Hi, thank you for looking at this sermon. I hope it helps. Please do not say the sermon did not help you just because you did not like the style or could not use the entire message for your own needs. I have discovered a few souls automatically hit the ’did not help me’ button if the message they read was not what they were looking for. Please only hit that button if you think God’s people would not be blessed by the message below. Thank you.
Have you ever been put in a situation that required you to provide a skill that you did not really own? It’s sort of like that new job feeling, where you are sitting behind a desk wondering, “What now?” I had such an experience when I worked at GIANT food as a cashier and management trainee. I came in to work one day, prepared to get behind the cash register, when to my surprise I was told that I was assigned to the frozen food section. Now I was never trained for that position, I had no clue what to do, and I shared that with the management, but they stuck me in there anyway. So I spent the entire day trying to figure out what it was they wanted me to do. Eventually I called the person that normally worked in frozen foods section and he explained the work load, but boy did I feel silly.
Later on, I figured out that I was put in that position for a reason. Each management candidate was approached in a different way, for the purpose of creating solid management material. I guess they wanted to build my skills by calling me to a unique task. And that is sort of how Jesus gathered his disciples and how he also gathered you and me.
Think about this for a moment: none of us have precisely the same story of how we began our personal walk with Jesus. We may have all been baptized but what I am talking about here is when you came to understand that there is more involved with being a Christian than just knowing the stories. I am talking about that moment when you realized Jesus working in, with and all around your live and that he takes a personal interest in who you are and what you do.
The way the Lord got me was through music. He got a friend of mine through working through other friends. Another person I know came to faith by way of a prophecy that included him. There are just so many different ways that our Lord approaches us.
In our text, we have two different examples of Jesus calling a follower. For Phillip we have the standard calling of “FOLLOW ME”. Personally I pray to God that evangelism would be that easy. Don’t you. Wouldn’t it be great if all we had to do in creating disciples was to walk up to a stranger and say, “FOLLOW CHRIST?” But our Lord reminds us that we have a bit more to do and say in order to get the same results of new followers. Anyway, Philip was called by the standard approach, but in the case of Nathanael, we have quite a different story of conversion.
Listen to verse 44 and following….”Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael 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.” But Nathanael did not respond as rapidly as the other men. He was not so quick to jump on the bandwagon. In fact he doubted the news from the moment he heard it when he said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth.” Nathanael in my opinion represents all those souls out there that do not so quickly respond to the message of Christ. Yet this is a good thing because Nathanael eventually does come around.
Quite often Jesus comes across souls like that of Nathanael; souls that are not so compelled by the hearing of good news; souls that need a good convincing before they ever take the first step of faith. But Jesus has a plan for them, for you and for me. Each of us is different and for that reason Jesus might have approached us all in very different way. He might have worked on you through your intellect, or talent, or past trials, or even present needs. And the reason Jesus does this is because he is setting us up for the particular sort of serving that we will best be suited for.
Let me explain that a bit further. Since God gathered me through music, music is the way I often like to gather others. It is my media of choice. It is my passion mostly because I am so connected to how well Christian music can reach the lost soul.
Nathanael was special. He had a great interest in his heritage and so Jesus targeted Nathanael by point this point out. Nathanael was himself a rare Israelite. He did not parade his faith or the rules that he followed before others. He was not like the Pharisees whom appeared to be godly outwardly but inwardly their heart rejected godliness. We learn this from the words of Jesus. In verse 47, Jesus said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” This was not said to puff him up. In fact it was a true complement because in truth, Jesus KNEW Nathanael very, very well. He knew his heart, and his knew what was in his thoughts. Jesus knew that before him was a man who felt that time spent with God was a blessing, and not a work.
Once Jesus made this comment, of saying Nathanael was a man of no deceit, boy did he get Nathanael’s attention. And Nathanael then asked, “How do you know me?” Jesus then answered him by saying, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” And these last words were what convinced Nathanael that Jesus was who he claimed to be.
You see, Nathanael was under that fig tree praying, spending time with God and speaking to him silently. He was not boasting of his praying in front of the crowds as were the Pharisees, but instead he went off to pray where no one else would see him,… except for God! And now God let Nathanael know that he was listening.
This particular text is such a joyous reminder to us that Jesus is with us, and that he does know us. He listens to the prayers of our heart and he comes to know us through our time spent with him. So when you are hidden away in your room; maybe dealing with the weight of the world upon your shoulders or maybe your just thinking about the glory of God, remember that Jesus is watching over you, he is listening.
So why am I sharing this information with you? Why am I telling you about this unique calling? Because I believe it sets the Christian up for what is to follow. God wants us to first be aware of how He came to us. Because I believe he will let us use that approach in the way we serve and the way we witness. If you doubt that, then just look at St. Paul and how often he recalled the way the Jesus approached him. He used that story to share the work of Jesus.
After we realized how Jesus came to us, we then began to confess who Jesus is. This is what Nathanael did as well. Nathanael’s realization that Jesus Christ is Lord, came by way of a three-fold confession. First he said, RABBI, which confessed the work of Jesus. Then he said, “You are the Son of God.”, claiming the person of Jesus. And finally he said, “You are the King of Israel”, claiming the office of Jesus. With that confession, we see the conversion that took place in this man. Nathanael was amazed that he was physically speaking to the very one whom he was praying to silently underneath that fig tree. To him that was the greatest miracle of all time.
Now how does this confession affect us? Well, there was a time when all of us responded to Jesus in much the same way. We came to faith with such excitement and exhilaration that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and as a result we could not wait to serve him.
Now I am going to ask you a tough question. Do you still feel that way? Are you still on fire for Jesus? Does your faith feel as new as it was the first day you realized you had a personal relationship with Jesus? Are you still amazed at the Work that Jesus does, the fact that he is listening to you and that he knows you? The reason why I ask you this is because I think that many Christians would honestly answer my question with a resounding NO! I think this way because if every Christian everywhere said, “Yes Pastor we are still on fire for Jesus! Then I would expect every Christian church, and every need, and every open spot for service would be filled on every occasion. If everyone was still on fire for Jesus, if their confession of faith was as bold as Nathanael’s, then there would always be a waiting line of people to voice their faith and their desire to serve. But that is not what is happening in this world, is it? I keep hearing people saying how the Mormans, the Jehovah Witnesses, and the people of Islam are continuing to grow in numbers, while we who have the truth of Jesus Christ stay at home. It does not make sense to me and I am sure it does not make sense to you either but those are the facts.
But brothers and sister in Christ, that can all change. Although sometimes we end up taking our faith and our service for granted, Jesus wants us to begin to take hold of a new way of thinking. He wants us to start thinking as if we have only seen the tip of the ice burg as far as the Work of Jesus in our life, is concerned. For what Jesus said to Nathanael he says to us. Verse 51, “Truly, truly I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” In layman’s terms what Jesus is saying is that you AINT SEEN NOTHING YET!
That is what will keep our faith from diminishing. When we believe that WE AINT SEEN NOTHING YET, then we will always be eager to see what God has in store for us. When we believe that WE AINT SEEN NOTHING YET, then we will be eager to be in the Word, to spend time with Jesus, to serve others with that Word, with the same passion as if we were children in a toy store, discovering that there are still 20 more floors to explore. Believing you AINT SEEN NOTHING YET is like talking to a family member that was supposed to die, but whom now is recovering. JESUS SAYS YOU AINT SEEN NOTHING YET and he wants you to believe that! Because in truth, we have not seen it all, or heard it all, or done it all; there is more that our Lord wants to teach us and to show us. Once day we shall see His Glory face to face, but for now Jesus wants to show us His Glory in the work that he does in, with, under and through our life and the lives of others.
Our Lord does not leave us with just a promise that more joy, more hope, more power, more love, more goodness and more grace is coming to us, he wants to leave us with a certainty. Therefore he gives us an assignment to serve, so that through that assignment you and I will have a greater opportunity to see WHAT WE AINT SEEN and to DO WHAT WE HAVN’T DONE. Each of us has at least one assignment, so that as we are working in the area that he has chosen us to serve, we will actually have the opportunity to see CHRIST and HIS POWER AND LOVE AND PURPOSE, and see these things over, and over and over again. But each time we see His work, it will be as new as the first.
And while we serve the joy can never fade. It just builds. Because as soon as you come across your first thankful heart, or first compelling story of a new faith you will be all the more eager to discover the next one.
Imagine what happens then if we don’t follow through with Jesus’ assignment. Imagine if you will, Nathanael refusing to go with Philip to meet Jesus. Would he have ever come to faith, would he have ever realized that Jesus listened to his prayers? So too imagine what happens to our faith, and what we are missing out on, when the excitement the Word does not move us, and when we stay at home instead of opening our lives to the will and work of God? What will we be missing?
2nd Corinthians 12:27-28 says, “Now you are Christ’s body, and indivually members of it. And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healing, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.” Then in verse 31 Jesus again suggests, YOU AINT SEEN NOTHING YET! By saying, AND I WILL SHOW YOU A STILL MORE EXCELLENT WAY. There is more to learn, there is more to see, and there is more to do and our Lord wants to put those things in our life on a daily basis. He wants to us to own these opportunities to have our faith reenergized as we see the Work of Jesus daily.
Now we all know that Jesus works through the means of grace. But God also works through life. On a regular basis I hear stories about how God answered prayer, or how he changed a soul by putting him through a trial, only to lift him up at the right time. We have students who went on missionary journeys and because of the work that God called them to do, they came home energized and on fire for God. We have tons of service projects here at BLC that can have the same effect.
Here’s an assignment for you. Look at what God has already done in your life! Does it bring it you joy? If so, know that more joy is to follow when you seek to discover a way to serve God through your confession of love in your service to him. You are already called His priests. You have already been given HIS WORD. You already have HIS SPIRIT. We already have HIS JOY and we already know a major portion of HIS WILL. So now there is nothing left then to be led to the Son of God, who has something new and something special in store for us, just as he did for Nathanael.
I look forward to hearing from you all, your own stories of faith and what Jesus did in your life that energized you. One more thought…..Philip called Nathanael to come and see. He does the same for you, so are you ready NOW to take him up on his offer? Come and see what God has in store for you because YOU AINT SEEN NOTHING YET! Amen.
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