Found to Follow, Come to See (Jesus and the first disciples)

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 (ROUGH SERMON NOTES -- NOT SERMON CONTENT!)

Meeting the Savior = HE is God, but he became man to show us the light and God’s glory, and for the purposes of establishing a new family of people on the earth – one not born in the ordinary fashion, but one born of believing and receiving Jesus Christ.  Those who believe become children of God, and these children, like the true son of God, walk in the light, and reveal God’s glory. Now we begin reading accounts of different individuals meeting the savior.  Who they are, where they come from, how they react to meeting the savior.  And what we find out is that Jesus goes to particular places to meet with particular people.  He will meet with John the Baptist, and take some of his students.  These students hail from a particular town, and Jesus will meet their friends and family as he starts to establish his own disciple making operation. When Jesus speaks to these individuals, he speaks very pointedly about character and about expectations and can be completely persuasive by just uttering the phrase, “Follow me.” The call to follow Jesus is the call to become his disciple.  And so we will begin meeting disciples of Jesus – 12 of them in all, but we will start with 4.  The # 12 is reminiscent of the 12 tribes of Israel, a family turned nation born from 12 brothers.  Well now Jesus will gather a band of brothers – and although some do have blood-line connections to others, this group of 12 will become the primary foundation upon which Jesus will build a NEW kind of ISRAEL – and Israel that had been clearly defined by the OT, but had never find fulfillment in any group of Israelites == That is until now!  THE TRUE Israelite was here in Jesus, and now he will train his disciples to live, eat, and think, the kingdom of God. But he needs to meet these guys first… ESV Isaiah 53: 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. ESV Isaiah 51:1 "Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. 2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him… and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples. 5 My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, … but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed. 7 "Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings… my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations." 
 

ESV Zephaniah 3:15 The LORD has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.

 

Jesus calls Simon, Kephas, which means a stone or a rock – Aramaic word for rock is Kephas, and the Greek word for rock is Petros.  Jesus looked at Simon, and determined that he was either stable or hard headed.  How would you like to meet someone for the first time, and have them change your name (Sinclair Ferguson to Fergy).  Jesus calls Simon, a rock, and he just rolls with it.

  

Everyone gets to speculate on Jesus’ insight of knowing that Nathaniel was sitting under a tree, and why mentioning it, becomes a spiritual explosion by him to Jesus.  So now it’s my turn…  (Remember: Total speculation based upon OT insights).  One of the signs of God’s blessing upon Israel as a nation was to say that each Israelite would one day be able to sit and rest under their own vines and fig tree.  Multiple passages allude to this prophetic picture.  So I envision Nathaniel actually finding a fully leafing fig tree in the heat of the siesta sun, and he sits there and he contemplates these types of passages.  He is sitting there, thinking to himself, “This is what life is supposed to be like, rest, protection, and God’s provision.  And as he sits there, seeing his own private moment as a fulfillment of these OT passages, he then realizes what Israel needs to be and do to experience this moment nation wide, what they will need to do to unshackle themselves from the Roman oppression and become a blessed nation – righteousness!  All of Israel must long to obey God’s commands and laws and statutes, and as they collectively seek to be a holy people with pure hands and clean hearts - -without an ounce of guile – the Messiah will come and establish the Ideal that Israel was supposed to be.  So when Jesus says he sees him under the fig tree, and invades his private thoughts – Nathaniel makes all kinds of spiritual connections and realizes that Jesus had read his heart and his desires, his immediate blurt is – you are the son of God, the King of Israel

 

Jesus says to Nathaniel, ”Hold on there son, you’re a little excited because I was able to reveal something about you.  You shouldn’t be calling people the son of God, or King of Israel unless it were absolutely true!”

 

Jesus, the son of man, is the ladder of the OT account of the angels climbing Jacob’s Ladder.  Jesus takes this profound dream that Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham; the vision that for Jacob, re-established with him all the promises that Abraham received.  God was confirming with Jacob, that the Lord had not given up on him, his descendants would inherit profound blessings, and that Heaven would come to earth to make it happen – and isn’t that absolutely true in Jesus Christ!  The message of heaven comes down to earth from heaven in Jesus.  He is heaven, breaking upon the earth to announce the blessing to all who will believe the gospel.  Only Jesus is uniquely gifted to link both heaven and earth – more than that, Jesus is the true house, or temple of God, He is the only gate of heaven!  And he has come down to establish a righteous Israel, a royal priesthood, and kingdom of priests, and will plant a beautiful vineyard and fig forest!  Heaven must break into our realm for us to get it, and only those who receive this spiritual insight get very excited about it!

 

BTW – this rock that Jacob anoints and includes in an altar is supposedly under the throne in England – but that’s another vision that I haven’t been gifted enough to see yet…

  

Speaks of how Nathaniel was prepared to make a blunt confession!  Philip’s apologetic of Jesus is this, “Just come and see for yourself.”  Jesus was able to take a spiritual insight into Nathaniel that awakened in him a total connection to the Lord.  Often times, we are just “introducers.”  Jesus can speak directly to those he wants to follow him.

 

So yeah, we can tell people how church can be good for their lives, and their families, for their social standing perhaps – but if we aren’t telling people to “see for themselves” about Jesus – then we are getting in the way of people meeting Jesus!  I must challenge everyone here – If you are not on a regular Bible reading diet – why not take the time right now that leads us up to Easter and read one of the Gospels, and see if Jesus will speak directly to you.

 

The question was asked earlier, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?  Well, let me ask this cynically,  Can anything good come out of YOU? Or any of us.  And it is at this point that we say… Look to Jesus, and let him speak something into you – and the response will be our understanding of who he really is.  The son of God, the King of Israel.

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