Come & See - John 1:35-51 (02.08.2026)

Good morning. Okay, if you'll remain standing for the reading of God's Word.

Our scripture passage today is John 1, 35 through 51.

So when I finish reading, I will say, this is the word of the Lord.

And if you'll respond by saying, thanks be to God.

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.

He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah,

which translated means Christ. He brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John.

You shall be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.

The next day he proposed to go into Galilee, and he found Philip,

and Jesus said to him, Follow me.

Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses and

the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nathanael said to him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

Philip said to him, Come and see.

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed,

in whom there is no deceit.

Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered and said,

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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Well, good morning. My name is Nathan, and I'm one of the pastors here at Christ Church.

And we're so glad that you are here with us this morning.

It's been a hot minute since we've been together. So it's great to be back.

And it's great that it's like 50 degrees warmer than it was last week.

And the Olympics are on, which is like the greatest 16 days of the year until

the Masters come in April. So, but yeah, we're really glad that you are here

this morning. I want to ask you this question.

Has there ever been anything that's happened to you that you immediately had

to go get someone else to show them?

We've all experienced these moments of, hey, you got to come see what I just

saw. It happened to us just last night.

I had gone, brushed my teeth, and something came on the TV as we were watching the Olympics.

And Amanda said, hey, you got to rewind it and watch this again.

We all have these moments over and over again where somebody says,

hey, you got to come see what just happened.

And that's exactly what happens in our passage today.

Come see who we found. You're never going to believe this man that we have found.

So we have been in the book of John since the beginning of the year.

We're still just in chapter one, but we'll get out next week.

So at the beginning of the year, Ben began preaching at the beginning of John,

this prologue, John 1, 1 through 18.

It's in this prologue of the book of John that John declares that Jesus is the word of God made flesh,

that Jesus came down from heaven to dwell with us, and that he is making for himself a new people.

And then the following week, Ben got us through John 1, 34.

And in that story, John the Baptist has declared through his witness that Jesus

is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

He's declared through his witness that Jesus is indeed the Son of God.

And so this morning, we come to verse 35 here in chapter one,

and we'll go through the end of the chapter today.

In John 1.35, the next day, John is telling us, so John is the author, John is the disciple,

that John the Baptist, John, a different John, it's kind of confusing here at

the beginning, and two of his disciples, who later in the passage we'll learn,

one of those guys is Andrew, and we assume that the other one is the disciple

John who's writing the book.

They are both the sons of, our John is the son of Zebedee, that John.

So they're standing together with John the Baptist, and Jesus comes by.

And when John the Baptist sees Jesus, he points to him and he says, look, the Lamb of God.

And that brings us to our first point this morning, if you're following along.

Your greatest need in life is for Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The absolute most crucial thing you must know this morning is that you are in desperate need.

The Bible is clear that every single person has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

What that means is that God who is holy, who's righteous, who's perfect has

given us a law, but none of us can live up to that law.

None of us are capable of following and keeping all of God's laws.

But in order to be with God, we must do just that. We must keep his law.

And the Bible goes on to say that the wages of sin, the price,

the penalty for our sin, for not being able to live up to God's law is death.

And that death we see is twofold. We experienced that death first here on earth

as a spiritual death separated from God, far away from him without a relationship with God.

And if we don't believe and turn to God, then that death becomes an eternal

death where after we die, we experience utter separation from God in hell.

But there's hope if you're listening this morning. The Bible goes on to say

that God proves his love to us, then that while we are still sinners,

that is before that you and I could do anything for ourselves, that Christ Jesus,

God himself came from heaven and he died for us.

And that death that we deserve, that we should have given up, Jesus took on himself.

He gave himself up so that you and I might live because the free gift of God

is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you're here this morning and you've yet to believe the truths of the gospel,

you can put your faith and trust in Jesus today.

The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe

in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.

Jesus died as our substitute, our lamb, but he didn't stay dead.

On the third day, he rose back to life again.

And when we believe that Jesus is who he said he is, that he died for our sins,

that he was buried, that on the third day he rose to life and we have peace with God.

We know Christ has done all the work on our behalf and we can rest in him.

This is the gospel message. This is the message of the book of John.

This is why John starts in chapter one declaring Jesus is the lamb of God.

John is focusing on Jesus's mission. Jesus came to be the lamb of God.

He came to give his life up as a sacrifice to atone for our sins so that you

and I could experience God.

And the whole message of the book of John from now through all 21 chapters rests

on the foundation that Jesus Christ is really the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

And so this entire reason, this passage on the calling of these first five disciples

begins with, look, the Lamb of God, is because the whole mission of God is summed

up in that title of Jesus.

Jesus isn't worth following if he isn't the Lamb of God.

That was the promise that God made in the Old Testament from the garden, that one would come.

And Jesus has come to do that. He is the Lamb of God.

We see that Jesus is fulfilling this promise that God made to us in the Old Testament.

And the message of any disciple, whether that's the 12 that we read about in

the Gospels or any of us who have followed Jesus here in this room,

The message is Jesus is the Lamb of God who will take away your sins.

And in order to be called by Jesus, you got to know the message.

If you're here this morning and you haven't put your faith in Jesus, do it.

He has made a way. He has made the only way for you to be right with God.

He came to take away our sins.

Look back at verse 37. It says, the two disciples heard him say this and followed

Jesus. Let's stop right there.

Don't overlook what's happening. These two disciples have been following John

the Baptist, but John the Baptist has done his job.

Hey guys, he's the one.

They immediately leave John the Baptist and they go with Jesus.

John could have stopped them. He could have gotten jealous.

He could have said, I discipled these guys. I'm the guy that turned them into leaders.

They can't go. They're the best that we have.

But he doesn't. He points to Jesus and he lets them go.

And we must continually ask ourselves at Christ's church, what kind of church we want to be.

If we actually believe that God has called Christ's church to make mature and

mobilize disciples, then we better be willing to hold onto those disciples really loosely.

We better be willing to say that more than we want Christ's church to flourish,

we want the kingdom of God to flourish.

We must boldly and prophetically point people to Jesus and say, look, the Lamb of God.

And when a disciple gets up to follow him, we better be as big as cheerleader.

The only reason any of us are here this morning is because someone was sent to us.

The father sent the son. The son sent the apostles.

And generation after generation, the church has sent people to proclaim the

good news of the gospel until you believed and you're here this morning.

The kingdom of God flourishes when the people of God send.

And they proclaim along the way, look, the Lamb of God. Go to verse 38.

When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them,

what are you looking for?

Come and you'll see, he replied. Oh, I skipped a part. They said to him,

Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?

Come and you'll see, he replied. So they went and saw where he was staying and

they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him.

He first found his own brother, Simon, and told him, We have found the Messiah,

which is translated the Christ.

And he brought Simon to Jesus.

When Jesus saw him, he said, You are Simon, son of John.

You will be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.

The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. He found Philip,

and he told him, Follow me.

Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.

Philip found Nathanael and told him, we have found the one Moses wrote about

in the law, and so did the prophets.

Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Nathanael asked.

Come and see, Philip answered. So here's the second point.

Your greatest calling is to follow Jesus and bring others along with you.

I think the Bible from beginning to end often understates things.

Part of the reason of that is that the Bible is written in ancient languages

that aren't English, and so it doesn't always flow the same way to our ear.

Verse 38 is one of those instances. The ESV says that Jesus turned and saw them.

The CSB says Jesus turned and noticed them.

The Greek word here means to contemplate or to view attentively.

It's actually the word that we get theater from, where you go and you watch

something attentively.

It's like when you know someone really well and you can tell that something

is off about them, but nobody else really knows that something else is off about them.

Like wives are really good at that, kind of frustratingly so.

But for Jesus, this means that when he saw them, that he perceived into their hearts.

And so he asked them this really bold question. He says, who are you looking for?

What are you looking for? And he'll go on to ask questions like this in the next few chapters.

That are a little off-putting, maybe.

Why does he ask that question? Isn't it obvious what they're looking for?

John the Baptist has just declared, look, the Lamb of God. In verse 41,

when Andrew declares to Simon, he says, we have found the Messiah.

Philip tells Nathaniel, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law.

It seems that they know what they're looking for.

But here's the problem. They all kind of have a different version of who the Messiah is.

At this point in history, Rome occupies Israel.

Life is hard. They're overtaxed. They're overburdened. They're not free.

And they long for this freedom. They've been longing for it for years and years.

And they long for Israel to see her glory days of when David came and he conquered

the nations around them.

They long for the days of Solomon. when 1 Kings says that when Solomon was the

king, that silver was as common in Jerusalem as stones.

See, Jesus gets to the heart of the matter. He asks them, what are you looking for?

And he's asking us this morning, what are you looking for?

What kind of Messiah do you hope I am?

Do you long for the days of Solomon? Do you want your Messiah to be a financial tycoon?

Are you willing to follow Jesus because you hope that Jesus makes your bank

account, the dollars in your bank account as common as stones in Jerusalem?

Are you looking for a Messiah that was like David, who will conquer all of your

political enemies? It doesn't matter which side of their own.

You're hoping that he comes in and he takes the rest out.

Or do you want something else? Maybe your Messiah validates your anxieties or

your fears or your worries.

He never calls you to lay them down at the feet of Jesus.

You want a Messiah that's snuggly, like a cat that you can hold in your lap.

Maybe your Messiah loves the world. He loves to have a good time.

He loves to go party hard.

Your Messiah is not concerned that you're consumed by lust, that you're on the

brink of financial ruin because you have bet all of your money on sports.

You're longing for this bro messiah who never calls you to flee temptation or pursue righteousness.

Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus pique people's interest.

They pack up and they follow him.

Some of those people are looking for a wealthy Messiah. Some of those people

were looking for a Messiah that would come in and conquer the Romans.

Some are looking for a Messiah who will feed them or heal them.

And some just follow Jesus simply because he's entertaining.

It's fun to follow Jesus.

But when we get to chapter 6 of John, we'll hear Jesus look at them and he'll

say to them, Truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and

drink his blood, you don't have life in yourself.

In the other gospels in this conversation, we see Jesus look at the crowd and

say, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

And so John tells us from that moment, many of his disciples,

they turned back and they no longer accompanied him.

They had packed up to follow Jesus. They pack up and they go back home.

See, the problem is that in order to follow Jesus, we have to die to ourselves.

We have to die to the world. We have to make a choice. We have to pick up our

cross, a symbol of death to follow Jesus.

And here in John chapter one, Jesus is previewing that when he asks this question,

what are you looking for?

He knows how this ends. He knows that this call ends in death,

not only for himself, but we know throughout church history that almost every

single disciple that followed Jesus in the gospel dies as a martyr.

John 6 tells us that after all of these people desert Jesus,

that Jesus turns to the 12, the first five of whom are in this passage this morning.

And Jesus asks the 12 disciples, you don't want to go away too,

do you? And Peter steps up, it's always Peter.

But I want you to look back at John 1 to what has previously happened to Peter. Look at verse 40.

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him.

He first found his own brother, Simon, and told him, we have found the Messiah.

And he brought Simon to Jesus.

When Jesus saw him, he said, you are Simon, son of John.

You will be called Cephas, which John tells us is translated Peter.

The Greek word there is petros. It means little rock, like small rock,

not like the city in Arkansas. Peter.

So time and again throughout the scriptures, God, either the father or the son, is called the rock.

We see that God is the rock of my salvation, that he is my rock and fortress.

He is the everlasting rock. He's the stone or the rock that the builders rejected,

which has become the cornerstone.

So here in John 1, Jesus, the big rock, named Simon, the little rock.

But the way he says it in Greek is the future passive indicative form of the verb.

And I'm sure that all of you know exactly what a future indicative passive form is.

But for those who don't, what he's saying is, Simon, you are not now,

but you will become the little r rock.

In other words, Jesus is saying, Simon, following me is going to change you.

When you follow me, the rock, you will start to look and act like me.

And so back in John 6, we see that the beginning of this.

Peter says to Jesus, after all those others deserted him, Lord, to whom will we go?

You have the words of eternal life. We've come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.

Brothers and sisters, your greatest calling in life is to follow Jesus and to

bring others along with you because every name we see them call Jesus in John 1 is true.

He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

He is indeed the promised Messiah that we read about book after book in the Old Testament.

He is the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets.

Peter doesn't fully grasp that by the time we get to chapter 6,

but he's right. Lord, to whom will we go?

You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that

you are the Holy One of God.

Who else is worth following?

Who else has the words of eternal life? Who else is the Holy One of God?

To say yes to Jesus is to say yes to eternal life.

To say yes to Jesus is to say yes to unimaginable joy.

To say yes to Jesus is to say yes to the greatest cause the universe has ever given us.

Brothers and sisters, let us willingly sacrifice our lives for the sake of following Jesus.

He's worth it. But anywhere else we follow will only lead to death,

to destruction, to unending sorrow and pain.

So let us pick up our crosses and follow Jesus down the narrow way like these men did that day.

Let us be bold on our journey, calling others to follow along with us,

declaring along the way, Come and see, we have found the one whom we waited for.

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Let's go knowing that just like Simon Peter, we too will be changed into what

Jesus is changing us into.

Pictures of himself for our good and for his glory.

Simon said yes that day. And when the day of Pentecost came after the big rock

had died and been buried and then raised back to life and ascended into heaven,

the little rock stood up on the day of Pentecost and he proclaimed to a crowd of thousands,

come and see the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

And thousands believed.

Brothers and sisters, the greatest calling in your life is to follow Jesus,

shouting all the way, come and see.

Before we finish here in verses 47 to 51,

I need you to jump back to Genesis chapter 25, to the birth of twin boys named Esau and Jacob.

Genesis 25 · chapter mention

Esau and Jacob are the grandsons of Abraham. They're the boys of Isaac, Abraham's son.

And God had made a promise to Abraham.

He said that one would come from Abraham's line that would bless all the families of the world.

So look at Genesis 25, 24. When her days to give birth were completed,

behold, there were twins in her womb.

The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak. So they called his name Esau.

Afterward, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel.

So his name was called Jacob.

In Hebrew, to say that someone is holding your heel is an idiom that means to

deceive. So Jacob's name literally means deceiver, and he lives up to it.

So one day, Jacob is fixing a stew.

This is after they're grown. And Esau comes in from working outside,

and he's exhausted, and he's starving. And he looks at Jacob,

and he says, hey, Jacob, can I have some of this stew that you made?

And Jacob says, sure, you can have it, but you're going to sell me your birthright.

And Esau is starving to death. So he's like, yeah, sure. Take it.

I want this too. I'm hungry.

Then years later, at the end of Isaac, their dad's life, Isaac wants to bless

Esau with the blessing of being the firstborn.

But Rebecca, their mom, loves Jacob more than she loves Esau.

So she devises a plan for Jacob to steal the blessing that belongs to Esau.

See, Isaac had told Esau, he brought him in and said, hey, I want you to go

hunt wild game, kill it, bring it back, make me a stew, and then I'll come and

I will give you a blessing when you come.

But Rebecca gets Jacob to go get a goat.

She kills it, she cooks it, and then uses its fur to make Jacob hairy like his brother Esau.

And Isaac couldn't see. So as it turns out, the plan works.

And Jacob steals the blessing intended for Esau. Now, if you haven't picked

up on the story, you don't know this story.

Esau is like a man's man. And Jacob isn't.

Esau is like an avid outdoorsman, and Jacob is like an avid indoorsman.

So when Esau finds out what happens, he is ready to do away with Jacob.

So Jacob hightails it out of town.

Jacob is walking along, and he finds himself in the middle of nowhere.

It's late. It's dark.

It's just him and a bunch of rocks. So he grabs a rock and he props himself

up against it and he drifts off to sleep. You got to be pretty tired to sleep on a rock.

And while he's asleep, flip over to Genesis 28, verse 12.

Genesis 28:12

And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth,

and the top of it reached to heaven.

And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord,

the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac.

The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring.

Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad

to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.

And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land.

For I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.

He was afraid and said, how awesome is this place?

This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

Jacob was on the run. He had no idea if he was going to live or if Esau was going to catch up to him.

He certainly didn't know if the promise that God had made to Abraham was now

going to be passed on to him because he had kind of stolen it. Not kind of, I bet he did.

With every step, he certainly thought, all hope is lost. It's over.

Then in the darkness, he dreams of a bridge between heaven and earth.

A bridge that says to Jacob and his descendants that God is committed to making

the earth his dwelling place.

That he will fulfill his promises. that that which he began all the way back

in the garden will come to pass.

The promise is still there because

the promise never relied on Abraham or Isaac or Jacob or even Esau.

The promise solely relies on God.

Now flip back to John 1 verse 47.

John 1:47

Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said about him,

Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

It's a little bit of a play on words. See, God eventually changed Jacob's name to Israel.

That's why we call them the Israelites.

Well, Jacob was full of deceit.

A man named William Temple, back in the 1800s, wrote a paraphrase of the book of John.

And when he got to this verse, verse 47, he translated it, an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob.

And so Nathanael is the ideal Israelite.

He's eagerly waiting and looking for the Messiah. And Jesus knows that.

And in a way, Jesus is saying that Nathanael is the better Jacob.

But here's the real catch and the real play on words.

Jesus will declare through what he's about to say that he is the true and better Israel.

Verse 48, how do you know me? Nathanael asked. Before Philip called you when

you were under the fig tree, I saw you, Jesus answered.

Nathanael is astonished. Jesus knew him before he even saw him, before they met.

Verse 49, Rabbi Nathanael replied, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel.

Because Nathanael was a righteous man waiting and longing for the Messiah,

he immediately recognizes that it's Jesus. He's the one.

Verse 50, Jesus responded to him. Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?

You will see greater things than this.

Then he said, truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of

God ascending and descending on the son of man. The last point is this.

Your greatest hope is Jesus himself.

Nathanael knew the scriptures. He knew every bit of Jacob's life.

He knew that on that dark night in the middle of nowhere, Jacob encountered God in a dream.

He knew God was saying in that dream that God's dwelling place is with man.

Nathanael felt the weight of the last 400 years. He knows that God has been silent.

He knows that Israel is not in a good place. Israel is desperate.

Israel is longing for God.

He knows it. He feels like all hope is lost.

When Jesus looks at Nathanael and he says, Truly I tell you,

you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

He knows that the silence of God has ended.

He knows Jesus is saying, Nathanael, I'm the ladder.

I'm the gate to heaven. I am God and I have come down to live with you, to rescue you.

He knows that this Jesus is the Messiah in whom all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Friends, when you believe in Jesus, when you follow Jesus, your greatest hope is Jesus himself.

He has opened the heavens. He came to dwell among us.

He came to rescue us. And when he comes again, we will live with him forever. He is the ladder.

He is our greatest motivation. He is our reason that we say, yes, I will follow.

He is the reason we pack up and go. He's the reason we can look at our neighbors

and say, come and see. He is the reason that we are here in this place,

planting this church. He is our greatest hope.

He is Jesus. He is the ladder.

He has opened up the heavens. He has come to us.

Believer, he is ours forevermore. Let's pray.

Father, there are about 20 of us, a little more in this room,

who feel the deep weight of what it means to pack up and follow you.

God, we are so thankful that you called us. We're so thankful that you have

brought us to this place to proclaim along with John the Baptist,

with John the son of Zebedee, with Andrew and Philip and Nathaniel and Peter

and brother and sister for thousands of years. Come and see.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Father, we pray that you would do a mighty work in this place, in this community.

We pray that we would be a people at Christ Church who are bold in our proclamation of the gospel.

We pray that the gospel would be heard by people who desperately need it.

That you would call out for yourself sons and daughters to pack up and to follow Jesus.

Father, we pray that Christ's church would be a place that sends people out

to proclaim the good news of Jesus locally and across the globe.

Father, we proclaim that Jesus is worth it.

We came, we saw, we know that he's worth it. Father, we are grateful for the gospel.

That you have saved us.

Father, we pray that you would make it palpable in every conversation that we

have in this community, that we wouldn't be able to help but to proclaim the gospel.

Father, we pray that you would move and that we would get to be a part of it.

It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.