John 1:43 – “The Next Day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He
found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ “
John 1:48 – 1:49 –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 answered him, ‘Rabbi,
you are the Son of God! You are the King of
Israel!’ “
As humans we enjoy independence, we
enjoy the feelings of freedom associated with the knowledge that we are our own
master. We go to school for years and years all to make ourselves
“self-sufficient” and yet often the curveball almost always comes when we find
out that we are just not quite good enough. With the knowledge that a savior
has come who can truly save us, we are forced to admit that we are just not
good enough to succeed though our own efforts. Christ promises us in scripture
that he will give us the strength we need to conquer this world but he ask us
to first answer his call to follow him. We are taught our entire lives that the
biggest choice we will ever make is what we must do to independently follow our
own dreams, but I come today to tell you that it is in deciding what it will
take for us to make our dream following Christ indefinitely.
These verses, and in fact all the
verses regarding Christ choosing his disciples, are some of my favorite verses
in scripture, for in them you see exactly what each disciple needed to see of
Christ in order for them to choose to follow him. For Philip he simply needed
to be called, Christ came to him picked him out of the crowd and said “follow
me.” Philip needed nothing more than the recognition of worth in that Jesus
wanted Philip to follow him for Philip to choose to do so. But with Philip’s
confidence, comes Nathaniel’s uncertainty. With Nathaniel’s words “How do you
know me?” Nathaniel showed that he was not going to follow anyone reluctantly
and questioned the very divinity and authenticity of Christ in the process.
Nathaniel did not simply approach Jesus out of the blue without any knowledge
of Jesus’ identity, but was brought to him through Philip’s beckoning. Nathaniel knew a messiah would one day come
via his knowledge of the scriptures, he had been told by his great friend that
this messiah was here, and yet when he meets this Christ and is called by him
by name he responds with a question that asks much more than “How do you
know me” but “by what power do you know my name?” Nathaniel’s knowledge of the
Christ was not enough for him to choose to follow him with blind ambition, he would need to see Christ act. Although
Christ eventually proved himself enough for Nathaniel to choose to become one
of his disciples, we are asked by Christ everyday of our lives ourselves, “what will it take
for you to truly follow me?”
Choosing to follow Christ with out
whole heart is not a guaranteed sidetrack after our prayer for salvation. Even
after we have chosen to follow Christ we are continually called by him to
follow him closer and closer and to place the things of this world that we are so
desperately clinging to at the foot of the cross. The true unadulterated pursuit
of Christ is giving up all that we possess to gain a personal relationship with
Christ. To give up our worldly ambitions and to set our eyes on our savior is
not an easy choice and honestly it will probably be a choice that you will have
to re-pledge yourself to over the years, but it is a choice that we are called
to make now nonetheless. Christ is calling out for you to follow him completely
and I ask you today “what is stopping you from giving him everything?” This is
a question I cannot answer for you, but one that only you can answer for
yourself. For most of us it is often only through prayer and Christ’s help that we are
able to truly understand and give him all that we have. In this passage Christ goes on to say in verse 50 that
we will see great things if we decide to follow him, of this you can be
assured, but before our relationship with Christ can ever truly draw us closer
to him, we must first decide to truly follow him.
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