The Savior Is Calling
Notes
Transcript
Well tonight we are finally coming to the end of chapter one of John’s Gospel. We have seen Christ as the Word becoming flesh exhibiting the majesty of His Deity. We saw him last week as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And this week we will see him begin to assemble his ministry team known to us as the twelve disciples. We will see Christ setting the example that he wants us to follow right from the start of his public ministry. Remember it is in that Jesus tells us to make disciples of all nations.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And we see that very thing here at the end of . We see Jesus, making the first disciples for his ministry. And as we see this we will see Christ choosing ordinary people for an extraordinary task because that is what God does. The Lord often uses the most unexpected people to do great things for Him. The title of tonight’s message is The Savior Is Calling. The Savior Is Calling. So let’s look at that together tonight as we see the first five disciples called in
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.”
We see two different sections here or two different days, notice this section begins with “and the next day.” This is day three in the overall narrative of this first chapter if you look back through the first 34 verses. So John is writing about the third day of this scene and it says that the Baptist was standing there with two of his disciples.
Now, we do not know how many disciples John had. We can assume it was getting to be a large number as last week we saw it had gotten the attention of the Jewish leaders and it was big enough that they wanted to find out exactly what was going on.
And in verse 36 it says that John the Baptist was looking at Jesus as he walked by. But this wasn’t just like a glance, no it literally means he was intently gazing at Christ. He was fixated on him. Here was the Messiah and John was getting to be the one to make Him known to the world. Remember we talked about John’s exaltation of Christ in the first two sections of this chapter. John is standing here gazing at Christ with an intensity because he understands who Christ is. He knows what is going on and he says, “Behold the Lamb of God!”
Now remember, John had already proclaimed Jesus as the Lamb of God the previous day. He is driving the point home. And when he says behold, that’s not just saying look over there. No! The word in Greek is ide and it means pay attention! Listen up! John is saying, “I am about to tell you something important. Listen up! Snap to! You need to pay attention!” It is a startling interjection. He is emphatically saying look this is the Christ! This is the one! This is your Messiah!
Sometimes I wonder, why do we not proclaim Christ in this same way? Why do we timidly speak the name of Christ? We should boldly proclaim him. We should shout it from the rooftops, LOOK! Listen here! I have good news for you! Jesus Christ is the true Son of God that has come to save!
You know there is a cute saying that says something like this, “Preach the Gospel. And, if necessary, use words.” Well while that may be cute, it is horribly and deadly wrong. You cannot proclaim the Gospel without words. I understand the point the phrase is trying to make but it is theologically dangerous. And time is too short. We can’t wait to be asked. No, we are supposed to be proactively proclaiming Jesus as the Christ the one who is the Lamb of God that came to take away the sin of the world. Paul told us we are to preach the word in . That word preach means to make a public announcement, to proclaim the good news, and to urge compliance and acceptance of that good news. Paul drives that point home even further in the book of Romans chapter 10 and verse 14, it says:
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
John the Baptist was boldly proclaiming the Lamb of God as he prepared the way for the Lord and church we need to be boldly proclaiming him as well. We can’t just be passive about it.
Now, as John boldly made this proclamation for the second day in a row the two disciples that were standing with him heard this and they followed Jesus. Now who were these two disciples? One we know for sure was Andrew. We are told this in verse 40. But there is general agreement that the second disciple was John who is writing this. There are a few reasons for this.
First, the disciple in this account is not named. And as we discussed a few weeks ago, John never mentions himself by name in this Gospel. It is also to note the detailed account that is being given here. We see several times it says “the next day” and in verse 39 it says the tenth hour. John is writing this with precision and it is reasonable to believe he was there as these events were occuring and therefore able to recall in great detail the events surrounding his first encounter with the Savior.
So while we cannot say with 100% certainty that the second disciple is John, we are fairly confident that it was.
But the disciples heard the Baptist say “Behold, the Lamb of God,” for the second day in a row and they followed Jesus after hearing this. Now, we know that these were not the only disciples of John as we will see in later chapters. But these were two and they left John to follow Christ.
This brings us to verse 38.
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?”
John 1:38
What are you seeking? That is the question Jesus asked them. What are you seeking? The word seeking here in the ESV is the word zeteite in Greek. It doesn’t just mean seek as in searching for. It means they had a desire, a longing for something and they were going to go out and find what it was they desired. And the answer is clear from what John the Baptist had proclaimed to them. They were desiring to see the Messiah. They wanted to know who Christ was. Now Christ is the word for Messiah in Greek. It is the word Christos but it means Messiah. So when we say Christ, we are really saying Messiah. Jesus Messiah. Jesus is His name, Christ is his title.
But it is interesting to note what their response was to Jesus. They didn’t actually answer His question. Instead, they called him Rabbi and the text tells us that means teacher, and they wanted to know where He was staying. Now to call Jesus Rabbi showed that they regarded him highly. It was a title of honor. Literally it meant that they thought and regarded Him as a master teacher of the law. An outstanding teacher. And by asking Jesus where he was staying did not mean they simply wanted to see where He lived. They wanted to ask questions. They wanted to know more about him. They wanted to find out for themselves whether the proclamation of their teacher John the Baptist was true. Christ’s response was to come and see. In other words, Christ is saying “Follow me.”
Christ actually speaks the words “Follow me” many times in the Gospels. We see Jesus saying “follow me” or “come to me” over 25 times in the Gospels. Here are just a few examples:
19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
9 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
Matt
38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Mark
26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”
These are just a few examples, but it is clear that we are to follow Christ. That is what He calls us to do. He calls to us to follow Him. But not all will follow Him. Only His sheep will follow Him. Those who are given to Him by the Father as we see in .
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
We spoke a few weeks ago in the first part of that God chooses us, it is no the other way around. The Father gives us to Christ and He calls for us to follow Him. We will see this truth abundantly clear as we continue through this book. The Father has chosen His people and Has given them to the bridegroom, His Son, Jesus Christ. Nobody can change that, nobody can take that away from you. If you are in Christ, you are there permanently. No man can take you out of the Father’s hand.
So Jesus tells John and Andrew to follow Him to where He is staying. He had granted their request, He will answer their questions. It says in verse 39 that they stayed with Him that day for it was the tenth hour. The tenth hour was about 4pm local time. So the day is gone.
As I was preparing for this message tonight I was reading a text from the great preacher, John MacArthur. He was preaching a sermon on this very text and he said this:
John MacArthur Sermon Archive The Disciples’ Testimony concerning Jesus
So they’re going to stay with Him, stay the day, stay the night. I can imagine if I started a conversation with the Son of God, sleep would be the last thing on my agenda. This must have gone through the night.
How right is that? If we were starting a conversation with the Son of God, the awaited Messiah, the Christ, would sleep even be on our minds?
I said last week that I think often we take the person of Christ for granted. We don’t think about who it is we are following, His holiness, His supremacy, His Lordship. We don’t exalt Him to the place He deserves. Often, we don’t even make time for Him.
I myself am guilty of this. If you are like me there are days when you just don’t feel like spending large amounts of time in prayer or doing your personal Bible study, or the work of the Kingdom. It sometimes just isn’t convenient. But that’s because we forget who it is that we serve. We forget who is the One who sits on the throne above. The Messiah, the Christ, Jesus.
But these two disciples made time for Christ. That is all they wanted, that is what they were seeking in verse 38, that was the answer to Christ’s question. They wanted to know more about the Lamb of God.
Well, that night and the next day they must have gotten their answers because verses 40 and 41 tell us that Andrew went and found his brother, Simon Peter, and made announced that they had found the Messiah!
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).
Now I want to point out what we know about both Andrew and Peter. Peter and Andrew are brothers. They are from Galilee, specifically at Bethsaida as was Phillip which we will see in a minute. They were fishermen. They would spend their days out on boats, in docks, and in the markets. It wasn’t glamorous. It was dirty work. They would work for hours, and, as we will see later, sometimes they would catch nothing. Fishermen would have been rough and rugged. They were nobody. They weren’t known throughout the lands. They were not important people.
And this is something to note. Jesus chose people who had no name for themselves. They were the people you would least expect. They came from Galilee, as I said before.
Galilee was at the northern end of Israel. This would be the region where Jesus would carry out a bulk of His ministry while here on Earth. The Galilean region would have included the cities of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, Capernaum, where Peter made his home, Bethsaida, where Peter, Andrew, and Philip were from, and Magdala, which is likely the town of Mary Magdalene.
So we see all of these people in the Bible growing up and living in the same region. But this region was far away from Jerusalem. It would have been close to 80 miles as the crow flies, but you would also have to either go around the Sea of Galilee, or go across it, or cross the Jordan River half way down to Jerusalem. So these people were not known to the great teachers and leaders of the Jewish world.
In fact, we will see later in the book of John that the higher Pharisees would tell Nicodemus to study the Scriptures with regard to Christ because if he searched the Scriptures they would see no prophet arises from Galilee. The Jewish leaders looked down on the region of Galilee.
But Andrew runs and tells Peter that they have found the Messiah. And verse 42 tells us that he brings Peter to Jesus and Jesus says:
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).
Now, I am sure Peter is a little taken aback because Jesus knows who he is. You are Peter, you are the son of John, you shall be called Cephas. So Jesus says that Peter had been called Simon but now they were going to call him Cephas. Now Cephas, which is the Aramaic for Peter, Peter is Greek, means rock. But Peter would hardly be a rock during Christ’s time on earth. No, while Christ was on earth we see Peter question Christ when he told him to cast his net back into the water, he doubted when he was walking on water because of his fear, he is rebuked by Christ to “get behind Me Satan” when Peter couldn’t handle Christ foretelling his death, he interfered with God’s plan by cutting off the man’s ear in the Garden, he denied Christ three times.
Peter was imperfect. He was afraid, he was arrogant, he was prideful, he was brash, he was foolhardy. But when Christ left we see a change in Peter. Peter becomes that rock in the book of Acts. He leads the church in Jerusalem and eventually becomes a martyr for the Gospel of Christ.
So Peter, Andrew, and John become the first disciples of Christ. This is group one. And the disciples that we see here become the core. Particularly Peter and John. John as you know, will be told later in the Gospel to take care of Mary after Jesus has gone. Peter, leads the disciples. He is the spokesman in Acts when the church begins.
But Jesus was not done building his team. Let’s look at verse 43-44.
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.
Now remember in we are told that John the Baptist had been working in Bethany so this is where our events have been taking place up until now. But now, Jesus decides to go to Galilee. This, remember, is where Peter and Andrew were from as we just saw in verse 44. Specifically from Bethsaida.
Bethsaida was just a small fishing town. It is likely that Peter and Andrew already knew Philip. We live in a small town community here in Monroe County so we understand what it is like to know everybody. Courtney and I just moved here a year and a half ago and I recognize all sorts of people when I am in town. Even if I don’t know them, I may know of them, or I may have come across them in some way before. But you know people. You learn who people are in small towns and it was no different in the first century.
But Jesus again says “Follow Me.” The text gives no indication that there was any hesitation from Philip. Quite the opposite. The next verse says that not only was Philip following Christ, he was going to find another disciple for Christ.
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.”
So obviously, Jesus has said something to Philip that makes him realize exactly who He is. And that is a point I want to make clear. Jesus Christ does not make it a mystery as to who he is and what is his true identity. He has revealed Himself plainly to us so that we are without any excuse for not knowing who He is.
Philip finds Nathanael and exclaims that we have found the Messiah, the one the prophets and Moses wrote about. It is interesting to note that Philip does not directly say the Messiah. Rather, he says that Jesus is the one who Moses and the Prophets wrote about. This is significant. It doesn’t lessen the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. It is an emphatic way of saying that very thing. It is saying, this man fulfills all of the prophecies we are looking for! This is the one that was written about long ago! But then he says something that causes Nathanael to become confused. He says that the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph the Carpenter.
Now, it seems obvious to me that Joseph must have been known in the region because the question that next came from Nathanael was not questioning who was Joseph. The question was, can anything good come out of Nazareth? We see that in verse 46.
46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Now first, I want to say that Nathanael is only mentioned here in John’s Gospel. He is not mentioned, by that name, in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. This is most likely the disciple Bartholomew. In Jewish culture you last name would be Bar and then the name of your father. So for example, Simon Peter was Simon, son of John. Therefore, he would have been Simon bar John. So Bartholomew is the son of Tholome. And it is likely that Nathanael would have been his first name. So his full name would have been Nathanael Bartholomew. We also have evidence of this in the fact that in each of the first three Gospels, Bartholomew is linked directly with Philip.
But Nathanael says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Now, Nathanael was from Cana, which is another town in the region of Galilee. Cana is a town we will look at next week when we get to chapter two as we start to look at the first of the sign miracles in John. But Cana was in the same region as Nazareth. Now it could be that there was something of a rivalry between the towns of Nazareth and Cana. But, in a moment, we see Jesus saying that Nathanael is a true Israelite. Someone who was a true believer and knew the Scripture. Nathanael would have known that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem, in Judea, not Nazareth. Not Galilee. In fact, Nazareth is not even mentioned in the Old Testament nor in the writings of Judaism at the time. It was an insignificant location. Of course, at this point he must not have known that Jesus was indeed born in Bethlehem. He had not yet met Jesus. He had not had the opportunity to examine him for himself. He was strictly going on the words of Philip and what had been told to him.
But Philip dismissed the question. He told Nathanael to come and see for himself.
You know, it is easy when we are giving the Gospel to someone and telling them the good news of Jesus Christ to just give up when they question, scoff, or just dismiss what we are saying. But we shouldn’t let that discourage us. We should keep evangelizing, we should be like Philip and say why don’t you come and see for yourself? Obviously, we can’t take them directly to Christ standing there in front of us. But we can show them who He is, what He has done, and why we need a Savior. We can get into debates about theology, or about creation, or about any number of things, and there is a time and place for that. But each person needs to experience the saving grace of Jesus Christ for themselves. They need to find out who He is for themselves otherwise the rest is just clanging symbols. The rest does not matter to one who does not believe. It falls on deaf ears.
Nathanael decides to go with Philip to see this Jesus that Philip is so excited about. Verse 47,
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”
Jesus shows us something with Nathanael that he also showed us in verse 42 with Peter. He has an omniscient knowledge of them. He is God. He knew these men even though they did not know Him. He created them. And He declares Nathanael to be an Israelite without deceit, this literally means without guile. The Hebrew counterpart for this word is the same word used to describe how Jacob tricked his father Isaac into giving his brother Esau’s blessing to him instead. It is a cunning trickery, deceptive, crafty, and underhanded. And this had become the reputation of the Jews, particularly the religious leaders.
We saw earlier in the chapter the Pharisees coming to question John the Baptist. They, remember, were looking to keep power. And we will see throughout the book of John the ways the Pharisees would try and trip up Jesus. They were not genuine in their works. They tried to fool, trip, trick, deflect, distract, and deceive. But Jesus said that this was not found in Nathanael. He is a true Israelite. In other words, Nathanael was a true believer. He was a true son of the promise.
Of course, this catches Nathanael off guard. Verse 48.
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.”
How do you know me? Remember, Nathanael is not sure of the identity of Christ at this point other than what Philip has said. And now, Jesus has made a declaration of Nathanael and Nathanael wants to know how Christ could possibly know him or anything about him. And Jesus says to him, I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.
Now we don’t know what happened under that fig tree. We can speculate but we do not know for sure. But what we do know is that Jesus was not physically there with Nathanael under that tree. Yet, he saw him there, supernaturally. Again, showing the Divine nature of Christ.
But whatever happened under that tree, the fact that Jesus told Nathanael that he saw him there struck something within Nathanael. It says in verse 49.
49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Whatever happened under that tree, Nathanael’s immediate response to this knowledge was that Jesus was the Son of God, the King of Israel. It was enough to push Nathanael into recognition that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah. And this wasn’t a casual response. It was declarative, authoritative, you ARE the Son of God. You ARE the King of Israel. And you are equal with God.
Remember, the Gospel of John was written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Son of God, He is the King of Kings, He is the Lord of Lords and Nathanael was declaring that to the fullest extent in his statement.
And this is Jesus’ response.
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.”
Now Jesus was not asking this question because he did not know the answer. He has already displayed his omniscience. What he is saying here is that you believe because of this? Just wait, you will see greater things than these.
And, of course, we know that Nathanael and the other disciples will see greater things than this. In the very next chapter alone, which we will look at next week, we see Jesus perform the first of the sign miracles by turning the water into wine at the Wedding in Cana. Remember, this was Nathanael’s hometown. They would see much greater works than these. This statement is ushering in the start of a series of sign miracles, as I have mentioned. We will see quite a few of them. We will see water turned to wine, the feeding of five thousand people from just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. We will see healings of lame men and blind men. We will see a man raised back from the dead. And of course, we will see Christ’s own resurrection. The fact that Jesus knew everything about Nathanael, the fact that He knows everything about you and me does not even begin to scratch the surface of what He is able to do. This is not to discount that Jesus knows everything, that is a magnificent truth, but it only scratches the surface. Greater things will be done for them and greater things will be done for us as well in the name of Jesus Christ.
In the final verse of chapter one we see Jesus refer to Himself as the Son of Man. He refers to Himself this way thirteen times in John’s Gospel. It has two purposes. The first is that it shows His humanity. We have been very focused on the Deity of Christ in chapter one but we should not forget His humanity. The Word became flesh. But the second purpose that this serves is to announce exactly who He is. We need to look back in the writings of the prophet Daniel. Daniel chapter 7 starting in verse 13.
13 “I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
14 And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
The Son of Man is the title that the Messiah would hold. He was God. He is the eternal one and His kingdom would not pass away.
From the very beginning of His ministry Jesus did not hide who He was for anyone who was willing to listen. And here are a few things that I want us to take away from tonight.
First is this. Jesus calls those to himself that He wishes to save. We saw Him call the disciples to follow Him. We must make sure that we answer that call as sinners when the savior comes calling “Follow me.” We leave everything and follow Him and His purposes for our lives.
Second, Jesus is the great teacher who has all truth and knowledge. He knows everything about us, he knows everything about the world and what is going on in the world, there are no surprises for Him. This should give us great comfort. He has a plan in everything.
Third, and finally, Jesus is the great King of Kings. He will rule eternally and you want to make sure that you are in His favor. Are you a part of His kingdom? Have you answered that call?
As we finish up this first chapter I want to make sure that we have an understanding of who He is and where we are going. We have seen Jesus as the Word becoming flesh to dwell among His people. He is the perfect lamb of God that will take the sin of the world. And He calls to those that he wants to be His disciples.
If you are hearing that call, make sure that you answer it. The Savior is waiting, the Savior is calling.
Let us pray.