that's what we see in this introduction.
37:59
We see him introducing us to these men and giving us the theology that goes along with their name. So if you want to know for sure what
38:08
I think, my answer is I don't know for sure. If this is a narrative account, this is the first time he meets
38:15
Peter and he says, hey, I'm going to call you Rock. Or if this is John bringing in something that would happen later, putting it in the narrative here.
38:21
And there's nothing wrong with that because the Gospels are not intended to be strict narrative biographies.
38:27
They are theological treatises about the person of Jesus Christ. That's what they are. So that, hey, this is really going to bother you.
38:34
If you don't like that, you're going to hate it when I talk about the fact that I think there was only one cleansing of the temple.
38:42
A lot of people think it has to be two because John puts it so early. I don't think there has to be two.
38:48
Argue with me if you want. I think John is not concerned with chronology. He's concerned with theology. And if you understand the
38:55
Gospels that way, it kind of opens up the idea of, hey, he's teaching us something here. He's not concerned with giving us a narrative account.
39:04
Again, you can argue with me later if you want. And don't let that be the thing that runs you off. I mean, I'll tell you about amillennialism.
39:10
Let that be what runs you off. Don't let the possibility that there may be some chronological distinctions in John that are different than the other narratives.
39:19
Remember, when John writes his Gospel, he's writing years after the other three
39:24
Gospels are already in print and being copied and sent out among the people. They've already heard the story of Peter at Caesarea Philippi.
39:35
They already know that. So the lack of chronology is not as important as the truth and the theology contained in the text.
39:49
In fact, this seven days is actually... Because when I said, what is the seventh day? Jesus' first miracle.
39:57
Why is it seven days? We're going to talk about that next week. Why does that matter? All right.
40:05
Now that I've thoroughly created consternation in you, and I didn't mean to. I just see it on the faces.
40:12
Let's move on to something we will agree on. He brought him to Jesus.
40:19
And now the next day. So what day is this, beloved? We're on the next day.
40:25
Day four. Day four. The next day,
40:31
Jesus decided to go to Galilee. Now, this means that wherever he was staying...
40:38
Remember, they said, where are you staying? He said, come and see. Wherever he was, was in walking distance of Galilee. Jesus gets up, heads towards Galilee.
40:48
They go with him. And it says, he found
40:54
Philip. And he said to him, follow me.
41:00
Now this is very similar to the way we see
41:06
Jesus call the other disciples in the other books. Remember, he saw them fishing. He says, come and follow me.
41:12
He saw Matthew at the tax booth. And what does he say? Come and follow me.
41:18
Right? So this is similar to this call of discipleship. Come and follow me. And Philip comes.
41:24
It's interesting. Philip is not named in the other gospels, except he is mentioned in the list of the names of the apostles.
41:31
But he's not mentioned as having done anything. In this gospel, he's mentioned as doing a lot of things.
41:37
We see his calling in chapter 1. We see him being a part of the conversation of the feeding of the 5 ,000 in chapter 6.
41:43
He's part of the liaison with the Greeks in chapter 12. And he speaks at the Last Supper in John chapter 14.
41:50
None of that is contained in the other gospels. But Philip is highlighted more in this gospel.
41:57
So this is his call. Come, follow me. And what does it tell us about him in verse 44?
42:05
It says he was from the same city as Peter and Andrew. Could it be that Andrew and Peter had interacted with him and told him about Jesus?
42:16
The text doesn't tell us. But this is all these guys all probably know each other at least.
42:24
And he goes to him and he says, follow me. Now we get to the story of Nathanael.
42:32
We're almost done. It says, Philip found Nathanael. By the way, know what you won't find if you read
42:40
Matthew, Mark, and Luke? You won't find Nathanael. His name is not mentioned in those gospels.
42:48
His name is only mentioned in John. But a name you will find in the other gospels is the name
42:53
Bartholomew. Bartholomew and Nathanael are most likely the same person.
43:01
You say, why? Because the word Bartholomew is not a first name.
43:07
The word Bartholomew is a surname. Like Jesus would have been
43:12
Jesus Bar -Joseph. Son of, the word bar means son of. So he was Jesus Bar -Joseph.
43:18
Simon is Simon Bar -Jonah. Nathanael is
43:24
Nathanael Bartholomew. Or Bartholomew. And so it is, even
43:31
Barabbas. You know what Barabbas means? Son of the father. Interestingly enough because Abba means father or dad.
43:41
Barabbas means son of the father. So Bartholomew, Bar -Tholomew.
43:49
So when you're reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke, if you don't see the name Nathanael, don't get worried. He's still in there.
43:55
He's just like when people call me Foskey. Sometimes.
44:02
Right? Most people say Foskey when they don't know.
44:09
I tell you, you can always tell when a telemarketer calls. Can I speak to Mr. Foskey? He does not live here. So Philip found
44:22
Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
44:31
Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Now, the
44:40
Bible does not provide us the blessing of inflection. And you know, as well as I do, that written communication does not often get across someone's attitude.
44:56
You'll get a text from somebody, and the text says, We need to talk. Please don't ever text that.
45:04
Because when you say, the word need usually means something's bad, something's wrong, we need to talk.
45:16
When Nathanael says, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Most of us assume some type of negativity in his tone.
45:27
And it's very possible. We don't know much about Nazareth. Outside of the fact that it's mentioned in Scripture.
45:38
There are those who have taken Nathanael's words here, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? And created an entire idea of Nazareth being this place of ill repute, sort of like Corinth.
45:51
And we know how Corinth was a place of ill repute. But we don't know that.
45:56
It's just, he heard, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? And there could be a stigma associated with Nazareth.
46:02
And he said, Can anything good come out? Like I jokingly said earlier about Jacksonville. Can anything good come out of that place?
46:13
Heaven came down. Right there. Perfect little hamlet of Callahan.
46:25
But there's also the reality that Nathanael's a man, a devout man,
46:34
Jesus calls him a man without guile in the King James, without deceit. It's actually, that word is actually associated with a psalm.
46:43
In the Old Testament, Psalm 32 verse 2 says, Blessed is the man against whom the
46:49
Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. That word deceit in the
46:56
LXX or what's known as the Septuagint, is the same word Jesus used here. So Jesus when he says, Here's an
47:01
Israelite with whom there's no deceit. He's saying, Here's a blessed man. Right?
47:07
He's a blessed man. So, could it be that Nathanael knew that the
47:19
Messiah was supposed to be from Bethlehem? Isn't that what the text tells us?
47:26
I mean, isn't that what the scripture says? That he will be from the city of David? Nazareth was not the city of David.
47:37
It's possible. How can anything, how can the Messiah come from there?
47:47
You ever notice Jesus is not called Jesus of Bethlehem? Because he didn't grow up in Bethlehem.
47:55
Because his family, his father, was from Nazareth. The only reason he was born in Bethlehem was because God decreed before eternity passed, that his son would be born in Bethlehem, the city of David.
48:08
And because of that, the decree went out from Caesar that all men should be registered. And it sent his family to Bethlehem on the very day he would be born.
48:17
It's the only reason he was born in Bethlehem to fulfill that prophecy. But he grew up in Nazarene.
48:23
Therefore, we call him Jesus of Nazareth. So, Nathanael says, anything good come out of there?
48:32
Could have been sarcastic, could have been a shot at Nazareth, or could have been merely a theological question.
48:42
But what was Philip's answer? You want to know if something good came out of there? Come and see.
48:50
Come and see. I don't have to prove it to you. I just got to show him to you.
48:59
Come and see. So, Nathanael comes. And we have this interesting interaction.
49:11
He says, behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile. And Nathanael says, how do you know me?
49:18
You don't know me. Jesus said, before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree,
49:31
I saw you. Now, this does not mean, based upon Nathanael's reaction, this does not mean
49:38
Jesus just passed by, saw him under a fig tree and said, oh hey, there he is. This is
49:43
Jesus expressing a divine insight into the life of Nathanael.
49:50
It doesn't say what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree. I like to think that he was probably praying.
49:55
Because he thought he was alone, nobody saw him.
50:06
Jesus said, before Philip came and got you, I saw you under the fig tree.
50:13
How does Nathanael respond? He responds, are the king of Israel, you are the son of God.
50:31
That is not a response to somebody who merely saw you passing by.
50:39
That is a response of recognition. This man knows me.
50:46
This man saw me. We're going to see something very similar when we get over to chapter 4.
50:55
With the woman at the well. When he says, yeah, go tell your husband.
51:02
I don't have a husband. I know, you had several. And the man you're living with is not your husband.
51:08
And what did she do? She ran into town. He knows everything about it.
51:18
That's the attitude of Nathanael here. He knows you have to be the son of God.
51:26
You have to be the king of Israel. That's who you are. And Jesus' response to me is hilarious.
51:34
Jesus said, really? That's all it took? That's it?
51:40
I merely say I saw you under a fig tree. And you are willing in this moment to proclaim the most profound and sublime truth in all of history?
51:49
That I'm the son of God and the king of Israel? I mean, at least John saw the dove come down on me.
51:57
At least he saw a manifestation of the Spirit. All I did was tell you I saw you. And you say you know who
52:04
I am. And guess what? You are 100 % right. And so Jesus finishes this chapter with this very interesting and somewhat enigmatic phrase.
52:25
He says, truly, truly, I say to you. You will see heaven opened.
52:35
And the angels of God ascending and descending on the
52:42
Son of Man. Now, what does that mean?
52:49
I must admit, it is an interesting way of putting the phrase.
52:56
He didn't say, you will see me heal the sick. Which he would.
53:02
He didn't say, you will see me raise the dead.
53:08
Which he would. He didn't say, you are going to see me feed 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish.
53:15
Which he would. No, he said, you are going to see the angels of God ascend and descend on the
53:29
Son of Man. Now, the only way
53:34
I have been able to make sense of this. Is because in the
53:41
Old Testament there is a narrative in the life of Jacob.
53:50
As Jacob was fleeing his brother
53:56
Esau. He came to a place where he was given a vision.
54:03
A dream. And in that dream he saw heaven opened. And he saw a ladder that connected heaven and earth.
54:16
And in that text it says that he saw angels ascending and descending that ladder.
54:26
The same Greek words are used in the Septuagint. Ascending and descending.
54:32
It's the only time that language is used referring to angels. Is the connection between that passage in Genesis.
54:39
And this passage. And so I have concluded in my heart.
54:46
And that's how I have reached my conclusion. That what Jesus is saying here. Is you are going to see me.
54:54
Become the fulfillment of that bridge. From heaven to earth.
55:00
You're going to see me be that ladder. The one who connects
55:06
God and man. Beloved, here's the thing about that ladder.
55:19
Angels ascend and descend but we cannot ascend. God comes down to us.
55:27
Through the person of Christ. He brings us that connection.
55:36
I heard a good illustration years ago. It said this. It was a poem but I don't remember how the poem goes.
55:42
But it basically said this. It says Jesus Christ who died upon the cross.
55:49
Then came off the cross. Took the wood and built a bridge.
55:59
If you walk into our narthex. You'll see a picture. In that picture is meant to portray the gospel.
56:08
It has people falling into a pit. But over that pit is a bridge.
56:16
Leading to a celestial city. And the bridge is in the shape of the cross.
56:26
Jesus is the way to God. He says I am the way.
56:34
The truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.
56:39
The earliest Christians were called followers of the way. Because there was no other way to God.
56:49
Than through Jesus Christ. So today. If you are in Christ.
56:58
In just a moment we're going to share the table together. We're going to be reminded of the one who came.
57:05
Who died and made the way. But if you're not in Christ.
57:15
I want to remind you there is no other way. There's no other connection point.
57:22
There's no other ladder. There's no other stairwell. There's no other bridge. The Bible says.
57:28
At the name of Jesus every knee will bow. And he shares that with no one.
57:37
So my call to you today. If you don't know Jesus. Come and see.
57:47
Taste and see. That the Lord is good. Trust in him.
57:54
Because he is the way. Let's pray. Father I thank you for this opportunity to be in your word again.
58:11
As we heard Jesus called all these wonderful names in this passage. He is called Lamb of God. Rabbi. Messiah.
58:17
Son of God. King of Israel. Son of man. All of these things that remind us of who he is.
58:24
And yet Lord. We have only seen but an inkling. And we look forward to the day when he will take us to himself as our great bridegroom.
58:33
And we will know him as he truly is. Lord until that day.
58:39
May we be satisfied in what you have given us. The bread and the cup. Which point forward to him.
58:46
Point backward to his death and forward to his return. And Lord as we share in this together.