Come and See - John 1:35-51 - March 8, 2026

Matthew Poole: Good morning. name is Matthew. I'm one of the pastors here. It is a joy to serve you. Harvest Church, are called, chosen, and adopted into the forever family of God with His love sealed upon you. headed to glory, and it is my joy to serve you with the word this morning on our way to that glory. If you're a guest here this morning, a special welcome to you. Thank you for being here, and I pray that God would bless you, that you would find a blessing for your soul in seeing Jesus this morning. Let's pray for God's help as we dive in. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a God full of love, full of mercy, full of grace, and we thank you that you speak to us, and you speak to us through your word, and you speak to us uniquely through your Son as presented in your word, and we pray this morning, God, you would do what we cannot do, which is to open up the affections of our heart to see Christ. to look upon him in all of his glory. God, we pray along with the psalmist, would you open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things in your law. God, we give you this time for your glory and our eternal joy, and it's in your name we pray, amen. So this past week, maybe a little over a week, our country has entered into war, right? A war that's a multi-nation international war. Some are calling it World War III, or the beginning of maybe World War III, and however you might chop up how many wars. There's been wars throughout history, right? And in fact, there's only really one war that's critical. It's always been going on. And that's the war. between not nation and nation, but between humanity and God. It's been going on ever since the beginning. In fact, this is why we are in wars today. It's why countries are at war. That's why people don't get along. What's happening out in the world is a symptom of what's going on between us and God and the fracture of that reality. There's no peace there. There's no peace vertically with our God. And so what do we do? We try to patch it together and we will do anything we can to try to resolve this war that's going on with our God. And in our flesh, we will pursue every option other than the one that the scriptures provide for us. Whether that's politics or the latest life hack. whatever it might be, we are constantly trying to ignore this God and get away from our God and this problem, pursuing peace on our own terms, and it just doesn't work. We know it doesn't work. If we look at the scriptures, the scriptures actually tell us why we are in the mess that we are in today, why the world is filled with so much brokenness. And it's not just that there's evil out there and there's a problem out there, the scriptures tell us the problem is in here too. That's actually where it starts. The heart relationship with God has been broken. In Genesis three, sin comes into this world and at that point, the peace of God with the people is broken and severed and a curse gets unleashed on the world. But right there, so the scriptures are telling us that, but the scriptures also then say, there's a solution. And the scriptures aim all of the focus and the weight of the solution on a single person. A single person to come who's gonna right every wrong. A hero that's gonna come and fix not just the world, but fix our hearts and return us to the peace of God. As we open up John chapter one, Jesus is beginning his ministry and we're gonna see he gets revealed to some men that are waiting. They are in this posture of waiting for the Messiah, for the one to come who is going to fix everything, the hero. They're waiting for him and Jesus reveals himself to them and here's my hope this morning for us, that as we see Jesus reveal himself to these disciples, so Jesus would reveal himself to us this morning. And we would become such glad witnesses of the glory of Jesus Christ that we would then gladly witness and lead others to this same Jesus. That's where we're going this morning. And as we pick up from last week, John the Baptist began, it's kinda confusing, we have John the Evangelist writing, he's been writing about John the Baptist, two different Johns. Last week we looked at John the Baptist, who was this forerunner sent by God to do the very thing of witnessing to the Son of God Jesus coming onto the scene. That's his ministry, he's a forerunner, and today we get the ministry handoff. So this is the big two orienting, the orienting structure of our passages today, two passages, but there's a handoff from John's ministry to the ministry of Jesus. So that's gonna guide our time a bit. So the first section as we jump in is that John reveals Jesus. And we'll start in verse 35. The next day again, John was standing with two of his disciples. And he looked at Jesus as Jesus walked by and he said, behold, the Lamb of God. This is an amazing moment. We can still just breeze past this. What a moment this is. He's out there sent by God to testify and they're these disciples of John. John's been teaching these guys, I don't know how long they've been disciples of John, but they're clued into John, John's ministry. John's been teaching them, there is this guy coming. There is this one coming. And at this very moment, look, there he is. God in the flesh, the word made flesh, there he is, contained in a single human, walking. Walking by. There he is, the Lamb of God, and commands his disciples, behold him. You see what John is doing, he's not pointing to himself, he's pointing to them, to Jesus. His ministry is to get them to look at Jesus. Who is Jesus? The Lamb of God. We looked extensively at that last week. The one who takes away the sin of the world. In verse 37, it says the two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and he saw them following and he said to them, what are you seeking? And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? So at this point, a shift starts to happen and John is just so happy to recede into the background as Jesus takes center stage and these guys shift their allegiance from John to Jesus. It's not that John was bad. This is John's ministry is being fulfilled. What's happening is exactly what's supposed to happen. And so they are now, the one John pointed to is Jesus. They are now running after Jesus as the new master. This is not like Instagram followers and Facebook followers where you just sort of click, but you're so passive in your click to follow. That's not what this is. Like zero commitment. Zero commitment when we subscribe to channels and stuff. That's not what this is. These guys are saying we are now giving total surrender to this man, Jesus. We owe him our allegiance, we owe him our life. He now is the one that dictates reality to us. And we're following him with our whole hearts. That's their goal. And Jesus says to them, come and you will see. So they came and they saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day for it was about the 10th hour. I want us just to see here that God in heaven is on pursuit of these two men. He is in pursuit of them, giving them this invitation. It's not accidental that Jesus happens to go out where John is and happens to walk right by and these guys see Jesus. and go after him. We'll see later in John's gospel, Jesus will say, you didn't choose me, I chose you. So there's all this behind the scenes activity that God is doing here, pursuing these guys. And what an invitation. Come and spend the day with me. God in the flesh says, why don't you come hang out with me where I'm staying down the road. That's unreal. Unreal, so they go hang out and I want us to pause and just receive this word for us as well this morning. God is in pursuit of us. He is in pursuit of you this morning. He is inviting you to come and see his glory. To come and see all that he is and all that he offers. And praise be to God that the first command out of Jesus' lips here in the Gospel of John is come and see. It's not go and do, it's come and see. That's paradigm shifting stuff right there. It's not saying go be religious and go do all these things. I'm here, God in the flesh, it's time for you to really perform and get your act together. That's not what Jesus is doing. He's saying no, just want you want you to know me. I want you to know who I am. I want you to know what I've done for you. I want you to know how much love I have for you. Come and learn about God. Before we get to any talk about witnessing or obedience, the first thing we do is we behold. That's what God wants for us this morning. What happens when you go spend a day with Jesus, the lamb of God, you get your life transformed. That's what happens to these guys. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means the Christ. The focus is on Andrew here and he becomes a glad witness. There's nothing burdensome about what Andrew has just witnessed. We have found the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who has God's Spirit set upon him, the long-awaited one. Generations and generations have hoped for this one. Right, our whole, like the whole Jewish and Israel system is built upon this one, this Messiah, this Messiah that was promised back in Genesis chapter three. He's here, he is here, we found him. Praise God. Imagine the excitement that Andrew has here. So much excitement and anticipation. I would imagine that he ran to tell his brother and he's like tripping along the way. stumbling along, he's trying to get the words out to his brother and he can hardly speak. The Messiah is here, we have found him in the flesh. Just like maybe we, some people were after watching the US gold, the win the gold, Canadian, or the US hockey team wins the gold against the Canadians, right, there's this sense of excitement to run and share. Did you see the game? Did you see how exciting that was? Now I know none of us in here were doing that because it was happening while we were worshiping in here with undivided devotion to our God. So we had to hear from someone else, a newscaster, whatever. We plugged our ears, we recorded it, went home and watched it. But then we were sent out as glad witnesses. Did you see the game? Did you see how that goalie stuck the stick behind his back and saved the goal somehow, stopped the putt from going in? Did you see it? Did you catch it? This is the type of excitement that's here. Nobody is saying, Andrew, you need to now go tell everybody about Jesus. Andrew is just welling up with joy. I gotta go tell people about Jesus. Got to, he's compelled to. So then what happens? Verse 42, he brought him to Jesus. This is Andrew, I mean Simon. Jesus looked at him, Simon, you are Simon the son of John, you shall be called Cephas, which means Peter. So Andrew does exactly what he needs to do, get Simon to Jesus. He's following in the footsteps of John the Baptist. Ministry is about pointing people to Jesus. That is what Andrew is doing. I gotta get Simon to Jesus. Come and see. Jesus displays unbelievable transforming power here to Simon. He says, Simon, I know who you are. I know who you are, I know your family, I know where you're from. But I'm giving you a new name. I'm giving you a new calling. I'm giving you a new purpose. You're be called Peter. just declares it. There's this intensity of the text here where says Jesus looked at him. He looks at him with intensity. You're Peter. You're no longer Simon. Peter means rock and we will see how this whole calling and identity that Jesus is giving Peter here is continuing to be a founder of the church. New identity and new purpose because of grace. As we can see here in this text, Peter doesn't do anything. Peter brings nothing to the table here. And he leaves with everything. He comes, and Jesus doesn't say, okay, buddy, get out your resume. Let me see the application. Prove yourself now, do some calisthenics before I'll invite you and have you to be on my team. It's not what he does. He looks at Peter, he looks at Simon and says, you're Peter. Just declares new creation right there. It's the same thing that God is doing for every one of us this morning. He comes to us out of love, and He's not asking any of us to perform, to merit up into His love, and to get into His favor, and to get on His team. He comes out of free love to choose us, to adopt us into His family. Not because we merit it, but because He's loving in that way. Unconditional love. Coming to us this morning, You're my son, you're my daughter. God says through Jesus. This is not like a, you imagine like a caterpillar, right? Caterpillar is not being called to just grow day by day. He doesn't need to do that, but like that ain't gonna get him anywhere. Flexing his muscle, a self-improvement plan for that caterpillar is not gonna get him where he needs to go. It's not a self-improvement plan. It's a dying to self plan and a resurrection plan and a transformation plan. And that's what God is holding out to us this morning. He's not asking us to keep performing. He's asking us to die so we can live through him. And it's his life that he is declaring over us to be transformed as new creations in Christ Jesus. So this is as we apply that to our lives, we're just being assured that we are not defined by our struggles. You are not defined by your struggle this morning. Praise God. Is that good news or bad news? That's great news. You're not defined by your sin? or your suffering, or your ethnicity, or where you grew up, or how much money you have, you're not defined by that. And your future is not defined by that. It's defined because Christ says what's gonna happen to you. It's defined by the word of God. Praise God. What grace there is here for us this morning. He declares to us that we are children. So John fulfills his ministry. pointing people to Jesus, and now Jesus is officially taking over. So the same pattern of ministry continues, except Jesus is now the one that reveals himself in the beginning. See in verse 43, the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and he said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaidae, the city of Andrew and Peter. Again, we see grace being applied here. Jesus goes to Galilee and Jesus calls Philip, follow me. And the point of that is not to say, well, why did Jesus not call other people? The point of that is for Philip and for us this morning to say, what a wonder that God has called us. What a glory and what grace and what a gift that God would choose us to be adopted into his family. Unbelievable gratitude, right? That's where we're supposed to move here. And what does Philip then do? He does exactly what Andrew did. Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, we have found him. Him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, we have found him. He's saying we have found the guy that all of our scriptures were pointing to. Moses and the prophets is shorthand for the whole Old Testament. All the scriptures that we have been familiar with, that we've had to memorize as children for, I don't know how old they are, like decades they've been familiar here. Israel familiar with these scriptures for generations upon generations. Everything that these scriptures are pointing to was a man. And that man is here. That's his emphasis. And Nathaniel is a man of the scriptures, but he's got a problem. He says this in verse 46. Okay, I hear you, Philip. But can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come from there? The problem he's having is I can't reconcile the glory of the promise of this divine person and something so common and ordinary as Nazareth. Like, how can these go together? It reminds me of David, as you think about David being chosen to be the next king of Israel, and everybody overlooked him. He's not even on the radar. Samuel's here, he's gonna choose a king from Jesse's sons. Let's bring out all the sons, but we're not gonna bring out David, why? God's not gonna use him. God's not gonna come from the weak things of the world. He's gonna use the strong. But we know God had different plans. God delights to show his power and his perfect power through weakness. Philip says, and I love this too, to Nathaniel's objection, Philip says, come and see. Come and see. He responds with an invitation. He's not trying to argue with Nathaniel. Not trying to convince him right there. He's like, what you just need to do, is come and see. Come and see him for yourself. This is the posture of our witnessing this morning. It's like the pressure is off for us when we try to share Jesus with somebody. We're not the ones to convince anyone to see who Jesus is. We can't. We're powerless to do that. Our job is to simply point. We'll let Jesus do the convicting and convincing. The Holy Spirit does that work. So there's a model here for even evangelism. We point people to Jesus. You might say, well, how do I do that if Jesus is not walking around on this physical earth right now? Lots of ways that you can do that. You can, in conversation, talk about Jesus. And you share the glory of Jesus, what Jesus has done for you, your own testimony of what Jesus has done for you. Or you show them in the scriptures, Jesus. Or you say, come and see, come and see to my small group, come and see to corporate worship, come and see to a Bible study. And we are inviting people in this way. We're inviting people to come and see. Come and see what God has done in Christ. And so Philip receives this invitation and so they go. Verse 47. Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, behold. An Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? And Jesus answered him, before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. So Jesus is displaying his power here, supernatural knowledge, supernatural knowledge about Nathaniel. I know everything about you, Nathaniel, I'm not learning it through Philip. I'm learning it because I'm God and I just know it. And so he's displaying this power to Nathaniel and it's enough to tip the scales. He knows Nathaniel's heart. He's a man of integrity. He's a man of, he's an Israelite. He's a God-fearer. He's after this Messiah. He wants to see this Messiah. And Jesus also saw him under this fig tree. Kind of, people don't really know what's going on, but that could be symbolic to ⁓ fulfillment and promise to Israel here. But it's enough to tip the scale. And in 49, Nathaniel answers him, says, Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. And at this point, Nathaniel's eyes are opened. Right, and his affections are now stirred for this one Jesus, and he sees and he beholds his glory. You are this man. This is all of our testimonies as believers of Jesus. In Jesus there was a time when we just considered Jesus. Maybe in a hostile way, just considered him refuse. Like why would anybody need to deal with him? Foolishness of God, foolishness, that man Jesus. And then we're touched by the Holy Spirit. There's nothing better. There's nothing better than Jesus. The prize of our hearts, the portion of our souls. He honors him, he gives him two names, Philip does, Nathaniel does. Son of God and King of Israel. He's doing two things here. The Son of God is highlighting the eternal relationship that this one has with his father. with God in heaven. In essence, he is God, eternally always been, sharing a unity with God, distinct from God the Father, but in unity one. And this eternal one has come and is now the King of Israel. We've been waiting and watching and hoping for this King to come who is gonna represent God as leading his people, ruling and reigning for his people, destroying our enemies. bringing about the kingdom of God. And that's what Nathaniel was testifying to. Here he is. The eternal one is the king of Israel. He's here. One of the encouragements I think we can take from this text is Nathaniel is a doubter here. And if we're honest, many of us have doubts this morning. You may have significant doubts about Jesus this morning. Jesus is not afraid of your doubts. He invites you in. Come and see. Take your doubts and take them to Jesus is the exhortation for us. But to receive the love and the grace and the compassion, that he's not shooing us away in our doubts, in our confusion, he's inviting us deeper in. He already knows everything about us and has like a cultural sort of... ⁓ I feel like a cultural moment here in our time, it's always been going on, but there is a trend for us to deconstruct our faith. There's this trend here, like make your faith real or make sure that your faith is real, so go deconstruct it. Go tear it down. and build it back up to make sure it's real. That's at least the benefit of the doubt. That's what people say. But here's the great problem and tragedy with that. There's no come and see with the deconstruction movement. It's not come and see, it's leave him. Leave him and leave the scriptures. It's a lie from the devil and people are getting caught in that left and right. That's why they don't come back. Could you leave and you go over to figure it out with some secular counselor? or a friend group that hates Jesus, not following Jesus, surprise that you don't come back. Surprise that your affections are not stirred for Jesus. Surprise that you start now denying facets of the truth in God's word. We shouldn't be surprised with that. We should not be unaware of the devil's schemes. That is a scheme from the pit of hell. The word of God says, come and see. You want your faith strengthened? Why don't we do what Romans 12 articulates about Jesus? Calls Jesus, Romans 12, the founder and the perfecter of our faith. Why don't we go to him if we want our faith built? That's exactly what the Bible is holding out to us. Run to him. If you're struggling with doubts and confusion, you can't put it all together, that's okay, that's normal. But run to Jesus for clarity. And he will show up. He will show up to strengthen you. He will show up to build your faith. He will show up to reveal himself. The word of God promises that. He will enlarge your heart to see and behold him. And when we do that, what happens then is we see actually Jesus is better. There is nothing else that this world provides. When we're leaving, there's some idolatry happening, there's some tasting of the world that we are actually after. But when we come back to Jesus, We taste and see the Lord is good, the Lord is the best thing there is. It was made for him. It made for Jesus. So let's see that Jesus is better in running to him. So Jesus reveals himself to Nathaniel, but then he goes farther here to give even more assurance in verse 50. Jesus answered him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? I'll tell you this, you're gonna see greater things than these. And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Jesus is now saying, Nathaniel, okay, you believe in me because I just prophesied about your life and I know you. And you think that that's great. You are gonna see the unimaginable. It's gonna blow that out of the water. You're gonna get your mind blown in so many greater ways. And he points to this strange saying. There's a lot of theology here, but you will see heaven open. This is the greater glory that you're gonna see, Nathaniel. And I think to these disciples too that are around. You will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. Jesus is drawing on a story from Genesis 28 where Jacob is on the run, he goes to sleep, finds this rock, puts his head on a hard pillow and falls asleep. has this dream and in the dream there is a ladder stretching from heaven down to him and there's angels going up and down on this ladder and he wakes up and he's like, ⁓ my goodness, the presence of God was here. It's right here, the presence of God, the gate of heaven was opened. The presence of God and Jesus comes down, he's grabbing that text. And he's also grabbing something from Daniel chapter seven, where there's a prophecy about somebody like a son of man, a son of Adam, ⁓ a man who is going to be given by God himself all authority, all the power, universal dominion, and established in his kingdom. And Jesus is taking both the presence of God, in this ladder from heaven to earth, and he's taking the son of man imagery of the global rule and the global kingdom authority, and he's combining them together, referring to himself. He is saying, I am the God man. I am the God man that has come down from earth to bring about God's everlasting kingdom. And what's interesting is that it's not the ladder there in Jacob, it's not that we are climbing the ladder to get to heaven. That is not the glory. That's every religion. But if we're reading the text from a Christological, Christ-centered lens, we see there, it is a picture of Christ coming to the earth, bringing about, mediating the presence of God to us. Christianity is not about us climbing up some ladder to get into heaven. It's about what our God has done by coming down. As Philippians two would say, he didn't just come down. He didn't count equality with God, something to be grasped, but he came to this earth, the Word made flesh, taking the form of a human. That's significant. Then he takes the form of a servant. That's significant. Then it becomes obedient to the point. That's unreal. That's unreal. And God raises him from the dead. He's exalted above all names. It's the story of Jesus. This is the presence of God getting mediated to the people of God. Jesus coming down to the earth, dying this place. We open this passage, thinking, talking about, or John pointing, there's the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. We had to have that come down. We could not pay the price for the judgment that we deserve, but God can, and he sent his son Jesus to pay the exact penalty that we deserve, to bring us to himself. This is our Messiah, the one promised and prophesied in Genesis three, the one to come to do away with the curse, who would crush the head of the snake while being bruised in the process. This is the Messiah right here. This is what we are being invited to come and see this morning. Our God, in the person of Jesus, the lamb of God, the son of God, the son of man, the king of Israel, here he is, living and dying and being raised from the dead to give life forever to the people of God. The story about Jacob shows us that heaven is open now. for anyone that would place their faith in Christ Jesus. And heaven is open forever for us. And the new creation that's coming, life with Christ forever and ever. Have you received this invitation? God is asking you to come and see. Would you see and behold and say yes to the gift of Christ Jesus on your behalf? Church, the war is over. War's over, peace with God has been established. That peace now reigns and rules in our hearts as we long for and hope for that day to come where there will be no wars. Righteousness and joy and peace and glory will be ours forever and ever with Jesus right there at the center of that city. Everyone's name who's been written in the Lamb's book of life of the one who was slain, we will be there. This morning, God is in pursuit of your soul, of your heart. He loves you. Would you bring your doubts? Would you bring your skepticism? Mike, you wanna come on up as we just respond here? Whatever God is doing in your heart, I trust right now that the Holy Spirit is speaking in some way. Let's just bow our heads before our God. Have the Lord minister to us even now. Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending your son Jesus to do for us what we cannot do ourselves. We need a hero. And we thank you that that hero has been provided in a lamb. A lamb who takes away our sin as far as the east is from the west. that this morning our guilt and our shame does not define us. ⁓ It is not the voice of our accuser that matters this morning who tells us that we are condemned and should be ashamed. But God, you speak a better word to us this morning. A word of forgiveness. A word that says you are mine. You are mine. You belong to me. God, thank you that you do not run from our sin and you do not run from our suffering, but it is like a spiritual magnet for you. You can't help yourself to run towards us strugglers this morning. And I pray right now, God, that you would meet every single heart here. And would we as a people just open ourselves up to God for just a moment? Whether we need to bring Him our sin or bring Him our suffering and our doubts. maybe for the first time we need to say. You're the son of God. You're the king. God for us that are wandering away and have tasted your goodness and gone astray, even as we sang earlier. May we know that the water is warm, we can come back. Right now, right now, there's grace, there's an abundance of grace. It's a prodigal son story, shows us that the arms are open wide from the Father. We can turn around right now and run back. And there's a celebration waiting as the word says that all of heaven rejoices when any sinner repents. God, thank you that you are not ashamed to welcome us back into your family and into your home, but you celebrate. Thank you, God. Thank you, God, that right now you celebrate over every single person in here in this room that's placed their faith in you. A song of deliverance, a song of salvation, a gladness. we thank you for the gospel. We behold you now, the Lamb of God. the Son of God, the Son of man, and the King of Israel, and the King of the world. It's in your name we pray, amen.