Amen. Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 1. John chapter 1.

This was a busy really a long week this week. A lot of things going on in my calendar. We had our theology class Tuesday night, so I had all day preparing for that and then teaching for two hours Tuesday night. And then Wednesday we had the close of our predestination series and getting prepared for all those things. We had a deacon’s meeting Wednesday night, an elder’s meeting Thursday morning. And by that time I was feeling pretty tired, pretty weary really. And that’s when I finally had time, I typically start earlier in the week, but Thursday afternoon to really dig into our sermon passages for this week. And honestly, that was just the shot in the arm that I needed because it was just exciting to dig into God’s word and to see what not only this text, John 1, 35 to 51, has for us this morning, but also as I turn to this evening’s passage, Psalm 50, and just all the richness of God’s word. And really, that was just a blessing the end of this week as I was preparing for these sermons.

And what we see in our text this morning is John’s account of Jesus calling his very first disciples. If you remember, we’re in the middle of a sequence of days here in John chapter one. Really, there’s four different days right back to back in the first part of John’s narrative in this gospel. He’s really settled into, after his introduction, now he started telling the story. He started giving his account of who Jesus is. And we read this all as one continuous story.

And again, there’s really four back-to-back days. You see the first day that we covered last week in verses 19 through 28. And then in verse 29, it says, on the next day. So we have a second day there. And then again, that lasts through verse 34. And on verse 35, where we’ll begin today, it’s again, on the next day. And we’ll see again in verse 43, another on the next day. So there’s four days right back to back where a lot of things happen. And that’s where John begins telling the story of who Jesus is. So four consecutive days.

And we saw day one. The Pharisees. The Pharisees send some men to come interrogate John the Baptist, and we talked about that, to see what he was doing. And we saw that he was preaching repentance, and he was baptizing believers in the Jordan River. And then on day two, we saw that John saw Jesus coming to him. John saw the one he was supposed to be preparing the way for, and he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And that was the day that Jesus would be baptized. We have the more detailed accounts in the other gospels, but John does tell us that he saw the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove. And that is what clearly signaled to him exactly who Jesus was.

So John, again, continues in our text this morning with another on the next day. The third day of this sequence begins. And what we see here in these final two days of this episode is Jesus calling his disciples. We see four disciples here named, and then a fifth who’s not named, and that’s most likely John himself. Again, we see two days here, and we’ll see the focus of our text divided into two types of followers of Jesus.

And as we think about a text like this, it’s always interesting to hear people’s testimonies, how they came to Christ. Even as you think about your own testimony of how you came to believe in who Jesus is, in your own salvation story. There’s really always a lot of encouragement here, how God saves people in different ways. You have stories that are really miraculous salvations, almost like the Apostle Paul, where someone was living a life of blatant sin, and then God immediately saves them, and it’s like a switch is flipped, and they’re a completely new person. You have people who were saved at a young age that didn’t live that life of sin and their whole life is shaped by being raised in a Christian family or going to church their whole life. And you have different stories all in between. But God saves people in different ways. And we see that even in our text this morning.

We’ll cover verses 35 to 51 again and it’s a larger passage and we’ll simply follow the narrative and we’ll keep it moving as we go through this. I’ll return to this passage later on in the year when I preach my project for my doctoral dissertation, and we’re going to focus on the use of the name, the Son of God. We see that twice in this first chapter of John. We saw it with John the Baptist last week, and then we see it again with Nathanael in our text today. We’ll come back and dig into that a little more deeply later on in the year, but for today, we’re just going to follow the narrative and see how Jesus brings his disciples to himself. And again, there’s two days and we see two types of Christ followers.

Our first division in this text is the first day, verses 35 to 42. And what we see there are what I’m going to call come and see followers of Christ. Come and see followers of Christ. And then second, our second day, verses 43 to 51, we will see what we’ll call follow me followers of Christ. So, or you could say those who sought Christ after being prodded or brought to him and those who Christ brought along himself after he found them. But those don’t quite fit as nicely into headings as come and see and follow me. And those are in fact Christ’s words in this passage. So that’s what we’ll go with. The come and see followers and the follow me followers, so.

This is a longer passage, so I’ll just read our first section to begin with, and that’s John 1, verses 35 to 42. This is the word of the Lord. On the next day, John again was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked. And he said, behold, the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak and followed Jesus. And when Jesus turned and noticed them following, he said to them, what do you seek? And they said to him, Rabbi, which is translated teacher, where are you staying? And he said to them, come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying. They stayed with him that day. It was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which translated means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus looked at him, he said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.

That’s our first day in this text. And again, we see these followers of Christ. These men who came and sought Christ and then followed him. And these are the come and see followers. As I mentioned, this text begins with another on the next day. So again, it’s the third day of the sequence, and it says, John again was standing with two of his disciples. You notice each day is focused on a different group of people. It was the Pharisees, and then Jesus, and those around him on the second day, and here it’s focusing on these two men, these two disciples.

Now there were obviously more than just two people there, but John focuses in on two. One of them is unnamed. and one is Andrew. But again, the one who is unnamed is most likely John, although we don’t know exactly because it’s not mentioned. John, though, doesn’t mention himself in his gospel, so there’s pretty good evidence that it’s probably John. But again, John looks at Jesus. He saw Jesus the day before. Jesus came to him, and John baptized him. But now this next day, he sees Jesus walking, and as Jesus walked nearby him, He repeated what he said the day before. He said, behold, the Lamb of God.

So this is the second time that these disciples of John had heard John point them to someone else. John handed them over to Jesus, and he didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t worried about losing his followers. He wasn’t worried about his numbers going down. He sent them to Jesus. He pointed them, behold, the Lamb of God, the one that I’ve been telling you about, the one I’ve been preparing the way for. He’s right there. And so Andrew and John receive their first exposure to Jesus and they are curious.

As I read earlier, in Matthew chapter four, and you see the same account in Luke and Mark, sometime later they became his permanent disciples, because there was a time where they had gone back to their boats, and we read in those accounts that Jesus called them from their boats to come follow him, and they do. But this gospel was written after all of those accounts, and it’s as if John is saying, Yeah, that’s when we began following him permanently, but we actually met him before that. John’s saying there was actually a day before that in which we were introduced to Jesus by John the Baptist. In John 1.37, it says, the two disciples heard him speak, heard John say this, and they followed him. They followed Jesus.

Since Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lamb of God. The only proper response for them to John’s words was they need to follow him. If this is the Lamb of God, like you say, what other choice is there but to follow the Lamb of God? And then after this, after these words from John, we really see John the Baptist fade away from the scene. He’s mentioned again in chapter three, but only briefly, and the rest of John’s gospel is focused on Jesus. Jesus becomes the central character of the rest of the story.

And this story here continues in verse 38. After the disciples hear John say this, and they follow Jesus, it says, and when Jesus turned and noticed them following, he said to them, what do you seek? So Jesus, Feels like he’s being watched. Feels like he’s being followed. There’s these two guys that keep following him as he walks away. And he turns around and says, what do you guys want? What do you seek? And Jesus wasn’t ignorant of what they were after. He knew what they wanted. But he’s asking a probing question to get to the intentions of these men. What are they really after? They already were followers of John the Baptist. So they had confessed their sins and they had repented and been baptized, and here they are following the lead of John, who said that this was the Lamb of God.

They were true seekers, but not in the sense that that word is sometimes meant. These were not unbelievers. who’d come to check out Jesus and see if this is gonna fit with my life. They weren’t sampling him to see if he would be a good option for me. They’re doing what they’re told. They were believing what John was telling them. And they heard John say, this is the one. Behold, behold the Lamb of God. And so, as they had already believed what John was telling them, they continued to believe. These men had heard the gospel preaching of John. They heard, believed, confessed, and repented. And they were seeking more of the truth that they had already heard and believed. And Jesus, even by this first question, is leading them into a true saving knowledge of himself.

John and Andrew are living out what Jesus says later on in this gospel that John describes for us, where Jesus says in John 10, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. When Jesus’ sheep hear his voice, they follow. The great shepherd had found some sheep and as he speaks to them, they continue to follow. They heard his voice and followed him. And even though it may look like they were the ones doing the seeking here, the great shepherd had been hot on their trail the whole time. And after these two followers asked Jesus, Rabbi, which is translated teacher, where are you staying?

This wasn’t just small talk, like, how’s your accommodations? How was your sleep last night? No, they want more time with Jesus. This isn’t just a passing conversation. They want to spend time with him. They want to go with him to where he’s staying so they can spend the day with him. That’s what verse 39 says. Verse 39 says, 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. It was about the 10th hour. That was the invitation that they were waiting for. They wanted to spend the day with Jesus. And you can see Jesus leading them like they’re on a string. Jesus knew their hearts. He knew that they were honest, sincere, believing seekers. They wanted more of the truth. and they had already been drawn to him by the father.

We read that in John chapter six. As we read the book of John, a lot of what happens is Jesus is describing to the disciples what’s already happened to them. And in John six, verse 44, he says, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. They had been convicted of their sins. through the preaching of John, by the movement of the Holy Spirit in their life. We know from scripture that the honest seeker of Christ will find him. This has always been the way that God works.

In Deuteronomy chapter four, Moses says this to the Israelites as they’re going into the promised land. He says in Deuteronomy 4, 29, but from there, from the promised land, you will seek Yahweh, your God, and you will find him, for you will search for him with your heart and all your soul, with all your heart and all your soul. You see, when you seek Jesus with all of your heart, you will find him. You will find him because he’s already found you. He is not lost. You are. We read in John’s epistle, 1 John, in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us. And he sent his son to be the propitiation of our sins. And a few verses later, verse 19, we love because he first loved us. He brings us to himself. And even if we are searching for him, it’s only because he’s given us the desire to do that. And while these men were divinely prompted, they were genuinely seeking who this Lamb of God was. And Jesus will never reject a true seeker of Him.

So it continues in verse 39 of John chapter 1. So they came and they saw where He was staying, and they stayed with Him. They stayed with Him. And apparently during that time, He convinced them who he truly was. And we know that because of the response. We know that because of Andrew’s response to this day spent with Christ. In verse 40, it continues, one of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew. So there we have an identification of one of these disciples, Simon Peter’s brother. And what does he do? He first found his own brother, Simon. And he said to him, we have found the Messiah, which translated means Christ. So here we have Andrew. And Andrew’s first thought after spending this day with Jesus, I’ve got to tell my brother about this. He’s got to hear it. And this is who Andrew is.

This is what Andrew does. Andrew brings people to meet Christ. In chapter six, Andrew’s the one who found the young boy with the loaves and the fish and brought him to Jesus to feed the 5,000. And in chapter 12, Andrew’s the one who brings the Greeks to Jesus. Andrew’s an evangelist. He makes a habit of introducing people to Jesus Christ. Andrew is so affected. by this Lamb of God, by the one who they’ve been waiting for, the one who John told them about, the one who he spent a whole day with, learning who he was. It changed who he was. And from then on, Andrew’s life was dedicated to bringing other people to meet Jesus. But that doesn’t mean they fully understood all of the implications that Jesus was the Messiah.

We learn throughout the rest of this gospel and the other gospels, the disciples didn’t all know exactly what everything meant. They continue to learn. And even after the crucifixion, they continue to learn what all this really means. But they had an understanding of who the Messiah would be, what he was coming for. And so Andrew runs and tells his brother and he says, we found the Messiah. We found him.

The Messiah, the Hebrew word means anointed one. And as it says in our text here in the New Testament, in the Greek, it’s Christ. We found the Christ. In the Old Testament, that word referred to the prophesied one, the chosen one, the one who would be coming. And every Jew, every Israelite raised in the traditions of their fathers knew there was a Messiah that would be coming. God’s anointed deliverer and king. And this is the one they’d all been waiting for. And Andrew says, we found him. We found him. We found the Messiah. In verse 42, he brought him to Jesus. He brought him to Jesus.

He didn’t just tell Peter, hey, guess what we found? I had an interesting day. We found the Messiah. No, he brought him to the Messiah. Not only could he not help but tell him, but you gotta see this. You gotta meet this guy. You have to come see Jesus. And interestingly, it doesn’t tell us anything about Simon who’s called Peter here. It doesn’t tell us his reaction. It doesn’t tell us if he was willingly coming or if he was dragged there We don’t we don’t have any information on that All we see Is that Andrew brought him to Jesus and when Jesus looked at him? He said you are Simon the son of John You shall be called Cephas which is translated Peter.

Some versions there, you are Simon bar Jonah, which is just bar means son of, and Jonah is a translation of John. So you are Simon the son of John. But now, now you’re gonna be called Cephas, which into the Greek is Peter. So again, later we’ll see Jesus call Andrew, Peter, James, and John from their boats. But this is the first introduction. to Jesus. And again, you see Jesus’ first encounter is that he renames Simon. And Jesus gave him a nickname that would prove Jesus already knew who this guy was. Jesus already knew who Simon was. He nicknames him Peter, which means rock. The literal translation of the name Peter is rock.

So Jesus meets Simon, and at first glance, he says, your name’s Rock. We’re gonna call you Rock from now on. And this wasn’t like when you name a kid Tiny and he grows up to be bigger than everyone else. No, Jesus nailed it on this one. He nailed exactly who Peter is. He is a rock. And Jesus looks at him and says, Simon, We’re going to call you Rock from now on. In fact, we have two books of the Bible written by this Simon, son of Jonah, and they’re not called 1 and 2 Simon. It’s 1 and 2 Peter, because Jesus knew who he was, and he named him for who he was.

So we have three disciples now that have met Jesus. The unnamed one and then Andrew and Peter. And what we see in all three of these men’s cases is that they were come and see followers of Jesus. They heard about him from someone else. They were pointed to him from somebody else. And out of genuine interest, at least in the first two cases and probably in the third because he knew there was a Messiah coming. That Jesus leads them to himself out of their intrigue, out of their genuine interest in who he is, and then he reveals who he is. Jesus will never cast out true seekers of him. Again, later on, Jesus tells us that. John 6, 37, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. These ones who came to him because they were told about him. He didn’t cast them out. The father will draw his sheep and Jesus will bring them into his fold. His sheep hear his voice and they follow him. So these are come and see followers of Jesus. And that’s our first day.

Now we come to another day in verse 43, and these are the follow me followers of Jesus, and you’ll notice these followers come in a totally different way than Andrew and Peter and John. Starting in verse 43 here, on the next day, he desired to go to Galilee, and he found Philip, and Jesus said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip said, come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and said about him, behold, truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, from where 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.”

We see here in this section a couple more men. A couple more disciples, followers of Jesus. Andrew, John, and even Peter were genuinely curious and seeking who this one was. Here, we don’t see any of that. First, we see Philip in verse 43. On the next day, he, Jesus, desired to go to Galilee and he found Philip. He found him. On the way, Jesus sees a guy and says, follow me, Philip. Jesus is making quick work of calling his disciples and building a group of followers.

He found Philip and said, follow me. That wasn’t a request. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a command. Philip, let’s go. Follow me. And it was a command, apparently, that Philip gladly followed. He gladly obeyed. With the previous disciples we’ve seen, someone else introduced them to Jesus. They told them who he was. John the Baptist told them, behold, the Lamb of God. Andrew told Peter, hey, we found the Messiah. So they were brought by somebody else. But here, Jesus is the one who does all the seeking. He finds Philip.

As we’ve already seen in John 6, 44, no one comes to him unless the father draws him. But again, Jesus in explaining to these disciples what happened to them in John 15. John 15, verse 16, he tells these very men, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you. He’s telling these disciples, these followers, you didn’t find me, I found you. And we’ve seen, they came in different ways. But Jesus says, you didn’t choose me. I found you first. And Philip was brought by no one. Nobody brought him to Jesus. Nobody told him who this was. Nobody said, hey, John the Baptist told us about this guy. It simply says, Jesus found him and said, follow me.

And then it continues in verses 44 and 45. Now Philip, so let’s learn a little bit about this Philip guy that Jesus just grabbed along the way. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. So we have a little bit of background on Philip. He was from the same place as Andrew and Peter. They were the Bethsaida boys. And Bethsaida means house of fishing. It was a fishing village. It was a fishing town. So the first bunch of disciples Jesus calls, Andrew, Peter, John, and we’ll see in other gospels, his brother James, and now Philip, the fisherman. They’re a bunch of fishermen, not the most prestigious or wealthy people. These are blue collar, hardworking men, but that’s how Jesus works.

We learn in 1 Corinthians, not many wise, not many noble, but just like Andrew earlier, Philip couldn’t keep this good news to himself. Philip couldn’t keep this discovery of who Jesus is to himself, and it says in verse 45, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So it didn’t take long for Philip to understand who Jesus was.

So Philip finds Nathanael, and Nathanael’s an interesting character to say the least. He has a little bit of a different disposition than any of the men we’ve seen so far. We find out later in chapter 21 that he’s from Cana. Nathanael’s from Cana and as you keep reading in John chapter two, that’s where Jesus goes next. He goes to Cana and there’s a wedding there that we’ll study as well. But only in John do we see this man named Nathanael. In the other gospels, he’s named Bartholomew. That’s the same guy. And that would have been his official surname, if you will. And if you remember, that word bar means son of. And we know from his name that that name comes from his father was probably named Tolmai, which is the dissension of that word. But that’s his official name, son of Tolmai, Bartholomew. Just like how, again, we saw Simon Peter’s name is Bar-Jonah. But John never uses that name, Bartholomew. He calls him by Nathanael. That was the name that he knew him by.

And you can tell by the way that Philip tells him about who Jesus was, the type of guy that Nathanael was. Philip appeals to Nathanael’s knowledge of the Old Testament. He says, we found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets also wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. He says, this guy that we know of from the Old Testament, the Messiah, the Christ, the one we’ve been waiting for, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s this guy from Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathaniel’s a little skeptical. He doesn’t quite buy what Philip is telling him at first.

In verse 46, he says, Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Are you sure, Philip? Are you sure that this is the Messiah? The one that Moses spoke about? The one that the prophets spoke about? Are you sure? I don’t remember anything in my Old Testament about Nazareth. I mean, nothing good comes out of Nazareth. There are some allusions in the Old Testament to Nazareth, but it’s never specifically named as the Messiah’s hometown. Nathaniel tells Philip, why don’t we just pump the brakes on your discovery here? I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. Philip says, what? Come and see. Don’t just take my word for it. Come and see. Come and see this one that we found. He’s right over here, let’s go meet him. Let me introduce you to this guy.”

And so verse 47, he says, come and see. Verse 47, Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and he said about him, behold, truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Jesus sees Nathanael coming and he pegs his personality right away too, just like he did with Peter. Here’s a guy that doesn’t mess around. Here’s a straight shooter, Nathaniel.” Nathaniel’s like, do I know you? Have we met before? Verse 48, Nathaniel said to him, from where do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

This is one of those moments where Jesus pulls back the veil a little bit. The veil of his flesh that veils his deity from the other people he was around. He is God in human flesh and he shows them. He knows things only God can know. Even before Philip found you. Even before Philip came to get you, Nathaniel, I not only knew where you were, but I knew I knew you.” He knows and finds and calls people to himself.

See, when Jesus sets his sights on you, he doesn’t miss. He knows who are his. And even though all of these disciples came and followed him in different ways, you can see that Jesus is pulling them along the whole time. And Nathaniel’s response to Jesus in revealing this knowledge. We don’t know anything about what he means by you were under the fig tree. Was he just sitting under a fig tree? Apparently it was some sort of insight that nobody else could have known.

Perhaps he was out by himself and there was absolutely nobody around. Nobody could have saw him. And Nathaniel answers and says, Rabbi, You are the Son of God, the King of Israel. Nathanael’s response to Jesus knowing that. You must be the Son of God. You must be the King of Israel. Here we have another witness. You remember John’s purpose. These things have been written. so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you’ll have life in his name.” And here, we have another witness, Nathanael, who didn’t know Jesus at all beforehand. After Jesus reveals to him something that nobody could have known, Nathanael’s convinced.

Call another witness to the stand. We have more evidence that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. As I said, we’ll come back to this passage later on and dig a little more deeply into this interaction, but here Nathanael recognizes that by having this knowledge, only God could have. Jesus had to be the Son of God. Not only that, he had to be the King of Israel. Nathanael was a student of the Old Testament. He knew what he was talking about. That’s why when Philip came and found him, he appealed to Nathanael’s knowledge. And that’s exactly who Jesus acknowledges himself to be. And Nathanael’s blown away.

And Jesus responds to Nathanael’s confession. He responds to his accurate confession that you’re the Son of God, the King of Israel. Jesus in verse 50 says, 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. Jesus says, man, the fishing’s good today. It didn’t take much to catch this one. Nathaniel, because of that you believe? That’s great. You ought to believe. But you ain’t seen nothing yet. You ain’t seen nothing yet, Nathaniel. You’re going to see a lot more than this.

And Jesus there alludes to Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28, where the angels are ascending and descending from heaven. And there, in Genesis 28, in Jacob’s dream, Jacob is encouraged and assured that God is with him because of this dream that the God of heaven was working directly through Jacob. And shortly after his dream, God comes and wrestles with Jacob because he didn’t get the picture yet. But here, Jesus alludes to that dream. And he tells them he is that link between heaven and earth. That they would see God’s connection to man in the person of Jesus Christ. That they would see heaven open and the realities of heaven come down to earth. They would see heavenly things through their time with Jesus. And that’s exactly what we see in the rest of this gospel.

And here, Referring to himself, Jesus calls himself the Son of Man. This is Jesus’ favorite way to refer to himself. He calls himself the Son of Man more than any other title that’s given. And that’s a name that tells us what Jesus came to do. It’s a name that comes from the Old Testament in Daniel. And that name speaks to Jesus’ redeeming work. He came to redeem man. And often when Jesus uses that term, that’s exactly what he’s explaining. I could give you many examples, but one example in chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.

And that’s what we see in this passage today. People coming to Jesus in different ways, but they’re believing in him. They believe in who he is. And again, they come from different places. They come from different backgrounds. They come in different ways. But in all these cases, Jesus is bringing them to himself. He was revealing to them in different ways that He is the Christ, the Son of God. That is the point of our passage today.

So if you have not yet come to Christ, if you don’t have your own story of how you came to salvation in Christ, if you don’t yet believe that He is who He says He is, You need to come to Him and believe in Him and follow Him. He is the Son of God. He’s the Savior of sinners. He’s the only way to God Himself. So you need to come to Him.

And if you are already a believer, are you responding like the disciples did here? Do you follow Him in belief? Who are you telling about Him? If the presence of Christ in your life has this sort of effect that you need to go and tell others and bring others, come and meet this Jesus. Who are you bringing to Jesus? Who are you telling about Him? And has He changed your life? Are you following Him? Do you live your whole life in light of who He is? That He is the Christ, the Son of God, your Lord and Savior. That is what our passage is about today. Telling us who Jesus is and showing us the response that is necessary in the lives of his followers.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer. Our God in heaven, we thank you for what your word tells us. Thank you for this picture of these followers of Christ, how they came to him and they believed and they followed him. And as we see throughout the rest of this gospel and the other gospels and the rest of the New Testament, that this radically changed their lives. I pray, Lord, that if there’s anyone here today that you are drawing to yourself, that you would finally bring them to belief, that you would convict their hearts. Convict them to confess their sin and to believe that you are the Christ, the one who came and who died and who rose again. For all the believers here today, Lord, I pray that you would help us all to see passages of scripture like this that show the effect that you have on our lives and have that spur us on to more faithfulness, to more evangelism, to more taking the knowledge of you to those around us. We pray now that as we come to the table, that we are humbled, that we are ready to partake of these elements that you’ve given us to remind us of what you’ve done for us. We thank you for who you are, for what you’ve done, and we pray this in Christ’s precious name. Amen.