10/1/06 First Encounters Pt. 6
JOH 1:41-51 Andrew found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter- the Rock).
We are returning once again this morning
to our study of several first encounters between Jesus and the people in His world.
And after spending a number of weeks on the first two such encounters,
the ones between Jesus and John the Baptist
and between Jesus and Andrew,
we are going to pick up the pace considerably
and walk through the remaining encounters this morning.
The next three encounters are with men
whose names will be familiar to many of you
because all three of them eventually ended up as members
of that select group chosen by Jesus as His disciples.
In fact four of those twelve
are included in these first encounters that we have recorded for us in the final verses
of the first chapter of John’s gospel.
We met Andrew last week,
and now this morning we will meet Andrew’s brother, Simon,
and then two other future disciples, Philip and Nathanael.
And with each of these encounters
we gain a little more insight
into what we can expect
in our own interactions with our Creator.
And before we go any farther with this,
let me tell you what I see as the central message
that John is trying to get across to us through all that he’s doing here.
And I’ll give it to you in a single sentence.
We don’t have to be afraid any more.
Do you remember the Christmas story,
or has it become so familiar
that you’ve long since ceased to hear what our God is saying to us through it?
Do you remember the very first words God communicated to us
in His announcement of the arrival of Christ?
LUK 2:10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people;
Do not be afraid!
We don’t have to be afraid of our God any more.
We don’t have to be afraid of how He will respond to us
if we reach out to Him.
We don’t have to be afraid
when He reaches out to us.
And let me say it one more time
so that we don’t ever loose sight of what’s happening in this passage.
We are watching these men
in their first face-to-face contact with God Himself.
They didn’t know it,
but John made sure we did.
It’s been a few weeks since we were in those first verses of chapter one,
but you remember, don’t you?
JOH 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
That’s who these men were meeting.
And the great thing here
is that, because they didn’t know who He was
the brought no religious facade to these meetings.
They didn’t know,
and He didn’t want them to know -
not yet,
not for several years.
He wanted to build a history with them,
a history in which He would feed them knowledge about Himself,
knowledge that they could never have gained
had they known the truth about His identity from the beginning.
He wanted them to have the freedom
to be themselves,
without fear,
without facade,
because only then would they hear correctly what He was trying to say to them,
only then would they be able to see the heart of God.
And that is the goal, you know - to see the heart of God.
That’s what He has been seeking since Adam took his first breath -
that we would be able to see His heart.
Did you think the goal is improved performance?
Do you think that’s the goal?
Do you think that’s His goal in your life?
Do you think God is deeply grieved over this very messy world we live in,
with so much corruption,
so much evil,
so much sin everywhere?
Do you think He’s frantically trying to clean things up a bit,
trying to get people to stop sinning
so that He can then feel a little bit better
about a creative attempt that somehow went very, very wrong?
Do you think that’s what He’s doing in your life right now?
What are you hiding from Him?
What do you think you really need to fix
before you can find true peace with God?
What sections of your life
do you very much hope He’s not looking at?
What feelings do you hope He doesn’t know about?
What thoughts do you hope He doesn’t notice?
Did you know that this world as it currently exists
with all of its corruption,
and evil,
and sin
is exactly the world He wanted
in order to accomplish what He wants to accomplish in our lives?
And did you know that your life right now,
all splattered and stained from the moral sewage of others,
and of yourself,
is exactly the life He knows
will give you the best possible opportunity
to learn what He wants you to learn about Himself?
How can that be?
Well, let’s start with these guys in the Gospel of John.
Why did this God/man choose to meet them where He did,
as He did.
Why did He spend the first 30 years of his life as a carpenter,
living in a small town,
miles from everything and everyone that really mattered in society?
Why did He just step into these people’s lives without introduction,
without fanfare,
without any pretense whatsoever.
Why didn’t He make some sort of grand entrance?
Why didn’t He step out of the Holy-of-Holies in the Temple at Jerusalem,
dressed in flowing priestly garb,
blasting forth prophecies and commandments?
And even more disturbing,
why didn’t He offer these men
some early warning detection system
so that they could know who they were dealing with?
Why, from the very beginning,
did He do everything possible
to create a relationship with those in His life
in which they felt perfectly free
to be themselves?
Why?
Because that was the whole point of everything God was doing through Christ.
He was carefully designing an encounter between Himself and His creation
in which we would be able to discover
how our God feels about us and relates to us
just where we are,
just as we are.
And why did I say a few minutes ago
that this world as it currently exists
with all of its corruption,
and evil,
and sin
is exactly the world He wanted
in order to accomplish what He wants to accomplish in our lives?
Why?
Because this is the world we have created without Him.
This is what we have done
with what He gave us.
This is the end result of the best efforts of the human race.
Do you think the problem is that we just haven’t found quite the right legislation yet,
and when we do
we can finally put an end to crime?
Or maybe we just haven’t yet found that perfect leader,
the right politician,
but when we do everything is going to be great.
I’m afraid what you see is what you get.
And no matter how much we try to dress it up with pretty lights and a facade of luxury,
just under the surface
it’s hideous to the extreme.
And even though we are far more comfortable
keeping our eyes focused intently on the flaws and failures of the people around us,
the truth is that we have all made our contribution to the mess.
And yet here is the amazing thing -
this world as it now exists,
this world that is so corrupt that it literally nailed it’s Creator to a cross,
this world is the only world
in which we could see the heart of our God.
For God so loved the world...
And why did I say a few minutes ago
that your life right now,
all splattered and stained from the moral sewage of others,
and some from yourself as well,
is exactly the life He knows
will give you the best possible opportunity
to learn what He wants you to learn about Himself?
Why?
Because what He wants us to know first of all, most of all
is that He loves us,
and these real world lives that we live
are the only ones through which we have any hope of discovering the truth.
If we would have trotted into His presence
with lives all shiny and nice,
we, just like Adam, simply wouldn’t have gotten it.
We would have assumed
that He liked us,
He loved us because we were all shiny and nice.
And that, quite frankly, has nothing to do with it.
He doesn’t love us because of what we do,
or haven’t done,
He loves us because of who we are.
And it is that truth that is at the heart
of what we see happening between Jesus and these men in John chapter one.
Last week we listened to Peter describe for us
his brother Andrew’s first encounter with Jesus,
and now this morning
we move on to Peter’s first encounter with this man who would ultimately change
not only Peter’s life
but the course of history forever.
And knowing what we do about Peter from the Biblical records,
I am certain that Peter was not looking forward to that first meeting.
He went in part because his brother would give him no peace until he did.
But Peter was not a religious man,
and he had little toleration for religion,
or for rabbis,
or for preachers or prophets.
Peter was practical to the extreme,
and if it didn’t feed his family,
and if it didn’t catch fish,
then he really could care less about it.
I don’t think it was a seeking heart
that drew him to that first meeting.
I think it was mostly just plain old curiosity.
There was no doubt that something had happened to his brother, Andrew,
and he wanted to know
what or who could have caused such a dramatic change in his brother literally over night.
And so he went,
but he went, I think,
expecting to find just another self-styled “messiah” looking for followers.
He probably assumed
that there would be lots of charisma seeping out of the man,
lots of smiles and heartiness, great eye contact,
and very likely a warm embrace for each and every one of his devoted followers.
But what he found
was not at all what he expected.
There were no throngs of people around Jesus,
no thousands kneeling in adoration,
no urgent multitudes seeking his wisdom and guidance.
There was certainly no halo hovering over his head,
no Shekinah glory,
no radiant glow about him.
Nor was there even a hint of that hideous charismatic facade
that is so common among the ego-driven leaders throughout history.
From John’s account
it appears as though Jesus was alone when Andrew and Peter arrived.
And the first words Jesus spoke to Peter
told him everything he most needed to know about Jesus.
“You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Peter - the rock.”
Could you imagine meeting a person for the first time,
a person who could have had no knowledge of you from any human source,
and then have them open the conversation with a statement like that?
For me it would be like walking up to a man I’ve never met
and having him start our conversation by saying,
“You are Larry, the son of Mert. You will be called The Victorious One.”
Mert? The son of Mert?
No one knows my dad’s name is Mert!
You see, when Jesus opened His relationship with Peter with that sentence
He was telling Peter three obvious truths
and a one not so obvious truth that was the most important of all.
First, He was telling Peter that He knew who he was.
You are Simon...
Second, He was telling him that He knew Peter’s past.
You are the son of John...
And third, Jesus told Simon that he knew his future.
You shall be called the Rock.
But there’s something else going on here, too,
something that goes to very heart
of what John wants us to understand about our God.
Jesus was very selective in what He chose to reveal to Simon about his future.
He could so easily have said,
“You are Simon, son of John. You will turn your back on Me in my darkest hour.”
Or “You are Simon, son of John. You will publicly deny me three times.”
Or even, “You are Simon, son of John. Your friendship with Me will result in your being crucified upside down.”
But He didn’t.
Why?
Well, we’ll come back to that why in just a minute,
but first I want us to get a little more help from Nathanael.
He’s the last in those first encounters given to us by John in chapter one.
And let me read the account for us.
Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel." Jesus answered and said to him, "Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these." And He said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
And here again we are given a wealth of information about our God
both through what Jesus says
and through what He does not say.
And let me point out first
that same thing that we saw in Jesus’ first words to Peter.
Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!"
Now, do you see what’s happening here?
With Peter Jesus looked past all of the arrogance,
and the pride,
and the stubbornness,
and the self-deception that was so much a part of who Peter was at that moment,
and He gave Peter a tiny glimpse
into who he would become through the redemptive work of God in his life.
And then Jesus did for Nathanael
the same thing that my 1st grade teacher did for me.
1953...Ridgecrest Elementary School,
Seattle, Washington.
The memory of the 2nd World War
was still so intense in the minds of the adults who surrounded me at that point in my life
that every child had to wear an ID bracelet around our wrists,
and several times a year we had bomb drills in school.
When the alarm would go off
we would push all of the desks into the center of the room
and then we’d all get under them until the all-clear signal was given.
We thought nothing of it.
And I can still remember what my 1st grade teacher wrote
in my report card that year.
She said that Larry was a very good sport.
My teacher chose to use nearly the entire report card
to write up an account of an incident that took place on the playground,
an incident in which she felt I displayed good sportsmanship.
Do you think that was no big thing?
Do you know what she could have written up had she chosen to?
She could so easily have written,
“Larry’s progress in reading concerns me deeply.
He is way behind the rest of the class and is clearly facing some major problems in this critical area.”
Or maybe,
“Larry is displaying marked difficulties in his speech development.
His pronounced and noticeable lisp has not improved at all
and will certainly become an increasing problem for him
unless he receives some intense speech therapy.”
Or perhaps,
“Larry’s extreme shyness has kept him isolated from his fellow students throughout the entire year.
His social skills are significantly below average and will cause him major problems in the years ahead if not addressed and corrected.”
In fact, she could have filled several report cards
with the obvious academic and social problems she must have seen in that six year old little boy.
But instead
she found one point at which she could give me positive affirmation
and that’s all she said.
Why did Jesus begin His friendship with Nathanael
by bringing that one character quality out into the light
and affirming him at that point?
Why did He open His conversation with Simon
by looking four years into the future,
past all of the failures,
past all of the denials,
past all of the flesh-driven arrogance and stupidity
to the man he would one day become?
He did it because He wanted these men to know something about their God,
something they could never have learned any other way.
He wanted them to know
that their God isn’t after them,
He’s for them,
He’s on their side,
seeking their best,
fighting for them in every way possible.
He’s on their side
as no one else ever has been before.
And by the way,
doesn’t this first encounter with Nathanael
make you curious about what happened under the fig tree
and why it affected Nathanael so deeply?
We aren’t told what took place there
because it’s none of our business.
But we do know two things about whatever it was.
First, whatever happened there,
it was something that was humanly impossible for Jesus to know about.
And yet He did.
Which is why it impacted Nathanael so deeply.
And second,
we know that whatever it was,
it was something that showed an unusual strength of character in Nathanael.
Do you know what character is?
It’s what a person does
when no one else knows.
It’s what we do
when no one is watching.
So what does all of this have to do with us?
What does it have to do with you and your God?
Well, you see,
this is where John wants us to begin in our own personal interaction with our God.
You see, these men really were just exactly like we are.
Their lives were filled with past, and present, and future failures
just like us.
And yet when God opened His conversation with them
He did it not in the context of judgment or condemnation,
but in the context of redemption.
And He does the same thing with each of us
every single day of our lives.
LAM 3:21-23 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
Do you want to know the truth about your God?
He’s not after you,
out to condemn you or make you pay for your sins.
Why would He do that?
He’s already done that for you with His own death.
And now when He looks at you,
which is every second of every day of your life,
He sees not what you could have been,
or what you should have been,
but what you can be
and will be through His redemptive work within you.
Your God is here,
with you,
next to you,
beside you,
in you,
and you don’t have to be afraid any more.