One thing about that’s part of my calling that cannot be separated from me is I love to teach and I mentioned again in my article this week how I’m teaching the the Bible quest at my son’s school helping them memorize scripture and Working through that because I love the idea of scripture being on their heart but There is a difference Between me teaching Because a teacher Does what what does a teacher do? Teaches teaches information Teaches them to learn we were studying Philippians 4 4 through 7 memorizing it So I’m teaching them what it means as we go and and we repeat it We’ve now repeated it about a hundred times. So we’re getting close and The teaching is what I love and then if I’m their teacher, they are my students Okay. Now What we’re going to start talking about is something that is a nuance of teacher Disciple and Rabbi if you know in the New Testament Oftentimes they call Jesus rabbi and it’s often interpreted as teacher but what is significant about a rabbi in the Jewish tradition that we can learn so much from is That when we look to a rabbi, we are not just a student.
We are a disciple a Disciple by definition is one who follows Okay Teaching is part of that But it also you follow When you become a disciple of Jesus Christ you follow in the footsteps of Jesus you watch where he is going and you take those steps with him a disciple stays close to his rabbi a Rabbi doesn’t just teach the disciple Information, but they become an example of how to live So being a disciple of Jesus Christ is an amazing thing It’s the only way in the world one can be a disciple of one who came and died and rose again So by being a disciple of Jesus Christ We are people who follow Jesus who not just learn lessons from Jesus But we want to be like Jesus We want to be in the presence of Jesus That’s what makes discipleship So amazing is that we can be like Jesus and we can be in the presence of Jesus Because he is our rabbi But he also happens to be God Coolest rabbi ever So this series we are going to look at a couple of different disciples. Both of them are named Philip Philip first was an apostle and then in the New Testament I mean in the Acts we are introduced to another Philip who became known as Philip the evangelist who? Was a great evangelist of the first century and Philip the Apostle was also an evangelist But we’ll learn from these two Phillips about being a disciple now I’ve kind of left this open as In I think being a disciple of Jesus Christ is so important that we’re just not going to look at these two That I’ll give you a break and then maybe in a few more months we’re gonna look at some other disciples and learn from those disciples on how we can be Better disciples in our lives and in our walk with Jesus our scripture this morning comes from the chapter of John verse 1 Where he calls the disciples now what happens was? Jesus was walking by when John was with his disciples and John said look behold the Lamb of God and John was paving the way for the Messiah and two of John’s disciples decided to go up to Jesus and He asked him what they were seeking and he said come and you will see when they asked where he was living and One of them was Andrew Who went and found his brother Simon Peter and Then it cuts to a scene where Jesus finds another disciple and and a lot of people believe the unnamed disciple in this is Philip whether it was or not There are lessons we can learn from Philip as he becomes a disciple of Jesus. Will you stand as you are able? The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.
He found Philip and said to him follow me now Philip was from Bethany But they the Sadia 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 Nathanael said to him can anything good come out of Nazareth Philip said to him come and see Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward 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 him before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you Nathanael answer answered him Rabbi you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel Jesus answered him because I said to you 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 heaven opened in the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man the Word of God Inspired by God for the people of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated Nathanael’s first words about Jesus himself or could anything good come out in Nazareth Now when I was in high school, we had different teams we played and During the time as we ended came towards close to graduation.
We became friends, but I remember hearing stories about football being so intense that some of the high schoolers from Our school would get into fights with people from other schools Because if they were from Wamego, they were nowhere near as good as clay center or vice versa. And I Remember thinking how weird that is, but then you see that play out in movies and different things So it’s not uncommon to look at someone in a different town and think That that town just produced trouble Nazareth didn’t have a great reputation So it was not unheard of for Nathanael to say can anything good come out of Nazareth? Now in today’s world, it’s so easy to snap back when someone says something negative whether it’s about us Whether it’s about our family whether it’s about our chiefs Whatever it might be It’s Kansas City against the world is what I keep hearing Whatever that is. It is harder to say come and see than it is to snap back and To fight back and to try to argue the point Same thing if we say to someone hey, why don’t you come to church with me or? Man Jesus really blessed me with something today, and they say that is a figment of your imagination All churchgoers are hypocrites There’s some truth to that, but we’ll get to that another time It’s easy to try to fight that Philip Gave us this example He said come and see I mean if you look at the history of throughout the Old Testament into the New Testament the toughest thing for someone in the Jewish culture is if you seek God that you don’t seem to find God and the greatest blessing is if you seek God then you find God and We see such a great thing with Jesus in this and Jesus Already having an effect on Philip an effect that every one of us Need to have if we are going to be disciples of Jesus Christ now the cool stuff always switches to Nathanael because Nathanael was the one who was Pessimistic about Jesus have you ever known anyone who’s pessimistic about Jesus? Maybe some churchgoers to They was pessimistic, and then he came in the presence of Jesus and Jesus said to Nathanael before Philip called you I saw you under the fig tree and Nathanael wigs out oh You’re the Christ you’re the Son of the Living God you’re the Messiah you’re the one we’ve been looking for I’m so excited and Jesus said You wigged out because I said I saw you under the fig tree You’re excited to see me now because I said I saw you under the fig tree now what we don’t understand in English is that is a rabbinic phrase If you saw a rabbi if you saw a student of the Bible Sitting under a fig tree.
I mean the phrase means if you’re sitting under the fig tree You’re there all day long, and it is someone who is serious about studying the Bible If you’re sitting under a fig tree that is code for this person is serious Part two of that is they have studied the scriptures and they are expecting Who do you think they’re expecting to find? The Messiah so Jesus says before I mean I love the language Jesus has they said Philip called you but before that I Knew you were a study. I knew you were serious about Finding the Messiah, but Philip called him to come see Jesus Joshua Wren is a mixed martial arts fighter and He has been through so many struggles in his life. He tells in a story with Christianity today He gives his testimony.
He said he grew up and he was bullied really really bad and by 13 He was clinically depressed battled thoughts of suicide But eventually he got involved in athletics and it started him on a trajectory to being a professional cage fighter said after graduation he went to the Olympic Training Center and In a match with the world champion his arm got turned the wrong way and snapped like a twig It broke his elbow. He was in so much pain. And so they gave him oxycotton And he got addicted to oxycotton.
He would take in a week a month supply of oxycotton and Eventually as he healed up he got back on to a mixed martial arts team and on that team he received amazing success his career Trajectory was almost unlimited But he couldn’t shake the oxycontin he added things like abusing alcohol and Cocaine and his addictions ended up getting him kicked off the team for using drugs but He had a friend named Jeff and Jeff did not give up on him Jeff invited him to a men’s retreat where Justin experienced real men talking about real struggles in their life And he knew what he needed to do and he prayed He said God, I’m a drunk and an addict I’m a liar and a cheater God, I’ve hurt everyone I don’t want to hurt anybody anybody anymore. I desperately need you and Justin said as I prayed I felt God lift me up. It felt like something finally released me I was free all the emotional chains of depression All the bondage just broke and fell away at the same time I felt God’s arms enveloped me like a father giving a bear hug to his sons in Desperation I prayed God.
I’m yours if you want. Do you want me to do anything? I Desire to do your will not mine Justin suddenly had a strange vision and he saw people in a cluster of twig and leaf huts with malnourished children He didn’t know who these people are but he knew he had to help them So he turned to Isaiah 58 6 through 12 and learned about God’s heart towards the poor and oppressed The passage started a fire in his heart He shared the vision with his mentor Caleb and he finally and he Immediately knew he was describing a pygmy commute tribe in the Congo Caleb told me he said he was leading a group there encouraged me to go with him I knew I couldn’t help them unless I understood them so Justin not ever doing anything halfway Moved to the Congo Stayed with them for a year Learn their customs their language suffered from the same diseases they did and he took a five-year break from MMA fighting He returned back to the cave to the MMA cage with the goal of raising money for his new charity fight for the forgotten It was an organization. He founded to help the pygmies He said the fight the fight The drive to fight is still there, but I’m no longer fighting my inner demons I’m fighting to fulfill God’s call on my life my favorite line in that story is when it says but his friend Jeff Didn’t forget him His friend Jeff gave him an opportunity I mean how many times do you think Jeff might have talked to him? And he finally just says hey come with me to that Richard this retreat come and at that retreat he found Jesus okay, how many of you have a smartphone? How many of you have a find me app How many of you have consistently used that find me app find what? Find my find my iPad find my iPhone.
He uses it more than me, too She can track it you can track teenagers on there too. Did you know that? Yeah That happens too Sometimes we lose things It may be your billfold. It may be your purse.
It’s often an umbrella so remember you brought those umbrellas today But there’s no greater feeling than finding who or what you have lost If we look at the the wording of this this text in our the context we have when it was back when John told the disciples about Jesus Jesus uses the word seek if you look at the definition of the word find It means to come upon something by searching or effort per Miriam Webster Meaning you didn’t just accidentally find it when Jesus went to The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip He didn’t just stumble across Philip. He found Philip Who are you seeking when they say where are you staying? Jesus is come and you will see and Then in verse 41 when Andrew tells Peter He first found his own brother Simon and said to him we have found the Messiah Then it says Jesus found Philip Philip found Nathanael We have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph Jesus said you did not choose me But I chose you and appointed you to go and to bear fruit that your fruit should abide So that whatever you ask in the fuck ask the Father in my name he may give it to you we’re found Disciples of Jesus are found Disciples of Jesus want to find friends neighbors Family members and say come and see I mean sometimes we unwittingly Write people out of the kingdom of God when we make decisions not to say come and see We might be inviting them to our We have a couple of small groups called hope builders that meet on Both those groups meet on Tuesdays and when we form more groups, they’ll meet on other nights But those are like our class meetings where we kind of disciple one another in love and Then you can invite them there.
You can invite them to projects we do you can invite them to church But the hope is that they find Jesus Luke 19 10 Jesus in the context of Zacchaeus How many you have a song going in your head right now just by me saying the name? Zacchaeus was a man of short statue But he found Jesus because he climbed a tree And Jesus went to his house and ate and the Pharisees ridiculed him This man was really a prophet. He’d know there’s sinners everywhere here and Jesus said for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost He found some lost people Sometimes even after we’ve found Jesus we feel lost because we lose that sense of closeness with Jesus and The greatest thing we can do in church in any context We have is draw people into the presence of Jesus the greatest thing we can be as a church is to say come and see an Experience right here in this place in this house of God the presence of God The presence not only of God’s peace, but the presence of God himself here with us today Meeting us knowing that he’s already seen us He’s already seen where we need more of God in our lives And he is calling us in and he is saying to us as disciples. Tell him Come and see as a faithful disciple Philip encouraged his friend Nathanael to come to meet with Jesus confident Jesus would talk with him as a disciple Give others an opportunity to encounter Jesus Don’t force or shame them Disciples trust Jesus to work through us and especially that Jesus will work directly with others Doesn’t have to be a big elaborate thing You don’t have to Put people down Well, don’t put people down.
You don’t have to try to discredit them. You don’t even have to try to prove them wrong Start with come and see Let them experience God Let them know that the creator of the universe is Going to them Seeking them and When they allow themselves to be found They become disciples who follow We’re all following something Let’s follow Jesus a little closer Let’s pray Almighty God help us to be disciples Help us to follow you to trust in you to know that you have called us Not just to teach us about the Bible But so that we can become more like you give us a desire in our hearts to follow you to trust in you and To change our hearts to be like you Give us hearts to love you give us hearts to love our neighbors so much That we say come and see to anyone we need we pray this in Jesus Holy Name. Amen