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00:00 lot of things happening in this passage and this morning we want to look at a couple of things. We want to look at uh
00:06 Jesus's pre-ministry you can call this and this is the time of of Jesus in his
00:12 life before he was really publicly known. Um it's like the the precursor to
00:17 to his public life and it's a very interesting uh look that we can have here in Jesus because many times when
00:23 you think of famous people um you always want to see hey how did they behave and what did they do before they were really
00:30 famous how was their life like um how did people react to them before they
00:35 were the the big and famous people and here we can see uh various characters
00:41 various people reacting to Jesus before Jesus was really a publicly
00:46 known. This was his his coming out and the beginnings. And we will analyze um
00:51 the different types of individuals here and and how they react to Jesus when
00:57 they first uh meet him. So there's two things we want to look at today, which
01:02 is to truly know Jesus, you must follow him. That's the first point. And the second
01:08 point, truly knowing him changes you. and we're just going to hang out in in
01:14 in two points uh today and um it's my first time doing a two-point sermon. Uh
01:20 so um it's a first one for me as well. But um I'm sneaky. I have like six points under each point. Um so we're
01:28 going to take some time to to go through this. Um so before we do that, let me start with a word of prayer.
01:36 Heavenly Father, we come before you. We ask for your help this morning to understand your word. Father, we ask for
01:42 your spirit to do the thing that only your spirit can do, and that's to cut people to the heart.
01:47 Um, Father, we ask we uh look at the word that we put ourselves under the authority of the word that we may hear
01:54 and see who Jesus is so that we may truly know him for who he is and that he
02:00 may change us. And I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. So, we're looking
02:07 at at at various characters today. And I'm not going to go in the chronological order of of the text. I'm just kind of
02:13 going to pick a character and then we're going to analyze that character and then we're going to move on to the next kind of character and we can see kind of
02:20 things that we can learn from this. And the first person I want to look at today is Phillip. And we see the story of
02:28 Phillip here in uh vers uh 43. And it
02:33 says here uh in chapter 1 verse 43, the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.
02:39 He found Philillip and said to him, "Follow me." So what can we learn about
02:45 Philillip? Who was Philillip? Well, we don't learn a lot about
02:50 Philillip uh in this text here. All we know is that he was from Beda, the city
02:55 of Andrew and Peter and and and that's about it. He was kind of like the average guy who was going about his
03:00 life, uh, going about his business, doing his work, and suddenly Jesus came
03:06 upon him and found him. He's kind of like the the average person that we see in our offices uh, every day. The
03:13 average person that we see in our neighborhoods, he's the average person who just goes about his own business, is
03:19 not particularly having a huge problem in life, is not particularly um seeking out Jesus. Doesn't have a great opinion
03:25 of Jesus. Is probably not even thinking about Jesus. He's just there. And Jesus goes and finds him. And when Jesus
03:34 approaches him and says, "Come follow me." The miraculous thing is he does. So
03:41 I would like to call Peter uh Philillip I would like to call him the bystander
03:48 right he's somebody who's just uh standing around he's a bystander he's somebody who who's not concerning
03:54 himself with Jesus and to be honest there are lots of people in this world right now who are just like Philillip uh
04:00 people who are there who are who are not really concerning themselves about Jesus not thinking about Jesus they might have some basic knowledge about religion they
04:08 might have some basic knowledge uh about Christianity And we know that Philip had some information because later on we know
04:14 once he followed Jesus he found out who Jesus was. He said he is the one from which the pro Moses talked about and the
04:20 prophets talked about he's the one. So he must have had some some basic understanding but he was never really confronted with Jesus. To be honest I
04:28 for a very long time my life I was one of these people. Um I I went through um
04:34 my entire life until my mid20s without anybody ever confronting me with Jesus.
04:41 Nobody ever talking to me about Jesus. Nobody ever sharing the gospel with me.
04:48 In fact, I was in in in in Shanghai in American school and I was 16 years old and I was dating the daughter of two
04:55 missionaries. I have no idea why she was dating me. I wasn't a Christian. Uh, I wouldn't recommend that to
05:01 anybody, but um I I wouldn't recommend her dating me now. But um the fact was
05:07 that I I was dating her and I never heard the gospel. The only thing I remembered is that the parents didn't
05:12 quite like me. Um and and now I understand why,
05:19 but they didn't share the gospel with me neither. They were just not very happy that I was
05:26 dating their daughter. Um, I continued going to university in in in different places around the world
05:32 and and I know there were Christians in my university. I know I was at one point of time I was in in help university and there was Christian fellowships going
05:38 on. Nobody shared the gospel with me. It was
05:43 only until my my mid20s or late 20s that I finally heard the gospel. There's so
05:51 many people who are just like Philillip who are standing there who have not
05:56 concerning themselves and who could potentially react
06:02 like Philip did and somebody you would just go up to that person say hey come come follow me now understand Jesus is
06:08 Jesus he has a certain authority and he's you can see he's very authoritative in the way he says come follow me and and and people follow him but we're not
06:14 asking people to follow us we're asking people to follow Jesus there there's a
06:20 And and we can ask people to, hey, follow me to church. Follow me to Bible study. Follow me. Follow me. Read this
06:26 book in the Bible. There's different things we could do to tell people about Jesus and ask them to follow and they
06:34 might just do it. Now, I recently um heard a story from a friend of friend of mine. He is in
06:40 seminary now and he is originally from China and he uh many years ago about 10
06:46 years ago he uh came to Malaysia met a girl uh uh got engaged want to get
06:51 married but he couldn't stay here uh because of work visa problems and he was trying to find a way on how he could
06:58 stay here in Malaysia and he heard about this this lady who was running a shop in
07:03 what is now called inmark. It was a a different kind of shopping center before I forgot the name but she was working
07:08 there. he was from China and she somehow was able to find work uh for herself. So he went there and wanted to interview
07:14 her. How did you do this? How do how were you able to get that work uh and be able to stay in Malaysia? Because he
07:20 wanted to stay in Malaysia so he can marry his his wife and um he went there with his fiance at that point of time
07:26 and they wanted to ask her the question. Lee was very helpful, give information but she did one more thing.
07:32 She shared the gospel with him. Another lady from China sharing with somebody
07:37 else who she first time met for no reason the gospel.
07:43 And guess what? Right there on the spot, he and his wife accepted Christ.
07:50 Right there on the spot. She didn't know quite what to do. So she called one of her elders of at that time was St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church and and and
07:56 and and called and and she then and that person then led them in a sinner's prayer over the phone.
08:03 But it could happen if we would just go out and and go to to people who who are just living their lives and and share
08:10 them the good news about Jesus. It could just happen that right there on the spot they might decide to follow Jesus.
08:17 Philip decided to follow Jesus right away. And after he followed him for a
08:24 little bit from somebody who had no idea who Jesus was, he suddenly knew
08:31 he is the man from which the prophets talked about. He is the man that Moses
08:36 talked about. He didn't know that before he followed Jesus. No, he followed first.
08:44 He came along from Jesus first and then he started to understand who
08:50 Jesus is. You know in Koala Lumpuro right now we are about 3% Christian at max.
08:57 There are 97% of people who do not know Jesus. And I am certain that out of these 97%
09:07 at least 60% probably have never even considered Jesus.
09:13 Have never even thought about Jesus. And probably, and I'm being positive here
09:19 when I say half of those people never told the gospel, never were
09:24 confronted at all. There's plenty of work for us to do. And if you go out and
09:30 share the gospel with those people, some of them might just come and follow. Now, the truth is that nobody's going to be
09:37 as easy. Not everybody's going to be as easy as Philip, right? I know I wasn't as easy as Philip. when people shared
09:42 the gospel with me when I was later on, I I I wasn't I didn't just come and follow uh right away. I was more
09:48 skeptical than that. Uh I had some preconceived notions of who I thought
09:53 Jesus was or or what Christianity is. And I was rather skeptical about the thought. And and we see this kind of
09:60 skeptical person here in the text as well. We see this here with Nathaniel. He's the the next person I want to look
10:05 at. Nathaniel is the skeptic. The person when he was confronted with
10:10 Jesus said, "Hey, can anything good come from Nazareth? Can anything good come from from there?
10:17 Can Christianity be any good? Is Jesus really who he says he is? Is is Jesus
10:22 really good? Is he really Lord? Is he really savior?"
10:28 And there might be many skeptics here today. You might be here right now. Somebody invited you and you might have questions and you you're not so sure
10:34 about this Jesus. And it's okay to be a skeptic. There's no problem with being a skeptic. We love people who ask good
10:41 questions. The problem is and and and I God has been sanctifying me a lot in this. Um
10:48 every time people ask me questions, all I try to do is give them a good answer and then when they have another question
10:54 or or or have a rebuttal to that, I get into an argument with them and all I try to do is win an argument. And and and
11:00 that's usually what we try to do, right? We we we we get into this apologetic conversations and arguments with people
11:06 and all we try to do is is win arguments and and God has been showing me over time now in my ministry that masmo don't
11:12 win arguments. Win people win people. I'm this kind of person who
11:19 who who likes to win arguments. And a lot of times I think I won the argument. At least I thought I won the argument. Uh I don't know in my mind I won the
11:25 argument. Uh I know the other person's mind they might have won the argument. I don't know. But a lot of times I I won
11:31 the argument, let's say, and I still walked away and I didn't win the person. And you can see Jesus what he does here,
11:37 the way he he treats Nathaniel is is is amazing. He goes there and says, "Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom
11:43 there is no deceit." He approaches Nathaniel with comfort. He goes there and welcomes him. He he recognizes what
11:50 is good about Nathaniel. Nathaniel just said, "What good can come from Nazareth?" And Jesus replies and says,
11:57 "Look at Nathaniel in whom there is no deceit. He he connects with him on a
12:03 level that they can be friends and talk to one another." Now, did Jesus win Nathaniel overthrew a
12:09 great apologetic argument? No. Jesus said something to him. He says, "I know you." And said, "How do you know me?" He
12:15 said, "I even know that you were sleeping on the fig tree before uh uh you were called."
12:22 And Nathaniel is like, "Wow, if you you know this about me, then you must truly be the king of Israel.
12:30 You must truly be what he says here, um, the son of God, rabbi, you are the
12:37 son of God. You are the king of Israel." And so often, have you ever experienced this? Have you ever come to church and
12:45 listen to a sermon and felt that the pastor or the preacher, he really knows
12:50 me? somehow the the topic that he's talking about it it it speaks directly to my
12:56 heart. Have you ever opened up scripture and when you when you are confronted with God's word you're saying it really
13:02 knows me. This resonates with my heart. This is something that I can really relate to. I remember when I was a
13:08 skeptic what my friend did who invited me to come to church was she just continuously asked me to come to church
13:14 and and read scripture. That's that's all I did. At one point of time um I I I didn't believe in Jesus. I was a
13:20 skeptic, but all I did, I started going to church. And when I was sitting in church, I heard messages from pastors
13:25 and and I was sitting there and I even thought that my friend or my mom or my dad were telling the pastor about my
13:31 problems. Uh that they were standing there and they were speaking and and that they were speaking right into my problems,
13:37 right into my heart, right in the things I was doing. But being a a a a a preacher for a while now, I realized
13:43 that though we like to talk about real issues of real congregation members, uh we we seldom or really I've never done
13:50 it, make a sermon just around somebody's personal problem. Uh uh we don't do
13:56 that. Um we like to know the congregation. We want to know the real issues of the congregations, but we
14:01 don't prepare a sermon just to target one person. Uh uh we don't do that. But
14:07 many very often I think you might have experienced this that that you hear somebody say something from the pulpit
14:13 and say, "Wow, that person knows me. That person knows my problem." And that's the word of God doing it. That's
14:20 the Holy Spirit doing it. That's that's Jesus searching you out. And Jesus saying, "I know you. I know your
14:26 problem. Come to me. Come follow me." The best thing we can do with skeptics,
14:32 with people who have questions, is not try to answer all the questions to them, but ask them and come alongside with
14:38 them as they explore who Jesus is. If you're a person here who has never
14:44 thought about Jesus, or if you're a person who is skeptic, have questions about Jesus, guess what is a great program to go to? Alpha.
14:52 Alpha. You can go to Alpha. Alpha has has great answers and they explore who Jesus is. Another option you can do is
14:58 you can join a small group. Come alongside people. Get to know people who follow Jesus. Get to see how they study
15:04 the word together. Or you can go to GMA. You have lots of options here in First Baptist Church.
15:11 How you can come along with people and follow people to see how they study Jesus and get connected with Jesus and
15:18 learn about Jesus. So here again we see the skeptic suddenly declaring
15:25 that Jesus is the king of Israel and the son of God. Now my point was you must
15:31 follow Jesus to truly know him. But Nathaniel didn't follow him. Janiel was confronted and seemed to really know him
15:36 right away. But you see here later on in text it says truly truly Jesus says I say to you you will see heaven open and
15:43 angels and God ascending and descending on the son of man. Because he said before that he says because I said to
15:48 you I saw you under the fig tree you do you believe you will see greater things than these. He's saying if you continue
15:54 following me if you continue walk with me whatever you know about me whatever you see right now you will see much
15:59 greater things. So as you continue walking with Jesus you will find out more about who Jesus
16:05 is and that will continue to change you.
16:11 Now the next group of people I want to look at here which I call the seekers are the people who who have a good
16:17 opinion about Jesus. Um not everybody is a skeptic. Not everybody is has a negative thought
16:24 about Jesus. There are people here who think that Jesus is a a good moral teacher. They're
16:31 very interested about Jesus because other people have been praising the name of Jesus. They're saying hey I want to find out here more about Jesus. And we
16:38 see this here with Andrew and who we believe to probably be John. If you're reading through the book of John, every
16:44 time you see a disciple who's not named, the likelihood is that that disciple is John, right? So, we assume that this is
16:51 Andrew because we know that one of the the disciples who was standing with John the Baptist. Um, and when I say John the
16:58 Baptist, it doesn't mean that he is a Baptist. Uh, it's not a denominational statement here. Not like we have John
17:04 the Baptist and then you know Mark the Methodist and you know Luke the Presbyterian you know uh it's just
17:12 because to differentiate between uh John the Baptist who's the guy who came before who was baptizing people uh uh in
17:18 repentance right-w with with water as compared to John the evangelist John who wrote the gospel of John right that
17:25 there's a difference there so we had these two disciples of John the Baptist and um they were uh with him and they
17:32 heard him say behold the lamb of God and they were interested in Jesus and they thought that he was a good moral teacher
17:38 or they good teacher. They called him rabbi and they were interested about him and they they followed him and say what what can we do? He says he said come
17:45 come and see come come follow me and and you see quickly after they followed him they immediately recognized that he was
17:53 the Messiah. Now to be honest from all kind of
17:58 thoughts that we could have about Jesus thinking that he's just a good moral
18:05 teacher is probably the only not acceptable
18:11 thought. Um it was introduced uh uh very early in the 16th century and later made famous
18:16 by CS Lewis which is called the trillemma of Jesus that if you follow Jesus and if
18:24 you study who Jesus is if you really know who Jesus is you can only have three thoughts about Jesus if you know
18:31 Jesus which is either he's a liar
18:36 that's the first thought that he is not who he says he is because
18:41 he continues say I am the son of god I'm the only way that he's a liar and you
18:47 see throughout the gospels that there are many people who call him a liar everybody who came in contact him like
18:53 for example the Pharisees they called him a liar they called him evil he's not who he
18:59 says he is he's a liar the second thing is that he's a lunatic
19:05 somebody who has you know um great thoughts about himself he thinks he's he's god he he's so crazy.
19:12 He thinks he's God. And you see this as well here in the story. You will see um later on um two people or his family
19:20 going up to him and saying, "You're crazy. You must be mad." And they're trying to
19:25 arrest him and restrain him. So imagine it is it is Mary and James probably the guy who wrote the
19:32 book of James who went up to Jesus and say, "You're crazy. You're a lunatic."
19:38 And the third one is you just believe who he truly is. The way Jesus lived his
19:45 life, the things that he said, the things that he did not leave us room to
19:50 really think that he's just a good moral teacher. I think CS Lewis says it best
19:57 in his book, Mere Christianity. I'm going to read it out. He says this, "I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the
20:02 really foolish thing that people often say about him. I'm ready to ac accept
20:07 Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That
20:12 is the only thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great
20:19 moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with one man who says that he's a poached egg or else he
20:27 would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman
20:34 or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon. Or you can fall at his
20:41 feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human
20:48 teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
20:56 If you're here and and and you think Jesus is just a good moral teacher,
21:02 may I suggest that you may not know Jesus.
21:08 He did not leave us room to think that. You have to make a choice. Either he's a
21:15 liar, he's a lunatic, or he is who he says he is.
21:24 Now, you can see here The two people who thought that he was a
21:30 good teacher after following him for a little while,
21:36 they came back and said that he is the Messiah. After just spending one evening
21:41 with him, they found out that he is the savior.
21:48 All three people, all three groups of people, regardless of of where they were in life, regardless of what kind of
21:54 preconceived notion they had, whether they were thinking of Jesus at all or whether they weren't, whether they were skeptical or whether they were seeking,
22:01 all of them once they started following Jesus for a while, getting confronted with the real Jesus,
22:07 suddenly realized who he truly was. The person, the bystander said, "We have
22:14 found him who Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth,
22:20 the son of Joseph." The skeptics said, "Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel."
22:29 The seekers realized that they have found the Messiah.
22:36 All three of them recognized who Jesus was once they
22:43 started to follow him. Now, did they truly understand everything what they just said there? I don't think so. As
22:49 you continue reading through the gospels, um the disciples keep on getting wrong who Jesus is. They keep on
22:55 misunderstanding who Jesus is. But as they continued to follow him, even though they didn't truly understand
23:01 everything yet, they got to know him more and more. and they got to realize who he truly is
23:09 and what he truly came to do. And that definition I think is best defined in what John the Baptist
23:16 called Jesus. And John the Baptist who had the Holy Spirit in him. We read that
23:21 in Luke that from birth he had the Holy Spirit in him. So he could be what we could categorize the believer.
23:28 when he came in contact with Jesus. When he saw Jesus, he said, "Behold the lamb of God." It was a profound
23:36 profound statement. He probably did not even know how profound of statement that was. But I'm sure that John the
23:42 Evangelist when he captured this in the Gospels knew how profound that statement
23:48 was. The lamb of God. What is that? Well, we see the lamb of God appearing first in
23:55 Genesis 22. We see it when Isaac and Abraham is
24:00 being told by by God to offer up his son, to kill his son. And as Abraham is
24:07 collecting wood and and and collecting all the things that he needs to to go up the mountain to do the offering, the son
24:13 says, "Father, where's the the lamb?"
24:20 And Abraham says, "God will provide a lamb."
24:27 And we know as the story goes, Abraham goes up and as just before he's about to to kill his son, God says, "Stop." And a
24:35 ram comes and God provides a substitute.
24:40 We continue seeing the lamb throughout uh the Bible in in Exodus.
24:45 Again, we see it as the Passover lamb. We see here the story where where Israel
24:51 is being held sla slaves in in Egypt and they're trying to escape Egypt
24:57 and they're asking Pharaoh to let them go and and plague after plague after plague is coming and here's the last plague the 10th plague and and uh the
25:04 the Lord will come and he will kill every firstborn uh there unless the Israelites take a lamb and kill the lamb
25:10 and and prepare it in a special way and then they will take the blood and put it over the doorposts and whenever the Lord
25:16 sees the the blood of the door lamb over doorpost. He will pass over
25:22 them, sparing them so they their firstborn won't die.
25:29 So we see here again the lamb, the blood of the lamb and the lamb being killed on behalf of
25:36 others. The blood of the lamb being shed on behalf of others. And we continue seeing the lamb as well
25:43 in Leviticus and Numbers and in temple language as as
25:48 a offering for sin, as a sin offering and a guilt offering. Something that you give and burned, a
25:55 burnt offering you burn or you give as an unblenmished lamb to atone for your sin.
26:02 so that something on behalf of you would die and take a place for you and
26:11 make good and pay the price of your sin.
26:17 And these are all foreshadowing, all pointing towards the true lamb of God, Jesus
26:26 who came and then went on the cross as a substitute for us. That by his
26:33 blood we do not have to die to death. Nobody. That he would die to death for us.
26:41 That he would atone and take away our sin. But not just do we see the the lamb of
26:47 God in that way. We also see the lamb in Revelation, the victorious lamb, the
26:52 lamb that overcame, the lamb that is worthy to be praised. It says here,
26:57 "Worthy is the lamb that was slain. It's the resurrected lamb, the lamb that rose again, the lamb that
27:04 truly overcomes, the lamb that stands in victory."
27:10 And when you know Jesus, when you follow him and you really truly get to know who Jesus is, you will know
27:18 that he is the one from which the Moses and the prophets has talked about. He is
27:23 truly king. He is our savior and he is
27:29 the lamb of God. He is the one who takes away your sin.
27:37 And when you know that, when you truly know who he is in your life and and you understand it and you get in contact
27:44 with him and you follow him, you know what it does? It it changes you.
27:50 All of these people here as they came in contact with Jesus, it changed how they viewed Jesus, but it also changed them.
27:57 And there's a couple of ways that it changes us. It changes our identity.
28:04 Now, how I want to look at this is by looking at John the Baptist. John the Baptist, I said, is is kind of like the um the believer category here. Let's
28:12 look at John the Baptist of what kind of person he was. And the things that we see him say here clearly shows something
28:18 about who he thinks he is and his confidence in who he is. What do we hear
28:25 him say? He says this, "There will become somebody who is so great that I am not even worthy to untie his shoes.
28:33 I'm not worthy to even tie his shoes stand off. Back then you must understand even slaves sometimes did not have to do
28:38 this kind of work to stoop down and do and tie somebody's shoes. There was really the lowest of lowest kind of
28:44 work. And he says I'm not worthy to do to
28:49 untie the sandals of the one who is about to come which is Jesus. He
28:54 understands that there is no worth in himself. When we get to know Jesus we understand
28:59 who he truly is. It kind of searches us out and we realize one thing that we are more sinful than we probably know that
29:08 we are. But we know a second thing that we are more loved than we can possibly
29:15 comprehend. And it creates that kind of tension in our lives that we are humble
29:23 knowing our place but yet we are confident. You see, John the Baptist was not saying
29:29 there, "Oh, I'm such a pitiful person. I'm such a terrible person. Wo onto me. I'm I'm just, you know, so lowly. I have
29:36 no self-confidence." No, he was confident when he was, you can see this here when he was being confronted uh by
29:42 a different kind of teachers. You know, who are you? He knew who he was. He was able to stand up. He was a leader. He had a great following at that point of
29:49 time. He he did not lack confidence. He was not insecure about who he was. He
29:54 was very secure about who he was. And all these questions came, he was able to answer very clearly. People asked him,
30:00 you know, who are you? He says, well, I'm not the Christ. Even though he was popular, he knows that he's not the savior, right? He he's not the primary
30:08 object of worship. No, he's just merely a voice crying out and pointing out to somebody else. He know this. But he he
30:15 was confident, but he also knew his place. He he knows his sinfulness. He knows as Jesus who is much more greater.
30:21 So it gives us kind of a a humility. But where the primary humility actually comes from is this that when he knew
30:28 when he got confronted with Jesus when he knew who Jesus was he was so consumed by Jesus that he forgot thinking about
30:35 himself. See true humility I think it's CS Lewis
30:41 who said that is not thinking less of yourself but is thinking of yourself less is self forgetfulness.
30:49 You see, John the Baptist doesn't say, "Behold, I am unworthy."
30:54 He doesn't draw attention to himself. It's not false humility saying, "Oh, look, look, look, look how
31:00 how how terrible I am. Give me attention. Give me attention. Give me attention." He doesn't do that. He says,
31:05 "I am unworthy. Behold the lamb of God."
31:10 He draws attention to Jesus. I um read an article um two days ago. I
31:18 I didn't take any notes on it, but I just remember it was by Chuck Lawless. You can go online. And um he wrote about
31:23 10 habits of really humble people. And um there's a couple of things that that struck out to me. He says people who who
31:30 listen to other people more because they're interested more about other people than talking about themselves.
31:36 Another one which caught my attention was people who evangelize. It's a mark of truly humble people
31:42 because it's much easier to talk about Jesus if you don't want to talk about yourself all the time.
31:48 I just humility that comes out of there. People who serve alongside, people
31:53 willing to stoop down and do other kind of work. And that's the kind of humility with confidence that usually only can
32:00 come from Christianity because we know that there is no intrinsic value. There's no worth in our
32:07 self what we do. But there's somebody who has all worth
32:12 who came and died for us. And that gives us confidence and
32:17 assurance to live our lives. So when we know who Jesus is and what he came to
32:23 do, it changes us. It gives us an identity from which we can stand.
32:29 It does a second thing. It changes not just what we think of ourselves. It changes what we do.
32:36 What is the primary thing that happened? Every single one of them once they got confronted with Jesus
32:42 and they followed Jesus, they started shouting out his name. They started saying, "Oh, the son of
32:48 God, King, Messiah, Lamb of God, behold."
32:53 They were all shouting out names of praise. They were praising Jesus.
32:59 They couldn't but help to give praise to his name to to lift him up high.
33:07 When we get to know who Jesus truly is, we will lift him up high in our lives.
33:13 We will praise him. You know what he call that? He called that worship. We will worship him. They were all
33:19 worshiping his name. It was a natural response. And he when
33:25 they realized who he is, they they worshiped him. You know John Piper um he said this that the primary purpose of
33:31 the church is not mission. It is worship.
33:37 Mission exists because worship doesn't.
33:44 When we know who Jesus is, he puts us back into the identity of who we truly are. Worshippers.
33:51 Coming and giving praise to his name is something that we will enjoy doing. It's something that will naturally come.
33:58 And you see that that worship and mission are so closely related to one another.
34:04 You will only go tell somebody about stuff that you really think is really great
34:11 as they realize how great Jesus was. They couldn't but help go out and tell other people
34:17 about it. You can see here how how mission and and worship are related. You
34:22 see John the Baptist, he's saying, "Behold the lamb of God." And then you see Andrew and John saying in the text
34:28 it says because they heard him say that they went to Jesus and they said can we come with you
34:36 because they heard John says behold the lamb of God and they wanted to follow
34:43 Jesus. When we lift up the name of Jesus in our lives when we praise the name of Jesus people
34:50 will be interested about Jesus. When people see us worshiping Jesus,
34:55 they want to say, "Who is this Jesus?" And they might just want to follow him, too.
35:02 Everyone in the story here, as soon as they found out who Jesus was, they followed him for a while. They went out and they told somebody else about it.
35:11 It was a natural effect. Now, I want to do some research, and I
35:17 hope you guys can hear me and and and and help me out in this um by doing some research. Could we all stand up please?
35:25 I promise we'll be quickly done. So now I want a group of people to sit
35:31 down. I'm going to tell you I'm going to explain who which kind of group of people I want to sit down. If you're here and one day you woke up in the
35:38 morning and you thought and you weren't a Christian and you thought
35:43 I must read a Bible just out of the blue you thought that and then you had one in
35:48 the shelf maybe and or you went to a bookstore you bought a Bible you started reading and then you found out who Jesus
35:54 is you started worshiping and fantastic you knew Jesus you became a Christian and started going to church if you're
35:59 one of those people please sit down interesting
36:07 Okay, let let's and and I want to include I mean all kinds of thing. You had a personal vision. You all all these
36:13 kind of things. How about this? If you're somebody who who had a a problem in life, somebody you couldn't figure
36:19 out and you did not know where to turn to and you woke up one morning says, "Oh, maybe I should just go to a church." And
36:26 then you went to a church and you heard the good news of Jesus and then you became a Christian. Please sit down.
36:34 Interesting. Can I therefore say that almost
36:40 everybody standing here right now is standing because either your family
36:46 members shared about Jesus because somebody worshiped Jesus
36:53 and worshiped Jesus so much that they came and told you about Jesus. And I I
36:60 want to say if you're any of the people who sat down just now, you're equally a Christian. Let me say that, right? I
37:05 just want to clarify that. Yeah. There's there's no difference there. I mean, God works in miraculous way. Paul
37:11 fell down from a horse, right? Nobody evangelized that. I mean, Jesus did work there, right? Um but everybody here
37:17 who's standing right now, it means somebody loved Jesus so much that they could not help but tell you about Jesus.
37:25 You may be seated. Thank you. Yeah. It's almost anybody and everybody
37:32 standing. That means everybody standing here had somebody who loved Jesus so much that
37:40 they came and told you about Jesus. You wouldn't be standing here today if
37:46 that person would have not invested in you. Maybe would not have had that awkward conversation. Hey, would you like to
37:52 come to church, share the gospel? or maybe a parent who who loved you and and shared the good
37:59 news of Jesus with you. These are all good ways for us to come to Jesus. It's it's a natural thing. That's that's how
38:05 people come to Christ. And and and yes, people say, you know, what's what's the difference between what God ordained and
38:11 and who will come will come. God not just ordained the end. God also ordained the means. And the means is people going
38:18 therefore and sharing the good news with people. That's how people come to faith. We must go and share the gospel and
38:26 Jesus with people. Everybody standing here came to Christ because somebody
38:31 shared Jesus with you. And that's what happens when we know who Jesus truly is.
38:37 When we understand that he is the lamb of God, that he is king, that he messiah, we can't help but just lift up his name and worship his name and give
38:44 him praise. And the direct effect of praise is mission.
38:49 We want to tell other people about Jesus. We declare his name to him and we
38:55 declare his name to others. But not just does he change our
39:01 identity, not just does he give us purpose, no, he gives us hope.
39:08 And we look at that here at the last part when he talks to Nathaniel. And
39:14 Nathaniel after recognizing who who who Jesus is, um Jesus replied this as I read earlier,
39:21 because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe you will see greater things than this than these?
39:27 And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven open and
39:32 angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.
39:39 And we know who Jesus is. He gives us hope. He Jesus was referencing something
39:45 here of the Old Testament which is Jacob's letter. It's a story where Jacob before he was redubbed Israel who was
39:52 the the father of of the Israelites um was in Bethl and which was called
39:57 Lutz at that point of time and he laid down his head and on a stone and had a dream and in his dream he saw a ladder a
40:05 ladder that connected earth with heaven and heavens opened up and then he saw
40:11 angels descending and ascending on that ladder. It was a glimpse of heaven. He
40:17 saw at that point of time, God also made a covenant with him, promising to to be with him.
40:26 And here when Jesus makes reference to this, he's saying, I am that ladder.
40:32 I am that access to heaven. Just like the ladder was the pathway for
40:40 people to ascend and descend. The angels ascending and descending onto heaven,
40:46 Jesus is now that pathway. If you follow him,
40:52 you will see heavens open. If you follow him, you will know that he is the pathway.
40:60 If you follow him, you will see greater things. And he promises you
41:07 that when you follow him closely that you will be in eternity with him.
41:15 And that gives us hope. Hope out of every situation that we are
41:21 in life today that one day it will be gone and one day we will be with Jesus
41:29 completely in heaven forever.
41:34 We know that he is the access. He is the pathway.
41:42 So now I'm saying this. If you're here and you know Jesus,
41:48 you're supposed to have this humility and this confidence. You're supposed to have this innate
41:54 desire to worship and evangelize. And you should have this hope in your
42:01 life. And I do not know your hearts. I I I don't.
42:07 And I don't want to make any judgment of anybody's hearts here. Just really as a
42:12 brother sincerely. If you have not experienced Jesus in such a way,
42:19 if you don't have that desire to worship and share the good news with other people,
42:28 if you don't have that confidence, if you don't have that hope, may I humbly suggest that you might not know who
42:34 Jesus truly is. And I mean this in love, not in
42:40 judgment. I do not know your hearts. I do not know your lies. I do not know your
42:46 activities. But just for yourself, may I suggest
42:51 that you might not know Jesus.
42:57 And regardless who you are, a skeptic,
43:02 somebody who who went through life always thinking Jesus was good, or somebody who has never heard about
43:07 Jesus, may I invite you to come and see
43:15 Come and see. Come and see who Jesus is.
43:22 Take some time out of your life and and and read scripture. Read to join a group. Join a life group. Join join
43:29 alpha. Do do something to really try to get to know him. There's many different ways to do that. Talk to a friend about
43:36 him. Come and see.
43:42 The only way to see him is to follow him closely, to walk with him,
43:48 to see him, to think on him, and and and and you
43:54 will realize who he truly is if you just take that time.
44:01 And you will see that he is the man whose shoes we are unworthy to tie.
44:10 But did he come like a man who who who wants to just be served? No.
44:15 You will see that even though we are unworthy to tie his shoes, he gets down on his knees and he washes the feet of
44:22 his disciples. You will see that even though he is
44:28 king, his journey here did not come on a throne in power.
44:34 No, his journey here went to a cross. And in the end of John we read that the
44:40 plaque the king of the Israelites were put put on a cross not on a throne
44:49 that he came in weakness. Come and see and you will see that he is
44:56 the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. You will see that he was put on the cross
45:04 that he died for you. while you were still a sinner,
45:11 while you are who you are right now, he died for you. You will see.
45:17 So, can I invite you today to behold our God,
45:25 to see him, to follow Jesus, and if you're here and you know Jesus,
45:33 praise his name, worship him.
45:38 Go to somebody else and say, "Follow me." Take them along. Ask them to come and
45:44 see and share the good news of the lamb of God that came to take
45:52 away the sin of the world. Let us pray.
46:06 Heavenly Father, we come before you knowing that so often
46:13 our lives we we don't really feel the way we're
46:18 supposed to feel. So, Father, I ask for your spirit to work in our hearts to continue to reveal
46:26 to us who you truly are and what you have truly done for us.
46:32 that you will awaken us this spirit of worship
46:37 that we can't but just help to praise your name,
46:45 to sing upon your name, to call out your name,
46:51 and to rest not just on the failures that we have, but to rest
46:58 on the finished work of Jesus so that we know that we don't have to
47:03 focus on ourselves but we can focus on others and we can focus on you and as we see
47:11 you for who you are
47:19 that we would just want to tell other people about you about your goodness your grace your
47:25 mercy your authority
47:30 your might, your strength, your death for us, and your resurrection
47:39 that you have overcome. That is in you that we find hope.
47:48 So father help us go to other people and praise the name of Jesus
47:55 and point to his name and say behold our God
48:02 for Christ I pray. Amen.
