AUG 27 2023 | The Gospel of John S2E3

Sea Change Church · The Gospel of John S2E3 · "The Gospel of John" · August 27, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The Gospel of John chapter one, verses 43 through 51. The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee finding Philip. He said to him, follow me, Philip, like Andrew, and Peter was from the town of Beth Saya. Philip found Nathaniel 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 Nazareth.

Can anything good come from there? Nathaniel asked, come and see. He said, Philip, when Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said of him, here is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false. How do you know me? Nathaniel asked. Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you. Then Nathaniel declared, rabbi, you are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel. Jesus said, you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that. He then added, I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. This is the word of the Lord. Right On. If you have your Bibles open up to John 1 43 through 51.

It's also in your notes there. If you're online with us, it's gonna be, uh, John 1 43 through 51. And, uh, we are in episode two of a five week series going back into John. Um, after we started with it in the summer, we started with John, the Gospel of John. We're supposed to get to about chapter three, made it about two thirds of the way through chapter one.

So we're gonna get through chapter one today. We're finally ending chapter one. It's been really rich and uh, what we're seeing here is Jesus is forming a small group. Uh, I know I mentioned small groups earlier, but Jesus is forming a small group, uh, a bunch of, uh, of just, um, I guess, uh, Brendan Manning, that he called 'em Ragamuffins in one of his book, his famous book, the Ragamuffin Gospel, but just fishermen.

And he's got people that were tax collectors. I mean, this group that he's pulling together could be gathered from most any city in the world, uh, but not from the elite. He's not pulling from the elite. He's just pulling from normal people and starting a small group and moving into that. And today we're coming, uh, along we're seeing Philip Jesus coming to Philip, asking Philip directly.

He's seeking out Philip. Ask him to follow him directly. And then Philip goes out and finds Nathaniel Nathaniel's a really interesting character, and I think it's easy to miss the last couple verses. Um, when Jesus is talking to Nathaniel here, he makes him some promises. And there are promises that are radical promises. Uh, if you were to really dive into it and live as if you believed in this, he promises an open heaven. He promises greater things. Um, that's a resolution that we can decide to live into.

So we'll talk about that today and look into that. But before we start, I want to talk about this idea of seeking today's, if you had a a word, um, probably seeking, uh, would be the word. Or you could also put finding, you choose. I'll let you choose between the two words of the key for the sermon. But, uh, if you wanna write, seek or seeking on the top of it, God is seeking you and hopefully we are seeking him.

And I want to challenge you to seek God in different ways every single day, uh, throughout our lives. The, the Christian history is replete with people seeking things. Saint Helena, maybe you've heard of her. This is Constantine's mother. Uh, there's a picture of her, you'll see right here. Uh, he, um, Constantine was the one, the Roman emperor who turned, uh, the Roman empire towards Christianity in the fourth century.

And his mother was a bit of a, as a, I would say, in Australia. I was just in Australia not long ago, and they called a goer. Somebody. That person's a goer. They just go, uh, she was a goer. And this is a, a, a picture that you see of her, um, um, throughout, you know, Christian, uh, tradition and lore, probably closer to lore than actual truth.

But we know that she went to the holy land to go, uh, find sites of Jesus and to search for the true cross of Jesus. She went to go look for the true cross. And so she went all over with her Roman cohort, and she found the site of Golgotha, what they believe is Golgotha. There's actually two sites, uh, I'll be at, I believe both of them in a couple weeks. So just a little, uh, footnote. Uh, we're going to Israel as a church. Uh, I'll be here next week preaching, and then I'm out for two weeks. And I'm gonna be, if you don't have us on Instagram, look up La Jolla Christian Fellowship on Instagram or on, if you have Facebook, I'm gonna be doing a bunch of live hits from all over the Holy Land, and we're gonna be at these sites. And so she was at this site, and there's two spots that they think are go Golgotha.

One's called the Garden Tomb Site, and one is the Church of the Holy Slicker. We'll show that in just a minute. But what she did and is said to have done, is gone and started excavating the site that was Golgotha. And she has said to have found three crosses. And in those three crosses, they weren't sure which one was the cross of Jesus. Uh, and so she went and found a, a, a woman who was sick and asked her to touch all three crosses. And supposedly, according to the story, she touched the cross of Jesus and was healed by the cross of Jesus.

And then they had this cross that they had in the Middle Ages during most of the Crusades for a very long time. Now, whether, you know, that was the true cross of Christ or whether it was, you know, um, you know, uh, something that they were using and found, but they would carry this around in the sixth century, it was actually captured where there was a, there was a raid that was captured, and there was, um, some Arab armies that came and captured that.

And by the seventh century, they had gotten it back. Here's a little bit of, uh, church history supposedly. And then they'd broken it up into pieces and sent the relics of it, and they broke it up into so many pieces, supposedly that it doesn't exist anymore, which I thought was a bad call if you did have the cross of Christ.

But they did this and there was this seeking. And so if they didn't have the cross, they would lose the battle. And you can, it's fascinating history. Um, it's, it's not biblical history, and you can choose to lean into that belief as much as you want. Um, but, but here's the thing that, that happens to me a lot when I'm in Israel or places like that. I'm not, people say, were you overwhelmed when you were at this site or that site?

And I'm sure that could happen to me, but I tend to show up realizing that you are actually the temple of the Holy Spirit. If you've asked Jesus into your heart, and I'm actually the living temple of God, the Holy Spirit lives within me. And so I'm appreciative for the, for that, but I'm, I'm not actually oftentimes overwhelmed. Um, and so we seek, sometimes we're seeking an experience. Um, you know, uh, Rick Warren said recent, recently that, you know, if people would seek God more than they'd seek an experience, we'd have a lot more mature believers.

I bring that up because this idea of seeking it is, it's amazing to me how much I, myself and other believers and I see in culture, uh, at least a Christian culture, seek everything but God, uh, in order to fulfill a need or a want or a desire. And what this passage does is it brings us right back to Jesus being the thing that we're seeking. I I wanna say that if, if you are going to seek anything, it's great to go on a retreat. It's great to, maybe you have, you know, something that's important to you or a holy site that you go to or something you're doing, or you're looking, you're looking for something to fulfill that need. This passage tells us, and the, and the New Testament completely tells us that all we need to do is seek after Jesus, to ask the Holy Spirit to invi our lives and that we seek Him and know him.

And so today we're talking about seeking. And I want to basically prove to you that if you seek for God, you will find him. Okay? The scripture says that, here's two scriptures. Uh, I put, well, before I bird the scriptures, I put the Bible describes the revelation of God to mankind and makes the promise that if you seek him, you will find him.

Let's start with that. That's a biblical promise, okay? It is a biblical promise. I wanna challenge you that when you find a biblical promise that is not just to an individual in the Bible, but to all of Christendom, that we lean into it. The problem is we don't do enough seeking. We seek all types of things. If I spend as much time seeking God as sometimes I do, seeking the next piece of real estate that I might want to buy or have a home or the next vacation, or we seek all types of things, perhaps we have things out of order. And so I said, the Bible says that it's a promise that if you seek him, you'll find 'em.

Lemme give you 20, Jeremiah 29, 13. Now you know Jeremiah 29 11. I know the plans I have for you, you know, um, these different verses. But in Jeremiah 29, really solid passage, actually, Jeremiah 26 through 29, if you get a chance just to dive into those three chapters, I just read through Jeremiah recently, it's fantastic. Jeremiah 29 13 says, you will seek me and you will find me. Awesome. Now, here's the caveat that when word is a, a bit of a sticking point, when you seek me with what all of your heart, sometimes I'm not even sure when I'm seeking God with all of my heart. Uh, sometimes I'm like, you know, I'll get this doubt. Like, are you really seeking?

Or if you have a temptation in your life and you tend to, in your mind, you really haven't let it go, and then you start doubting. If I'm seeking, I would say you might never solve those issues. But what I would say, just begin to seek, uh, we, we, we do live in a culture that tells you that action should follow your feelings.

And so oftentimes as believers, we're seeking a feeling. Uh, Thomas Merton says, never seek an experience or a feeling in prayer. You'll be disappointed more often than you're not, do it out of obedience. And so what I would challenge you do is begin to seek God, give a couple practical ways, but begin to seek him in the word.

Begin to seek him in worship. Begin to seek him in conversations. Begin to seek him in the books you read. Begin to seek him everywhere. Ask him daily when you wake up, you put your feet on the ground and say, God, I wanna seek you. Send me, find me today and I want to find you. That's Jeremiah 29 13. Now the next one is Matthew seven, seven, and eight.

This is Jesus. He says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and the door will be open for everyone who ask receives. He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be open. Living into that, living into that scripture will change your life. And Jesus, this is something that Jesus actually promises, uh, and, and, and really challenges us. Where are we knocking? Prayer is a form of knocking.

Asking is a form of knocking, stopping and going out of your way. I know we have some, some storms that are, that have been forecasted here in California. I've been getting, I dunno about you, I've been getting texts from all over the world and thank you for everybody, my friends in Florida and everywhere. So far so good. Um, but yesterday I had something I wanted to do and I had some friends and they're like, oh, we gotta batten down the hatches. And they needed some help.

And I just thought, okay, I had an opportunity there to say, I wanna lean into that. I wanna, I want to, I wanna seek God in this experience. Can I, maybe I can help, maybe I can be of some service. Here's my number. Call me. Now I can tell you whether I did it or not, but I had an opportunity. It's up to you to find out if I did. But God moves us into those.

So there's two points today. First is this. God is seeking. Why did God is a seeking God? There it is. Number one, our God is a seeking God. He is seeking, he knows all things he actually doesn't need to seek. You know that God doesn't need to seek, God knows everything. He doesn't, he doesn't lose his keys, right? He doesn't lose you on the map, but he's still a seeking God. It shows an active component to God.

God works in the verb, the verb of seeking God is a seeking God. I would say He's looking for you. And number two, God satisfies seekers. That is a biblical promise. If you seek God, you will be satisfied. Alright, let's go. Number one, God is a seeking God. We're gonna go with verse 43. And, um, I'll start at the beginning of this passage the next day.

And I like this because, uh, Jesus is doing the same thing. He's replicating the same thing over and over again. He's consistent. He decided to leave for Galilee. Galilee is a region that he's gonna leave from where he was on the Jordan that's just outside of Jerusalem. It's 83 miles from where he was on the Jordan up to Galilee.

I'm gonna show you some of that if you follow on Instagram in the next couple weeks. And he's going up to there. Now, the people that he are, he's talking to Philip, Peter, um, Nathaniel. They're all from that region. Beseda, as you see here. It says that they were from Beseda. It says that in verse 44 is actually on the Galilee.

So they had come down from to, to actually see John the Baptist and maybe to get a glimpse of Jesus. They were on a little spiritual pilgrimage. Okay? So they show up and Jesus says to 'em, let's go back home. And so he's taking them back home and it says, finding Philip Circle finding, if you would. He said to him, follow me finding Philip. He said to him, follow me. We, we, we, we tend to have the belief, uh, the demonic lie, that God doesn't have time for you. He's frustrated with you.

He wish he had a better choice than you. It is God is always seeking, he's always looking for someone to do his will. He's always looking to be in relationship. Jesus did not die on the cross so he could play a game of cat and mouse with you of the carrot in the stick. This isn't the God we serve. He died on the cross. So he could be an intimate relationship with you. And if, if you seek him, if you sit in the morning, whether you feel it or not, you will find him.

If when you're out on your daily walk and you see things that are happening and listening to the Holy Spirit of somewhere you might lean into, you might not lean into, take up that invitation. We talked about invitation last week. And when you take up that invitation, say, God, can I find you in this instance? And see if you find him in that.

And so we see that he is seeking and he's finding Philip, he goes directly to, to Philip. Why, why didn't he just go to a crowd? Why didn't he just go to a massive crowd? See a lot of influencers recently, my daughter said, you don't. I was walking with her this week and, uh, my youngest, and she goes, you know, we just, you don't want the church to be like Instagram where you don't know who your followers are. You're just glad you have 'em. And if they leave, you're bummed.

And I said, that's really good word right there. And I think that that's the temptation sometimes. I just want a lot of followers. Don't know who you are, don't care about you, just don't leave. Okay? 'cause if you do, I'm gonna be bummed and I'm gonna feel rejected. And I thought, that is such a good word. Jesus was not like that.

Jesus went and found Philip because Jesus is a personal God. God is a personal God. And if you were the only person that would ever have received him, I do believe that he would've still died on the cross if the rest of the world would've rejected him. If it was only you. So lemme just, lemme just put that before you. God is seeking you. He's calling you by name.

When we don't show up for something we had planned or a time with him, he's waiting there. Now, that isn't a guilt statement, but he's always waiting, always ready, always whispering your name, always calling to you, always there, seeking and finding. He went and he found Philip, he's so important. Why does God have to do finding? How much grace is that?

How much grace that God would go? You know, go find somebody. I mean, he's Jesus Christ. He doesn't need to go find people. He's, he's important. He has all the power, but yet he goes out and he finds them. And in that finding, he releases grace. Because grace is not transactional. And we tend to have these transactional relationships with people, right?

They do this for me. So I'll do that for them. They do that for, they stop doing that for me. So I'm not gonna do that for them. That's not what grace is. Grace is a freedom of relationship. The willing to find Philip. Even if you think he might say no, but Philip doesn't say no. Philip actually becomes a seeking a, a, a seeker, uh, who goes and finds others.

That word right there that we're looking at is harko. Harko is the Greek word that means after searching to find the thing that you're looking for after searching to find the thing that you're looking for. I do believe that we are in a world that is seeking more than it is sought in a very long time. Uh, there was a, um, complacency probably 15 years ago, uh, when I was growing up, there was a complacency. Things were okay. Uh, we're all just moving along.

There wasn't this need. But as you look around now, things seem a little helter. Skelter may, maybe I'm wrong. And I find more and more people are actually seeking. And so the first place that it started is before Philip went and gotten Nathaniel. 'cause Philip, you know, goes and, and, and takes the invitation of, of following Jesus and goes to Nathaniel. Um, he actually is seeking himself.

He's come, we believe he's come all the way on a, on an 83 mile journey from the Galilee to go hear something. And there are people that are seeking every single day. And what I would encourage you to do, here's your first step this week assignment. Have your eyes open and see people like pursue people with a second sentence in a conversation. I'm reading a book right now. It's, it's revolutionary. I am buying it for the entire staff. And my, it was my dad's favorite book, and I've never read it and I'm listening to it now.

Many of you have already read it. It's called How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It is literally the best book I have ever heard on evangelism. Now I believe he's a believer, 'cause there's a bunch of Jesus stuff in there. I could be wrong. He doesn't actually say that. But in regard to knowing how to care for people, how to smile, he has a whole chapter on just smiling. It's like amazing. Uh, as I'm listening, I realize that's the kind of person Jesus was. I wanna, I wanna challenge you to like step into the lives of people when you order that coffee. You know, give them that 98% tip that they're looking for. No, um, what, I was at one yesterday. It started at 17. I thought that was ambitious.

I thought 17 was an ambitious start, and it went up to, to 30, uh, ambitious. But nonetheless, to lean in to that and to see people for who you are, that's what Jesus does. Jesus pursued them. Do you have a neighbor that's had a, a baby recently? You know, they've had a baby. They're down the street, you've never met 'em. They live two houses down, but you've never met 'em. Go to Marshall's, go to you. Go to Amazon. It's super easy. Go to the address, put the little card on there, send them something. Say, Hey, I'm your neighbor up the street. I saw you had a baby. Maybe this, these cookies and this tea, you know that I got you. Whatever.

That's pursuing people. That's finding people, you know, and then say, Hey, you want to, you wanna follow me into a relationship? You know what I mean? Here's some things that are, whatever it would be. That's what Jesus doing. If it's good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for ourselves, right? If it's good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us. Harsco harsco.

The problem is, is a lot of us just aren't seeking, we're not seeking more relationships. We're not seeking to fill our time up with more of serving people. We're not seeking for people who are desperate to know Jesus. We're not seeking, and we're also not being found because we're not seeking God. The whole thing here is they were seeking God. I wanna be a seeker.

And we'll see in a moment that God satisfies seekers in Ezekiel's 2230 through 31. I love this verse. I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it. But I found no one, this was one of the key verses that God laid on my heart when I decided to go into ministry full time. It's a really powerful verse. It's, it's, it's Old Testament speaking about Israel.

I don't think that that call has gone away. I don't think God's searching eyes and the the eyes of God, whether it be on the cherubim. And you see all these eyes in the heaven on, I think believe it's the cherin and the seraphim, and it's got all these eyes that are looking god's, always the eyes of God. The eyes of our heart. You could do a Google search on the eye, you know, the verses with eyes in it in the Bible, or go to bible gateway.com and put in eyes and do a search and look at the eyes of God. He's, he hasn't given up looking. He's looking.

And what's he looking for? People that'll say, me, God, I will be that person. I will stand in the gap. There was these gaps in the wall that had broken down, and the, the enemy could come in through those gaps. And in our society today, and in certain marriages and maybe in friendships lives or people's emotional health, there are gaps that have been broken. And what God is saying is, I'm seeking people that'll be a gap standard.

Someone that will stand at that gap and say, not on my watch. No matter what it takes, if I lose my life, God send me, I will stand in the gap. But I could find no one. You see, this is for cities. I want to be a person that stands for our city. I think San Diego hits a little different than some of the other cities I've seen around the world. I think there's still hope.

I think this is a tent peg city. And I think God is looking for people that'll hammer that tent in the ground so that when the winds come, it won't be blown away. And there's other cities that I've seen that God has laid on my heart. But this city, we wanna lock it down. We want to stand in the gap. And we do that by how we, how we act when we go out on the streets, how we drive, how we care for people, how we pray, how we bless the area.

I read a book about blessing, this revival that came because instead of complaining, they just started blessing. This church went around and they were just blessing walking around the neighborhood. We bless the crops. This happened in Wales, in the Welsh countryside. We bless the crops, we bless the people, we bless the marriages.

And all of a sudden they started seeing like bigger crops. They started, you know, farmers were coming and saying, we had, you know, we've never had this many Es born. We, you know, things just started increasing in blessing. God rides upon his blessing. He says, we have the power to bless. He says that our words have the power of life and death, so to speak. Life, life. You've seen that experiment where they start talking to a plant, right?

Have you seen that? And they, there was a, it was a, I believe it was a Japanese scientist, and he began to speak to the plants. And some, he said, you're horrible little plants. He just curse you. You're bad. Little plants. Those plants died. He had another room. Oh, you're such a beautiful plant. I love you so much. I just wanna be your buddy.

Like, go look it up. Look at, you know, you can Google that and, uh, just say, experiment about speaking nicely to plants. Maybe that'll come up. I don't know. People right now online are like, Google it. My sermons over for them. Um, but he began to speak that life. That's what they were doing when they were seeking to make a difference, to stand in the gap. The irony of this passage is that the person he calls, which is Philip, and the others are from Bath Theta, right? So he's saying, I'm looking for someone in, in that, in that Ezekiel passage to stand in the gap.

Jesus then is seeking somebody 1500 years later. He is Nathaniel, it is Philip. And he calls them to follow him. They're from Baed. Well, Jesus brings up Baed. He brings it up later on. And it says in Matthew 1121, woe to you, Corin, woe to you what bass for if the miracles were performed in you that had been performed in Tyree and sight on, they would not have, they would've repented long ago in sackcloth, in Ash. I think that's amazing that if you look at that, that se, that city of bass no longer exists. They can't find it anymore.

And I thought it was ironic that the ones that he called that were gonna be gap standards, they ended up standing in the gap in many ways. But their, their city that they were from was actually wiped off the map. And Jesus actually taught it. I don't want our city wiped off the map. And I think that those things still happen as we look.

So we're looking for gap standards. So the first thing I wanna do is invite you today to that, that realize that God is a seeking God and he's seeking after you. If you put yourself in the camp of, how could God use me? I'm no good. I have all this sin. Get yourself outta that camp and realize that God is a seeking camp. Number two, God satisfies seekers. In verse 45, Philip found Nathaniel. So he goes out and here reco.

Okay, that word found recos Nathaniel. And he told him, he then spoke something after he found him, and then he spoke to him. We have found harsco once again, the third time, the use of harsco in this, in this passage, the one Moses wrote about in the law, that's faith. And about whom the prophets also wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph that took faith.

It takes faith to lean into that. He ran away saying, this is the Messiah. We have found him. This is the one we have found. And he stepped out and he went and found somebody else. And he took a bold step to say that to Nathaniel. Why? Because we know that Nathaniel was a pretty stoic guy. From what we understand from, from the history, he was also very learned.

And when he rolled up on Jesus, Jesus says, here comes someone in whom there is no guile. Now Jesus says that about you. You're, you're walking a pretty legit life. Look, we've all are sinners in a fallen char to the short of the glory of God. So we're all sinners. Nathaniel was a sinner. But if you roll upon Jesus, and Jesus says to you, there goes Chris Harrell, in whom there is no guile, you're like, yeah, let's go runs on the board. Let's do it.

You know what I'm saying? So he goes to this. We, we hadn't believed that he was learned. He had gone to synagogue school. We believed that he was maybe one of the most educated of all, the most pious of all of them. And that actually, as we'll see in a second, caused him to be a bit skeptical before we looked at his skepticism.

Because what does he say? Right? Huh? Can anything good come from Nazareth? That's what he says. That's what he says. Can anything good? Just Philip showing up. I found the Messiah. I found Messiah. I gotta find Messiah. And he goes, can anything good come from Nazareth? Is that the, and you might get that answer on occasion, but Isaiah six, eight, I wanna keep going back to the Old Testament prophets.

And if you're looking for some new reading, Jeremiah, Isaiah, I'm Isaiah's a little rougher than Jeremiah. Jeremiah's a little bit easier to follow. It's a little more narrative. Start with Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. These prophets are awesome. But in Isaiah, it says, then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? He's asking all of heaven.

Whom shall I send and who will go for us? And Isaiah said, here am I. Send me here. Am I, send me five words here. Am I send me, God is looking for send me seekers and God satisfies, send me seekers. He will satisfy that desire. And I want, you know, as we look at that, but before we look at that, I wanna go to this response. The skepticism of Nathaniel, let's say skepticism is the enemy of discovery.

Never be a skeptic. Cynicism's, even worse. Cynicism is the, is the threshold, or excuse me, skepticism is the threshold of cynicism. Do everything in your power to have a childlike faith. You're not ignorant, you know, wise as serpents, innocent as dubs. But never let yourself become a skeptic. Never let yourself become cynical. It, it will, it will do more to kill your faith and your joy than anything else.

And we, we are living in a culture that is becoming more and more cynical. And we have to have a different message of that. He says, here am I. Send me verse 45. Go back to it. Philip Harsco Nathaniel and told him, we have harsco, the one Moses wrote about in the law, about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth. Nazareth. Can anything good come from there?

Nathaniel ask, come and see, said Philip. What a great answer. What a great answer to the skepticism. What a great response, an incredible retort has. He says, come and see. Let me show you. Wow. You know, Nathaniel, without that response, without being discouraged. 'cause it would've been easy if you were Philip to have been discouraged by that response. Yeah, you know, you're probably right. I won't bother you. You don't, you know, you're busy, you're studying your scrolls, whatever you're doing.

But instead he says, no, no. Come and see why. Because he had seen himself. And like I said last week, it's hard to point people to recognize something that you can't see yourself. We've gotta start with, with seeing two things and we're done. These two promises that he gives to Nathaniel. I wanna read the Nathaniel part. The um, uh, the first thing he says in verse 47, when, when Jesus saw Nathaniel approach him, he said, here's a true Israelite in whom there was nothing false. He says, Nathaniel says, how do you know me, Nathaniel ass? Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.

I'm gonna pause right there. Pause right there. Because someone asked me, can you, can you, can you elaborate on what happened underneath the fig tree? No, I really can't. I I don't know what happened underneath the fig tree. I, all I know is that he had an experience that something happened when he was under the fig tree. Maybe it withered.

Maybe he was sitting there and it withered like Jesus withered it before, um, maybe an angel came and talked to him. I don't know. Maybe he was watching episodes of the chosen on Netflix. I don't know what Nathaniel was doing, but I know that something meaningful had happened and when that nobody else probably could have known about. And when Jesus went there, Jesus said something that leaned into a coincidence. Just, is that just a coincidence?

He leaned into something and Nathaniel because of that had the faith. I would pay more attention to coincidences. I wouldn't run your entire life by them. Okay? So be a little wise, but quince, uh, are super important as we, as we see that. And so I don't know what happened, but my thought is that something meaningful happened and Jesus recognized it and connected the two. God is a connecting God and he leads us through connection.

Vinny told me a story this week when he was at camp. He was seeking the Lord on something. And right when he was thinking about it, somebody came and prayed that thing over him. I think I'm close to the story, laid their hand on him and prayed right when he was thinking it or close to that. And he said, I just knew it was God. Or you could say, does anything come out of Nazareth? It probably wasn't God.

That probably wasn't God. Or you can lean into it and say, because I want to taste a little bit more. So Jesus says, in conclusion a couple things to Nathaniel. Now Jesus says, you believe because I told you I saw you into a fig tree. That's a bit of a rebuke, right? Like, really, like you're gonna believe that I'm Messiah because what I told you about a fig tree, he's all full stop. He says, you shall see greater things circle greater things than that. And then he added, like, that wasn't enough. Right? Jesus is like, I'm gonna show you great things.

Like, that's not enough. Then he adds, he comes off the top rope and he says in verse 51, then he added, I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. First thing he promises 'cause it's seekers, and I believe this is still open to us today, is that he promises greater things. Jesus says, you will do what greater things than I do. Living into that as a reality will change your life.

Living into that as a reality will change your life. Somebody gave me this week a little anointing, oil flask. Isn't that cool? It's a little flask. You open it up and it has anointing oil in it. And so I can just pray for people and say, I got some olive oil here. And I, yeah, right? I got a little anointing thing and I, I put it on my key chain.

'cause I decided I wanna pray for people more and see what happens. Because in order to see greater things, sometimes you have to be looking for greater things. So I thought, I'm just gonna carry an oil oil and if the timing's right, I could be with someone you know, out or wherever it is, or hear at church or whatever, I'm just gonna anoint them. Why?

'cause I wanna lean. I wanna see greater things. I wanna try to open up my schedule more to do things I don't want to do to help other people. And it's true. I don't often want to do them. I'd rather do what I want to do. Maybe you're different. Maybe you're just, you're Mother Theresa, you know what I mean? You're just benevolent. But not me.

I often wanna do what I want to do. And maybe you're not that person, but you know what I do wanna see? I wanna seek greater things. We're a church that believes in miracles. We are a church that believes in miracles. I texted somebody yesterday, I don't know them. They were, they told, asked me if I would pray. Some people in the church asked me if I would pray for them. And I said, uh, yeah, I would. And I just texted 'em, I don't know 'em. And I said, Hey, your friends reached out to me to pray for you. My name's Pastor Adam.

I'm a person who believes in miracles. And I go to a church that believes in miracles. And if you'd like to pray today, um, text me back and, or if you wanna pray later on this week, text me back. I wanna pray with you because we've seen miracle. You're gonna hear two testimonies next week. We've seen cancers healed. We believe in miracles. I want to see greater things.

And the next thing he says, yeah, right, heaven will be open. He says, you're gonna see heaven, open heaven. The the, the belief in an open heaven is a belief that will change your life, believing that we have access to the throne of God. Hebrews says, you can go boldly before the throne of God. Somebody said, Hey, is Satan in front of the throne of God?

Because he's constantly in my spiritual gifts test, um, speaking about, you know, accusing the brothers before God. It says he's constantly doing that. Man, wouldn't it be great if we were there? I'm like, we are there. We, we, the, the spirit, the the Bible says we can go boldly before the throne of God. Now, you might not feel it, you might not see a vision.

But living as if heaven is open, living as if you have power, living as if you do something, God is gonna back your act. Believing in power, believing in miracles, believing that the prodigals are gonna come home. And that's a word for many of you. God told me to share with you, the prodigals are gonna come home. And I just wanted to share that.

And me being a prodigal, I am a prodigal that came home. I have a special understanding of the prodigal. And, uh, I'm gonna continue to pray for that. We wanna believe in that. And so two things today. One God is a seeking God. And number two, God satisfies seekers. Seek him everywhere. Seek him in the morning. Seek him in the afternoon. Seek him in the evening.

Seek him wherever you go. We want to seek, seek, seek and believe. And God will show us greater things and lead us to an open heaven. Amen. Let's stand, if you would.