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Speaker 1Introduce the gospel of John and what I went through basically was transcendent screaming at you and imminent. And then about halfway through, I realized there are three different words for imminent. And they're all spelled differently. They all mean different things. Transcendent is obvious.
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The way I was motioning last week but imminent means that which can be known. The God who can be known. The transcendent God in Jesus Christ, imminent God man who can be known and John writes as an eyewitness firsthand and my challenge to you last week was not go out and live your life a different way except for this. Read John. That was what I, that was the challenge from last week.
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So, if you don't remember and some of you have already come up to me and say, hey, I was doing that and it's really good. It's an engaging story and hey, sure is. It's one for the ages. I'm gonna jump over short section. We did the first 18 verses last week, the prologue of the gospel of John.
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I'm gonna skip over some. It's where Jesus is to me, the first chapter, first couple of chapters where Jesus is gathering steam, it's kind of like and I hope it's not. I hope you don't think it blasphemous to say it. Have you ever watched a Robin Hood movie, the first scene or two of a Robin Hood movie where they're walking and Robin Hood's kind of going along and he's gathering his band of merry men around him. And he's jovial and happy and he's going for the good.
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And people are kind of gathering. That's what the first chapter after the prologue. That's what the first chapter of John looks like. He gathers two of John's disciples, probably John and Andrew, the the John the gospel writer and Andrew. And then Andrew, just like he does every time you see him, goes and gets Peter, brings somebody back.
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But Jesus, first guy that Jesus reached out and grabs himself says, come follow me as Philip. And we'll get to these verses. I'm going read that in just a minute. But, I just love this story. He's gathering his disciples and he's gaining ground.
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I want to read through all of it to you upfront and then go back but what I want you to see today is that every single seeker of truth can witness the awesome power of God. First hand, by realizing Jesus mastery of three different time zones. Now, we've got maps all around us and globes all around us. You might know, well, they ought to be 24 different time zones. I'm going talk about three time zones this morning that Jesus is absolutely the master of and it's shown in the story.
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So, let's just read through it all the way through and then I'll come back and pick up things as I need to. First of all, verse 43, John one forty three to 51. The next day, he purposed to go into Galilee and he found Philip and Jesus said to him, follow me. There won't be much Greek today but I do want to mention one thing. That said to him, in the Greek, it's present tense which means it's, how do I say this?
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You ever tell a story and just to keep people engaged, you say, and Jesus says, and then he does this, and then he does that. That's present historical narrative is what that's called. It's to keep you really engaged, and it does. But in English, it starts sounding weird when you're reading it, so we translate it to it. The next day, he purposed to go into Galilee and he finds Philip and Jesus says to him, follow me.
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Now, Philip was from Bethsaida of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip finds Nathaniel and says to him, we have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathaniel said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip says to him, come and see.
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Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and and says of him, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Nathaniel says to him, how do how do you know me? And Jesus answered and said, before Philip called you, when you're under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathaniel answered him, Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel.
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Jesus answered and said to him, because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these. And he said to him, verily, verily I say to you that you will see the heavens opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. Let's pray. God, thank you for your word.
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Thank you for the clarity of it that it can be known, that you can be known through this man, Jesus Christ. I praise you for him, lord and I'm thankful that we can read this and know you. Amen. First of all, Jesus knew where Nathaniel had been. Under the fig tree.
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That doesn't sound all that impressive, really. He knew he under the fig tree. Some people might say, well, he could have known by this way or that. But you don't get that kind of a response if it's just through natural means. Does that make sense?
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But also, for us, in this day and age, begs a question. Well, what is it doing under the fig tree? That's a fig tree. And I guess the National Enquirer and tabloid culture and celebrity, everything that we have going on, we just wonder, well, what would they do? Because inquiring minds want to know.
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That's just what we do. What was he doing on the fig tree? Well, I'm going let that hang for a minute, I'll come back to that. I'll go to the next slide too, actually. This is also a fig tree.
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This big guy right here with his hands on his hips, bigger than I am now, that's me. And that's a fig tree. And that's in near Amnesia, Morocco. And that tree is probably we're on a cliff right there that goes down about 20 feet. It's probably about 35 feet high from the bottom.
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These are huge. And they cast a lot of shade and they provide fruit too. Next slide, that's one of the figs from that tree. Right here, right now, I can smell that tree. This fig tree smell terrible part of the year and they smell good part of the year.
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Right here, right now, I smell the good part of the year, fig tree. And I can also taste that fruit, and it wasn't quite right. But it was fruit. What significance does it have that Jesus knew where he was? What significance does it have that he knew, about Nathaniel?
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Next slide. Jesus knows where you've been. He knows you. He knew you before the people who called you called you. He knew you before you got here this morning.
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He knows what you've done. I kinda go back in my mind for that national inquiry. I thought we had a few minutes ago and do, well, what was he doing there with that fig tree? I'm gonna let it linger. Second thing, Jesus knew who Nathaniel was.
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When Jesus saw him, can you see the saying? Could you
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Speaker 2hear it the way that I
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Speaker 1read that? Could you hear him going? Behold, I actually chose the New King James version of the Bible for this because it says, behold. Some of them say, look, look is not the same as behold and then some, the NIV just skips it all together but it's there and he says, Jesus says to Nathaniel, he goes, behold, an Israelite, truly in whom there is no deceit.
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Speaker 2You know what I
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Speaker 1think that meant? When the first time
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Speaker 2I read it, I thought
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Speaker 1it and I was sure what it meant because you had just heard Nathaniel say, we heard it. It wasn't in Jesus' presence. When Philip comes to him and he asks him, he says, come on. He appeals to him. It's the guy Moses wrote about.
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It's the guy the prophets had written about and he's the son of Joseph of Nazareth and he goes, could anything good come out of Nazareth? When he says that, and then Jesus says, a true Israelite in whom there was no deceit or no guile in the old version. This is what I thought. Backspread. There you go.
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That's what I thought. That's what Tanya was saying. He's calling him out for being a smarty pants. He's calling him out in front of everybody for being a smarty pants and Jesus had been a little sarcastic and I think there probably was but I know there's a smile on his face. Might be my sanctified imagination.
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I know there's a smile on his face and I feel a lilton kind of laugh in his voice when he said it. He knew him and he said, a true Israelite or an Israelite truly or indeed an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. What was he doing under that fig tree? He's bugging you. It's like out there.
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I can see the smile on Jesus' face. So Jesus knew who he was. I want to contrast this up against something too. I'll wait for that too. Second time zone is the present.
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So the first time zone is the past. Second time zone is the present. It was not about where you were. It was about who you are. In whom is a, he's a true Israelite in whom there is no god.
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The thing to take away from that point is that Jesus knows who you are today. He doesn't know who you were two year. Well, he know know who you were two years ago too but he knows who you are today. Jesus knows you. You can take comfort in that.
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If you know that Jesus has mastery over time and he has mastery over the things of your past and you present that to him clearly in the present, he can do mighty and wonderful things with that. So, whether you're a scholar or a smarty pants or a sinful, sinful human being or whether you're just a sincere seeker of truth. You can witness the power of God by realizing Jesus mastery over your past. His presence here with you in the present. He's looking you with a smile and he's calling you out and he's calling you because he knows you and that's wonderful.
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So what was Philip doing on the fig tree? You know our little sayings like, put your nose to the grindstone and our Christian sayings like, well, you need to go into your prayer closet. That sort of thing. We know what that means because of Christian jargon. You know, we just kind of know what that means.
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Everybody knows what it means to go put your nose to the ground stone. Get busy. Do work. In rabbinical literature, when they said, you need to get under the fig tree. It meant study your Bible.
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Get up under there. Read your Torah. Look at the Pentateuch. See what Moses has to say. We see what the prophets have to say about this.
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It was a short form kind of thing. And when he said, you are a true Israelite or an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile. The guile or deceit, that word, immediately makes you snap back to somewhere in the Old Testament. So he studied in the Old Testament and he said, there is no guile. Who's the person that you think of first for being the deceiver or the one who is full of guile in the Old Testament?
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It's Jacob. So he's studying about Jacob. And it becomes clearer the further we go on in the passage. But that's what he was doing under the fig tree with studying his Bible. He was a sincere seeker of truth.
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Philip's appeal to him, like I said before, was on the basis of Moses. And this is Philip's friend, presumably. It's a on the basis of Moses and the prophets. So, he knows he's a sincere secret of truth and he's pointing out and he's saying, hey, we found the guy. We found the Messiah.
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We found him. Come see. Come see. Smarty pants are not. He was a seeker of truth.
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What does the Bible say happens when you seek after God? Find it. You find it. Hey, that's fantastic. He was seeking after God and he and he found him.
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Nathaniel, it's it's so interesting to me that interchange with Jesus when he says, you know, I saw you under the fig tree and Nathaniel answered him and said, rabbi, which means teacher. You are the son of God. So, he says, teacher, then he says, son of God and then he says, king of Israel. You know, Peter gets a lot of credit later on in this gospel for saying, you are the Christ, son of the living God. Nathaniel said it first thing out of his mouth.
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It's the first thing he said to Jesus. He knew that he knew that he knew when he knew. Rabbi, son of God, king of Israel and Jesus, I think, it says answered and said, but I think it's laughed and said, because I said, you're under, that's easy stuff. It's easy to know where you are, where you've been. It's easy for me to know who you are.
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Wow. This is going be a good ride for you. You're going to enjoy this. And he said to him, truly, truly, this gets us to our third point. Third point says, Jesus knew what Nathaniel's future would hold.
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It wasn't just his past. It wasn't just his present. He knew what his future would hold. He would be his disciple and his witness, and he would witness his miracles. It's going be a good ride for you.
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When he says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heavens opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. Where have you heard that before? Jacob's dream. Can you imagine sitting on that fig tree and studying about Jacob and thinking about this guy who's full of guile and he's deceiver and he's a bad he's not a good guy. Up to that point, you don't hear a whole lot about how great and honorable and holy and wonderful is.
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His very name means deceiver, but he's making of him a great nation. So, yeah, it's great that Nathaniel's heart was in the right place, and he's a secret truth even if he's a smarty pants. And it's a great thing that God redeems even the deceivers and the people who are full of guile, even the people who are horribly sinful. He's here for you. He knows the past.
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He knows in the present, and he's making an appeal right now for you. And why? Well, we'll flip through that next slide. Nathaniel doesn't get a whole lot of mention. He's not Peter.
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Not James. He's not Johnny. Doesn't get a whole lot of mentions. One of the places where he mentions him is he was a witness for the great catch of fish. The place he's from is called Town Of Fish, Bethsaida.
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He's a fisherman. That's what he does. And for him to see this is like nothing he's ever seen before. So that's just a little interesting tidbit along the way. Next slide, the future.
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Jesus knows what you can be, too. He's making the appeal right now. All your past is just prologue to this moment today. He knows who you are, and he's calling you out with a smile and a handshake to warmly welcome you in because he knows your future. He knows what he wants for you to be.
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Realizing that Jesus is lord over the past is a great thing to do. It doesn't matter where you've been, what you've done. If you're a seeker of truth, he is that truth. If you're a sinful person, we're all sinful people. If you've been rescued from your sinful state by Jesus already, he still knows what he wants for you.
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He wants for you to be along for a really good ride. Ask him to show you what it is. You can live a victorious Christian life. We won't be immediately transformed into an image of perfection immediately, but God will begin to work you towards that as you yield your life to him, as you put your drive in neutral and allow him to push the car. You begin to walk in victory day by day, more and more.
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If you want that, if you want to come forward and pray, God, what would you have me do during this Interact Conference? What would you have how did you have me interact with the world? Then come do that. The altar, each time I open up in any of the services, first or second, I know it's from my tradition, I'm certain about this. We just end with an invitation every single time.
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Period. That's just the way it is. It doesn't matter what you're preaching about. You're to end with just as I am and we're going walk out. I'm opening up the front up here, not just for the elders, not just for them to stand up here like henchmen and scare you to death.
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I'm opening it up for everybody that wants to come forward and pray about what Jesus is going to do with their future. We got ten extra minutes in the service today. Come on forward if you want to pray about that. If you want to pray for salvation, I'll be waiting for you with a smile and a handout. If you want to talk about church membership, I think they're doing a class in my office in between services.
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Come on forward while they play, and I'll be waiting out there. Amen. Let's pray. God, thank you for what a a wonderful day that you've given us, lord. I thank you for this week, for the blessings of it, lord, and for the trials that you would lead us through whatever it is that you would have us go through.
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It's in your son's precious holy name, Jesus Christ. Amen.
