9/24/06 First Encounters Pt. 5
We are going to return to our study of the Gospel of John this morning,
and to several first encounters
that took place between Jesus and the people in His world.
But if this is going to be of any value for us
we need to begin
by once again returning to that central truth about Jesus Christ,
the one upon which everything else depends,
the one that is at the very heart of everything God tells us about Himself,
and yet the one that we forget every day of our lives
and must continually reclaim in our thinking
if we have any hope of correctly understanding our God
and relating to Him as He intends.
I can offer us this truth best
through the words of Christ Himself.
JOH 14:7-9 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father...”
When I meet Philip face-to-face
the first thing I want to do
is to thank him for having the courage
to speak that one sentence that we have recorded for us in that conversation.
What he was asking of Jesus is obvious.
For more than three years
Jesus’ disciples had been watching Him in His relationship with God.
And the more they watched,
the more confused they became.
Before Jesus entered their world
there were things they thought they understood about God.
They knew He was to be worshiped.
They knew He wanted their submission.
They knew He was the source of a whole bunch of moral laws,
laws to which He demanded obedience.
They knew He was all-powerful,
all-knowing,
ever-present.
But they also knew He was terrifying.
They knew He was the One most to be feared,
the One who had the power to send them to Hell,
the One who knew their every sin,
their every failure,
their every thought.
And then this Jesus came into their lives
and what they heard Him saying about God
and what they saw in His relationship with God
simply did not fit with what they believed.
He used terms to describe God
that were unlike anything they’d ever heard before.
He called God their “heavenly Father”,
and when He used that term
He used it in a way that stirred longings deep within them,
hungers they hadn’t even dared admit existed within them.
MAT 6:26, 28-32 "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
LUK 11:13 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"
MAT 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.
Clearly He was talking about a God who knew them,
a God who cared deeply about them,
a God who wasn’t out to get them but rather who wanted to give them all that they needed most.
And then they watched Jesus’ own interaction with this God.
They saw the way He seemed to hunger for Him,
the way He was able to draw incredible strength
simply from praying to Him.
It was as if there were two completely different Gods -
the One they’d been taught about by their religious leaders,
and then the One this Jesus seemed to know.
And there was no way they could put the two together.
And then, in the closing hours of their time with Jesus,
Philip finally put it into words.
"Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."
And the answer those men received
was intended by God to be
the foundation upon which His creation would relate to Him from that time on.
"Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father...”
Now I know that we’ve been here countless times in the past,
but I also know
that in nearly every personal conversation I have in which I am talking with another person about God
the person I’m talking with will say something that makes it clear
that the God they are relating to in their mind
is nothing whatsoever like Jesus.
In other words,
they still haven’t heard it
and believed it.
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father...”
And why does it matter?
I mean really,
why does it matter?
Right now you have so much going on in your life.
Some of you are dealing with tremendous pain right now,
pain because of turmoil that exists between you and another person,
pain that exists because of something that has happened, or hasn’t happened,
pain that grows out of deep loneliness or fear,
and the last thing you’re concerned about right now
is whether or not your theology is correct
or whether or not your image of God is accurate.
Well, I’ll share something with you that, when you first hear it,
I think many of you will simply not believe.
But I hope you’ll listen to me long enough
so at least you’ll understand why I say it.
Every decision you make in life,
every major decision,
every minor decision,
every choice you make
is, at some level, simply an extension of your concept of God.
It’s probably easiest for us to see this
in those choices that we consider to be moral in nature.
What we do with the moral choices we face in life
is inseparably linked to our heart belief,
our root attitude toward the One who established the moral standard.
And of course the key question is not “should we obey Him?”,
the key question is “can we trust Him?”.
Every act of moral rebellion on our part
is, at its core,
our affirmation that this God of ours
simply cannot be trusted with our deepest needs.
He simply doesn’t get it,
He doesn’t understand,
or even worse,
He doesn’t notice,
or doesn’t care,
which means, of course, that we don’t matter to Him.
A twelve year old boy
running around the neighborhood at night with a can of spray paint,
vandalizing any wall he can find
has, in his mind, a God who cannot be trusted,
a God who hasn’t got a clue as to what it’s like to be 12 years old,
a God who, like all authority figures,
is simply out go get you,
a God who should be avoided at all costs.
The hunter or fisherman who views the fish and game regulations
as something to be obeyed only when there is significant risk of being caught
has, tucked away inside his mind,
the same nasty, petty little God as that 12 year old boy with the spray can.
He is a God who simply doesn’t “get it”,
a God who doesn’t understand,
a God who has no concept of life in the “real world” of men,
a God who does OK in the prissy little world of Sunday School and Church,
but a God who would be utterly out of place
sitting around a campfire at night with a group of hunters,
a God who says what He says about authority and our submission to it
simply because He likes writing rules and then cramming them down the throats of His creation,
rules that, half the time, rob us of the really good stuff in life.
Now that’s a little harsh, isn’t it, Larry?
Well, let me tell you what I know for sure.
I know that our attitude toward what God has said
is inseparably linked
to our true heart attitude toward God Himself.
I know we are masters at playing God-games.
I know we are most comfortable with a God who stays in His place,
in that Sunday morning world of religion.
I know that we all enter this world deeply distrustful of our Creator,
and that no movement toward true trust in Him
comes without tremendous turmoil inside us.
I know that true submission to Him
is the most terrifying step in human experience.
And I know that our minds are filled to overflowing
with abundant proofs of why this God cannot be trusted,
why He obviously couldn’t have a clue as to what’s really going on in our lives.
And yet I know, too,
that whenever I have finally reached the place in my own life at any point
where I have seen correctly what He’s really doing
and why He has said to me what He has said
it has caused my spirit to overflow with a gratitude to Him
unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced.
And I know, too,
that if I could ever succeed in revealing Him to you as He really is
you would trust Him
and reach out to Him at any cost.
And it’s more than just those things in our lives
that we would typically think of as “moral” issues, of course.
I said earlier
that virtually every choice we make
is, at some level,
and extension of our concept of God.
The priorities we bring to each day we live,
the things we choose to do with the time allotted to us,
the things we choose to do with our money,
the way we choose to relate to the people around us,
all of these and more
are a direct extension of how we view God
and what’s going on between us and Him at any given time.
And whenever we react to Him,
or run from Him,
or try to hide from Him,
or take what He has said to us and toss it aside,
we do so because the “God” we are relating to in our minds
is nothing whatsoever like the God who really exists.
Which brings us back to this most central truth about Jesus
because that’s what God was doing through Him -
revealing to us who He Himself really is.
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father...”
And I mention this again this morning
because, as we continue on with these first encounters
between Jesus and the people in His life,
we will miss the power of what is happening here
if we loose sight of the truth
that we are seeing their first direct encounters with God Himself.
They didn’t realize that, of course,
but that’s what it is.
And what we see happening between them and Him
is what we, too, can expect from our God
in our own interactions with Him.
And with that as background,
lets return to John’s Gospel.
And we’ll pick up his account in chapter one, verses 35-40.
JOH 1:35-40 Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" They said to Him, "Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?" He said to them, "Come, and you will see." So they came and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
Now, the first thing we need to do
is to allow ourselves to remember
that these are real people,
involved in real conversations,
and that just as with our conversations with one another,
there is far more communication taking place
than simply what we have being said through the words.
In fact, if we loose sight of that truth,
what we have recorded here
simply won’t make much sense to us.
So let me share with you
some of what I think was taking place between Andrew and Jesus in this first meeting.
And to do this
I’m going to let us listen in
on Peter’s description
of what his brother, Andrew, told him about that first encounter.
There are some things we know about Andrew from John’s Gospel.
We know Andrew was very likely one of John the Baptist’s disciples before he met Jesus.
And we know, too,
that his brother Simon probably wasn’t.
Why else would Andrew skip out on two days of working
while Simon stayed behind with the boat?
Andrew and Simon were partners in the family fishing business.
Simon, the oldest, the biggest, and the mouthiest
was the undisputed leader.
The day before this imagined conversation took place,
we know that Andrew took off with an unnamed friend
in search of John the Baptist.
He took off and didn’t return.
He didn’t return all night.
And this is what I think Peter would tell us
about what happened between his brother and himself
when Andrew finally returned.
Then came that morning when Andrew failed to meet me at the boat. The previous afternoon he and his friend Philip had taken off in search of the Prophet John and hadn’t come back. I hung around the boat waiting, a little worried, a lot angry. How could he do this to me? I didn’t really mind all this Prophet John stuff as long as it didn’t interfere with our work. But now he was going too far. We were losing a full day of fishing, and there was nothing for me to do but sit and wait and plan my lecture for the slacker.
It was nearly noon before Andrew returned. As soon as I saw him walking up the beach, I sprang to my feet, ready for my attack. But before I could utter a word, Andrew broke into a grin and held up both hands as if to ward off the blast he knew was coming. He looked different somehow.
For a few seconds he said nothing. He offered no apology for being late, no immediate explanation for his absence, and no new flood of quotations from the great Prophet John. He just stood there staring at me through shining eyes, looking as if he were about to explode.
Then he spoke. “Simon, we have found the Messiah!” He wasn’t trying to convince me. He wasn’t attempting to bait me into yet another theological discussion. He wasn’t soliciting my agreement. He wasn’t looking for my approval. It was a simple statement of fact, spoken with absolute assurance.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there in silence. My face must have mirrored my confusion and concern, because Andrew suddenly burst out laughing as he slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Relax, big brother! I haven’t gone mad. When you hear what’s happened, you’ll understand.”
The account poured out of him like a flood. He and Philip had found the Prophet John without difficulty, but he wasn’t preaching and answering questions the way he usually did. He was engaged in an intense conversation with a man about his own age. Neither Philip nor Andrew recognized the stranger, but John seemed to know him well. They edged closer to the pair, trying to catch a little of their conversation.
The man’s name was Jesus, and Andrew found this newcomer fascinating. The things he said, the way he laughed, the look in his eyes, even the way he carried himself communicated a confidence, an authority, a kind of contagious love for life. I asked Andrew if he was another prophet like John. Andrew struggled with the question for a few seconds, then said no, he was different somehow. When I pressed him for an explanation, he said the Prophet John drew you to his message, but this Jesus drew you to himself. At the time, that made no sense to me whatsoever, but I let it pass and Andrew continued his account.
He and Philip had kept edging closer, but just as they were within range to hear most of what was being said, John and Jesus ended their conversation and Jesus walked away. For a few seconds they just stood there next to John, watching Jesus go. Then John turned to them, pointed at Jesus, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” They had no idea what those words meant, but they were determined to find out. Andrew and Philip followed after him.
For a few paces the little procession moved down the path in silence, Jesus in the lead, his two shadows a few feet behind him. Then, without warning, Jesus stopped, turned around, looked straight into Andrew’s eyes, and asked, “What do you seek?” Andrew said it was just as if he knew Andrew was following him. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t irritated. Andrew said that as he stood there looking into Jesus’ eyes, he suddenly felt as if this man was asking him a question to which he already knew the answer. Andrew, however, had no idea what to say. What did he seek? What he really sought was him. He wanted to know so much more about him. Who was he? What was he doing? Where was he going? Andrew wanted to be near him, to talk with him. He wanted to get to know him. But there was no way Andrew dared put that into words. Jesus would think he was crazy. Andrew said he stood there in terrified silence for a few seconds and then blurted out, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”
As soon as those words came out of his mouth, Andrew knew how stupid they must have sounded. “Oh, Teacher, we’re just sneaking along behind you here because we were wondering what kind of house you live in.” Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Andrew said he could feel his face turning red.
Then, just as he dropped his eyes to the ground and began to turn away in embarrassment, Jesus spoke what for the rest of his life Andrew described as the five words that changed everything forever. Jesus said simply, “Come, and you will see.”
When Andrew looked up, Jesus was smiling, his eyes filled with kindness, compassion, and an acceptance that made Andrew feel as if this man knew everything. He knew what Andrew had been thinking and feeling. He knew what Andrew was searching for, not just today but for years. He knew, and he welcomed it. In fact, Andrew told me, he seemed to be expecting it.
Andrew never said much more about that first night he spent with the Master. Whatever passed between them touched Andrew more deeply than anything else had ever touched him before. It touched and it healed.
And I share that with us this morning
because I believe there is something crucial in that first encounter between Andrew and Jesus
that John wants us to see.
He wants us to see that Jesus responded
not to Andrew’s words,
but to his heart.
Maybe you think that’s not such a big deal,
no great revelation.
Well, it isn’t until we make it personal.
You see, there are some of you here this morning
who are exactly where Andrew was
when he trotted along after Jesus on that path.
You, too, are following something,
but you don’t really know what it is.
Right now your concept of Jesus Christ is as vague and confusing as Andrew’s was.
It’s the product of a whole bunch of muddled religious messages
that have been swirling around in you since childhood,
messages that have left you feeling unsure about what you want
or whether what you want even exists.
When Jesus stopped, turned around, and asked Andrew what he wanted,
Andrew said, “I was just wondering what kind of house you live in.”
And if someone were to come up to you this morning
and ask you what you’re doing here,
you’d probably say something like,
“Well, I just heard about this rather strange church that meets in a gym
and I wanted to see what it’s like.”
But that’s not why you’re really here, is it?
You’re here because of that emptiness inside you,
that great big, aching hole you’ve been trying to fill for so long.
What are you seeking?
What you’re really seeking is your God.
And what I want you to know this morning
is that, just as Jesus responded not to Andrew’s words, but to his heart,
so He will do the same for you.
If the best you can come up with right now
to Jesus’ question, “What do you seek?”,
is your response, “Jesus, if you’re really there,
and if you’re really good,
I want you in my life.”,
then that’s all you need.
And if it helps,
I can tell you with absolute assurance,
on the basis of my own first encounter with the King,
that He really is there,
and His heart longing is to be good to you for all eternity,
and He is more than willing to enter your life if you’ll let Him.
"Come, and you will see."