You Want Me to Follow You Where?
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; John 1:43-51
The Reverend Anne Benefield
Geneva Presbyterian Church, January 18, 2009
Introduction: Our scripture lesson today is found in the end of the first chapter of the gospel of John. You may remember that John’s Gospel begins with the glorious statements about Jesus as the light coming into the world. The identity of Jesus will be revealed throughout the gospel. Here is a story where Jesus reveals Himself in very practical ways.
John 1:43-51
The day after He was baptized, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, He said to him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked Him, “Where did you get to know me?”
Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And He said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Prayer: Gracious God, You speak to us in so many ways. You speak in every day tones and beautiful images. Open our hearts, minds, and souls to Your profound truth. Amen.
The story of Nathanael’s call is a little cryptic. It raises as many questions as it answers, but there are some themes that run through the story and speak to us. First, there is the theme of discovery. “Jesus found Philip…Philip found Nathanael… [telling Nathanael] we have found Him about whom Moses…wrote…” In the same way, Jesus finds us and we find Jesus.
Second, Jesus knows Nathanael just as He knows us. This is what I would call the best news and the worst news. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, which is a little frightening. At the same time, He knows us and still loves us completely, which is at the foundation of our lives in Christ.
Third, He promises new life. But where is that new life going to take us?
Two old friends met one day after many years. One attended college, and now was very successful. The other had not attended college and never had much ambition. The successful one said, “How has everything been going for you?”
“Well, one day I opened the Bible at random, and dropped my finger on a word and it was oil. So, I invested in oil, and boy, did the oil wells gush. Then another day I dropped my finger on a word and it was gold. So, I invested in gold and those mines really produced. Now, I’m as rich as Rockefeller.”
The successful friend was so impressed that he rushed to his hotel, grabbed a Gideon Bible, flipped it open, and dropped his finger on the page. He opened his eyes and his finger rested on the words, “Chapter Eleven.”
Where will Jesus lead us? Our new life in Christ will take us where we need to grow. To figure out where Jesus is leading us, we need to take an inventory of our weaknesses. Where we are weak, God is strong. Jesus wants to turn our weaknesses into strengths to the glory of His name.
This time of year, January, we are often thinking about where we are in life and where we want to be. By now, January 18, you and I have pretty much broken all our resolutions, but it’s not time to give up yet.
U.S. News and World Report came out with a special issue promoting “50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2009.” In describing the cover story, the table of contents reads: “Doing the little things, and a few big things, too, can lead to great strides toward happiness and a better world.” Then the following subtitles are given: Body, Mind, Money, World, and Play. [U.S. News and World Report, Volume 148, Number 14, Special Year-End Issue, 2008]
Something is missing from that list, don’t you think? It’s missing a foundation, a context. The list is superficial—it doesn’t begin with a solid base. The necessary foundation is faith. We can make small incremental or large dramatic changes in our behavior, but if those changes are made without a foundation of faith in the gracious love of God, those changes don’t mean a thing.
Beginning with faith, we can look at ourselves honestly, assessing who we are and where the Lord is calling us to go. The answer for each of us is unique. Jesus has a specific plan for us. He wants us to follow Him where we need to grow.
Where do you need to grow? Remember that God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. Do you need to grow in faith, itself? Do you need to grow in your trust in God? Do you need to grow in your relationship with Jesus?
The reason we all need to grow in our faith is that the weaknesses we have in our faith, become weaknesses we have in every aspect of our lives. If our faith is weak, then we have trouble believing in God, in ourselves, and in others.
If our trust in God is weak, then it is hard for us to trust not only God, but each other as well. If our relationship with God is weak, then our relationships will all be weak.
I found a story called “Pushing the Rock” told by Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. It is the story of a weak, sickly man, who could not afford to go to the doctor and his condition seemed to grow worse.
The man lived in the deep back woods in an old log cabin. Out in front of his cabin was a huge boulder. One night in a vision, God told him to go out there and push the huge rock all day long, day after day.
The man got up early in the morning and with great excitement pushed the rock until lunch, then he rested a while and pushed the rock until supper time. Pushing against the rock gave him a sense of meaning.
Day after day he pushed. Day rolled into week, and week into months, he faithfully
pushed against the rock. After 8 months of pushing the rock, the weak sickly man was getting tired of pushing the rock. In his tiredness he started to doubt his dream.
One day he began measuring from his porch to the rock to see how much he had moved the rock. After weeks of pushing and measuring, he realized he had not moved the boulder. As a matter of fact, the boulder was in the same place as when he started. The man was so disappointed that after 9 months he felt his work had accomplished nothing. He was tired and his dream seemed dashed upon the rock.
The man sat on his porch and cried. He had invested hundreds of hours for nothing. Nothing, it was all nothing! As the sun was setting in the west, Jesus came and sat down next to the man as he cried.
Jesus said, "Son, why are you crying?"
The man replied, "Lord, You know how sick and weak I am, and then this dumb dream
gave me a false hope and I have pushed with all that was within me for over 9 months, and that dumb old rock is right where it was when I started."
Jesus was kind and said to him, "I never told you to move the rock, I told you to push
against the rock."
The man replied, "Yes, Sir, that was the dream."
Jesus told the man to step in front of the mirror and look at himself. The man stepped in front of the mirror and saw himself.
He was amazed at what he saw in: a strong muscular man. He remembered that he had not been coughing at night. He started thinking of how well he felt and the strength that he had built by pushing on the rock.
Then the man realized that the plan of God was not for the rock, but for the man.
The storms, the trials, the heartaches, the disappointments, are all but part of the process. Don’t start measuring your success, trust the God that will take the process and build you up. God is stretching you, God is growing you!
Where are you weak? Where do you need to grow? That is where Jesus will lead you. We may not want to go there. We may not want to grow. Growth is often painful, trying, and exhausting, but it is worth it.
Think about where you don’t want to go. It’s very likely that that is where Jesus wants to lead you.
A dear friend of mine has been out of regular work for a couple of years. She has found enough temporary work to stay a float, but it has sometimes been a week to week challenge to pay the bills.
As we were talking the other day, she said to me, “I am walking through my worst fear. I can’t explain it, but somehow each time I think I’m at the end of my finances, something comes through. I think that God is teaching me to trust in Him. It isn’t easy, but I’m walking through what I feared more than anything—losing my career and livelihood. Somehow, through it all I’m finding God.”
Somehow, we, too, need to put our faith in Jesus. It won’t be easy. It might even be terrifying, but to grow, we have to face our weaknesses and hand them over to God.
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote:
Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”
[C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (Simon and Schuster: New York, 1996), 169]
Allowing the Lord to lead you is not for sissies. It’s not for the lazy. It’s not for the weak…or maybe it is, because if we will follow the Lord, we are in for the trip of our lives and we’ll get stronger as we go! Amen.
