I love the pictures of the journey
of the Lord throughout the scriptures and gathering his people to himself. This is one of the glorious ones.
We have reason as we walk in the paths the Lord has ordained
for us. about the scriptures is that
we actually see our biography laid out before us. And this
is in some ways a memorable week for us, not that we've thought
about it very much at all, but it's 20 years this week since
we went to India. 20 years. The first overseas city
I landed in, spent any time in was Chennai and taking three
children and my wife and one, leaving one son behind was a
remarkable part of the journey and in large measure the Lord's
taking us there and teaching us the gospel in so many ways
over there that we have every reason to look back on the providences
of our God with thankfulness and we have a scriptural reason
for looking and seeing that everything he's done, his work, of himself, it's knowing him,
I know whom I have believed. It's being brought into the very
presence of the living God. And that essentially is salvation,
is being in the presence of God and not being consumed, to be
in the presence of he who is a consuming fire and being loved
and adored and cared for and carried through this world and
nurtured. as the lamb's wife. For those of us who have the
joys of marriage, we have pictures, don't we, in the marriage between
men and women of the marriage of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
what a husband he is. Every single man that's ever
walked this earth other than the Lord Jesus Christ would have
to learn the fact that he's a failed husband in so many ways that
it's embarrassing and you wouldn't want to talk about it, and certainly
wouldn't want to brag about it. possible way our Lord Jesus Christ
is a remarkable bride, remarkable husband to his bride. Nathaniel
is a gift, his name means gift of God and so there's a gift
in his name and I trust that as we examine what happens in
Nathaniel's life as he joins the company of the Lord Jesus
Christ and never ever he died and Nathaniel never left the
company of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the faithfulness of our
husband. So let's just look through these
things and I want us to be mindful again and again of the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ gathers his people out of a place where
the religious world saw nothing saw no beauty about him whatsoever. And those Jews had come down
and they'd questioned John for all those verses that we read
about earlier in John chapter one, and they'd heard the very
testimony of God's messenger, the very first prophet of God
to speak, the forerunner that's promised in Isaiah and promised
in Malachi was there standing before them and saying, there
he is, there is God the Son, there is the Lamb of God. And these men heard John's words
and they heard the testimony of a faithful man about the activities
of God the Father, revealing his son about the activities
of God the Holy Spirit, descending as a dove on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And those remarkable events. They heard all that. and they
took themselves back off to Jerusalem. It's a salutary warning, isn't
it, for us to hear the words of God, to take heed to who we
hear and to how we hear, and to ask the Lord to bless us,
that we might find ourselves, like Nathanael, to be gifted
of God, to be brought Verse 45 of John chapter 1. Let's go through these verses
and just spend some time looking at the nature of what happened. Philip findeth Nathaniel. The first
act of believers isn't it? The first act of Andrew as he
goes and finds his brother Simon, and it appears from the context
that John went off to find James as well, and Andrew found Simon
first. So, it's a glorious thing, isn't
it, when one lighted torch lights another. See, we're here today,
we're here today because there has been, of the gospel from one person,
one ordinary person, to another ordinary person for nearly 2,000
years. And the very same gospel that
we're hearing today, the very same Lord Jesus that we delight
in here and delight to proclaim, is in the same process, isn't
he, of gathering his people, and they find him captivating.
And you would recall, brothers and sisters in Christ, that when
the Lord first began to work in you, There was this burning
desire to go and speak to people, and I remember thinking, this
news is such good news, that surely when I talk to people,
surely when I talk to people about this, that all the unknown and difficult parts of
this creation and our existence in it and everything would all
just come together. I thought believing was an easy
thing. When I came back from India on those trips, I was talking
to people and I thought, people are going to be so captivated
by the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and the wonder of finished
atonement and the wonder of imputed and imparted righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that God the Father looks upon His Son
for everything that He requires of us. I thought religious people
were going to be excited. In the early days I thought atheists
would be excited. Then when I came back I thought
religious people would be excited. I thought this would be the best
news you could ever hear. These Jews heard the best news
that could ever be heard. They were there in the very presence
of the fulfilment of prophecies from thousands of years before. And yet, like so many throughout
time and history, they have been allowed under the judgment of
God to go their own way. Go their own way. We have good news. We have good
news. So for that last 2,000 years with familiar friends is the
way the gospel advances, isn't it? People say, come and see,
and they hear by the preaching of the gospel. Philip does as
his Lord did. In verse 43, the Lord Jesus would
go forth into Galilee and he findeth Philip. And now Philip
findeth Nathanael, and he saith unto him, and I love what he
says here. He says, we have found the Messiah. So Philip's been brought into
the company, a company that includes we, isn't it? We've found the
Messiah. Andrew and Peter and John and James, we've found him. We have him here. We've found
the Messiah. True faith is both extraordinarily
individual and at the same time almost immediately a cooperative
corporate activity. The perpendicular pronoun is
not common speech among the children, the daughters of Zion. We have
found the Messiah. We've all found him. There were
more than one witness. They're drawn to a light So Philip goes to Nathanael. And I want us to note here that
the Lord's ways of gathering these, I believe, six disciples
are all so different, aren't they? See, Andrew and John heard
John the Baptist say, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away
the sins of the world. And they heard John and they
followed the Lord Jesus Christ. Andrew found Peter. And I think
from the context we find that John found James. But then Jesus
finds Philip himself. And then Philip finds Nathanael
and brings him to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the Lord Jesus
at the very foundation of this gathering of his church shows
us there are different ways. There are different ways that
he gathers his bride to himself. And I think there are some really
significant lessons in all of this. We can't carve out a way
of coming and set that as a rule for all other people in terms
of their coming to the Lord. As if there was some fixed pattern,
and if that fixed pattern is not followed, then we feel like
we've been dealt with or we can suspect the way that we came. You know enough of your own journey
to know that it went through all sorts of twists and turns
from your perspective and at times you'd be wondering what
on earth is the Lord doing causing these things to happen and why
is he working in this particular person in this particular way
when he's worked in me in another way? And the point, of course,
is that we're not to look to ourselves, we look to the Lord
and He will do things as He sees fit and at His time of love in
the hearts of His people. And so, not only can't we organise
a fixed path of coming, and in today's religion, you know, man's
made religion is always organising fixed paths of coming. Billy
Graham wrote a big book, didn't he, called How to be Born Again. As if somehow you actually knew
how you were born again. You were born. As if our original
birth from our mothers was something that we orchestrated from inside
the womb. You would think that it's the
very nature of things to say, I can't call the book that title.
I might believe all the nonsense that I write in it. And it's
no different today, isn't it? We can get people to be emotional
and then get them to pray the sinner's prayer and come forward
and memorize two ways to live and a few other things. We can
give a formula. We've got a formula, haven't we? And if you get the
formula, you'll get the results out We're not both to dictate how
the Lord works in the hearts of people, and we're not to be
doubting his calling of us because it's been different from another.
So the destination matters, isn't it? The one thing that matters
for all of these people is that they ended up in the very presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ. and see. Our task is to preach
the gospel. We want to clear the road, don't
we, to the city of refuge and get the rubbish out of the way
and say, come and see, come and see, behold the Lamb of God,
behold the Lamb of God. We want to make the signposts
simple. We want to make the road clear. We want to make sure that
all the twists and turns continually that are set before people, continually
we are saying, just look, Look, look and be saved. Look unto
me or you into the earth and be saved. Of course, we have in this a
glorious example of the Lord Jesus Christ expressing His omnipotence
and His power. So Philip, Nathanael, and he said unto him,
we've found the Messiah of whom Moses in the law and the prophets
did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael
said unto him, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? It's interesting, isn't it? Nazareth
was part of Galilee. It was in that northern section
of Israel in those days and closest to the Gentile nations. And Galilee was the lowest of
the low and Nazareth was the lowest of the lowest of the low.
And in large measure, Nathanael's questions and concerns are justified. But I love how Philip describes
him. He says, we have found him of
whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write. The children
of God have one rule, don't we, for all of our believing and
everything that we hold dear, and that is what does God say? It is the way we identify the
Messiah. It's the way we identify the
Church of God. It's the way we identify where
he gathers with his people. It's what does Moses and what
does the law say? What did the prophets say about
him? See, the Old Testament is a portrait of our Lord Jesus Christ painted
in promises. That's what the Old Testament
is, isn't it? It's a portrait of Him. And the portrait gets
clearer and clearer and clearer, all the way through to the end,
from Genesis to Malachi, we have a growing and clearer picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who He is, and what He's come to
do. And that's what preaching is,
isn't it? So much of it is, we're just
defining the Lord Jesus Christ. We're just defining him as the
scripture says. We say, this is who he is. This is who he
is. And it's always and only by the
scriptures. We've all probably forgotten
much of what John began writing in this glorious epistle, but
the opening verses, are just a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, aren't they? A clearer and more defined picture
of him. He begins with the word, doesn't
he? He was the word from before the foundation of the world,
and this word was with God, and the word was God. The same, what
a lovely description of him. The more I think about that,
the more excited I am about it. He's the same, everything else
is changing. And I'm changing, but he's the same. Was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him,
Not anything was made that was made, and in him was life, and
that life was the light of men. And he goes on, doesn't he, and
we just have phrase after glorious phrase defining the Lord Jesus
Christ, and all of them are straight out of the Old Testament scriptures
in remarkable and wonderful ways. So both Messiah and his forerunner
are defined by the Lord Jesus Christ. You search the scriptures,
he says to those Jews when he comes to meet with them in Jerusalem,
you search the scriptures, because in them you think you have eternal
life, but they are they which testify of me. They testify of me. He said to them, you trust in
Moses in John 5.45. If you had believed Mises, John
5, 46, if you had believed Mises, you would have believed me, for
he wrote of me. The Scriptures, like I said,
are a portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ, painted in promises,
in pictures. All the pictures are promises,
aren't they? And all of those who are led
by the Holy Spirit, they testify beforehand, says Peter, of the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. So
from Genesis to Malachi, from Malachi to Revelation, we just
have this amazing picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord
has sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest forever, after
the order of Melchizedek. You know some of these Old Testament
passages. The Old Testament is just a picture
book of the Lord Jesus Christ. And without Him, without the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, there is no picture. Listen to
what the psalmist says in Psalm 89 verses 36 and 37. He says,
His seed His seed shall endure forever
as the moon and as a faithful witness in heaven. His seed shall
endure forever, his throne as the sun before me. We've found
him. Philip defined the Lord Jesus
Christ in terms of the Old Testament scriptures. And no doubt, in
that time with the Lord, when the Lord came and found him,
in that time with those other disciples who will get there
as that we, what was the topic of conversation? Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, Christ and Him crucified was the topic of
conversation all the time. And where did they draw it all
from? They drew it all out of the Old
Testament. Philip describes him Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph. It's interesting, isn't it, what
Nathanael sees as something that could be used against the Lord
Jesus Christ is actually throughout the rest of the New Testament.
He's considered again and again and again, it's Jesus of Nazareth.
He's defined particularly as this particular person. But in
a sense, Nathanael was right because the word of means origin,
or for some people it means place of birth, and Nathanael would
have understood that the Messiah came from Bethlehem, he was of
the tribe of David. You see, true converts like Philip can bring a story of the Lord,
which for some people will seem like a tale, won't it? The truth
converts like Philip, but like the rest of us, there's always,
as Nehemiah said when he came to build the walls of Jerusalem,
there's always some rubbish to be removed. He calls him the
son of Joseph. the son of Joseph, and yet the
scriptures want to make it abundantly clear that Joseph was Buddy's
stepfather, as Luke says, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph. You see, Philip, like us, can
be telling what we understand to be the truth and nothing but
the truth. And yet there is still some rubbish
to be cleaned up. And Nathanael said to him, can
any good thing come out of Nazareth? Galilee was the lowest. As I
said earlier, Nazareth was the lowest of the low. And you know
what the type of people were in Nazareth when you read Luke
chapter 4. When they heard gracious words from the Lord Jesus Christ,
then it declared who God is and how God operates in this world
by sovereign, electing, redeeming, grace, and particular salvation. The people of Nazareth took this
man who they'd lived with for 30 years almost, and they took
him off to the brow of the hill to cast him down. The point is, of course, that
our Lord Jesus Christ will always withstand the most detailed examination
from the scriptures. He is defined so clearly and
so particularly that he can be examined in the finest detail,
and everything you'll find out about him will be exactly according
to the scriptures, no matter what. He must come from Galilee,
and Philip says to him, best answer for us in so many
situations is to say, come and see. And that's exactly the same
words as the Lord Jesus Christ used in verse 39. He says, come and see, come and
see. So the best answer is always
a repetition of the Lord's word. But Philip's enthusiasm had won
his friend and audience with Christ, and Philip's sincerity
and excitement had won him. Verse 47. Look what happens when you come
and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
him and saith to him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom
is no guide. I love the fact that in what
we perceive as our coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, he's actually
seeing us. And he's the one that comes,
isn't he? He comes from heaven and he comes to where these people
are in Cana of Galilee. He comes there to see them and
to gather them to himself. Christ takes the initiative.
Listen to what he says, and I want us to spend some time after our
break to consider this. He says, Behold an Israelite
indeed, in whom is no guile. He looked into the very heart
of Nathanael and declares him to be one who has no guile. It is It's the glory of our God to
delight in his bride, to rejoice over her with singing. The Lord
delighteth in you, brothers and sisters in Christ. Behold, the
Lord sees our hearts and sees our thoughts. The best we can
ever do is look at the outside, but our God looks at the heart. And he declares Philip to be
Nathaniel to be one in whom is no God. It's a glorious, glorious description
of the new creation. It is the new creation. It is
God's creation in us that cannot sin. There was no deceit in the
mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord find us coming,
and may we delightfully find the Lord coming to us. May we hear his cry, come and
see. Okay, may the Lord bless his
words to our hearts.