John chapter 1.
Now, last week in looking at verses 1
and 2, we saw that John, listen, I
did two verses.
The last minute I got that second one
in there just for conscience sake.
But this beautiful description of our Lord
by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle John.
And the Apostle John is a very, very
special brother.
So we look at him in the scriptures.
And in such an intimate love for the
Lord.
I mean, all the way through the scriptures,
when you see the 12 there and all,
he's always trying to get the closest place
to him.
That's a love he had for the Lord.
And he described Jesus to us in verse
1, speaking to us of Jesus' pre-existence,
his fact that he is eternal.
Spoke to us in verse 1 of the
fact that Jesus is divine, that he is
the son of God, but also God the
son.
Spoke to us thirdly in verse 1, that
he is a part of the Godhead, the
triunity of God, or the, you know, multiple
personality in the Godhead there and his place
in that.
And then in verse 2, that he was
in the beginning with God.
He didn't, Jesus did not begin to exist
when he was born into this world in
the city of Bethlehem, but he had existed
from before time was even time, eternal, no
beginning.
And then in verse 3, he moves in
his description to describing Jesus as the creator.
And he declares that all things, and all
is an important word there, all things were
made through him and without him nothing was
made that was made.
He kind of says the same thing twice,
just so we get it.
If Jesus made all things, then he cannot
be a made thing, or he would be
the one who made all things except himself
that was made.
So he is not a created being.
He is the author of all creation.
And you take that in that famous verse
in Colossians chapter 1 and verses 16 and
17, and we're told there by the apostle
Paul, for by him that is Jesus, all
things, the same words again, were created that
were, that are in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or powers, all things were created through
him and for him.
And he is before all things, and in
him all things consist, or they, that is
that they are held together.
We'll get back to that in just a
moment.
So here is Jesus as the creator.
Nothing was made apart from him.
Now you go to the very first verse
in the Bible, in the beginning, who created
the heavens and the earth?
God created the heavens and the earth.
And here you have all of creation being
ascribed to Jesus.
So what is it again?
It is a testimony to the deity of
Jesus Christ.
Now, one of the things that's happening is
John is writing this gospel, and it's one
of the last documents of the New Testament
canon.
He's writing it toward the end of the
century.
And so by this time, there are a
lot of heresies that are surfacing, most notably
the Gnostic heresy, which it came up with
all kinds of, you know, weird mystical ideas
that were untrue about Jesus and about who
he was and what he was and all
these different kinds of things.
And so John is already, by the Spirit
of God, coming against these heresies.
And so one of the ideas was that
Jesus was created.
The Jehovah Witnesses, they have a Gnostic element
to their teaching today, and they teach that
Jesus was a created being.
Well, he can't be a created being and
create everything that was created.
And so John is laying these things out.
And then in verse 4, he describes Jesus
as the source of life and the source
of light.
And in him was life.
All life is found in Jesus.
Physical life is found in him.
All spiritual life is found in him.
When it says in him was life, it
doesn't mean that he possessed life.
It means that he is the source of
all physical life.
He is the source of all spiritual life.
They both come from him.
They are both a gift from him to
us, to mankind.
In him, all physical life consists.
Again, chapter 1 of Colossians, verse 17.
In him, all things consist.
The word consist there means to be held
together.
And I remember listening as a brand new
Christian to Chuck Smith speaking about that whole
consist thing.
And if you listen to Chuck's tapes and
all, he's like a born, you know, he
wanted to be a doctor.
And so, you know, physics is interesting to
him and chemistry and all these things.
I try to get away from all of
those classes in school.
I was unsuccessful, but I mean, as little
as I could do and still stay on
the college prep, you know, track, I did
it.
And so I go into these classes and
you go into chemistry class and there are
these people that are all excited.
Mr. Dinsmore up in the front, you know,
and he's doing all these things, you know,
as if he's like discovered the light bulb
or something, you know, and the whole deal
of it.
And it just get me out of here,
get me out of here, out of this,
out of this room.
So I don't understand all this kind of
stuff and how things, but I do know
that opposites attract in terms of poles.
And I do know that like poles, they
push apart from one another.
The interesting thing is in one of these
basic building blocks of what we're made of
and the atoms and all of these kinds
of things that you have as a part
of that, you have lights held together.
And it has been something that the, and
then Chuck got me going on this thing.
So I began to investigate the thing.
I thought, well, is that something that's still
messing with today?
And the scientists still mess with it today
to save their life.
They do not know how, when they look
at the structure of how God has built
things, why the thing doesn't blow up to
smithereens and a thousand different directions, every single
atom.
And the theory among the scientists is that
it's held together by atomic glue.
So it's a mystery.
They don't, they don't know.
And we wouldn't really know, except that the
Holy spirit reveals it to us in the
book of Colossians, that the whole thing is
held together by Jesus.
He holds all of it together.
You and I sit here in this room
in one piece together because he holds us
together.
He's the source of human life.
He's the source of all life, but then
he's also the source of all spiritual life.
John, the same John, when he writes his
first epistle in first John chapter five, verses
11 and 12, he writes, and he says,
and this is the testimony that God has
given us eternal life.
And this life is in his son.
And he who has the son has life.
And he who does not have the son
of God does not have life.
Very simple for John.
This is the apostle of love.
And yet the, one of the most beautiful
things I love about him is he knew
how to love people and he loved people
enough to tell them the truth.
And the truth is if I have the
son, I have spiritual life.
If I don't have the son, I don't
have spiritual life.
That is the fact of the matter.
As I've mentioned many times before in the
United States, we live in the most hyphenated
country in the world.
Nobody is just an American.
We're some version of American.
There's some version of whatever this life is
simpler in heaven.
Life is simpler for the Holy spirit.
There are saved people and there are unsaved
people.
J Vernon McGee said they're saints and ain'ts.
Now that's offensive to the ain'ts, but that's
the kind of clarity though that there is
with this.
All spiritual life comes from him.
It's all found in him.
And notice he says, and the life was
the light of men.
What is light?
Light is illumination.
This is beautiful because the Lord doesn't just
give us physical life and spiritual life, and
then leave us on our own to figure
out what to do with it.
He knows that we need illumination from heaven,
his will in order to rightly spend this
physical life in order to rightly spend this
spiritual life.
I'm so glad he didn't just save me
and say, now you get to be the
same crummy guy and, but you'll end up
in heaven at the end of it.
Now, listen, I would have taken that, but
he's done better than that.
He comes in and he says, listen, I've
got something much greater than even that.
I'm going to give you this life.
And then I'm going to give you my
wisdom and illumination for how to live this
life a different way.
And it's the greatest life a person can
ever live is the Christian life.
Simple obedience, to the word of God so
that we don't waste our lives.
And the light shines in the darkness and
the darkness did not comprehend it.
And so when Jesus came into this world,
his life and his truth, and he is
the light of the world and all, uh,
it was something that as it relates to
the world for the most part and looking
at him, when he came into this world,
he came into a dark world.
Why is the world dark?
Human hearts, human hearts.
And you've got this, the old argument between,
you know, the, what is the cause and
what are the symptoms?
What is, what are we born as?
And then what is a product of environment?
But why is the environment the way that
it is?
Because of our hearts, man is a fallen
creature.
The whole world is a testimony to that.
So Jesus came into this world and as
different as light is to darkness, Jesus was
that different from everything in this world, a
complete contrast.
It's a beautiful, beautiful description of our Lord.
But John is headed someplace with this.
Then he says in verse six, as he
describes John the Baptist, a forerunner of Jesus
Christ, he said, there was a man sent
from God whose name was John, not John
the Baptist.
I mean, not John, the apostle, but John
the Baptist.
Now in the old Testament scriptures, God had
declared that before the Messiah came, he would
send a forerunner.
And a forerunner in those days was simply
whenever a King was going to come someplace,
a messenger would always be set, sent ahead
of the King in order that people might
be prepared to receive the King in a
way that was worthy of a King.
And so here's John the Baptist in his
ministry.
He comes forward and he is warning the
people to repent, even religious people to repent
the directions that they're going in.
And then as they begin to press him
a little bit more about his message and
why he's doing the different things and all,
he declares the fact that I'm not the
Messiah.
I am a forerunner.
I am giving a message in preparation for
the Messiah that's coming behind me.
And so the ministry of John the Baptist
in this man, John came for a witness,
to bear witness of the light that all
through him might believe.
Now there's a key word in the gospel
according to John, believe.
I talked about it at the end of
the book last week, and we're going to
run into this word believe over and over
and over again through all of of this
passage as we head through it.
And so he comes in and he declares
that he came as a witness, to bear
witness of the light that all through him
might believe.
That's what he wanted everyone to do was
to believe in the Lord Jesus.
He was not that light, that is the
Messiah, but he was sent to bear witness
to that light.
And so John was faithful to his ministry
to always point people to the Lord.
And that was the true light.
Now the subject is back on Jesus himself.
And that was the true light in contrast
to false lights.
There have been many false lights in man's
history as Jesus spoke in John 14, or
I forget where it is in there, but
he, John said, Jesus said, I am the
true vine.
I'm the true vine.
A lot of, he's the true vine.
True connection to God.
And so there was, that was the true
light, which gives light to every man who
comes into the world.
And so Jesus provides light to every single
person.
Salvation is available, but not everybody is going
to accept Jesus.
The choice to make in all of that,
but they have a light, a light concerning
the truth and what they ought to do
in choosing him or rejecting him.
And he was in the world and the
world was made through him.
And the world did not know him.
Now this is speaking of the Gentiles.
When Jesus came into the world, the Gentile
world, though he had created the Gentiles, though
he had created the world, though he was
the source of all of creation, held all
of it together.
And though they saw all of the miracles
that he was doing, they still did not
acknowledge him as the creator that he was
and as the Messiah that he was.
And so there was the rejection of him
by the world, but there was also the
rejection of Jesus by the Jews.
Verse 11, he came to his own and
his own did not receive him.
And so when Jesus came, of course, and
ministered, uh, reaching out to the Jews first
and then to the Gentiles of the response
of his own people, the Jews, though they
knew him.
Now this is interesting because you have there
in verse 10, you have the Gentiles not
knowing him, but they didn't know him.
They didn't recognize him for who he was.
The rejection of the Jews in verse 11
is, is not based upon that, not based
upon the fact that they didn't know him.
They did know him.
They rejected him for, for other reasons.
And so he came to them.
And even though he gave them, you know,
undeniable evidence that he was the Messiah through
all of his miracles and, and all of
these things, not only did the Gentiles reject
them, but the Jews did also by and
large, then notice in verse 12, but as
many as received him to them, he gave
the right or literally the authority to become
children of God to those who believe in
his name.
So not everybody rejected Jesus.
Not everybody rejects him today.
There are many who believe.
And for those who believe as many as
they receive him into their life by believing.
So you have people that have received the
Lord into their life.
How did they do it to those who
believe in his name?
So there are people who are born again
by the Holy spirit in, in believing in
him.
And then for that particular person, they are
given by God, a certain authority and the
authority they are given is the authority to
become the children of God, to be called
the children of God.
And that is the only authority by which
a person can claim to be a child
of God is that I have received Jesus
Christ into my life.
On what basis by believing in him and
believing in him, it means to rely or
to trust in where I am relying or
trusting in him for the forgiveness of my
sins, trusting in his work upon the cross
as death upon the cross for the forgiveness
of my sins.
And only the person that has believed in
him and received him into their life has
the authority to be called a son of
God, a child of God.
And it's beautiful.
The phrase that's used children of God, it,
it reinforces the idea that when we become
Christians supremely, what we're called into is a
relationship and not just any relationship, a parent
child relationship.
That's what we need.
Now, sometimes you get this whole, uh, thing
where, you know, when Phil Donahue was going
and doing his whole thing, you know, and
he'd get his little panel together and find
some snake handler from somewhere to represent the
Christian view on his show, and then get
some of the most brilliant people in the
world to shred them to pieces on national
television.
One of the things that Phil had a
problem with is he always had a problem
with Christians being narrow as it relates to
salvation of saying that this is the only
way that a person can get to heaven.
And always the challenge is, you know, by
what authority do you say that?
Who do you think that you are to
say that?
And that all these other people are wrong.
Where does the authority come from?
It comes from the Holy Spirit and John
chapter one, verse 12, because it is the
fact of heaven.
Only one who is born again by the
Holy Spirit has the authority given by God
to call themself a child of God.
It is not arrogance to declare that it
is the truth of the word of God.
So it comes by receiving him into our
life and receiving by believing.
And so again, verse 12, but as many
as received him to them, he gave the
right or the authority to become children of
God to those who believe in his name,
who were born, now speaks of the spiritual
birth, not of blood.
Nobody is becomes a child of God by
virtue of being born into this world.
The old saying is born once, that is
just have a physical birth without a spiritual
birth in the course of his life.
Born once, die twice, die physically and die
forever spiritually.
Born twice, die once.
That's kind of what's going on here.
Nobody is born in a safe condition in
this world.
And so we can't be saved.
Who were born, it requires a spiritual birth,
more than just blood, not a physical birth,
nor of the will of the flesh.
Nobody can be born again or gain access
to heaven through their own efforts in the
flesh.
I don't care how many good works a
person might do.
I don't care what their title is.
I don't care how many good things that
they've done.
It is not the way to get to
heaven.
Nobody gets to heaven that way, by the
works of the flesh, nor of the will
of man.
Nobody can get anybody else into heaven.
Person has to choose to do that for
themselves.
Otherwise, what would we do?
We'd will everyone that we love into the
kingdom of God, the whole world to be
saved.
We want the whole world safe.
Then it'd all be done and we'd be
out of here.
But it's not our decision.
We make a decision for ourselves.
Everybody else has to make a decision for
themselves.
And so this spiritual birth isn't of the
flesh.
It isn't by the will of the flesh.
It isn't by the will of other people.
But this birth, this spiritual birth, is of
God.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among
us.
The word, and the word again refers to
Jesus, and the word became flesh.
His incarnation, his birth into the world through
the Virgin Mary there in Bethlehem.
The word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And the word dwelt there means literally, it
means tabernacle.
He's tabernacled with us.
So for 33 and a half years, he
took on a tent and this body is
likened to a tent often in the scriptures.
He took on that tent and he tabernacled
with us.
We got a good close look at God
and looking at Jesus, a good close look
at him.
And so as it says here, the word
became flesh and dwelt among us.
Now, we are nice American people.
So we have cut our teeth on the
Christmas story.
How that Jesus was born of the Virgin
and he was there in the manger and
the whole deal and everything like that.
And so we just kind of think of
it in that terms.
And so you talk with people about it
and you think, and you talk about that
manger and you say, well, it was probably
the stone trough and it probably was.
And can you imagine, you know, the animals
drinking the water out of that.
And you ever seen cows drool and God
put her right in that.
And we, we are in awe of the
incarnation almost exclusively from the point of his
birth into the world on.
But what John is doing here in painting
this picture of Jesus and letting us know
who he really is and who he has
always been.
And that this whole thing consists and is
held together by him and all spiritual life
is found in him.
And he is eternal and he is God.
Now, all of a sudden, when I get
finally to verse 14 and I read that
this is the one who was willing to
become flesh in order to tabernacle among me
in order that I might be saved and
seeing his life, it is designed in the
Jewish mind to completely undo you.
But he would be willing to do that.
I don't know what glory he left to
come here to provide a salvation for me.
One day I will, but I am always
in awe in John chapter 17 on the
night before the cross, as he's praying for
the disciples, he begins to pray for them
and his desires that they would be one.
And that's a theme through that whole prayer.
But then as he prays to the father,
his desire that they would see his glory,
the glory that he had from the beginning,
the astonishing glory that he left to even
be willing to come here to say nothing
of being willing to die here in our
place that we might be saved.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among
us and we beheld and the word beheld
is the word that we get our theater
from.
What John is saying was to watch Jesus
in the tabernacle, in his body, to watch
him in his public ministry was like to
be at a theater, only it was real
raising people from the dead, healing people, speaking
the truth, cleansing the temple, whatever the things
might be.
He said it was just like a movie.
I mean, it was drama all the time.
When you understand who he was, we beheld
his glory.
The glory is of the only begotten of
the father.
We are born again.
And thus we are the children of God,
but he is the son of God in
a way that no one else is, of
course.
And so when it calls him the only
begotten, it is the altogether unique one of
the father, full of grace, full of truth.
And there it is right there on the
verse, full of grace and full of truth.
I've always loved that verse, obviously, but I
love those two great things that have only
come together in a complete way in him.
I want grace.
I need grace, but I don't want grace
at the expense of truth.
That's not good enough for me.
I cannot live a lie.
I cannot live in darkness.
Well, I want truth, but I don't want
just truth because of my condition, the fallen
condition that I'm born into.
So I want grace coupled with the truth.
And Jesus comes and he brings both of
those things, grace and truth.
And the great picture, and it's always the
misquoted passage of, there's a few verses that
everyone learns, whether they want to know the
Bible or not.
And when Jesus addresses the sin of that
woman caught in the very act of adultery,
after he gets done dealing with the religious
crowd and they kind of slink off, he
says, where are your accusers?
They're all gone.
Where are those that condemn you?
And then Jesus said, neither do I condemn
you.
And that's the portion of the verse that
I always remember.
Remember when Jesus said to the woman caught
in the very act of adultery, neither do
I condemn you?
Yes, I remember that.
But do you remember the remainder of the
verse?
Because Jesus said, neither do I condemn you.
That's grace.
Go and sin no more.
That's the truth.
But all the way through, you see this
wonderful, I don't know the balance is the
right word for it.
This beautiful combination of the two things that
are found in him.
And John bore witness of him and cried
out saying, this is he of whom I
said, he who comes after me is preferred
before me for he was before me.
Now this is interesting because John the Baptist
is again testifying to Jesus.
And he describes Jesus in verse 15, those
final four words as being before him.
And the reason it's interesting is that John
the Baptist was born three months prior to
Jesus.
So how could Jesus be before him when
Jesus was born after him?
Again, a reference to Jesus's pre-existence.
There's eternalness.
And of his fullness, we have all received
and grace for grace.
When we have come into a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ, what does he lavish us
with?
Grace.
All you have to do is just look
around the room and realize, okay, there's going
to be a big run on grace even
after people get saved.
And so that's what he gives, that undeserved
favor.
That's what we've received from him.
We don't get justice from him.
We get grace.
Now, grace is a funny thing.
Grace is a firm thing when it needs
to be.
I think that most often we think of
grace in the sense of forgiveness, almost exclusively
in the sense of forgiveness.
Our grace, yes, God forgives.
The grace is bigger than that.
God gives us the grace that we need
for forgiveness, but he also gives us grace
in the form of power to live a
different kind of life.
The ability not to sin or to live
a life where it is dominated or characterized
by sin.
And so he gives grace, and it's stronger
than sometimes that it's thought about.
Always what he deals with this on is
the basis, on the basis of grace.
For the law was given through Moses, but
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
And so the law said, obey to live.
You better obey or you're a dead man,
kind of like that.
Under Jesus Christ, it all gets turned around,
and now it is live to obey.
It's our desire to do it, not out
of a fear of what God might do
to me if I disobey him, but because
I realize how much he has done for
me, how good he's been to me, how
gracious he's been to me.
And the only logical response to that then
is a desire to live a life in
response to that, that pleases him and brings
him pleasure.
And so there's the difference between the two
covenants.
No one has seen God at any time.
The only begotten, that is the unique son
who is in the bosom of the father,
he has declared him.
And so to look at Jesus and to
see Jesus was to see the father.
You remember Philip said to Jesus, show us
the father and it'll be sufficient for us.
And Jesus said, you know, how long have
I been with you?
Philip, if you've seen me, you've seen the
father.
And so Jesus is this beautiful, exact manifestation,
revelation of the father.
We look and say, well, you know, the
father up in heaven, he's always just a
little bit steamed.
But you know, somebody's got to be like
that or the place goes crazy, you know.
And Jesus is kind of a softy that
goes in and kind of appeases the father.
So all right, I know they did that
again, but you know, can we give him
one more chance?
And then the father against his better judgment,
you know, doesn't wipe us out.
We look at them in two different ways,
but here to see Jesus was to see
the father and the nature of the father.
Now, this is the testimony of John when
the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem
to ask him, who are you?
And when John the Baptist is doing baptizing
and his preaching around the area of the
Jordan river, there hadn't been this much spiritual
excitement in Israel for 400 years.
Well, actually longer than that.
Religion was just, it was dead, was just
dead.
So John the Baptist is preaching this message.
He's baptizing people, people are coming out in
droves.
They know what he's saying is true.
Well, that kind of thing is a threat
to the existing kind of religious establishment.
And so they send out representatives of the
religious community to kind of call John the
Baptist on the carpet and say, what in
the world are you?
Who are you?
And what are you doing out here?
And John the Baptist evidently understands their question
to be a question of whether he's the
Messiah or not.
Who are you?
You better be the Messiah doing stuff out
here.
John the Baptist confessed and he did not
deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ.
I am not the Messiah.
And they asked him, what then are you
Elijah?
Because in the book of Malachi, the Lord
had declared that before the coming of Messiah,
Elijah would come before that great and notable
day of the Lord.
And Elijah is going to precede Jesus in
his second coming.
But they ask him now because of the
Malachi passage, whether he's Elijah.
He said, I am not.
Are you the prophet?
And the prophet is the one that Moses
spoke of coming.
And he answered clearly no.
And then they said to him, who are
you?
That we may give an answer to those
who sent us.
They were sent to get an explanation and
we're not leaving until you tell us who
you are.
What do you say about yourself?
John the Baptist said, I am the voice
of one crying in the wilderness, make straight
the way of the Lord.
Quoting Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3.
I am the forerunner preparing a way for
the Messiah who is coming behind me.
Now it's interesting again in verse 23, there's
no mistakes in any of this.
And verse 23, John the Baptist purposely ascribes
Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3 to Jesus and
that he is making straight the way of
the Lord.
And when you see Lord there in all
capitals, that is always in the Bible, a
reference to Yahweh or Jehovah.
So you have John the Baptist ascribing deity
to Jesus Christ once again.
Now those who were sent were from the
Pharisees and they asked him saying, why then
do you baptize if you're not the Christ
nor Elijah, nor the prophet?
And John answered and said, answer them saying
I baptize with water, but there stands one
among you whom you do not know.
It is he who coming after me is
preferred before me, whose sandal strap I'm not
worthy to lose.
So Jesus is kind of in the mix
of things at this particular point in time,
perhaps in the very setting there.
And John the Baptist simply describes the fact
what, you know, why am I doing things?
I'm only baptizing you, baptizing with water.
The Messiah who is about to be revealed
here, wait till you see, he's going to
baptize, you know, with the Holy Spirit.
I'm not worthy to even put his sandals
on and off.
You've got trouble with me, wait till he
shows up.
And these things were done in Bethabara beyond
the Jordan where John was baptizing.
And the next day John saw Jesus coming
toward him and he declared concerning Jesus, behold
the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin, singular, of the world.
And so he declares with whatever audience of
people that are around John the Baptist, when
he sees Jesus, he immediately directs people to
Jesus.
And that's always a revelation that the Holy
Spirit is working a person's life.
There's none of this, well, I think I'll
draw people to me and then I'll point
them to God.
John the Baptist wasn't interested in the mediator
position that's already taken.
So he immediately looks and begins to direct
them to Jesus.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world.
Now in the Jewish mind, and that's who's
listening to John the Baptist at this time,
when they hear Jesus referred to as the
Lamb of God, immediately what's produced in their
mind, they begin to associate it with sacrifice.
They sacrifice lambs all the time in that
Old Testament covenant.
And so when John the Baptist refers to
Jesus as the Lamb of God, they know
they're working through it a little bit now.
It's just the light's kind of going on
here, but there is a recognition in their
mind that John sees this man as a
sacrifice.
And as a sacrifice that is different from
the sacrifices of the Old Testament, because this
man's sacrifice is going to be given to
take away the sin of the world.
In the Old Testament, all of these offerings
that were given for sin offerings were given
for the purpose of covering sin.
They could never take away sin in the
Old Testament.
They covered sin.
And so here you have a sacrifice of
one, a sacrifice from God that is vastly
superior to the Old Covenant, because whatever he's
about and whatever is going to happen with
him, he's going to take away sin.
That's exactly what he's done.
And we receive the Lord's forgiveness.
My sin is separated from me as far
as the east is from the west.
I will never come into contact with it
again.
I like that because he takes it away.
He just doesn't cover it.
Covering isn't good enough.
It takes away the sin of the world.
And this is he of whom I said,
after me comes a man who is preferred
before me, for he was before me.
And I did not know him, but that
he should be revealed to Israel.
Therefore, I came baptizing with water.
And John bore witness saying, I saw the
spirit descending from heaven like a dove.
And he, that is the Holy Spirit, remained
upon him.
And I did not know him, but he
who sent me to baptize with water said
to me, upon whom you see the spirit
descending and remaining on him, this is he
who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
John the Baptist said, I didn't know who
the Messiah was, except that the Lord told
me that there would be this event concerning
the Holy Spirit that would identify him.
Of course, Jesus and the other gospels, when
he was water baptized, the Holy Spirit descended
upon him.
And that was when John knew for sure
that Jesus was the Messiah.
And I have seen and testified that this
is the son of God, not only that
he's the Messiah, but that he is the
son of God.
And the next day, John stood with two
of his disciples and looking at Jesus as
he walked, he said, behold, the lamb of
God.
And the two disciples heard John speak and
they followed Jesus.
Now, whoever these two disciples are, they are
up to this point, disciples of John, John
the Baptist.
John the Baptist kind of says, listen, don't
waste time with me anymore.
There's the lamb of God.
And so they understand what he's saying and
they begin to follow Jesus.
And then Jesus turned and seeing them following,
said to them, what do you seek?
He knew what they were seeking, but he
wanted them to say it.
And they said to him, rabbi, which is
to be, to say, when translated teacher, where
are you staying?
We know that you're the lamb of God,
but where are you staying?
Where's a place where we can get to
know you better?
We can have fellowship with you.
We know about you now, but we want
to know you.
Where are you staying?
Where can that happen?
And Jesus said to them, come and see,
never turned away a sincere seeker.
And they came and they saw where he
was staying.
And they remained with him that day.
Now it was about the 10th hour.
And one of the two who heard John
speak and followed him was Andrew.
We don't really know who the other disciple
was.
There are a lot of people who think
it was the apostle John, because all the
way through the, the gospel of, of John,
whenever John is on the scene, he kind
of, um, doesn't identify himself, but he's cryptic
enough to make you realize he's probably talking
about himself there.
And so he may very well have been
the other disciple here, but we know for
sure that one of the disciples was Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother.
And he first upon coming to know the
Lord himself, he found his own brother, Simon.
Now, Andrew is an interesting fellow because he
is going to be, well, let's go the
rest of the way, and then we can
just talk about it.
So he goes to his own brother, Simon.
And he said to him, we have found
the Messiah, which is translated the Christ.
And he brought him to Jesus.
That's the encapsulation of Andrew.
Every time you see Andrew in the scriptures,
he is bringing people to Jesus.
And that's why you have like brother Andrew
ministries, where you have evangelism that's occurring on
a one-on-one or a small group
scale.
It's not, it's not, uh, you know, crusade
evangelism.
And it's a very, very effective kind of
evangelism.
And it's associated with Andrew because that's what
Andrew did.
We never see him, you know, he's not
on the day of Pentecost standing up and
3,000 people coming to know the Lord.
He worked the relationships in his life and
the friendships in his life.
And he brought people to the Lord.
And so that's what he does.
He comes to his brother.
We found the Messiah.
And most people come to know the Lord
because a family member does, or a friend
does.
And that person comes and says, says, listen,
everything's changed in my life.
And I found the answer.
I found the Messiah.
I found the reason for living.
Let me bring you to him.
And then they, they bring their friends or
they bring their family to Jesus.
And so that's what he did.
He brought them to Jesus.
It's interesting that as we see Andrew always
bringing people to Jesus, we see it here,
but he's the guy that remember when the
little boy had the five loaves and the
two fish.
And I don't know what was going on
in his heart when there was somehow there's
this huge crowd, 5,000 males, adult males.
We don't know how many women and children
and things, but it's a rather large crowd.
Then it becomes apparent in the crowd, there's
no lunch.
And that the apostles are looking for a
source of food for the multitude.
And I don't know if he began to
like hide that lunch someplace or something.
It looked iffy for him having enough, but
we're told that it was Andrew that brought
the little boy to Jesus.
He's the one that, that brought him there.
When the Greeks came, they came to Philip
and they said, we would see Jesus.
And Philip, he's a good kosher Jew.
And he looks and says, all right.
And so I know we can bring Jews
to Jesus, but I don't know about this
Gentile thing.
I don't know if he's got, I don't
know if he'll see Gentiles.
So he goes to Andrew and he says,
Andrew, does Jesus see Gentiles?
Andrew takes him to Jesus.
This is the way that he was always
bringing people to the Lord.
And so he brought them to Jesus.
Now, when Jesus looked at him, Peter, he
said, you are Simon, the son of Jonah,
and you shall be called Cephas, which is
translated as stone.
He changes Peter's name here.
Peter is unstable as water.
And Jesus just kind of, you know, prophesies
into his life.
Listen, I know what you've been all of
your life.
You've always been Simon.
And no doubt when you mentioned Simon, it
produced a certain image in people's minds.
Instability wasn't one of the things.
And the Lord comes in and says, I'm
going to rename you.
I'm going to rename you Cephas.
I'm going to rename you rock.
And then I'm going to make you into
what I've renamed you.
And the following day, Jesus wanted to go
to Galilee and he found Philip.
And he said to Philip, follow me.
You've got a lot of different styles of
evangelism going on here in this latter part
of the chapter.
You've got Andrew bringing Peter to Jesus.
So you have that kind of a thing
going on.
But now here in verse 43, you have
Jesus just coming in, finding Philip just in
Philip, becoming a disciple of Jesus, quite a
part of any human instrument on things.
And Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of
Andrew and Peter.
So they're probably all kind of friends in
all of the stomping grounds growing up.
And Philip found Nathaniel 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.
And so now Philip goes to Nathaniel and
he now desires to bring him to Jesus.
And Nathaniel said to him, can anything good
come out of Nazareth?
Now Nazareth was a tough town.
It was part Jewish, it was part Gentile.
It's a tough town today because it's part
Jewish and it's part Arab.
Sometimes you drive the bus real fast through
there on the tour, depending on the conditions
of things.
But in those days, it was a place
where Roman soldiers retired in town in the
area in terms of a reputation.
You got it.
Don't shout it out.
This is for your edification.
So passage becomes real to you.
And so this was the thinking though, in
anybody's mind, as soon as they heard of
Nazareth, it's like what in the world even
remotely good could come out of it, let
alone the Messiah.
And so this is what Nathaniel speaks out.
Philip said to him, Philip doesn't have any
systematic theology at this point or anything.
And frankly, Nathaniel has asked him a question
he has no answer for.
So what do you do when somebody asks
you a question that you don't have an
answer for?
Philip said to him, come and see.
He just brought him to Jesus.
You ask your questions of him.
So you go to the Bible in order
to find these answers.
And Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him.
And he said of him, behold, an Israelite
indeed, in whom there is no guile or
deceit.
And the Septuagint, it translates this as behold,
an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no
Jacob.
That's, you know, that's Jacob before Jabar.
His hip is pulled out of joint.
And so Jacob, his name before he was
renamed by God and made Israel, which that
name means ruled by God.
His name was Jacob.
And the word Jacob means heel catcher.
It means supplanter.
It means conman.
It means it's the kind of person that
trips up anyone in front of him by
any means so that he can overtake them.
I'm sorry if you're named Jacob, but that's
the way that it is.
And that was his name.
And so that's what Jacob was before he
was renamed.
And so here is Jesus.
The first thing he speaks to Nathaniel is
behold, an Israelite in whom there is no
Jacob.
You're an Israelite.
You're ruled by God.
It's quite a compliment coming from the Lord.
And Nathaniel said to him, how do you
know me?
That cracks me up because it is pure
Nathaniel.
If Jesus had said that to me, I'd
say, oh come on.
What else have you noticed about me?
I'd put on all this false humility, you
know, and everything.
There's none of that in Nathaniel.
Why?
Because he's without Jacob.
All that is Jacob.
Pretending to be one thing outwardly when you're
something entirely different.
And when Jesus compliments him in this way,
he just looks and it's like, so?
Because that's the kind of guy that he
was.
Now listen, if you're a phony and you're
choosing disciples in order to try and perpetuate
a false story about yourself, you're never going
to call a Nathaniel to be one of
those disciples.
Nathaniel said, how do you know me?
And Jesus answered and said to him before
Philip called you when you were under the
fig tree, I saw you.
I don't know what the distance was, but
it seems like it's kind of, it was
supernatural what Jesus was able to do from
where Jesus was and where Nathaniel was.
And he says, he speaks about a situation,
he speaks about the situation of Philip meeting
with Nathaniel, one that clearly Jesus was not
within eyesight, shot of.
And so it's supernatural and Nathaniel recognizes it
as such.
And he declares verse 49, rabbi, you are
the son of God.
He confesses faith in Jesus upon this miracle
alone.
You are the king of Israel.
And Jesus answered and said to him, because
I said to you, I saw you under
the fig tree.
Do you believe you trust in me on
the basis of that miracle?
You'll see greater things than these.
And Jesus 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.
And he is saying to Nathaniel, listen, I'm
glad you're impressed by what I just did
there.
Wait till you see what we do the
next three and a half years.
It's going to be fabulous.
You're not going to believe it.
And then he speaks to Nathaniel, a passage
out of Genesis chapter 28, where you remember
Jacob is running away because of this whole
con man kind of thing.
And he's doing a, just a messed up
old deal.
And he, and he's running away from his
household and, uh, and, and he comes to
a place called Bethel.
He subsequently names it Bethel, but he's out
in the middle of this, just a wilderness.
And I mean, Israel, that area, it's a
wilderness.
And he gets a rock and he puts
it down as a pillow.
He puts his head on it and he
begins to sleep.
And as he sleeps, he sees a dream.
And there is a ladder from the place
that he's sleeping leading up into heaven.
And there are angels going up and down
the ladder.
He wakes up from the dream and he
declares that God was in this place.
And I didn't know it.
And he names the place Bethel the house
of God and the vision that he had
as he saw that ladder in the angels
going up and down was a vision of
the activity that was going on between heaven
and earth.
And that that ladder represented the connection point
between heaven and earth.
And when Jesus comes on the scene and
declares himself to be that ladder, to be
the ladder, he is declaring that I am
the ladder between heaven and earth.
I'm the contact point between heaven and earth.
I am the connection between heaven and earth.
And you're going to follow me, Nathaniel, for
the next three and a half years.
And you're going to see all kinds of
activity associated with being that ladder and being
the connecting point between heaven and earth.
And so as we head into the rest
of the gospel, according to John, so we'll
see that activity, the beautiful, beautiful passage here,
all these different ways at the end of
this chapter one, where different ways that people
come to know the Lord.
You know, one of my regrets is that,
you know, and this is Oh, I'm not
going to go there.
No, I'm not going to do it.
Well, maybe I'm not going to do it.
I mean, it's life changing, but I'm not
going to do it.
I mean, I don't think I'm going to
do it.
No, nothing could be worth all of that
that I've said, nothing would live up to
it.
So how am I going to say anything
to you now as it relates to what
I thought is really very feeble.
It wouldn't have been of any help to
you at all.
It needs some work.
It really does.
It needs some work.
Otherwise I would, I would use it this
morning, this evening, but all the different ways
that people come to know the Lord here
in this passage and how the Lord uses
all of these disciples of glorious revelation, beginning
kind of point and looking at Jesus Christ,
just the awesomeness of who he is.
Then all those beginning activities of people and
bringing others to come to know the Lord,
like Andrew, when he comes to know the
Lord, it's just like, this is too good
to keep a secret.
Everyone that I know.
And so he did.