Transcription
Well, good morning. To be in the house of the Lord, amen. Turn with me, with your Bibles, to John chapter 1. We're going to dive into verses 45 through 51 this morning. So, as we continue through our series, "The 12," we have now reached, um, the next disciple in our series called Nathaniel. He also goes by the name Bartholomew. It's one of those names where I don't know quite where they got the name changed. I don't really know how you get Peter and Cephas, or Matthew and Levi, or um, James, then J—sometimes he's called in other places—but this is one of those disciples who tends to have different names. Um, so he goes by Bartholomew in most of the other gospels, but where we're going to look this morning, he goes by Nathaniel. So I don't know the story behind that. Um, there's some for U speculation, but the guys, I guess, like to nickname each other. So I don't know if sometimes they wrote their formal names, sometimes their given names, but he's one of those guys. So Nathaniel, um, we don't know too much about him except this scene. Um, but what I love from this scene, and it tends to be one of my favorite scenes from, actually, the TV show, *The Chosen*, but we'll talk about that a little later. But you might remember a few weeks ago when we, we studied the Apostle Andrew. Andrew and his buddy Philip were the two disciples who were the followers of John the Baptizer. And they hear, say, "Here's the Lamb of God who comes and takes away the sins of the world," and they immediately follow him. And he turns around and he has a conversation with him and he says, "Well, come and see." So while we talked about this with Andrew's sermon, he went and he found his brother Peter and he told him to come and see the Messiah, and we have that whole conversation there. But Philip also has a similar kind of trait where he went and immediately after having this conversation with Jesus, he goes to his friend Nathaniel and he invites him to come and see.
So this morning, as we're going to look at Nathaniel in this scene, we're going to see kind of this—it breaks down into the three parts: we're going to talk about the "come and see," the "I saw you," and the "you will see." But let's dive in and read our text as we see this this morning. This is in John 1:45-51. "And Philip found Nathaniel 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.' Nathaniel said to him, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' And Philip said to him, 'Come and see.' And Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, 'Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.' And 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.' And 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 open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.'"
So here's this quick story. We don't know too much else about Nathaniel. We don't know his past, we don't know his future; we don't, we don't really see a lot, but we see the scene of when he's called. And first, we see that his friend Philip comes and says, "Hey, we have found the one whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote about." So what we're going to learn about this morning, it, it all has a lot to do with seeing, but also that word ties in with knowing. I, I want you to take away this morning from these three points: The first one is, God is knowable. When he, when Philip comes to Nathaniel and he says, "We have found the one who Moses in the law wrote and the prophets also," he goes and he brings him the word of God and says, "Hey, we have found him." And this makes a lot of sense to Nathaniel, a Jewish man who, you know, they were waiting for the coming Messiah. And he goes and he brings him this, um, information that we have found him. And of course, there's his retort, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Because to them, Nazareth was the backwater town. Like, how is anything great and wonderful coming out of Nazareth? But he goes, he tells them, "We have found the one whom the prophets wrote of, who Moses and the law wrote of." So the first thing is we want to know that God is knowable, and he's known through his word. We see this in the book, uh, Romans chapter 10:17. So, "faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God." And even all the way in the Old Testament, in the book of Deuteronomy, it says in, uh, ch 4:7, "For what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever, whenever you call, whenever we call upon him." And in verse, in 304, still in Deuteronomy, it says, "But the Lord, but the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it." Even all the way back in the time of Moses, as they're talking about the word of God, that it's, it will declare God is knowable.
So here's the thing is that we see from this interaction first that God is knowable through his word, from, um, he's saying, "Hey, from the prophets of Mo, uh, prophets of Moses, this is the one who's declared." He's also knowable because of, of Nazareth, son of Joseph. I know that doesn't seem like much, but he says, "We, we found him, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." He's knowable not only because he's found in the word of God and he's revealed to us, but he's also, he came and he dwelt among us. In, uh, John 1:14, it says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." And in Matthew 1:23, it quotes the prophet Isaiah and it says, "And they shall call his name Immanuel," which means "God with us." Jesus presents himself as a knowable God, not, not a distant, mysterious God who you can't understand or you can't know, but a knowable God, one, one who is revealed in his word and the fact that he came and he dwelt among mankind, that you could see him and touch him and walk with him, and he is knowable. That is something completely different from the other gods of their time who you, you couldn't know them; they were, there was a distance. And here he is being a God who's presentable, a God who you can interact with and you can know him. He's not a mystery; you know, he's not a wonder. There's a huge group of people who struggle with this fact of, can you know God? Agnostics, um, people who are spiritual, maybe Universalists, where all roads eventually lead to God, if you know, you're good and you're kind, every way eventually leads to God. And agnostics, you, well, there might be a God, I don't know. And there's even what we'll call like the holiday Catholics, where we know, especially here in New England, where I'm Catholic because we went to church on Sundays and we went to church on Christmas. But if you ask them questions like, well, do you, how do you know God? Well, I, it's not too much different from the agnostic or from the Universalist. Well, if you're a good person, you know, you think things are going to work out your way, or yeah, I think there's a higher power, but they really don't have this deeper knowledge of a, of a God who you can know. We'd like to talk about that God, Jesus Christ, is a person that, who we can know. But a lot of people struggle with this knowability of God, like he's, he's a con, he's a spiritual force, he, he's, he's there's something out there, there's something higher up, but I don't know if I can know him, interact with him. And but Jesus is already defining himself as a God who you can know from his word and from the fact that he came and he dwelt among us.
The reason that people struggle with this is for two reasons: First is accountability. If there's a God who you can know, then you have to ask hard questions. Where were you when I walked through this, God? Why do you allow these awful things in the Ukraine, in the world, to happen? How come you say you love me so much, and yet I have to go through these struggles? My parents' divorce, my kids are hungry, I lost my job, where is that? Because if God is a knowable God, a personal God, then it becomes a question where there's, there's difficulty of, if you're a person, then why have you let me down? Why have you done what you done? If you're a personal God, then why do people go to, what, where is all these? And these become difficult questions that people don't want to address. It's like, I would rather a generic God who I can't know, some force that just, you know, it does what it does and it's the spark of the universe, but I can't know it. But God reveals himself as a personal God, a knowable God, and that can be difficult for people because then it has to ask hard questions of, where were you? How do these things play out? Why do things play out the way they do? But even also, not just accountability, but authority. If God is a knowable God, then you have to answer to someone. If there is a higher power in heaven who has a name, who sits on the throne of Heaven and Earth, then it's just not whatever I think is best, or whatever I want to do, or whatever. There is someone you have to answer to, and that's uncomfortable because we'd rather have no accountability. I don't want to have to think, well, my actions are judged by someone at the end of the day. And this can be a difficult thing of why people would rather say, I don't want a knowable God. I want, I like that generic lowercase g of, there's, there's some powerful thing in the universe who knows all things eventually work out to heaven, but Jesus presents himself as a knowable God, someone who is revealed both in his word and of the fact that he came to Earth. We talked about this, I believe last week in Bible study, that the fact that archaeology and things prove the stories of the Bible. Now we can see, taste, and touch history and know that Jesus Christ dwelt among, among us, the, the proof of Immanuel. And he is knowable, he's tangible, he came and dwelt among us. We see the evidence both in his word and in his presence. So "come and see" just directly refers to God being knowable. But then we go on—so that was verses 45-46 of our passage—but then we go on in the section, "I saw you," verses 47-49.
I love this part, and I said I mentioned it earlier from *The Chosen*. There's a bit of artistic license in that show, I agree, but the scene in this show, *The Chosen*, where they meet Nathaniel, I love it because they give a little backstory that we don't know if it's true, but you wonder where he had an awful, horrible experience, and he's in the down in the depths of despair, and he's sitting underneath the fig tree, and he's crying out to the heavens saying, "God, where are you? Do you see me?" And then he meets Jesus that day through his friend Philip. And Jesus says, "When you were under the fig tree, I saw you," and it completely blows this man away. Now, I don't know if that's the reality of history, but I love the poetic imagery. It makes me think of the story of Hagar, all the way back in Genesis. There was the patriarch of the Jewish people, Abraham, and you might remember the story of everyone through Sunday school that Abraham was promised, "One day you'll become the patriarch of a mighty nation." He was in his 90s, so that was seeming like it was going to be a little far off or impossible. So his wife Sarah came up with a great plan: "We're going to help God along, and I'm going to give you my servant and you can sleep with her and have a baby." It always goes great when we try to help God with his promises, doesn't it? And that works out. He has a son named Ishmael, and Sarah hates them both and mistreats them and abuses them and casts them off, and they're alone in the wilderness dying. And God encounters Hagar and says, "Go back. I, I will make your son a mighty nation because of who his father is. You'll be provided for. Go back." And in Genesis 16:3, she says this—she gives him my second favorite name in the Bible, from Jesus to this name—and it's Elroi. It says it, she gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her, "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the God who sees me." I love that story. This is not a woman who was like extremely religious or righteous or like have any other conversation about knowing and following the God, Abraham, the Lord. But God shows himself to her, and she gives him the name, "the God who sees me." So often times we feel like, hey, if there's a God in heaven, he's got too many big problems to see me, even if I can know him. It's like the equivalent of, I know Donald Trump. I know he's the ex-president, a presidential candidate, uh, you know, millionaire, blah, blah, blah. I know him; he doesn't know me. It's a difference between knowing a celebrity and being known by somebody. And that's often sometimes how we feel. God, we know God, yeah, I, I read, I read his autobiography, you know, it's bestseller, you know, but he doesn't really know me. But he does; he knows you. He is the God who sees you. Now, yes, that becomes sometimes painful when we ask those hard accountability questions of God. If you are a knowable God and you see me, why do I go through the ups and downs in life? Why do I go through the despair and the trial? Why d—and it can be done hard, and it becomes the whole conversation of how we walk by faith and trusting in the God who sees us, because he promises he loves us and works all things out for the good of those who are known in him. And that can be hard, like with my children. They don't understand sometimes why I bring them to the doctor, why they get shots, why they have to go through those things, and it hurts and it's uncomfortable, and they say, "Daddy, why?" And I have to hold them down, and I say, "I know it hurts, but I'm allowing this for a reason." And in the same way, we have that limited understanding of what God allows into our lives, but he promises he loves us, he promises he cares for us, he promises he will work all things, and that there come will come a day where he will wipe away every tear. And if we can trust in him, because like we said last week in, uh, Sunday school, how do you know you can trust someone? How do you know if it's true? If the evidence backs it up, you look to the Cross, you look to the empty tomb, and you know Jesus is a man of his word and he will back it up. His love for you is shown on the Cross; his power and victory are shown in the Tomb. So when he promises every tear will be wiped away, he has given us no evidence to believe that he will not keep his promise. But he is a God you can know, and he's a God who knows you, not generically, personally. I love where it says in the Psalms, in Psalm 139:13, it says, "For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." You might be a mistake of your parents; we all know that, you know, there's world struggles with mistakes and abandonment issues and these things. It's like you might be told your whole life you were a mistake, you shouldn't have happened, you shouldn't be here, but you were never a mistake for a moment in God's eyes. He knows you, and he wants you to know him. So he revealed himself to us through his word. He couldn't, he didn't have to give us a word. He could have been the distant absentee God who sparked creation and then said, "Good luck, hope you figure out what I want." That was the god of the Romans and the Greeks. You had to figure out and hope that you pleased them, because sometimes they were just going to shake things up, and you never knew when you're pleasing them, you never knew what they wanted. That's not the God of the Bible. He is a God who wrote a 66-book love letter to you so you could know him, because he already knows you. The book of Ephesians 1:4, it says, "Before the foundations of the world he knew you and chose you in Christ Jesus." You were never for a moment a mistake that God just had to figure out what to do with. He knew you, he loves you, and he wants you to know him. So he revealed himself in his person, he revealed himself in his word, and he says, "Come and see," and "I saw you." This is the God who Philip is, uh, Nathaniel's encountered. So immediately, his reaction here, we see in verses 30, uh, 50-51, he says, "Teacher, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel." I don't know what happened under that fig tree, but it was enough convincing that Jesus knew it and Nathaniel knew it that this is the God who sees me. This, this isn't some good weird Rabbi in the wilderness. If he was friends with Philip, he might have already been re-invited to revivals at John the Baptizer's campaigns, you know, he might already have heard some crazy preachers in the wilderness, but he encounters a God who's knowable and knows him, and it completely, on a pin drop, says, "You are the Son of God." Not only does God is knowable and wants us to know him, he will make himself known. He is not a mystery; he is not, um, something that we have to just guess at. He will make himself known, and he does it by two ways. He does it by his Holy Spirit. In John 14:26, it says, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." He will make himself known. He doesn't just leave mysteries and little tidbits and clues; he will make himself know, and he first does that through his word and through the Holy Spirit. There's a reason that the Bible talks about so much. We become a temple of the Living God, that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and those in us who have, have a relationship with Jesus Christ, that he's not there just so we can say, "Oh, hey, Spirit lives in me, that's cool." He says he's come for a purpose, and that purpose is to teach us and to remind us of what Christ has taught and to help us know him. He will make himself known. It's the reason why we become the temple of God, so we will, we will, he will be made known to us. But then he also is made known by his church. Like we said last week, I believe he was either in Sunday school or the in the sermon, there's a reason why when you come to know Christ, we're not just poofed into heaven. If the whole point was a ticket to heaven, then why after we say our sinner's prayer and we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouth of the Lord Jesus, then we just instantly Rapture up to heaven? Like, why are we here? Why are we going through the ups and the downs and the turmoils and the storms? Because God uses us as part of his redemption plan. He's including us and inviting us to participate in the gospel story. He doesn't need us to, but we get to participate in it. So he uses the church. In Ephesians, uh, 3:10, it says, "His purpose was that now through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the, uh, to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms." And in Romans 10:14, it says, "And how will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" There's a reason we are here, to further the Kingdom of Heaven, to help make him known. We get to participate in that; we get to be Philips to the Nathanieis in our lives. We get to go and say, "Hey, come and see. Hey, there is a God who is knowable and knows you. Come and see." We get to be a part of that relationship. That is why we are here and not just swooped up into heaven. We get to be a Philip to the Nathanieis in our lives. So he has told us that he is a knowable God; he has told us that he's a God who knows us; he told us that he's a God who will make himself known. I love this story of Nathaniel; I really do. The fact that he is the God who sees me, the God who knows me and makes himself known and will continue to make himself known is huge. It's one of the reasons why we are here, not just for private worship, not just so we can hang out together, even though we're all great, love and appreciate all of you, but that we come together and that we will make his name known and that we can know the God who knows us through his word. It's why we're not just living through mysteries and wonders and hope, God, hope at the end of the day my scale evens out, hope at the end of the day God saw my good stuff. God says, "You can know me just like I know you. Now go make me known." Let's pray. Heavenly God, Father, please, thank you for this day. We thank you for who you are and that we could know you. But thank you so much, Father, that you know us first. I pray, Lord, Lord, that we would just go out from this place refreshed in your spirit, Lord, and that we would go and make you known in our lives and in our workplaces, in our schools. Father God, thank you for being the God we could know; thank you for being the God who sees us, in your Son's name I pray, amen. Amen.