John 1 35 thru 51


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1 “Come and See,” John 1:35-51 (February 22, 2015) 35

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). 42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter). 43

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found 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.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael 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.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 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.” 51 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.” PRAY We are in finishing up today a series on evangelism at Grace Bible Church. Evangelism means the duty of a Christian to go out and tell other people the good news of Jesus Christ. Our church and four other churches in town – Christ Presbyterian, Community Church of Oxford, College Hill Presbyterian, and First Baptist Church – are all studying the same Scriptures and trying to answer the same questions each Sunday, and of course as you’ve heard we’ll get together tonight at First Baptist to worship. Now if you’ve been coming to Grace the last three Sundays you know that we’ve focused on questions like “what is the gospel?,” “who is to share the gospel?,” and especially heart-related, motivational questions like, “Where do we get the power to share the gospel?” or “what will motivate us to share the gospel?” And I’m glad we did that because if you don’t have the right motivational drive in your heart, you’ll never consistently tell people about Jesus. But we haven’t been practical yet – I haven’t given you any steps you can take, or any ideas you can implement this week to start doing evangelism. We’ll cover that today.

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

2 Our text for this morning is John 1, and it’s a great text for evangelism, because of a phrase that used several times: “come and see.” Over and over again in this passage, we have people bringing their friends, their siblings, to “come and see” Jesus. That’s the heart of evangelism. So let me show you two things this morning from this text: first, why you should want to come and see Jesus. Second, how you can get others to come and see Jesus. First, what happens when you come and see Jesus. Like I said, I’ve promised to be practical, and give believers good tips and tactics for how they can put themselves in the position to tell the good news of Jesus to others. But if that’s all I did, then there wouldn’t be much of anything for those who are here today and aren’t Christians. If that’s you – if you are here today and you don’t yet believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and God, if you haven’t given your life to him – I want to talk to you for a few minutes and show you why you should want to come and see about Jesus. Three things: first, come and see that Jesus will make you what he calls you. Look back at verse 42: Andrew has met Jesus, and Andrew goes and gets his brother Siomn, and introduces him to Jesus, and then we read that “Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas’ (which, when translated, is Peter).” And of course Cephas is Aramaic and Peter is Greek and both words mean “rock.” The apostle Peter is the original “The Rock.” Now, what’s so significant about that? Changing someone’s name – what’s the big deal? Say, for example, that your given name is Christopher, but then, just before your freshman year of high school, you want to remake yourself, start over, so you decide to start calling yourself Topher. Is that really significant? Does that mean that you will be changed, and high school is destined to be different than middle school? Well, no, because when we change our own names we do it in the hope that things will be different. But when God changes our names it guarantees things will be different. Peter, we know from the Bible, was not always a rock – he was more like Silly Puddy – full of doubts about Jesus. He doubted Jesus when Jesus invited him to come and walk on the water on the Sea of Galilee. He doubted Jesus so much that, during Jesus’ trial, he denied Jesus three times. Yet all the while, Jesus was working on Peter, changing him, shaping him, refining him, so that one day Peter would truly be a foundation, a rock, upon which Jesus would build his church – Peter would be the first great leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem. If you will come and see Jesus, he will change you. Right now, you may be full of anger. Your name might be “anger” – everyone and everything around you seems to set you off. You are so discontent at work or at home or both. But if you will come and see Jesus, he will give you a new name – you won’t be angry forever, and he will make you what he calls you.

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

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Right now, you may be ready to give up on your marriage. You’ve been unfaithful in the past and you’re afraid you’re going to be unfaithful in the future – your name might be “unfaithful”. But if you will come and see Jesus, he will give you a new name – you won’t be unfaithful anymore, you can be faithful, and he will make you what he calls you. Jesus will begin to apply the names of the fruit of the spirit to you as soon as he calls you: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and selfcontrol.” Over time, you will find these names fit you more and more comfortably. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were known for those things? But it will only happen over time. These changes don’t happen overnight – it may years and years – it took years and years for Peter. But keep going to Jesus, keeping coming and seeing him, and he will give you a new name and he will shape you to fit it. Or as the old hymn says: “The work which his goodness began, the arm of his strength will complete. His promise is yea and Amen, and never was forfeited yet. Things future nor things that are now, not all things below of above, can make Him his purpose forego, nor sever my soul from his love.” Come and see Jesus, and he will change you, because God will make you what he calls you. Second, come and see Jesus and you will find he already knows all about you. Philip tells Nathanael to “come and see,” and in verses 47-49 we read this: 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael 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.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” What does the fig tree mean here? Some commentators have said that Jesus was wandering around Galilee a few days earlier and actually physically saw Nathanael sitting under a fig tree, and then he recognized Nathanael when Philip introduced them and that’s what the fig tree means. But if that’s all that was going on, then Nathanael would have said, “Oh, really? You saw me? Ok.” From time to time in my life I’ve had occasion to learn a little bit about someone before I met them, and the person might say, “How did you know that?” and be a little intrigued. But you know, not once have I done that and had anyone say to me, “J.D., you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!” Whatever the fig tree meant it was something so personal, so meaningful to Nathanael, that when Jesus said it, Nathanael was astonished. It was something that Nathanael thought no one could ever possibly know about him. Nathanael just stared back at Jesus and said: “How did you…? How could you… You must be the Son of God!” It was from way back, or it went deep into Nathanael’s heart. Nathanael came to see Jesus only to find that Jesus had long past since past known all about him.

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

4 And if you come and see Jesus, you also will find that he knows all about you. One of my favorite titles for Jesus is “Wonderful Counselor.” And he is a wonderful counselor. Good counselors know the people they counsel, and the more they know the people they counsel the better advice they can give – they can cut through all the confusion and the rabbit trails and get right to the heart of the issue and look at the person they’re counseling and say, “This is what’s going on in your heart. This is why you feel the way you do. You’ve been thinking it’s this, or that, or the other, but really this is the issue you must deal with.” And friends that is what Jesus does to all who come to him. You will find that if you will come and see Jesus that he knows all about you – the Son of God knows you and loves you, for who you are. Come to him now as you are; don’t try to clean yourself up first. Come as you are, because Jesus loves you as you are, but he won’t leave you where you are. You will find that knows what your besetting sins, your fears, your worries and your idols really are, and one by one Jesus will rid you of them and place your hope in Christ alone, and be satisfied in him. Third, come to Jesus and see that he is all you need. Verse 50-51 are rather cryptic at first glance: “Jesus answered him [Nathanael], “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 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.” What is that about? Jesus here is referring to Genesis 28 – the story of Jacob’s ladder. Do you remember the story of Jacob? Fleeing for his life from his brother Esau, in absolute despair, he falls asleep with his head on a stone, and he sees a vision of a ladder, and angels going up and down. Angels coming down a ladder from the presence of God. And we read that Jacob built a monument out of that stone and called it, “Bethel, the house of God,” and we read this: Genesis 28:17: And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” The way into heaven is a gate – it’s not an obstacle course that you must master, it’s not a mountain you must climb before you can get into heaven, it’s a gate – and the gate is either open or closed to you. Why would Jesus refer to that story? Because he was saying, “Nathanael, I am the gate of heaven that Jacob saw. I am the way to heaven – no man gets into heaven but through me. I will die on the cross in your place, Nathanael, for your sins, and if you believe that God sent me to do that for you, and that God accepts you because of me, then heaven is open to you, Nathanael.” Jesus is the gate, he is the way to heaven, and think about it: friends, if the gate to heaven is open to you, what else could you need? Put it this way: if you really believed Jesus is the way into everlasting joy and everlasting life, and Jesus knows you, if you really

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

5 believed that, what else could you want? Would you fret over so many of the things you worry about every day? I don’t think so. If you’re here today and you are not a Christian, do you at least see why we as Christians want to get you to come and see Jesus? We believe that he is the gate to heaven, he is the pathway to all joy and happiness, he is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Lion of Judah, and the fairest of ten thousand. I think that if we believe that then it would be unloving and downright demonic for to not go to you and say, “Come and see” Jesus. Now, practically, second, how to get others to come and see Jesus. Answer: almost always (there are exceptions, but they prove the rule) almost always the way you come and see Jesus is through a friend. I do know some people who came to faith in Christ by listening to John MacArthur preach on the radio – I’ve actually met several people like that over the years. But the overwhelming majority of people came to faith in Christ because a friend or family member came to them and said, “Come and see.” And my favorite thing about this passage is that friends are bringing friends to come and see Jesus. John the Baptist brings Andrew and one other disciple to Jesus (most commentators think it’s John, who wrote the book). Andrew brings Peter. Philip brings Nathanael. There’s a good argument to be made from the text that Andrew brings Philip as well. So, Jesus doesn’t go to any of these men directly, no minister brought them, they’re all brought by friends. And that’s the way almost everyone becomes a Christian – some Christian came to them and said, “Come and see.” So here we get practical. Here are eleven ideas how an average Christian can invite someone else to “come and see” Jesus. Obviously, if you’re an above average Christian, you’ll be better at evangelism than others. The more thoroughly you understand the Bible, the better you can apply the gospel to your own life, the more you know about how to defend the faith against philosophical arguments, the better evangelist you’ll be. You’ll be able to do things evangelistically that us mere mortals will not. And, obviously, if you’re an extreme extrovert, always striking up conversations with strangers, then you’ll be better at this. And, finally, if you find yourself because of where you live or your job or your program of study always around lots of people who don’t believe, then you’ll be more successful simply because you’ll have lots more opportunities to tell people about Jesus. But I’m not talking to you today. These ideas are for the average Christian, in the average situation in Oxford, Mississippi. I’ve ranked these from easiest to most difficult, at least they are to me. First, if you know someone who is not a Christian, or if you don’t know of anyone specifically but you want to tell others about Jesus, pray every day for some extended period of time – four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks – that you would have a natural opportunity to talk with someone about Jesus. In my experience God loves to answer than kind of prayer, and plus it will simply make you more aware of the opportunities that do come your way.

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

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Second, you talk to someone at work or school or in the neighborhood, and this person is someone whom you’ve never talked to about Christianity before. And this person starts talking about a struggle they’re having, some problems at work or at home or with their health or whatever, and you say, “You know, I do go to church, and therefore, I’m going to pray for you regularly for the next couple of weeks and see whether that helps.” The other person says, “Really? Thank you.” Third, invite someone you know to church on a Sunday morning (from work, from school, from the neighborhood). And don’t just invite them – go and pick them up. This is especially effective when you are in high school or college. Go, pick them up, participate in the service, and then take them out to lunch afterward and ask them what they thought about the sermon – what did they think about it? Like about it? Hate about it? Did it make any sense to them? And see where the conversation goes. Fourth, you’re at church one Sunday and you see someone you know from work here (and because it’s a small town this kind of thing happens a lot), but you know this person is not a Christian. So after the service you go up to her and say, “Hey, it’s great to see you here – have you been coming to Grace for a while?” And they say, “No, I just heard about it from a friend of mine and decided to come this morning.” And you reply, “Hey, could I buy you coffee one day this week and talk about the sermon and the service – I’d love to hear what you thought about it?” And go from there. Fifth (credit Mark Dever): make it a part of your life to visit the same restaurants, barbers, dry cleaners, bank tellers, and take the time to get to know those who serve you so that you can build relationships and, over time, share the gospel with people. I did this with my barber, and it turned out that she was already a Christian. That’s ok. At restaurants, tip well and that will always help get the conversation started. Sixth, invite someone to your community group or a Bible study that you’re already a part of. And just like with church, ask them afterwards what they thought about it. Seventh, volunteer to coach a little league team (soccer, baseball, basketball). Get to know the parents, and see if opportunities to invite people to church or to pray for them or their kids don’t show up. Warning: don’t volunteer to coach little kids unless you like little kids in the first place. If you don’t, you probably won’t be much of an evangelist to the kids or the parents. Eighth, a new family moves in across the street, and you invite them over for supper one night, and at some point in the night you work up the courage say, “I know you are new to town, and my wife and are a Christians and attend this church. And obviously no pressure, but if you are looking for a church you’re welcome to come with us, whether you are a Christian or not. And if you’re not a Christian, I’d love to hear what your beliefs are.” And, listen closely to what they say, and see if they’d like to hear from you what a Christian is.

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

7 Ninth, you’re a guy, and as a rule men hate talking about intimate stuff. But you have another guy at work, and you’ve been around him enough and heard enough from him to know that he has a lot of worries. He’s always anxious and stressed about money. So you work up your courage one day and say, “I can tell you’re worried about your finances, and I’ve wrestled with it, too. But there’s this book I got at church called Running Scared, by Ed Welch. I read it a few years ago and it really helped. Would it be okay if I bought you a copy and we met a few times to discuss it?” By the way, there are lots of great books, and if you are in a situation like this but the person isn’t struggling with worry, but instead anger, depression, guilt, I’ve got resources I can recommend to you. Tenth, you are married, and you and your spouse know another couple through work or school who are new to marriage, so both the husband and the wife very carefully and discreetly try to get the respective husband and wife to talk a little bit about marriage. At some point, you say something like, “I really couldn’t imagine being married and not understanding the good news of Jesus – it’s given my husband and me so much power for our marriage. Would you like to meet a couple of times and talk about that?” Eleventh, you are a young mother, and you have young children in the home, and when you go to the park or at the soccer fields, you find you’re always around lots of other young mothers with lots of questions about how to raise kids. So you invite the other moms into your home. Some of them believe, some don’t. The next thing you know, you find yourself talking with everybody about where they are spiritually, about whether they believe or don’t believe. After a while, they all agree, “Let’s do a Bible study together, even though we’re at different places,” and you agree to lead it. Like I said, some of these are harder than others – in fact, but all of them will take initiative and some of them you actually have open your mouth and share the gospel. Plus, all of them will require that you take a genuine interest in and care for other people, ore else people will feel like you’re selling a product, trying to get you into a multi-level marketing company. Christians are not selling; we’re sharing the gospel, the good news of Jesus. And you may be here and think, “There’s no way – sure, I could pray for someone, but J.D., for me, even inviting someone to church is a stretch.” If that’s you, and if you really do want to tell others about Jesus, then probably one of the main reasons you haven’t been doing that is fear. Fear of embarrassment, fear of discomfort, and you’re afraid that if you actually open your mouth what happened to Philip might happen to you. Read verses 45-46: “45 Philip found 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.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

© 2015 J.D. Shaw

8 Philip wants Nathanael to believe in Jesus – and what does Nathanael do? He asks Philip a hard question – how can Jesus be the Messiah if he’s from Nazareth? Everyone knows the Messiah is supposed to come from Bethlehem, Philip – so this guy you’re talking to me about can’t be the Messiah, can he? That’s a hard question – but I love what Philip does. He doesn’t try to argue with Nathanael. He doesn’t dismiss Nathanael’s question and say, “I should have known better than to cast pearls before swine like you, Nathanael,” nor does he say, “John the Baptist thinks this guy is the Messiah – who are you compared with him?” Philip has no idea what to say. So he just says, “Come and see.” He’s not worried about it. Too many times we feel like if we haven’t mastered the Bible, if we haven’t been certified in some kind of evangelistic technique, if we don’t have this awesome devotional life, then we can’t tell others about Jesus, and it’s just not true. Look at Philip – he doesn’t know anything. He’s been with Jesus for maybe twenty-four hours, but he knows enough to say, “Come and see.” Sometimes, most of the time, it’s enough. Friends, do you want to share your faith? Then open your eyes and look around at all the people around you, and go to them and say, “Come and see.” We are called to be witnesses of Jesus, but not expert witnesses. So often all it takes is to say, “Come and see.” The Holy Spirit delights to work through ignorant children of God like us who only know to say, “Come and see.” Friends, let’s pray right now our church will be full of Christians who love to humbly go to people and tell them “come and see.” PRAY

© 2015 J.D. Shaw