I'll ask you to open up in your Bibles to the gospel of John chapter 1 verses 43 through 51 this morning chapter One verses 43 through 51. We're gonna read that and as you open up in your Bibles I just want to tell you how great this church is. I'm a little biased because I'm a pastor here But yesterday my wife and I moved into a new home much closer to the church here And I put out on Facebook just hoping that a few souls would come out and maybe help us move some of the heavier items And this church just comes through time and time again. I had nine things that I was hoping these Folks would help us move things that my son and I couldn't lift just ourselves and At last tally I noticed the guys ended up moving over 35 different things to our house So just just a wonderful part of a church family. We started our new fusion class this morning That's our guest oriented Sunday school class and one of the great joys that I have is spending five weeks with those new and newer to the church Just welcoming them in and you know sometimes I imagine pastors feel like they're trying to build Momentum and find any reason they can to bring in new guests to attract them when I tell people about you I'm just glowing and Just filled with so much joy. You guys are great It's an easy sell to talk about Willow Creek Church, but it's great to be here with you John chapter 1 verses 43 through 51. This is the word of God The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee He found Philip and said to him follow me now Philip was from but Excuse me, but Saida the city of Andrew and Peter Philip found Nathaniel and said to him We've found him of whom Jeep Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph Nathaniel said to him can anything good come out of Nazareth Philip said to him come and see Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit Nathaniel said to him how do you know me and Jesus answered him Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you Nathaniel answered him rabbi You are the son of God You are the king of Israel and Jesus answered him because I said to you I saw you under the fig tree do you believe You will see greater things than these and he said to him truly truly I say to you you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray Our Father and our God we thank you That you descended down to this earth in your son Jesus Christ To rescue to redeem to restore To lead us back to you And Lord as you have been faithful by your grace to lead us in your mercy Would your mercy extend this morning to our reading and our consideration of your work Would the spirit of Christ illuminate our hearts Shining the light of your understanding into our minds so that we might Understand what John is recorded here and much more than that not only be heirs of the word But doers of it help us to live all of life and view of your church truth more and more every day we pray in Jesus name a man This past week. I was leaving church. I believe it was after Wednesdays at willow and I was traveling home And I noticed that my gas gauge was really low and I need to stop and get some gas So I did I pulled in and I decided that it was time to fill up the car Just takes a couple of minutes and as I was filling up the car I noticed on the opposite side of the gas pump was a as a younger guy sitting in his car not filling it up with gas Not really doing anything just sitting there and I was intrigued and if you're anything like me Maybe you're a little paranoid as well I started to think to myself. What is this guy up to? What's he doing? I started to ready myself for if I got jumped or had some sort of bad altercation what would I do and I came up with a plan? I would just spray gas on him and that would resolve the conflict I thought it would I don't know maybe it would hurt me too, but that was the best I could come up with well I finished pumping the gas I turned away. I was getting my receipt and I turned around he was right there and I thought Don't make me spray gas on you But he asked me he said would you be able to help me I need some gas to get to Sanford now This isn't my first trip around the block. I didn't fall off the turn of truck yesterday I know sometimes these things are scams, but I said well, I'll give you a few gallons of gas no problem So I went around to the other side and pumped a couple of gallons of gas for him and as I was doing so I was talking to him And we engaged in some small talk He asked me where I was coming from and I said church and that led into me revealing to him that I'm a pastor and it's always funny to see how people respond to you and you say you're a pastor in my experience it does one of two things but never anything in the middle It either kills conversation almost instantaneously because people somehow think that you're going to thump them over the head with the Bible You're going to judge them you're going to be harsh to them or people just start pouring out their soul to you Well, this guy actually started pouring out a little bit of his soul to me. He wasn't gushing it but he said that he's been running away from the Lord And that the Lord has been dealing very harshly with him That bad things have been coming into his life and he said he's noticed every time that he's done that that God punishes him If I'm remembering his words correctly He kind of had a karma view of God That if you do good, God rewards you with good, if you do bad, God clubs you over the head with adversity And so we had this little conversation at the gas station and I knew I only hit a minute or two with him more And I said you know there's another way to look at it It could be that God loves you And that God has allowed adversity into your life to drive you to him And it was an interesting little conversation came to him to drop clothes but as I drove down the road I prayed for him a little bit more And I've thought about him since then and I've thought about that truth It is true God often times allows adversity into our lives not because he hates us Not because he's punishing us in his wrath but because as a loving father who's calling his children home Sometimes he knows that he needs to break them of their false trusts Before they'll let go of the world and grab hold of him When things go from bad to worse in the world it's easy to become pessimistic That's something we've said over the past couple of weeks It's much easier to be cynical, to lose hope, to be pessimistic in a world like ours You turn on Fox News or CNN You read the Dredge report or the Orlando Sentinel You talk to your friends and families and neighbors and hear about their challenges You consider your own life and the hardships and you endure And it seems like as we've said in preceding weeks the default setting of this world is fallen Flood In need of a fix And that's exactly what the Bible says it is But why hasn't God ended the world as it is because he's doing a great thing in it And oftentimes he uses the very adversity that we lament He uses the very circumstances that prompt us toward pessimism To push us ironically toward hope Renewed optimism That even though the world is not as it should be right now One day it will be better than even the best of what we experience in the here and now That brings me to verse 43 Because as the gospel of John unfolds we realize that God is not left the world in its sin But God the Father has sent his beloved son, the word, who was with God and is God Into the world to redeem the world and the one who's come into the world, Jesus Christ, the word of God Will not only baptize as John the Baptist baptized with water externally As a sign of preparation He will baptize inwardly, cleanse us and purify us in our very hearts by the Holy Spirit's refining fire God is not a band in the world, He's drawn near to the world And He's not a band in you in whatever adversity you face, He's drawing near to you using that very thing to purify To restore, to rescue Verse 43 says this, the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, He found Philip and said to him, follow me Now, Philip was from Bethesdaida, the city of Andrew and Peter This might be John's subtle way of saying that Philip is heard of Christ through these two, Andrew and Peter What we also know is that Philip is most assuredly one who's been looking for the Messiah for a reason I'll share with you in just a moment And one who was most assuredly aware of John the Baptist and his present ministry So when Philip responds so readily to Jesus and is called to follow Him, it shouldn't take us by surprise Sometimes I mentioned last week, you read the gospels and you kind of read portions of the story of Christ And you need to remember that the Bible doesn't tell us everything we want to know The Bible tells us what we need to know And sometimes in not telling us everything, there's kind of a little bit of tension in our mind How did these things actually go down? Well, when you read one gospel Jesus walks out under the seashore, tells a bunch of fishermen to abandon their nets Tells them that He's going to make them fishers of men And then for no other reason is the gospels read, then Jesus inviting them to do so They dropped their nets, they leave behind their family, their friends, the family business, all their wealth, all the security in his life And they follow Jesus and it seems like they do it on only His Word Now could they do it? Sure Jesus is God, He could prompt that response in anyone But when you read John's gospel and gets a bigger sense of the picture what you realize is that these folks had been prepared By John the Baptist, by the faithful teaching and preaching of the Word over many centuries to look for the Messiah And to identify Him rightly when He appeared and remember in last week's passage, John the Baptist removes all doubt as to Christ's identity He points to Him, He says behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world So in verse 43 when Philip responds so readily, it really shouldn't be that surprising He's been prepared But His preparation involves something that our preparation involves When God calls us to Himself, He prepares us to not only follow Him but to be His ambassadors, to lead others to do the same In fact, if you love the Lord, if the Lord has become your delight, it's your joy to share that delight with others Verse 44, now Philip was from Beth Said, the city of Andrew and Peter, Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, we found Him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph Now I want you to notice here that Philip goes to a friend and shares with him the good news of Jesus Christ In his sharing, what does Philip draw Nathaniel's attention to? Moses, the great Old Testament prophet If you didn't grow up in the church, you haven't read the Bible very much, you should know that Moses is a very big deal in the Old Testament The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these are terms the books of Moses He's seen as the great prophet, the great deliverer of God's people, one of the preeminent foreshadowings of the coming Messiah And so when Philip draws Nathaniel's attention to Moses, the law of God, the prophets, he's saying that this particular individual, Jesus Christ, is the one who fulfills the Old Testament He's the promised deliverer, the chosen one, the Messiah And this tells us something very interesting about Nathaniel He tells us something very interesting about Philip That not only has Philip been prepared, but Nathaniel had been prepared, he's a student of the Scriptures He knows the truth and he longs to know who is the fulfillment of all of these promises Philip's excited to tell him it's Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph Joseph is mentioned because Jesus is the descendant of King David according to his flesh If you didn't grow up in the church, you're not familiar with the Bible, Christians believe that Jesus Christ is both God and man together in one person Without confusion, without any sort of loss of either nature, he's fully God, fully man, together in one person With regard to his humanity, he's a descendant of King David The Old Testament prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a physical descendant of King David and will sit on his throne forever In other words, he will be the king over God's people and God's kingdom forever And the reason he will be that forever is because he's also God and he triumphs over death, something David could not do He's the promised one, Philip tells Nathaniel, verse 46, notice Nathaniel's response Nathaniel said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, come and see Now this is a most interesting response, Philip is just told Nathaniel the Messiah is here, he's from Nazareth The chosen one, the one prophesied down to the ages, thousands of years of redemptive history, he's here And what is Nathaniel's response? He's kind of a downer, isn't he? There's a little bit of doubt, disillusionment, disenchantment, perhaps, that we could read into his response The world has gotten to Nathaniel He's starting to believe that there are places in the world where God can't work There are people in the world that God can't redeem, there's darkness in the world that the light of Christ cannot overcome Could anything good come out of Nazareth? Now the obvious implication for this is you, every one of us has a Nazareth in our heart Maybe we have multiple Nazareth in our heart In our world, in our society, we have a Nazareth on almost every corner There are dark places in the world and in ourselves to which we could all point and say, can any good come out of that? Could any good be done there? Could the darkness be overcome? In the light shine forth in that place, what is Philip's response? Come and see What is John told us in the verses leading up to this? That God's light has shined into the world, the darkness has not understood it, but more importantly, what else did he say? The darkness has not overcome it This is one of the great teachings of the gospel of John Is that God is advancing in the world, and he will not be stopped pessimism, cynicism, well understandable, disillusionment, disenchantment Well, we can be very empathetic toward those things, and God is, God understands what we feel and ways we can't understand There's still this place though If we were really to see Christ and really to know Him as He is, those fears would receive with the light of faith shining upon them And that's where Jesus is about to take Nathaniel In verse 47, Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward Him and said to Him, behold, and Israel, indeed In whom there is no deceit I want you to imagine this scene because it requires a little bit of imagination I want you to imagine a guy named Nathaniel who does not know Jesus Christ at all He just heard about him from Philip And Philip says come and see and he takes him toward this Jesus figure And Jesus runs out to meet him as it were Behold An Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no deceit What would your response be? If somebody you'd never met suddenly approached you and acted as though they knew you You'd be a little perplexed But intrigued at the very least And Nathaniel is, verse 48, and Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? Jesus answered him before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you Nathaniel answered him, rabbi, you are the son of God You're the king of Israel I want to make you a private confession I would probably need a little bit more than that to believe in Jesus If Jesus said to me, I saw you under the fig tree I would go, big wolf So you saw me under a tree What does that mean? Well, this passage is actually caused a little bit of consternation to commentators Many people wondering what is it that Jesus is doing in that statement that is so compelling to Nathaniel That he would respond in such an over the top way Now, keep in mind, Jesus turned water into wine He's going to help paralytics walk again He's going to help people without sight Suddenly see Those who can't hear hear He's going to perform some amazing miracles This is honestly at first glance First reading A less than shocking miracle I saw you under the fig tree You're God Well, I've surveyed many commentators Looking for a uniform explanation for why that's such a stunning revelation And there's a lot of conjecture, a lot of guessing And I would be honest with you, I don't feel comfortable sharing a whole lot of it Is though one guy figured it out over and another guy I don't honestly know what's so stunning What I do know is this And what I can say super confidently Is what we see in Christ's revelation that he saw Nathaniel first before Nathaniel saw him Was that before Nathaniel ever sought after Jesus? Jesus was seeking after him He knows who he is He's taken notice of him much earlier He's chosen him out of darkness to know the light And to not only know the light but to walk with Christ He is disciple And you need to know the same thing too In a very hidden way God is seeking you out Whether it's in adversity or in blessing Whether it's in obvious proclamation or in more subtle truth Whatever seeking after God you've done with your life It's only a mere reflection A great quest that God has undertaken to find you To rescue you, to redeem you and restore you Augustine was an early church father of whom I'm very fond He wrote a book called Confessions after he came to faith in Christ And in the book Confessions it's an autobiography He recounts the many ways in which God was graciously working to lead him out of darkness into life And we oftentimes have that saying hindsight is 2020 Augustine could see after coming to faith in Christ How so much of his life that's appeared meaningless for so many years, even decades, suddenly made sense That every step of the way God was pursuing him, preparing him, calling him home And I want you to see that the preparation we have by God to come home leads us from pessimism to passion To believe that God has made promises that he's fulfilled But that there are even more promises we have yet to see And that brings us to the close of the passage in verse 50 Jesus answered him because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? That's what he says next, you will see greater things than these In so many words Jesus is saying, you haven't seen anything yet And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened And the angels of God is sending and descending on the Son of Man This actually harkens back to the book of Genesis In Genesis, chapter 28, Jacob whose name has later changed to Israel He's one of the patriarchs, the father of the nation of Israel Before he comes to a saving understanding of God and his promise Before he comes to really rely on God, he's a liar He's filled with deceit His very name Jacob means tricky A person who is conniving and twisting the truth But the night he goes to sleep and rests his head on a rock He sees a vision of what God is going to do in the world And what God is going to do in his own life He rests his head on a rock, he sees a dream, a vision of a ladder Coming down from heaven in angels coming down and going up the ladder A connection between heaven and earth A reestablishment of communication, a world that's been divorced by sin and fallen Is being reunited with heaven above God is establishing contact through Jacob will eventually come the Messiah In here in this passage, John records Jesus saying that he is that ladder You'll see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man Christ chosen designation for himself Jesus Christ is the gateway He's the only mediator between God and man And through Jesus Christ heaven and earth will be reunited Remember how Jesus taught His disciples to pray That God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven Remember Jesus' great promise, the kingdom of God The kingdom of heaven is here Slowly, steadily, stealthily, it advances God is preparing to call out of darkness into light even more And releasing them from pessimism To the glorious promise of the world restored A promise that should fill us not with pessimism but with passion The gospel of John is the story that God has not left the world in darkness And in sin, it's the story that now he's doing a new thing And those who have been called out of darkness into glorious light Don't need to live lives characterized by pessimism, cynicism, anxiety and worry Though God will still love them even if they do We're free from those things Because we know behind all that we see with our eyes and hear with our ears is a deeper truth That God will love the world He's sent his one and only son that whoever believes in him is not parish But have everlasting life Your future is glorious Whether you feel the full weight of that glory now or not You're moving onward toward glory Keep moving Father God, we thank you for your truth And we thank you that in whatever circumstance of life we find ourselves We're confident that you are for us by grace So, Father, whether there are folks here this morning struggling with family relationships Maybe marriage relationships, maybe parenting, maybe caring for an older parent If there's strife, if there's division, remind them that you were at work Even in the adversity pointing us to you Father, for those who are struggling financially Who are experiencing worry in the workplace or remind them that you're there That whatever our Nazareth is, your light penetrates and shines brightly And that you're working in the darkness to bring light into the world Father, if we have struggles with our health, with our own emotional well-being Or whatever circumstance or trial weighs us down Remind us that we're more than conquerors in Christ And that in all things you're working for the good of those you've called according to your purpose We pray it in Jesus' name, amen