Last Sunday, while you were all gathered here together worshiping our Lord with our dear friend Bill Lindner, I was stepping off of a boat. Literally, we stepped off of the boat at 9:47 am on Sunday morning. We had just finished a week long cruise with Amy’s family, all 21 of us, and we were even missing a few. After getting through all the lines, baggage claim, customs agents, loading/unloading zones, and finally getting on the road to head back to Houma, Amy and I were finally given the chance to exhale. What was especially funny was that we arrived back in Houma about the exact same time that we had left exactly one week earlier. As I thought about this, it made me think about how long a week truly is. In one sense, it felt like we just left, while there was also a feeling that we had been gone forever. Whereas my time on the boat, stopping in Jamaica, Grand Caymans, Cozumel, and then returning home, seems like a blur and feels like it happened too fast, there are a lot of things that I can take from it. I have a ton of memories from our trip. There were a lot of events, meals, and memorable moments that happened along the way. It was truly an amazing week reconnecting with family and connecting with some family that we had never really spent much time around.
As eventful as my week might have been, it still hails in comparison to another week that has been on my mind as of late. No, I’m not talking about this past week at the EPC General Assembly in Baton Rouge. An amazing week spent in worship and fellowship with many of my brothers and sisters in the EPC; a time where we could very much feel the real presence of God himself there with us as we conducted our business. Although this too was an incredible week, it isn’t the week that I have in mind. The week that I am thinking of is the week that is occurring in John’s gospel. Remember back when we started our journey into John’s gospel, we said that the first chapter and a half of John’s gospel occurred over the course of 7 days. Our text today covers days 3 and 4 of this momentous week (the hump days); and what happens on days 3 and 4 of this first week of Jesus’ earthly ministry is that he calls his first disciples to follow him. Over the course of these 17 verses, Jesus calls Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathanael to be his disciples. Now, in our modern society, when we hear the term disciple, we immediately think of THE disciples. We think of those who went with Jesus and sat constantly under his teachings, in order that they might adequately spread the news that the Messiah had come. These men who played such a vital role in the establishment of the church and the spread of the gospel so embody what this word disciple means, that they have become the primary definition of the word. That being the case, let’s look at the account of events that took place during Jesus’ calling of his first disciples.
Now, this account of four disciples being called isn’t just done in a matter-of-fact way. It isn’t even done as a unified event. This calling happens on 2 consecutive days with 2 disciples being called each day. Our first account, the calling of Andrew and Peter, is a fairly simple one. Jesus is walking by John the Baptist once again. This time John has two others with him, one of whom was a man named Andrew, who after hearing John the Baptist refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, seemingly immediately follows him. Jesus, seeing that these 2 men are now following him asks them what they’re doing and what they want. Referring to Jesus as Rabbi (teacher) the two men ask him where he is staying. Jesus doesn’t say an exact location, but instead says, “Come and you will see.” These two men follow Jesus and sit with him. The language here tells us that they had little regard for themselves and their need for rest, but they just wanted to learn from the teacher, the Messiah. As Andrew told his brother Peter, “We have found the Messiah.” Andrew went and found his brother Peter and told him the good news and Peter came and saw Jesus. Peter knew the moment that he met Jesus that the Savior had come. What a glorious moment this must have been in Peter’s heart.
And I don’t want to dwell too much on this one fact, but Andrew and Peter indeed were brothers. Andrew’s words to his brother about finding the Messiah show the joy that they have in Christ. Andrew couldn’t, wouldn’t, or shouldn’t keep this excitement that he had to himself. He brings Peter to Jesus and we see what wonderful joy there is in Peter’s heart and in the words of Jesus himself. And it’s at this point that I want to ask you a personal question. No, I don’t expect everyone to answer me, but I just want you to think for a second about your family. Do you know what the relationship between your family and Christ is? Do you have any clue which members of your family cling to the cross and which ones resist? Or perhaps an easier question for us to answer is not DO I KNOW, but what have I done to nurture the Christian faith within my own family? You see, family is the closest group that we have in our society. Unfortunately, those closest to us are often times the ones that we have the most difficult time sharing our faith with. Discussions about religion tend to magnify and point out everyone’s differences and so we keep that kind of talk to a minimum for the sake of decency. We would rather, at times, discuss our faith with a complete stranger instead of our closest friends and especially our family. Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves. I’ll get to whether or not we even do this in just a moment. Friends, I challenge you to be an exception to this rule. Follow the example of Andrew; be overjoyed at the possibility to share the good news with your family and take full advantage of such a blessing.
Now that’s the first calling account that we have for us in our text today. The second calling of disciples by Jesus isn’t about two brothers; they aren’t even from the same town, but their story does begin in a very similar fashion to that of Andrew and Peter. A man named Philip hears Jesus say, “Follow me.” So, Philip obeys and follows Jesus. Much in the same way that Andrew found Peter, Philip goes and finds Nathanael. Philip tells Nathanael something very similar to what Andrew told Peter. Nathanael’s response, however, isn’t like that of Peter’s. Nathanael, after hearing the found Messiah referred to as Jesus of Nazareth, responds with, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Well, that’s a heck of a response to this news, but let’s don’t be too harsh on Nathanael just yet. You see, he was from Cana, a village just north of Nazareth, and it’s likely that there was somewhat of a rivalry between Nazareth and Cana. It’s kind of like if someone tells me that they are from Oxford, MS and that university that sits up there (TSUN), my response might be, “Can anything good come out of Oxford?” It’s not that Oxford, or more importantly Nazareth, has or had a bad reputation, but there is just a little personal bias shown. I want you to notice the beauty in Philip’s answer to this question. He doesn’t rebuke him or even get mad at Nathanael. His words are simple, yet profound: “Come and see.” If I could elaborate upon Philip’s words, “come and see for yourself. Once you have seen this man, you will know without a doubt that not only has something good come out of Nazareth, but something great. You might even say that instead of something good, it is all that is good that has come out of that village.”
These few words, “come and see” are still needed today. We mentioned earlier in the case of Andrew and Peter that there is great need for pointing our own family to Christ, but we see here that it doesn’t stop with family. It extends to our friends, our co-workers, and to all mankind. We know that great and wonderful news of Christ even better than Philip did at this time. It is our job to turn to our fellow men and women and to tell them, “come and see Christ Jesus.” Why, there is even more of an advantage for us today because so many have already heard of Jesus Christ. Even those who do not believe in Christ at this moment, many of them have already been exposed to the good news held within God’s word. We need to have faith when we say to them, “come and see.” There are people all over the world, including right here in Houma, LA, who are longing and waiting to hear someone tell them to come and see Jesus Christ the Lord.
It’s at this point where we might ask ourselves, “Well, what happens when they come and see Christ for themselves?” I don’t think we need look any further than what happens with Nathanael. After coming to see Jesus, Nathanael is convinced. Jesus begins by saying that he knows Nathanael is an honest man. After some discourse, Nathanael calls Jesus Rabbi, the Son of God. This phrase acknowledges that Nathanael believes Jesus to be the Messiah. Jesus, then in his wisdom, tells him that if he believes now, he hasn’t seen anything yet. He tells him that there are even greater things to come, which is astounding to Nathanael because to the Jews of that day, there was nothing greater than the mere coming of the promised Messiah. Look at the final verse in our text, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Friends, all of us in this room have come to know Christ in a variety of ways. For as many of us as are in this room right now, there are as many different stories about how God reached out and claimed us as His own. And the wonderful thing about it is, we haven’t seen anything yet. All of the blessings and all of the joy that we have experienced whether as a new Christian or someone who has faithfully served for a lifetime hails in comparison to what is yet to come. We have seen today the example set forth by not only our Savior in the calling of his disciples, but we have seen men just like you and me call for others to come and sit with Christ. Let’s all labor unceasingly for the cross. Share the good news of the gospel with those around you. Share what God has done in your life and how He has worked through you to bring you to where you are today. Invite them to church, to Bible studies, or even just invite them to pray with you. Because we know without a doubt, that once someone has come and seen our Savior, that they will follow him to the ends of the earth. We haven’t seen anything yet when it comes to the power of our Lord God Almighty. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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