Untitled Sermon
Come and See
In this passage, we see the account of how Jesus Christ met his first disciples. In this passage, we see something offered to us that is neither the new spirituality nor the old traditional religion. It’s neither a sort of vague and general sense of spiritual well being, nor is it a new set of rules. It’s an encounter with a concrete but living Person
The key is this repeated phrase: “Come and see.” In both the first part and the second part, we see the way into Jesus is, “Come and see.” What does that mean?
“Come and watch me. Come and get to know me. Come and see how I live. Come and see how I speak. Come and see what I do.” Then of course the second time “Come and see” comes up is when Philip comes to Nathanael. Philip goes to his friend Nathanael and says, “I found the Messiah.”
Now Nathanael comes back with an extremely valid and difficult question. Everybody at that time knew the Messiah would come out of Bethlehem, would come out of the line of David. So he looks at Philip and he says, “This is the Messiah. He is from Galilee. He is from Nazareth. How could he be the Messiah?”
2. “Come and see” means come and follow; change your life
The word come means I move from where I am to here. I make a change. The reason Jesus says, “Come,” is because he wants them to follow. He doesn’t just want them to believe.
If you get down to verse 51, there is a great place where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth …” Now what the gospel writer tells us he really says is he started off by saying not, “I tell you the truth …” Literally he says, “Amen, amen …” Now actually the reason the translators don’t say that is because that would be incomprehensible to us, but I’d like to unpack the significance of that.
The word amen was an Aramaic word, and it means, “This is true.” Every commentator, every historian, everybody who knew ancient cultures knows this is an absolutely and utterly unique usage of it. Not only does no one in the Old Testament ever do it, but in the New Testament, nobody else dares to ever do it.
3. “Come and see” means process this with friends
This is the fun point. One of the things that’s so interesting about this is John the Baptist leads Andrew and the other person, whoever it is, to Jesus. Andrew leads his brother Peter to Jesus. Philip leads Nathanael to Jesus. When Philip says, “Come and see,” what he says is, “Let’s go together. Let’s figure this out.”
the way to really come and see Jesus, the way to really know him personally is almost always through a friend. You’re not going to find Jesus unless you’ve already been found by a friend who has already found Jesus.
If Christianity was a philosophy by which you saved yourself, then maybe the main way you would really come to Christ is through some great teacher. But since Christianity is an encounter with a Person, the main way you’ll see in the Bible over and over again that you really find Jesus is through friends.
If you want to know how you can finally be effective and really be helpful to people, look at the text. There are three things we see here.
First, patience. John the Baptist says, “Look, the Lamb of God. Look, the Lamb of God. Look, the Lamb of God.” Finally, they follow Jesus. You have to be patient. Who knows how many times you have to say, “Look”? Secondly, courage. I think what happens to Philip is probably the reason most of us are so ineffective in being friends to other people for Jesus.
Philip says, “We found the Messiah, and here he is.” This is the nightmare. Isn’t this the reason why we’re all such chickens? Nathanael asks him a question that (oh no!) is a good question and that he has no idea what the answer is. Bad questions you can always say, “That’s not honest,” but there are so many good questions. There are great questions.
There are tremendous reasons not to believe, great reasons not to believe. He is going to get asked a question he doesn’t know the answer to. Isn’t that what we’re afraid of? Now how do you get good at answering those questions? I’ll tell you. You have to practice by floundering and blowing it for years. Unless you’re willing, unless you have the courage, unless you have the guts to do that, you’re never going to be effective.
Thirdly, confident humility. Isn’t this wonderful? What does Philip do when he gets the total stump question? It’s a good question. “Isn’t the Messiah supposed to be from Bethlehem?” “Yeah.” “Isn’t this Messiah from Nazareth?” “Yeah.” “And …?” What does Philip say? Does he say, “Well, you can’t question this man”? Or does he say, “How dare you”? What does he say?
I love it. He says, “I don’t know. Let’s talk about it. Let’s study. Let’s go talk to him. Let’s go look.” There is a humility here because he takes Nathanael seriously enough to say, “We do need to think about this, and I don’t even know.”
4. “Come and see” means come and wonder
Now if that’s true, and it is true, what does that mean? Nathanael comes and Jesus says, “You believe because … You will see greater things than you can imagine.” Jesus actually says, “ ‘Come and see’ means come and wonder.” He reveals two wonders, two adventures. He is basically saying, “I am calling you into an adventure so wonderful that it is beyond your imagination.” Now he gives us two of them, two ways in which he does that.
First of all, in this passage he calls us to the wondrous adventure of personal transformation.
Then Nathanael walks up, and he is blown away by something no rabbi ever has done or ever will do. First of all, he walks up, and Jesus says, “Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no guile.” Now that’s not what it says in the NIV. It says, “… in whom there is nothing false.” The old King James says, “… in whom is no guile.”
What Jesus is talking about is his character. He uses a word that means unpretentious and transparent. Nathanael looks at him and says, “You nailed me. Yeah, I am that kind of person. I’m plain spoken. I’m kind of blunt. I’m unpretentious. That’s right. How do you know me?” Then Jesus says, “Know you? I saw you under the fig tree.”
Now some commentators have said, “Well, it just means Jesus was walking by and saw him under the fig tree.” But if that was the case, Nathanael would say, “Oh really? When was that?” That’s not what Nathanael says. What does Nathanael do when Jesus says, “I saw you under the fig tree”? Nathanael’s eyes get as big as saucers. He says, “How could you …? How could any …? You are the Messiah!”
What does that mean? I don’t know. We don’t know. That’s one of the marks of an eyewitness account. But I’ll tell you, it was something so private, something so significant, something so absolutely impossible that any human being could know that Nathanael is astounded. “This is not just somebody who knows me somewhat (he knows my personality. Maybe he read my personality/ temperament trait inventory); he knows me all the way.”
Isn’t that astounding? Jesus Christ knows you to the bottom and praises you to the skies.
Then she suddenly had a second thought. She said, “Wait a minute.” (I know. She told me this, by the way.) “If a man I respect and love decided he wanted to know me a little at the expense of his time, what does it mean that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whose voice called all the stars into existence, has wanted to know me completely at the expense of his life?
She said, “If that moves me and thrills me to think that C.S. Lewis knew me and loved me and took me seriously and thought of me, what should it do, how much more should it thrill me, how much more should it empower me, how much more should it lift me up to know that Jesus Christ thinks of me, knows me, loves me?” Of course, by even asking that question it did all that to her.
The first adventure is he says, “Nathanael, I will give you greater things than that. You have no idea what you’re going to become transformed by my love.”
Secondly, Jesus talks about an upward journey, an outward journey. He says, “Verily, verily I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Now what is he saying? It’s astounding. First of all, he is saying, “I am the story about which all the other biblical stories are about.”
Jesus Christ shows up and says to Nathanael, “Let me tell you something beyond your imagination. I am the gate of heaven Jacob saw. That was not just a dream; that was a promise. I am the way through that wall into that cosmic reality that is behind this world.”
Someone says, “How can I do that? How can I get in? That’s what I want.” “Come and see” means you can get in. “Come and see” means I can’t even begin to describe what is going to happen in your life if you come and follow him. You say, “Okay, how do I get in? I have to change my life, right? Obey the Bible, right?” You’re excited. You’re ready. “I have to tell my friends about Jesus. I have to study the Bible.”
No. “Aren’t those the first three points? Surely we don’t have any more of this sermon to go, do we?” No, we don’t, but you missed the key. The key to getting in is not to do anything. Jesus does not say, “I’m at the top of the ladder.” He doesn’t say, “Angels are ascending and descending to the Son of Man.” He doesn’t say, “If you try really hard, you can ascend.” No, you can’t. Psalm 24 says, “Who shall ascend into the presence of God? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” There is nobody in this room who does.
How are we ever going to get up there? Jesus doesn’t say they’re ascending to the Son of Man; he says they’re ascending on the Son of Man.