"Come and See"

The Real Thing

Have you ever experienced something so good that it was hard to have the fake ever again?

Have you ever had REAL queso? Like not the fake stuff but the queso made with real melted cheese?

Well in Oklahoma there are a lot of authentic Mexican restaurants and they have homemade queso. And let me tell you, I cannot have the gross nacho cheese you get at the movie theatres or football games anymore. It just doesn’t do it anymore for me.

Or you all who live at the beach. If you ever go to another beach that isn’t as clean. It is pretty much a dissapointment, because you have the real thing!

What we see in this chapter is people who are seeing the “real thing” not a fake. They are getting something that is better than they could have imagined. But in order to understand this they need to see it in real life.

Who are you are pointing to?

Notice what John does when He see’s Jesus. What does He immediately do? He states this is the lamb of God!

He points His disciples to the Messiah. He doesn’t tell them they need to follow Jesus, but the reaction of their following of John’s belief is that they know they are to follow Jesus.

John isn’t afraid to lose disciples, He isn’t afraid to lose influence. All He is focused on is pointing people to Christ.

Do you know this is what we are called to do as believers? We are called to point people to Christ rather than ourselves.

I’m going to give you a few minutes and I want you to think about this question. For those who know you, what are the 3 most definable things about you? 3 words maybe, that they would use to say. “This is who they are”?

After doing this assignment, why do you think, “follower of Christ” is on that list. Or if it is on the list, why do you think it is?

We call people to enjoy Jesus like we do.

What does Andrew first do when He meets Jesus?

Then Philip tells Nathanael that we have “found the one whom Moses wrote about”

Jesus fulfills the Old Testament

Then what does Philip says after Nathanael asks if anything good can come from Nazareth...”come and see!

He says that you need to experience Christ, you can’t just hear about Him!

There are many like Nathanael who are skeptical about who Jesus is. They see Christians as bigots, as racists, as homophobes. But as I read in one book “honest inquiry is a sovereign cure for prejudice”. What does that mean? It means that if people are genuine in their desire to know the truth that they are going to be willing to look at all the evidence.

We see this in what Jesus says to Nathanael that he came with no deceit. It is contrasting Jacob who deceived Esau into giving Him his birthright and deceived his father into giving him the inheritance. But Nathanael comes honestly, He wants to know the truth about who Jesus is.

Jesus draws us to the Father

Jesus says that they will see the “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”

This is again drawing on the passage of Jacob. Where Jacob saw in a dream the staircase where angels were ascending and ascending.

Jesus is telling them that He is the confirmation of God coming to be with His people again. That He is the one they have been looking for. Jacob was the first Israel, and now Jesus comes as the new Israel, the new Messiah. He will reveal the glory of the Father.