Growing up I didn’t have a clique. I had an assortment of friends that I hung out with. I would spend time with my friends on the their farms and ranches. I would spend time with my friends as they played video games. I spent a lot of time playing sports, and other times talking Star Trek. My clique, was anyone that did either feel like they fit in, or they didn’t feel like their supposed group of friends were really friends.
I had a teenage one time name off a bunch of cliques at his school and tell me what teens were in those cliques. I asked him, where would I stand in today’s high school culture? He said he didn’t know because I did a bunch of things that you’re not supposed to. And the reason is, I never thought that I should be anything for someone else, when it came to my own interests. I like sports, I also like playing board games. I like the smell and work of a ranch, and I also like being inside playing a video game. And when I hang out with people, I like to see what their interested in and connect there. I’ve alway like to see people as people and it’s grown since I came to Christ. Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 9: 22b-23, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” This has become a part of how I interact with people, that every person is seen as an individual. That I try to make sure that every person I meet is seen as important.
I don’t always do it and I lack a large part of the time, but I strive to see people as God sees them.
This idea of being seen, brings us back into our sermon series where we are talking about how our relationship with God wrecks who we were before we accepted Jesus as our Savior. We’re going to be looking at John chapter 1 and the story of Nathanael.
We began looking at this wrecking of God through Paul’s encounter with Jesus. On the road to Damascus, Paul is so utterly knocked, both physically and figuratively, off his donkey that for the rest of his life, he points to how he had realized that he was a wretched person. How is self-righteousness and self-absorption were worthless compared to Christ. And how his sin was so bad that he was the least of all the apostles and all of God’s people. Yet, Paul understood the deep and unrelenting love of God for people that realize their wretchedness compared to Jesus. It was here that we talked about realizing and embrace our own wretchedness in sin, which leads us to praising God all the more that he loved a wretch like me. The world desires us to puff ourselves up, to think God would be lucky to have us, but it’s when we realize that God doesn’t need us at all, but that he desires a relationship with us, that God’s love becomes deeper and more fulfilling.
We might be wretched in our sin, but Jesus loved the wretched so much that he died for them. Praise God for the deep love of the Father, that sent the Son, who died on the cross and raised to life, and now to whoever accepts him as Savior, receives the Holy Spirit as a seal to everlasting life.
Let’s now look at another wrecking that God has done, this time in the life of Nathanael in John chapter 1, starting in verse 43. Let’s read together.
“43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’
“44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’
“46 ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked. ‘Come and see,’ said Philip.
“47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’
“48 ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked.
“Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.’
“49 Then Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.’
“50 Jesus said, ‘You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.’ 51 He then added, ‘Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘“heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on” the Son of Man.’”
This is an interesting moment. In the first three narrative encounters Jesus has in John’s Gospel, he is given three titles. John the Baptist refers to him as the Lamb of God (v.1:29,36), Andrew refers to him as the Messiah (1:41), and Nathanael refers to him as the Son of God (1:49). Each of these titles refer to different aspects of Jesus’ ministry. The Lamb of God and Messiah titles refer to his sacrificial and saving work, while the Son of God title refers primarily to his divineness, but also carries with it a claim to the the throne of Israel.
But it’s the two responses of Nathanael that we’re going to be focusing on today, and how Jesus’ sight changes Nathanael to the core.
To put this in context within the Gospel of John, more than likely a man named Andrew and the Philip in this passage were disciples of John the Baptist. They had heard John call Jesus the Lamb of God who had come to take away the sin of the world. Andrew invited Jesus to come and stay with him, and Jesus was introduced to Andrew’s brother Peter. Philip on the other hand went to get his brother Nathanael to meet Jesus. But we can see that Nathanael was reluctant, saying, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”
The reason for this is most likely because of a hierarchy of disdain within the Jewish community. People from the Judean region, where Jerusalem was, held disdain for people in the Galiean region. Nathanael’s home town was in Cana another city in Galilee, and in turn he had disdain for the town of Nazareth. Most likely this is because, Nazareth hadn’t had any prophetic or historical value for the Jews and was just a backwater village.
But Nathanael’s disdain might be deeper than this. See, it’s only in John that we get Nathanael’s first name. The other Gospels refer to him by his second name, or what we would call his last name, which is Bartholomew. This name would be seen as Bar-Tolmei or son of Tolmei. Some scholars believe this is a reference to King Talmai the king of Geshur and the father of Maacah, one of King David’s wives. This wife birthed Tamar and Absalom. This would make Nathanael of royal blood, the only one of the twelve disciples to have this connection, and a distant cousin to Jesus himself. This could be why when Jesus sees Nathanael he says, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
These words could also point to Nathanael being a straight talker. He’s probably a person that doesn’t beat around the bush, and says things as he sees them, kind of what he said with the disdain for Nazareth comment we saw earlier.
By thinking thoughtfully about Nathanael, we can start to see a picture of of who is was come into view. He’s a young man that comes from a prominent family line of King David, and he has disdain for others that are not like him. And he speaks his mind even if that means he offends people. Sounds like he is an honest and maybe arrogant person; the perfect candidate to be wrecked by God.
So whether willingly or begrudgingly, Nathanael goes with his brother to meet Jesus. At Jesus’ words of Nathanael being a true Israelite, Nathanael asks the question, “How do you know me?” Notice that Nathanael doesn’t use an honorific when addressing Jesus. Unlike Paul who we saw last week, uses the title “Lord” in response to Jesus, Nathanael just asks the question, “How do you know me?”
It’s here that Jesus reveals something, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Jesus is revealing a sight beyond the physical, that saw Nathanael before he was called by another to meet Jesus. This sight of Jesus saw Nathanael in his life before this encounter. What was Nathanael doing? What was he saying or thinking under that fig tree? We don’t know, but Nathanael knew, and Jesus knew.
We can see that this was such an overwhelming revelation to Nathanael because he responds with, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” Whatever Jesus saw about Nathanael under that fig tree, it awoke a realization within Nathanael that Jesus was truly who his brother said he was. That he was the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of Israel. This true Israelite of royal blood, with disdain in his heart toward the people of Nazareth, had his eyes open to the truth that Jesus is the true King of Israel, the Son of the God and heir to David’s throne.
Now this isn’t the first time in the Scriptures that were told about this sight that goes beyond the physical. In Mathew 6:6, Jesus tells us that we are to pray in secret, and “…your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
A little further in Matthew 6:17 and 18, Jesus reveals that, “But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
And again in Matthew 6:26 we get this insight from Jesus, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
This isn’t to mention places like Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Or Psalm 139:13 where the Psalmist comments on God’s sight beyond the physical, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Throughout the Scriptures, God’s sight sees us no matter where we are. Whether if that’s in the womb before we were born, or doing secret things, or if we are found in need. God is seeing us, and this sight of God, is what stops Nathanael in his tracks and what changes the trajectory of Nathanael’s life.
From this moment, we only get a few more references to Nathanael in the Scriptures. And these mentions are not significant stories about him, but rather his name appears just as a part of lists when referring to the other twelve disciples, such as in John 21, or Acts 1:13.
We really don’t know much about Nathanael from the Scriptures except for this one moment in time. Even his role in the early Church is some what clouded. We’re told by the early church historian Eusebius that he went to India and left a copy of the Gospel of Matthew and then went to the area of Armenia north east of modern Turkey. What is known, is that he was a martyr, but that is not fully known. What is said in Church tradition is that he was flayed alive and then either crucified or decapitated, or both around 68 AD.
Yet, being known by history isn’t the point of Nathanael’s life, it was being known by the Savior. And this is another aspect of what it means to be wrecked by God. God wrecks the perception that we need to be known by the world. That we need to be famous, or glamorous. That we need our 15 minutes of fame in order to make it or be remembered.
Out of all the original twelve disciples, Nathanael was probably the most on track to becoming a well known person, yet when he was seen by Jesus, all that mattered to him was that God saw him. His royal blood no longer matter, nor did his birth place. What mattered was that God had seen him, and that he would now seek only what God would see in his life.
We must seek the same thing. We seek only to be seen by God, and not worry about being seen by others. Because the reality is, people will never see us for ourselves, but rather through their own perception. Yet God sees us, he knows us, he loves us, and he has purpose for us.
But we must allow God to wreck our perceptions of importance, seeking only to be seen by the God of the universe, because when all that matters is being seen by him, whatever he calls us to do is worth it.
There’s a Casting Crowns song called “Only Jesus,” here are the lyrics,
“Make it count, leave a mark, build a name for yourself
Dream your dreams, chase your heart, above all else
Make a name the world remembers
But all an empty world can sell is empty dreams
I got lost in the light when it was up to me
To make a name the world remembers
But Jesus is the only name to remember
And I, I don't want to leave a legacy
I don't care if they remember me
Only Jesus
And I, I've only got one life to live
I'll let every second point to Him
Only Jesus
All the kingdoms built, all the trophies won
Will crumble into dust when it's said and done
'Cause all that really mattered
Did I live the truth to the ones I love?
Was my life the proof that there is only One
Whose name will last forever?
And I, I don't want to leave a legacy
I don't care if they remember me
Only Jesus
And I, I've only got one life to live
I'll let every second point to Him
Only Jesus
Let us be wrecked by God, that it’s only the name of Jesus that matters in our lives.
This week I want to challenge you to wrestle with this: are you seeking to be seen by the world or by God? This can be done by wanting people to see your talent like singing or being athletic, or wanting to leave a legacy that your family will remember you. But the world will never truly see you; they will see through their own eyes a perception of you. But if you seek to be seen by Jesus, then the world will see what it needs, a relationship with the Savior.
So let us seek to be seen by God, and that through us, others may see him. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment