Sermon Cloud

© Eric M Schumacher – Preached August 12, 2007 at Northbrook Baptist Church , Cedar Rapids, Iowa

In the Kingdom of God , the world’s economy is turned upside down. What is valuable in the Kingdom of God is often despised by the world. On Christian singer-songwriter Derek Webb’s album “I See Things Upside Down,” the title song states these words:

What looks like failure is success
And what looks like poverty is riches
When what is true looks more like a knife
It looks like you're killing me
But you're saving my life

What looks like weakness can do anything
And what looks like foolishness is understanding
When what is powerful has not come to fight
It looks like you're going to war
But you lay down your life

What looks like torture is a time to rejoice
What sounds like thunder is a comforting voice
When what is beautiful looks broken and crushed
And I say I don't know you
But you say it's finished

What Webb is sings is a biblical truth. What the world sees is often much different from what God sees.

This is what Paul says of the preaching of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. Paul writes that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The Gospel—the message at the heart of Christianity—is that Jesus Christ came and was crucified as a substitute through sinners and was raised from the dead. He is God’s anointed King who is going to come and reign on earth. To the world this message is weak and foolish, but in the Kingdom of God it is powerful and wise.

The same thing is true of God’s people (1 Cor 1:26-29). Paul writes:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no flesh might boast in the presence of God.

The people of God look foolish in the eyes of the world. The message and the means of their salvation—the cross—looks foolish in the eyes of the world. And, this is only fitting, because their king and their savior was exactly like this.

What we will see in the first part of this morning’s passage is that God chosen king was sometimes viewed as foolish and weak; he was low and despised in the world. Nevertheless, even though some viewed him a man from Nazareth , a place from which nothing good could come, he was truly the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Philip’s Invitation

We pick up this morning in the middle of a string of encounters in which people are being brought to Jesus and begin to follow him. Here, they have gone to Galilee and Philip has been found. Jesus calls him to “follow,” which Philip does.

Upon being called by Jesus, Philip goes and finds Nathanael. Nathanael is probably the disciples known elsewhere as “Bartholomew.” The names “Philip” and “Bartholomew” are never listed together. However in Bartholomew’s name is coupled with Philip in three of the four lists of Apostles in the New Testament. As some of the disciple had more than one name (such as Simon Peter/Cephas), it is probable that Bartholomew and Philip are the same person.

Philip tells Nathanael his exciting news—“we have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” This is an interesting way of describing Jesus.

First, he says, “the one of whom Moses…and the prophets wrote.” This is an important designation. This is the stance of the entire Gospel and of Jesus himself—Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scripture. He is the one that Moses wrote about in the first five books of the Old Testament and the one the prophets spoke of at the end of the Old Testament. We are left to realize that he is also the one written about by every author in between. This is a stance that Jesus shares:

John 5:39-40 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

In saying that Jesus is “the one of whom Moses…and the prophets wrote,” Philip is telling us that Jesus is the one that the entire Old Testament has anticipated.

…of Nazareth – The first-century Palestine way of identifying someone is to refer to their home city and their father.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem . Joseph soon took Mary and young Jesus and fled to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod (Matthew 2:13-15). God arranged this so that, like Israel, Jesus the True Son of God would have an exodus from Egypt .

When Joseph brought them back from Egypt, Herod’s cruel son was ruling over Bethlehem , so they “withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth ” (Matthew 2:19-23).

Matthew also tells us that early in Jesus’ public ministry, he left Nazareth and lived in Capernaum by the sea (Matthew 4:12-13). But, since Jesus grew up in Nazareth , he would continue to be identified as “Jesus of Nazareth,” even if was born and lived elsewhere.

This obscures the fact that he was born in Bethlehem . This will later be used to discredit Jesus (7:40-52).

…the son of Joseph – This is not a denial on John’s part of the virgin birth. Although, this also will be used in an attempt to discredit Jesus (John 6:42).

John obviously understood the divine and eternal origin of Jesus from what have read in chapter one: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” People were identified by who their father was. And, Joseph appeared to be Jesus’ father. This is a recording of Philip referring to Jesus as he would have been known.

Nathanael’s Question

Nathanael responds to this by asking the question, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth ?” Nathanael is an honest man who says what he is thinking. And, he is thinking that nothing good can come from Nazareth .

Nathaniel was from Galilee , which was a region despised by the Judeans. Yet, we have evidence here that even some Galileans despised Nazareth . Nazareth apparently insignificant in the eyes of Jews. And, Nazarenes were despised even by the despised. To be a Nazarene was a lowly, weak and foolish position for the Son of God to assume. Nathanael’s comment reflects this attitude.

This fits with Matthew’s observation that “he shall be called a Nazarene” in Matthew 2:23. There, Matthew narrates the events that led Joseph to settle his family in the city of Nazareth . Matthew writes, “he went and lived in a city called Nazareth , that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.’”

This is an interest quotation that also provides insight into the nature of “prophecy.” Matthew says that the prophets spoke, “He shall be called a Nazarene,” yet the Old Testament has no verse anywhere which says, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” What Matthew means is that the Prophets spoke of the coming one as someone who would be despised and counted as insignificant by the world he entered.

Listen to what the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 53:1-3:

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah certainly describes the coming one as the type of person Nazarenes were characterized as.

Isaiah said that he “had no form or majesty that we should look at him.” When God had Samuel anoint David, David did not look like a King. He was not the oldest, he was the youngest. He did not stand head and shoulders above the rest, as Saul had. God did not look on outward appearance, he looked on the heart. Jesus, like David, would not look like an obvious candidate for King. He did not have the “form or majesty” of a King, but he is God’s King.

Likewise, Isaiah writes that he had “no beauty that we should desire him.” In other words, the coming one would not necessarily be outward beautiful and attractive. Rather than being attractive, Isaiah says he will be “as one from whom men hide their faces.”

I remember hearing Mark Dever say once that if there was a photograph of Jesus and his disciples, we would not be able to pick out which is Jesus, except that he might be the ugliest of the group.

When I was in elementary school, one of the students in my catechism class asked our pastor what Jesus looked like. He replied that he would not have looked like the Jesus in that popular portrait (the one I like to call the “blonde-haired, blue-eyed, West Coast surfer Jesus”). Instead, he said that Jesus would look more like Saddam Hussein than like these pictures that hang on our walls. This was shocking to us, especially since this was around the time of the first Operation Desert Storm, in which America was with Iraq and its president was Saddam Hussein! In my mind, if Jesus looked like anyone, he looked like me! Who else would Jesus be, but a white, middle-class, Republican from the Mid-West United States! (Isn’t that typical of us proud human beings! God made man in his image, and ever since the fall, we’ve been trying to remake him in ours.)

But, that pastor was right! Jesus was a Middle-Eastern Jew. To restate his claim today, Jesus would look more like Osama Bin Laden than anyone in this room. If Jesus were to walk onto an airplane you were on, you would probably suspect him of being a terrorist because of our stereotypical presuppositions. If Jesus were sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, some of us would choose the seat furthest away from him. And, we probably have—for he says that what we have done to least of these, his brothers, we have done to him (Matthew 25:40).

Isaiah said that Jesus would be “despised and rejected by men.” And, he was. In this passage, Nathanael, who will quickly come to believe in him, reflects the attitude of so many who will despise and reject him because he doesn’t measure up with their interpretation of who the Messiah must be.

Applications

Jesus’ origin made him an unlikely candidate to be the Messiah. One lesson that we can learn is that, as Derek Webb’s song declares, in God’s Kingdom, things appear “upside down” when compared to the world. Jesus is the greatest example of this. Salvation will come through the foolishness of a man from Nazareth being stripped, whipped, beaten and crucified before a mocking crowd. Nevertheless, what the world calls foolishness and weakness is the wisdom and power of God.

Do not judge the truth by the standards of the world. You may be a non-believer. Or, you may be being challenged in your faith by your friends, teachers or parents. The capitol-t Truth will not often be esteemed by professors of philosophy in academic institutions. It will be mocked and despised. But truth is not determined by PhD’s who have written celebrated dissertations. The Truth is He who became flesh and walked on earth 2,000 years ago.

Do not judge by outward appearances, but by the Word of God. How easy it will be for the undiscerning person to be led away from the Gospel in these last days if they will not judge by the Word of God.

There is a belief that is poisoning evangelical Christianity today. It is the belief that what looks good and is what is popular must be true and healthy. It is often and strongly implied that if “millions of Christians” watch this television program, subscribed to this doctrine, read this book, sing this song, like this preacher that it must be blessed by God.

What a dangerous idea! Truth has never been determined by a democracy, but by the declaration of God. The Mormons have a choir that, by earthly standards, is very talented. Yet, they are a church that preaches a false Gospel. The owners of TBN have multi-million dollar mansions, yet they proclaim a health and wealth Gospel that will send you to hell. Joel Osteen and Robert Schuler have mammoth facilities and millions of television viewers, but they are, in my opinion, antichrists who are leading millions astray with a false gospel that promises happiness and “your best life now” while it ignores sin and repentance. They look wonderful, but are modern day antichrists.

In the world, preachers are judged a “success” if they preach to large and rapidly growing audiences. Yet, at the end of his life, Jesus was left by everyone but a small group of women and a disciple or two.

In the world, ministries are judged as “relevant and effective” by their slick use of technology and the rhetorical skills and personalities of their speakers. Yet, Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 2:3-5), “I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

Jesus will not be judged by the world, but by his Father. The true Gospel will not be judged in the court of popular opinion but by the word of God. And God’s servants will not be judged by each other or by themselves, but by God’s Son.

Prepare to be despised. Jesus was despised for being a Nazarene (John 7:40-52), so Christians were despised as a “sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5).

Later in John, Jesus will tell his disciples that the attitudes expressed toward him will be transferred to them. In John 15:18-25, Jesus says:

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: “They hated me without a cause.”

Jesus was despised. Christians will be too.

Paul comforted the early church in Acts by telling them that “through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God ” (Acts 14:22).

Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 5:10-12:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to the end, he was “called a Nazarene.” He was written off and despised. If you are going to follow Jesus, then you should be prepared to be written off and despised as the “sect of the Nazarenes.” You should be prepared to be hated without cause, to be persecuted when you have done nothing wrong. You should be comforted by the truth that we must enter the Kingdom of God through many tribulations. You expect to have people revile you, persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely. And, you should rejoice and be glad. When this happens to you, your reward is great in heaven because you have become treated like all of God’s prophets who came before you.

Come and See

I will close this morning by pointing you to Philip’s reply to Nathanael. Rather than debate him or argue with him, he simply invites him to “Come and see.” Sometimes, this is the best answer that we can give to our enemies and to skeptics. F.F. Bruce writes, “Honest inquiry is a sovereign cure for prejudice.”

This is the thrust of the passage. The reader is invited to continue reading to “come and see” who this Jesus really is. Like Philip, we do not need to debate the skeptic. We only need respond, “Come and see. Read the Gospel.”

So, if you are an unbeliever this morning, here is my invitation to you—“Come and see who Jesus really is.” I challenge you to take a Gospel of John and to read it daily and sincerely. Come and see who Jesus is. Do not judge the truth by what you hear in the halls of academia, what you find on the shelves of Barnes & Noble or by what tickles your ears on television. Come and see this beautiful and mistreated Jesus Christ, who is God’s Chosen King. Come and see.

And, if you are a believer this morning, here is my invitation to you—Come and see things upside down. Take up your cross and follow the unlikely king from Nazareth . Accept as a compliment the insult of being called today’s equivalent of “one from Nazareth .” Stake your life on the foolish weakness of a crucified Messiah. Rejoice when you are persecuted, reviled and slandered. Count it all joy when you meet trials of many kinds. Find comfort in many tribulations, for it is only through them that we may enter the Kingdom. As we will see in this Gospel, the lonely cross leads to a glorious crown.