Eisenach Epiphany 3

Eisenach Epiphany 3

John 1:43-51 January 17, 2015

Dear Friends in Christ,

Have you ever wondered why it is that you are a believer in the suffering and death of Christ as the only payment for your sins and others are not? Have you ever taken a moment to ponder why you are a Christian while others no nothing of the Way, Truth and Life? Have you ever thought of why God promises you everlasting life while others don’t hear these same words? These are not unusual questions. They are not things that people never think about. Believers often ask why it is they are saved and their neighbor is not.

On a theological level, the discussion is one that delves into the very mind of God. Some will say that God most certainly chooses some to be saved, to be believers, to be faithful workers in His Kingdom, but everyone else is damned by that same choice of God. The idea is one that says God picks out the very best and rejects the rest, never giving them any hope of everlasting life. In that scenario, Jesus death on the cross was only for the believers and God has predestined the rest to Hell.

Yet this is not what Scripture tells us. It is true that God chooses some to be saved, but the desire of God is that all men would be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Jesus tells us that God so loved the whole world that He sent His only-begotten Son to take away everybody’s sins. In the mind of God the message is not one of choosing some and rejecting others, but it is the message that says God does indeed choose some, but the rest have rejected Him. The unbelievers of the world are unbelievers because they didn’t want the salvation that God offered. On their own free will they rejected God’s gift of everlasting life in Christ.

But that is the theological side. For many of us, it misses the more practical point of why we are saved and others lost. For on the more practical side comes the simple truth that says “Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of God.” This means that you are saved because somewhere, at some point in your life, whether as an infant, even in your mother’s womb, or as a child or as an adult, someone spoke God’s Word to you. And I don’t mean that you were shoved in a corner and preached to for hours on end, or that you were instructed in a classroom for days and weeks and months. No, in the power that comes through the Word of God, someone only had to mention that God in Christ forgives our sins or that Jesus is the Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. In a message that could have been very simple, God called to you with the message of salvation. He called to you even as Philip called to Nathanael with the message “come and see.”

At that point in your life, the point in which God called to you and told you of His salvation, you could either listen to the Grace God had given you, you could remain with God and the salvation He had offered to you, or you could reject it. Either you believed what God said or you could say it was not for you, you could ignore it, you could look for something more exciting. But without the calling of God, without hearing the Word, you could never know what God was offering you.

It is at this point of life that we find Nathanael. He has heard the calling of the Word of God. His good friend Philip, full of the joy of seeing God’s saving grace came to him and said,“come and see.” Come and see the promised Messiah. Come and see the Lord’s anointed. Come and see the Savior from Nazareth. Nathanael now knew that the Savior had come. He now knew of the hope of life eternal. He now knew that God is one who keeps His promises. He knew and could either “come and see” or he could ignore it. He could find something better to do. He could reject what God had given to Him.

We know how this story ends. We know Nathanael stayed with Christ. We know he became a disciple. We know he believed. We know he followed Christ. But what about us? What does this inspired message of God’s word say to us? What does it tell us about our salvation, about our calling, about our life eternal? It says the same thing that it did to Nathanael. It says “FOLLOW CHRIST.” Those words are our theme for this morning. They are simple and straight forward, a gospel encouragement; “FOLLOW CHRIST.” And what we find in these words is the fact that first of all I. CHRIST CALLS US TO COME AND SEE. And secondly II. CHRIST SHOWS US WHAT WE NEED TO SEE.

Now as we started out our sermon for this morning, we touched on one of those unchangeable facts of God, the fact that He calls us. Though in human language and in the way that we think, we like to say “I found God” or “I chose to follow God” or even in the words of Philip, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,”yet none of these are really accurate. None of the ways of putting the emphasis on us is what is taking place.

For what we really have in the whole message of following Christ is that for reasons beyond our comprehension, for reasons that are never really told us by God, He finds us. His great grace reaches through the darkness of our sins and the hardness of our hearts, through the death of our transgressions, and makes us alive. He awakens is from the mortality of iniquity and offers us salvation as a free gift. There is nothing we do to deserve it. There is nothing we do to earn it. By God’s incomprehensible grace we are called to follow Him.

And whether this occurs by Jesus speaking directly as in the case of Philip, for Jesus came and said to Philip, “Follow Me,” or it is second hand, as in the case of Philip’s “Come and see” to Nathanael, it is God calling us. His Word is going out. His love is seeking us. His mercy is helping the helpless.

Yet even with this power of God speaking and calling, we as sinners can reject. At any time Peter or Andrew, James or John, Philip or Nathanael could have just said, “No.” They could have said that fishing was more important. Their families were a priority. Their idea of life was more important than Christ’s calling. Or they could have said that they knew better, like Nathanael tried to do. For even though Philip came with the news of a Savior from Nazareth, the weakness and doubt, the self-sufficient sinful nature had to ask, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

And for many of us here this morning, this is one of the problems we need to watch in ourselves. For like Nathanael, we can think we know enough of Scripture. We can think that we have all the answers and don’t need any more. We don’t really need to read our Bibles because we know what it says. We don’t really need to go to Bible Class because they are covering things that are not all that interesting. We don’t need to hear and learn more because we already know we are saved.

Yet like Nathanael, when we come and see, when we listen to the call of God and don’t reject what He has in store for us, the free gift of everlasting life through His suffering and death, we will see more than we could ever imagine. For that is the message that Jesus gave to Nathanael as he came to see. For here Jesus reveals to Nathanael that “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” The almighty and Everlasting God who came to earth as a human being saw Nathanael from miles away. He saw Him and revealed to Him through Philip the good news of everlasting life.

At this little show of God’s power Nathanael was amazed. He was taken back and said, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Though he had had doubts and though he wasn’t eager to believe that Jesus was the Savior, Christ showed Nathanael what he needed to see. Christ revealed to him the message that would assure him of God’s plan of salvation.

At this point in our sermon I’d like to take just a moment to point out that this is something that many people want. They want God to show their friend down the street some sign to make them believe. They want just a little evidence for their spouse so they too will start coming to church. They want a little evidence for their co-workers so they will understand what God has done for their eternal lives. They want just a little sign to chase away their uncertainties.

When those time arise, you need to remember this section of Scripture. Right here we see that Christ does show us what we need. When people doubt, when they do not believe, when they just don’t seem to get it, it is not because God did not do enough. It is not God’s fault that they are unbelievers. For what we see here is that Jesus showed Nathanael very little. The power that changed his heart from one of doubt to one of belief was the Word of God; the same word that we have. The same miracles that are in the Bible we can read. The same proofs that were used 2000 year ago we have today. The same working of God that saved Nathanael is all that we need right now.

But like Nathanael, we need to hear it. Like Nathanael we need to get over the preconceived notions that we have and the self-centered ideas of how God “should” do this or that. Like Nathanael we need to come and see what God has done and let Him show us the wonders we need to see. We need to let God speak through His Word and trust that He is faithful and true.

When we do this, when we let God speak and tell us His truth, like Nathanael we will understand the glorious sight of “heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” For this sight is one that sees Jesus as the only way to life eternal. It is the message that Christ alone is the pathway to heaven, the means by which we get to God and God comes to us. It is the understanding that we are not ones who seek Jesus, but that He seeks us, finds us, calls us, enlightens us and saves us. It is the truth that Jesus is our life eternal.

Though we may often consider ourselves Christians, we do not always follow Christ. We let many things get in our way and we have our own ideas of the way we should go. Let it always be our prayer that we follow as did Philip and Nathanael, hearing the calling of our Lord and looking for all that He shows us in His Word that we might have that final journey being our journey to life eternal. Amen.

43 The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and 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 And 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 is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered and said to 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, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”