Okay, let's turn back in our
Bibles with me, if you could, to John Chapter 1 and verse 43,
and let's ask the Lord to be our teacher. Heavenly Father,
we do pray that you would honour your promise to teach us and
to teach us to profit, and the profit of our souls. we pray that you might be the
one that causes us to see your son in something of his glory
as the Queen of Sheba did, Heavenly Father, that we might behold
him and that we might, by beholding him, have our eyes fixed upon
him. We do again pray for this world,
we pray for our Friends in congregations throughout this world, we pray,
Heavenly Father, for the gatherings wherever your gospel is preached.
We pray you'd have mercy upon your people and that they would
find the Lord Jesus Christ, sweet rest for their souls. And we
pray in Jesus' name, his glory. So here in John chapter one,
verse 43, it says, The day following, the day following
the calling of Cephas and the renaming of Simon, who is Peter,
the day following, Jesus would go forth. into Galilee. So now Jesus is on the western
side of the River Jordan and he's going up into Galilee. And
I want us to have in our mind the journey that he's taking
and gathering his disciples. And I want us to have in mind
that as Jesus is journeying in his direction to the wedding
in Cana with his people, The Pharisees and the scribes and
others that came from Jerusalem are on their journey, and I have
absolutely no doubt from what we read in the rest of the Gospel
accounts and what we read in Acts, that they went all the
way back to Jerusalem justifying themselves and justifying their
religion and finding ways to find themselves comfortable in
rejecting the counsel of God against themselves, in rejecting
the testimony of John the Baptist. And they actually saw the Lord
Jesus Christ. When John said, Behold, there
he is. I have a testimony from God in
heaven about this man. I have the promises of God to
bring you about this man. And such was the physical appearance
of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus Christ that they thought
they were nothing. And they thought their words
were nothing. I want us to consider all of this in light of the fact
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Messiah and we looked last
week a little at the anointed priest who is the Messiah. The
Messiah means anointed one. He's the anointed priest and
he's the anointed king and I want this week to look at what he
does here as the anointed king of Israel. He is a king. He's a king over everyone and
everything. He prays in his high priestly
prayer at the end of John's Gospel and before he went to the cross,
he says, you've given me authority over all flesh. He has authority
over all flesh. Does he have authority over all
flesh today? He has exactly the same authority
over all flesh. He's been given authority over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as the
Father has given him. So, and the consummation of all
of that is what we read earlier in Revelation chapter 21, is
that there is, we are on a journey with our Saviour to meet him
and to go to a wedding feast. And that wedding feast will be
consummated in remarkable ways in that new creation. That's
why I love what it says the day following these things, Jesus
would go forth. What a glorious description of
our Lord. He's not passive, is he? Jesus
would go forth. He would go forth. He said to
his mother and father when he was 12 years of age, didn't you
know that I should be about my father's business? The great
shepherd always must go. He must, in chapter four, he
must needs go through Samaria. He must need. All his goings forth have been
from everlasting, says Micah, chapter five. This ruler of Israel,
this king of Israel, his going forth is from everlasting. If you go back with me in John's
gospel, We look in verse 9, he's the true light that cometh into
the world. Verse 11, he came unto his own,
his own received him not. Verse 27, John speaks of his
coming, which was after me. Verse 29, the Lord Jesus Christ
is coming to John. He came in his baptism, he went
out into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil for 40 days,
and then these are events of when the Lord Jesus Christ came
back there and he was declared yet again by John the Baptist
to be the Lamb of God. He says in verse 30, after me
cometh a man. His coming is preferred before
me. And John saw Jesus, he seeth
Jesus, verse 29, coming to him. In these scriptures we see that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that sent of God, the one
that came willingly, and he's going forth, he's going forth. And I want us to be reminded,
he's going forth now because he has two or three witnesses,
he has He has a wedding to go to. You might recall the parables
of the Lord Jesus regarding that wedding in Matthew 22 and 25. It says in Matthew chapter 22
verse 2, it says, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain
king which made a marriage for his son, and he sent forth his
servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, and they
would not come. He came to his own, and his own
received him not. there will be and there is a
wedding supper provided. And in chapter 22 of Matthew's
gospel, there is a man that arrives there without a wedding garment
on, without the robe of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he says unto him, verse 12 of Matthew 22, friend, how camest
thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the serpents,
bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer
darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,
for many are called. But few are chosen. By the end
of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, all of Israel knew, all
of nation Israel knew of him and his glory. There is a wedding,
you might recall in Matthew 25, the wedding is pictured as the
people of Israel are pictured as those ten virgins and five
had no oil in their lamps. And you might recall that when
the ones that had no oil in their lamps pleaded with the others
to give it to them, they wouldn't. And by the time they came back,
the door was shut. So the marriage is a marriage
supper for a particular people and the marriage door will be
shut. Jesus goes forth. He goes forth
because there's a wedding. And it's very evident from chapter
two that the wedding is a wedding in which the Lord Jesus and Mary
are closely related. And it may have been one of their
family, we're not sure, but it's a family wedding because Mary
takes responsibility and she asked Jesus to take some responsibility
for the lack of wine. But all of the Lord Jesus Christ
goings forth are about the wedding. All of his goings forth in this
world are about him gathering his people to himself. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
go and to die and to prepare a place for them that he might
be with them forever. John had gone out to proclaim
the Lamb. Now the Lord Jesus goes out. He goes out to gather his elect. He goes out to reveal his glory. He goes out to fulfil the word
of God in every jot and tittle. He goes out to obey the law of
God with his heart and his soul and his mind and his strength.
In every possible way he goes out to work a perfect righteousness,
he goes out to honour his father's name, to magnify his law, to
honour the justice and the holiness of his father. But he goes out,
he goes out as a king, the Messiah king, the anointed king goes
out He is the one, as the old writers used to say, the one
that has the crown rights. He has the right of authority
over all. What a glorious king we have. Why are we hearing the things
that we are hearing from the Word of God? We are here because
these things are ordained from all eternity. Why did we hear
a story in the message this morning about the Queen of Sheba from
Simon? Because God had ordained it from all eternity for the
good of His people, for His glory. He goes out as a sovereign, a
sovereign king, and that's what we find in Him. in the end of
that verse, isn't it? And he findeth Philip. He findeth
Philip. He knows where to find all of
this. The great shepherd of the sheep knows exactly where the
sheep are at every possible moment of time, and that's what we'll
find when we come to see the story of Nathanael. There is
never a moment of the lives of anyone on this planet, there's
never a moment of the lives of any of God's children, where
the Lord Jesus Christ is not intimately involved with them.
He works all things together for their good. He sees us all
the time. And if that doesn't cause you
to rejoice, I feel sorry for you. Every tiny little thing
that's ever happened in your life happens under the sovereign
hand of our God. That's what it is for Him to
be God. Not this puny little God that is out there trying
to get things done. Our God reigns and rules as a
sovereign. And He findeth Philip. He findeth
Philip. He finds him as the Messiah King. He always knows where his sheep
are, and he knows the time when he will come to them. Ezekiel
calls it the time of love, when he will draw them to himself.
Just like the Queen of Sheba, she heard that remarkable report,
and she was drawn thousands of miles on a difficult journey,
an expensive journey. She was drawn. She was drawn.
And that's what happens with God's people, isn't it? The Messiah
finds us. And Philip will say, well, we
found the Messiah. But the truth of the matter is, of course,
that the Messiah always finds us. He knows where his sheep
are. They're never out of his sight. They're never beyond his
care. In John's gospel, the Lord Jesus
Christ is declared to be the I Am seven times. He takes the
name and gloriously and worthily takes the name of Jehovah. No
wonder our Messiah King is called the blessed and only potentate. King of kings and Lord of lords,
says Paul to Timothy, is the creator of Israel. now gathers
Israel, God, out of the nation Israel. He is the King. He is
the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,
1 Timothy 1.17. He gathers these. And as a King,
he says this beautiful and short sermon to Philip. He said unto him, a two-word
sermon, follow me, follow me. The Messiah King, when the Messiah
King speaks, he speaks with an extraordinary authority. It's
not a decision, is it? Philip didn't have to make a
decision. Philip didn't have to follow
some order that religion puts before people these days. He says, follow me. Not come and see where I abide,
as he said to Andrew and John, I believe, but follow me, follow
me on my mission. Lord, command us to follow you. Cause us, cause me again and
again to hear your words as words of command and words of power
and words of promise that you fulfill. Lord, command us to
follow Fulfill your command in us. I love what David said when
he received that remarkable forgiveness of sins and that remarkable promise,
he said, and that remarkable kingdom that was going to be
his and his progeny forever. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. And David turns to Nathanael and turns to the Lord and said,
Lord, do as you said. Do as you said. Command your
people. Here, cause your people to hear
you say, follow me. Now Philip, verse 44, now Philip
was a bestsider. The city of Andrew and Peter. Our God is no respecter of people. of places and he's no respecter
of other people's opinions. Galilee. He's off to Galilee. Philip was of Bethsaida, a town
in Galilee. If you want to see where the
Lord Jesus gathers his people from, Bethsaida and Galilee,
in the eyes of the Jews, Galilee was a despised place. It was
the very north of that original nation, Israel, and because it
was at the very north, it was the one that was most close to
all of the Gentiles. And you might recall in Acts
chapter 4, when the apostles were standing before that Sanhedrin,
they said that they are ignorant and unlearned men, these Galilean
fishermen. Not only was Galilee despised
by the Jews. In Solomon's day, after Solomon
had received all that wealth and all of the trees and other
things from Hiram, king of Tyre, Solomon gave Hiram these 20 cities
in Galilee. And Hiram comes down to inspect
the 20 cities that Solomon had given him. And Hiram says, I'm
not very impressed with them. He said, I'm not pleased with
them. And in fact, in 1 Kings 9, 10
to 13, he says, he gives them a name, Kabul. Nothing. As good as nothing. So there was this area of Galilee
and Bethsaida and Nazareth and other places were as good as
nothing. They were as good as nothing
to the Jews and they were as good as nothing to others. See,
Bethsaida in Matthew chapter 11 is a cursed city. Listen to what the Lord said
of them. Then began he to upbraid the
cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they
repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which
were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you,
it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the Day of
Judgment than for you. See, the Lord Jesus Christ has
three of his apostles come from this town, and nearly all of
his apostles are Galileans. It just shows you, isn't it,
where when it comes to the gathering of the Lord's people, what we
see with the eyes of flesh and what men are preached as He begins his gathering and on
his way to a wedding in a place he gathers those which are the
lowest of the low. It was promised in Isaiah 9 in
that remarkable passage that leads on to the glorious hymn
of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It speaks of the darkness, the
darkness of rebellion, the darkness of the nation that had turned
away from following the living and true God. It says, They shall look upon the
earth and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish,
and they shall be driven to darkness. Nevertheless, Isaiah 9.1 Nevertheless,
the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation when at
first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land
of Naphtali, and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by
the way of the sea beyond the Jordan in Galilee of the nations. And he goes on to say, the people
that walked in darkness, they saw a great light. There's a
great light coming into Galilee. There's a great light coming
to Bethsaida. They saw a great light. Those
that dwelt in the land of shadow of death, a light that shined. All of this is to show us in
the call of Philip that salvation is of the Lord, and salvation,
like all of the Lord's activities, is all of grace. His electing
grace, His predestinating grace, His searching and seeking grace,
and His calling. He calls and he calls and his
people follow him. It's a repeated phrase in the
Gospels, this call of the Lord Jesus Christ to his apostles
to follow him. You might recall that he walked
by the Sea of Galilee and he saw them in their fishing boats.
John and James and Peter and Andrew said, just come, follow
me. And then when he comes to meet with Matthew at his tax
collector's booth, He just says, come, follow me. And Matthew
left everything. He left his money, he left his
business, and left it all, and they follow. The other thing
I want us to see is that these men followed, these five that
we have here, I believe, followed before they'd actually seen any
miracles and any mighty works at all. And any revelation of
his glory, he looked so ordinary that the Jews of the day could
walk by him. is the power of the voice of God when he calls
his people to himself. Such is the power of the command
of the word of our God that when he speaks, creation comes into
existence. When he speaks, his people obey. Follow me, he says. Follow me. It's very similar to what we've
seen in the rest of the dissonance. He received me, John says. He gave power. that they might believe on his
name. He says, come and see, and they
come and see, and they abide with him. But he says, follow me. He doesn't
say follow a doctrine. Follow an organization. Follow
a system. Follow some religious institution. Follow some religious design
on making men to be better or somehow improving society. He
says, follow me. Follow me. Follow me. I love that. Psalm 110, which they
preached on the day of Pentecost, thy people, thy people shall
be May he exercise his power and
cause his words to be as powerful in our lives as they were in
Philip's. All who follow, all who truly
follow, they follow to the end. All who truly follow, keep on
following. And the command is to follow
him. You might recall at the end of John's Gospel, Peter's
walking beside the Sea of Galilee, having been recommissioned to
the work the Lord had ordained for him. And he's walking along
the Sea of Galilee, looks behind and he sees John following him. And Peter turns and says, well,
what about him? What about him? See, if you're
following the Lord Jesus Christ, you have your eyes fixed on him.
What about him? And basically, the Lord Jesus
Christ rebukes Peter and says, what happens to him is none of
your business. He's mine. What happens to him is my business.
You follow me. You follow me. You feed my sheep. You follow me. Follow me. Wouldn't it be lovely if the
Lord not just said those words, but worked him. After my dad died when I
was 16, I had to keep farming at home. My grandfather was very
particular about lots of things, but he was old and infirm at
the time, so he sat in the chair and his chair was in the living
room and had a big window out, and every time I had to plant
or do anything in the paddock out beside where my grandfather
would sit, I knew that not only would I have to get it right
that day, but if I got it wrong, he would watch those rows, and
he'd watch the seedlings come up, and he'd watch them grow,
and if they were crooked, they were gonna be crooked for months.
And I learned very quickly that when it came to particularly
that part of the paddock, I would make sure those rows were perfect.
And I learned the two particular things were to get them really
straight, is that you not just picked a spot at the end of the
paddock, you picked a spot on the horizon. So when I was at
home, I would look at a tree on top of the mountain here at
Canberra, and I'd fix my eyes on that tree. And if I could
concentrate on that tree all the way through, I didn't have
to look at anything else, I didn't have to look behind, I didn't have
to look around at all, I just looked there. And by the time he got
to the other end, he turned around, and what did you see? You saw
a straight road. The point, of course, is that
the more we have our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, the
more we go to Him and look to Him, the straighter our paths
will be in this world. I know we've got rivers to cross
that the Lord will have us to go through. I know we have to walk through
fire. I know that there are trials that are promised us in this
world. But if the Lord will give us
the grace to hear His words to Philip and make them ours, we'll
hear it. So you fix your eyes on these,
don't have to look at what's around and you don't have to
know what's going on around. It's much more important and
much more significant to know what's going on in heaven. much
more significant to see the King, to see what's behind it all.
Because Philip will go on to say that we have found the Messiah,
but what the Scriptures want us to very, very clearly see
is that the Lord Jesus Christ found Philip first, and that
order is really critical. Nevertheless, we do feel like
we find him. But I love what happens in all
of these cases where the Lord Jesus comes to these disciples
of his and these apostles. follow immediately. They just
follow immediately. Oh may God grant us the grace
to have a God-wrought immediacy. He calls so many, doesn't he? You might recall that they came
with excuses, didn't they? Lord, let me go back and bury
my dead. And the Lord says to them, I'll let the dead bury
their own dead. I love how the Song of Solomon
finishes and she says, your companions hear your voice. She says, cause
me to hear it. I love the calling of the prophet
Elisha. You remember when Elijah was
told that his days were numbered and he was to go and anoint Elisha? Elisha was out plowing in the
paddock and Elijah comes along to him. and says, come, come follow,
come to your appointed task. What's Elisha do? He says, I've
got to go back and say goodbye to my mum and dad, but I'm going
to kill two oxen, I'll burn the plough and I'm on the way. There
is, there is a divine necessity and a divine urgency. Elisha
left and never came back. Philip left and never ever came
back. May the Lord make us willing
in the day of his power. May that day be by his grace
today. May the hour be that hour. May
the minute be the minute. May we be made to fix our eyes
on him, to hear him call. See, what's the delay? What is
the delay? The delay is nothing but unbelief,
isn't it? the day's nothing but unbelief
about his ability to provide and his ability to care and his
ability to rule over all things. That's what they said in the
boat, didn't they? Lord, don't you care that we're perishing
in this ship? They'd had a promise from God
beforehand that they're going over the other side. The wind
and the waves caused them great distress. Are ye of little faith? He said
that to them, he says that to me. What a glory it is to be the
call of the Lord. What's gained in this world by delaying? What can you gain by delaying? What can you gain here by delaying
that you can take into heaven? What are the friends of this
world compared to living in sweet communion with the Lord Jesus
Christ? Come and see, he says. Lord, bid me to come. Lord, give
me the grace. Give me the eyes to see. Give
me the ears to hear. Do everything that's necessary
by your grace and your spirit to cause me to come. The Lord Jesus Christ knew he
was calling Philip. As he called all of these other
disciples, he knew that he was calling them to come with him,
to come and to suffer and die, to come and lose everything of
this world and follow him. He seeks, he calls and he commands,
Obviously he takes them with him. See the father of the faithful
had a command, didn't he? Abraham is the father of all
the faithful. I love the story as it's relayed
to us in Hebrews chapter 11. He went out, Abraham received
a call, didn't he? To go out, you go out from these
people, you go out from this land and you go out from your
family and you go out and he went out. Verse 8 of Hebrews
11, not knowing where he went. The reality is we don't know
where we're going, we don't know what lies before us. But if we're
in his company, if we're in his hands, then whatever lies before
us is his to deal with as it is, isn't it? By faith does Abraham
sojourn in the land of promise in a strange country, dwelling
in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of
the same promise. For he looked for a city which
hath foundations, whose builder and bemaker is God. He was looking
for that city we read about in Revelation chapter 21. Where
he went, there were cities all over the place with foundations
and big buildings. You read about the Nineveh that
Jonah went to see, they can build cities alright. Now he was looking
for a city, he was looking for another city that had proper
foundations. His builder and maker. So the question, the question
for Abraham, the question for Philip, and the question for
us is not, where are you going? The big question is, who are
you going with? Who's taking you? They follow the lamb wherever
he goes. I do quote that verse in John
chapter 12, verse 26 often because I just love the order of it.
I love the picture that's in it. I love the hand of the Lord
upon it. He says in verse, John 12, 26,
if any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there
shall also my servant be. You see, you cannot be out of
his company. You can't go anywhere where he's not there with you. Where I am, there shall also
my servant be, if any man serve me. Him will my father honor. We'll see as we go through the
rest of the Gospel account that many followed the Lord Jesus
Christ because of what they saw as blessings, didn't they? They
followed him because of the miracles in him. They followed him because
of the food he produced. They followed him, many of them
followed him, because of the hope of an earthly kingdom. The
apostles even thought that after the resurrection in some way.
Many followed because they thought that there might be a Messiah
who will come who will bless them with power and privilege
and honour. Some followed him and some follow
him today because of the morality he teaches and the examples he
gives. But he has a call, doesn't he? He says, you follow me. You follow, follow me. Follow him. And how do you know
you followed him? You follow him to the end. And
what's one of the evidences of following him? It's just simple
faith, isn't it? isn't it? Paul says to those
Thessalonians who have lots of questions, he says, you're giving
thanks in all things. Follow him. And Philip says,
we have found the Messiah. We have found him. And I love
Philip's description of him. We have found him of whom Moses
in the law and in the prophets did write. We have found him. We followed him, we found him.
The Lord Jesus says, you seek me and you'll find me. You seek
me and you'll find me. You search for me with all your
heart, you'll find me. The verbs are in that continuous
tense. He's saying, keep seeking, keep
asking, keep knocking. There are many here who thankfully
have found him. To find him is to be in fellowship
with him. To find him, as Philip did, is
to bear witness to him. The first thing that we hear
that comes out of Philip's mouth, isn't it? His first thing he
does in verse 45, Philip findeth Nathaniel. The first thing he
does. and saith unto him, We have found
him of whom Moses and the prophets did write. In that very short
time with the Lord Jesus Christ, it had been established by the
grace of God in the heart of Philip that this is the one that
has fulfilled every messianic promise that the Old Testament
had. This is the land of God. This
is the child born of a virgin. This is the one that came The
sun that was brought out of Egypt is this one that was going to
come out of Galilee. This is the one. This is the
one in every Old Testament passage that Simon showed us so delightfully
earlier. Every Old Testament passage is
a picture of this, isn't it? It's a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
It's a picture of Him coming to this earth to gather those
people that the Father had given Him before the foundation of
the world, to take them as witnesses to Him and His glory and His
grace in this world, and to bring them creation. To find Him is to be
in fellowship with Him. No wonder the Apostles keep saying,
we know, we know, we know. You trace them out in the New
Testament, they know. We know the Son of God has come,
says John, and given us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true. And we are in Him that is true,
even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. See, Philip doesn't say, I think
I might possibly have found Him. Andrew didn't say it either.
He says, we found Him. We found the Messiah. This unique
Messiah. is one that is defined and declared
with great accuracy in the scriptures, the one that is testified to
by John the Baptist. We've found him, we have found
him. We don't doubt for one minute that we're in the very presence
of God Almighty. To find Christ, what a glorious, by his appearing again and again
in this world is that you can find him. You can find him. You
can really find the Messiah. You can find God and be in his
company. And to find him is to know that
all my sins forgiven, that all my sins were laid on this Lamb
of God, and there takes away the sins of the world. He doesn't
try and do anything, this God, this Messiah King. To find Him
is to be reconciled to God by the death of the Lamb. To find
Him is to be justified, to be declared by God, to be in His
sight, to have had no sin. It's to have peace with God. to find him is to be loved everlastingly
and loved effectively. To be found of Him, to find Him,
is to be an adopted child of God, is to have Christ as all
I need. If you found Him, you don't need
anything else in this world. I don't need anything in eternity
but Him. I don't need anything now but
Him. To be found, to find Him, is
to be presented by Him in the sight of God. To find Him is
to be complete. To be so complete, such that
God is perfectly satisfied with me, and He's perfectly satisfied
with all that I've done, because I'm hidden with Christ in God. When God looks at me, and God
looks at the Lord Jesus Christ, He sees no difference. He sees
no difference. I'm hidden in Christ. those who sadly have not found
him. It's an awful tragedy, isn't
it? As Paul says to the Ephesians, it's to be without hope, to be
without God, it's to be strangers to the covenant of promises.
As John will say in John chapter 3, it's to be not believing and
to be condemned already. May God speak to the hearts of
those who don't know him now. And may it be a simple word,
come and see and follow me. If you found him, you'll find
him like the silver shore of mine, you'll find him just altogether
lovely. The cheapest among 10,000. To
find Him is to fall in love with Him. To find Him the pearl of
great price. To find Him is to find Him seated
upon that throne. We find Him in the most remarkable
ways, don't we? We find Him and we see Him in
that garden. with blood pouring from the very
pores of his body as the Lord began to lay the sin of all the
elect people on it and it broke his heart that he made sin. And he stood as a sovereign outside
that garden and went and set his face like
a flint because he must go to Calvary. He must go to the cross. We find him The Lamb of God slain from the
foundation of the world. To find him as Mary did that
morning in the garden. To find him resurrected, triumphant. To find him seated upon the throne. Philip found him and then recalled
to Nathaniel that all they ever saw about him was in the word
of God. That's where you find him. That's where we identify
him. We identify him by his word. But to find him is to be in his
company, isn't it? To be in his presence. To be loved by him and to love
him in return. The glorious thing about the
Lord Jesus Christ is such is the beauty and the wonder of
His character that He grows to us more beautiful upon closer
examination. You examine any other human being
that's ever walked the face of this earth, and the more closely
you look at them, the more horrifying you could be. If you knew all
about me and all of what goes through my head, even when I'm
up here speaking, you'd be horrified. You examine the Lord Jesus Christ
in every aspect of His being, and the more you examine Him,
the more beautiful He becomes. the more you examine him, the
more comforting all of his glorious attributes are. The psalmist says, they believed
his words and they sang his praises. They believed his words and they
sang his praises. The Queen of Sheba did, she believed his words
and she sang his praises. It's to find him, it's to find
him to us more useful, isn't it? And he fulfills those needs. We come to the throne of grace
where our crucified Savior sits bearing those wounds. We come
to the throne of grace to receive. He says, open your mouths wide. Open your mouths wide. He's able. That's a remarkable verse in
Ephesians chapter three, isn't it, where he says, now unto him
that is able, Hebrews 3.20, now unto him that is able, is he
able? This verse challenges our unbelief in such remarkable ways. How unto him that is able to
do, is he doing it? Is he able and is he doing it?
Exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or think. Paul
was running out of words and superlatives, wasn't he? He was
running out of words. The English, the language wasn't
sufficient for it. Exceedingly, abundantly, above
all that we ask or think. What a rebuke to our thoughts.
What puny thoughts we have of our God. According to the power
that worketh in us. What a glorious promise. Unto
him be glory in the church. By Christ Jesus throughout all
ages, world without end. People come. That's why they come. They come
because He calls them. And when He calls them, they
see their need of Him. Behold the Lamb and come and
see the Messiah. Hear His word of call. Follow me and come and see and
declare Him. In that wilderness, there's the
Lord Jesus Christ walking away in the opposite direction from
the religious world, and walking with his disciples, that little
band of five of them now, soon to be six, he's walking to Cana,
he's going to a wedding. That's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ has been doing since the foundation of the world.
He comes and he gathers from Abel to Noah, From David to Solomon,
all throughout history, he's gathering his people with as
much power and as much effectiveness and as much love and as much
delight as the Messiah King has always done. And he's doing it
now, he's doing it right now. And may it be our portion to
hear him say, He said to Philip, follow me,
follow me, come and see and find the Messiah. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for the revelation of yourself. by your Spirit's work in our
hearts to cause us to be made to live with a life from on high,
Heavenly Father, a life that receives the Lord Jesus Christ,
a life that believes on His name. What glories lie before your
people, Heavenly Father, as we are caused here to contemplate
that glorious day and the consummation of all things in the wedding
supper of our Lamb. Oh, our Father, we pray that
you might cause your Son to be all in all to us, that we might
again and again through this wilderness journey, Heavenly
Father, hear him say, follow me, come and see, and might we
be able to declare to our brothers and sisters and to this world,
Heavenly Father, we have found the Messiah. Make him precious, our Father,
to us. Cause his blood to be that which
has washed us from all our sins, and cause that robe of his righteousness
to be all of our covering before you. Glorify your Son in us and
amongst us, our Father, for we pray in Jesus' name for his glory. Amen.