Y’all Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
July 3, 2022
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
John 1:43-51
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 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.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 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.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 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.” 51 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.”
For those of you wondering about how our co-ed slow-pitch church softball team is doing, which I know is a matter of great concern, especially as playoffs approach, I’ll let you know that I was recently called out of retirement for a special, one-game-only appearance—sort of but not exactly like calling Tom Brady coming out of retirement. Just different sports but same thing. Anyway, our games go seven innings, but this last game went to extra innings. And, good news, Community won in the bottom of the ninth. The bad news is Community also lost in the bottom of the ninth. We have two teams, and we were playing each other. I happened to be on the losing team.
If you’re a kid in the sanctuary and you want to draw pictures of something that strikes you from the sermon, we’ve added some paper in the pews for that. Please just lay them on the stage after the service, and we’ll put them up on the wall. An image you might want to draw, which I’ll talk about at the end is this: if there was a ladder or stairway to heaven, what would it look like? What would a stairway to heaven look like?
As we turn our attention to the Word, let’s pray again. “Dear heavenly Father . . .”
Introduction: Pride and Prejudice
We’ve had a church book club for several years. In fact, next Saturday morning we’re meeting to talk about Anne of Green Gables. But I don’t want to talk about that now. I do want to say that one of the most well-attended book club meetings of all time at our church was when we talked about Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice. People came out of nowhere for that one, which is what we wanted.
And I will tell you this: If you have several women together and want to see a violent argument break out, just ask what the best film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is. Specifically, ask whether the Keira Knightley version is the best, which it is, or whether the 5-hour BBC version is the best, which it’s not. As a typical male, for many years I rejected that any of the versions were any good, but I will tell you now, having long-since repented of my pride and prejudice of Pride and Prejudice, they’re both fantastic. If we had more time, I’d give you my favorite lines from the pastor in that film. The Keira Knightley version film is the best because in that one Mr. Collins is the absolute worst.
Anyway, I don’t mean to exclude you if you don’t love these movies as much as I do or even know of them, but I bring Pride and Prejudice up for a reason. The central conflicts in the book (and movie) hinge on the themes suggested in the title: pride and prejudice. Can a woman from a poor family fall in love with a rich man, and can a rich man fall in love with a poor woman? Or, more specifically, will the pride and prejudice of Elizabeth keep her from seeing how wonderful Mr. Darcy really is? And will the pride and prejudice of Mr. Darcy keep him from seeing how wonderful Elizabeth Bennet is, this “young woman with an inferior birth,” as Lady Catherine calls her?
When described as such, we don’t feel this tension as much as we should. But perhaps if, instead, we ask, can a man from Allison Hill fall in love with a woman from Manhattan? Okay, now you see the tension, don’t you? There is going to be pride and prejudice both ways that might keep each from seeing the other as beautiful as they really are.
I won’t tell you how the conflict in the book plays out, but something similar happens in our passage. And, to be candid with you, something similar is playing out in your heart all the time. Your pride and prejudice will keep you from seeing the beauty of Christ. On the one hand, he’s not as special as we might expect him to be, or he’s not special in the ways we expect him to be. He doesn’t come with a firework display. Jesus has, in the words of Isaiah 53, “no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isa. 53:2b–3). That’s all true of Jesus when we look at him with our natural eyes. But on the other hand, through the eyes of faith, Jesus is, as one person in our passage says, the Son of God and the King of Israel. How do you see Jesus? Unimpressive or impressive? To follow Jesus entails a continual confrontation with your pride. But for the humble who follow Jesus, the promise is that there is always more beauty to see.
We’ll look at this passage in two parts. First, we’ll talk about what it looks like to follow Jesus, and then we’ll talk about why we should follow Jesus.
1. What does it look like for you to follow Jesus?
Here’s what I want you to see first: followers of Jesus, follow Jesus. I’ll say it again. Followers of Jesus, follow Jesus.
I’m aware of the circular definition in that sentence. I mean for it to be there, even though I know definitions in dictionaries can’t be circular like this. If you looked up Christianity in a dictionary, and the definition said, Christianity is the Christian religion, you’d say, “That’s not very helpful.” You just defined the word with the word.
When I say “followers of Jesus, follow Jesus,” I’m not mainly trying to come up with a definition so much as I am trying to describe what the author John wants us to see in this passage. And I’m trying to describe not only what John us to see but who God wants us to be. God wants you to be a follower of Jesus who follows Jesus.
I’ll show you what I mean. Look with me at our passage. And it will be super helpful to keep a Bible open. If you haven’t opened on yet, just do that now. When I say chapter numbers, those are the big numbers, and when I say verses, those are the small numbers. If you’re using one of the Bibles in the pew, it’s on page 834. Look with me at v. 43.
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
Okay, now look at v. 45.
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.”
We’ll say more about that line about the law and prophets later. But do you notice the repetition of a word. Again, “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’” Then we read, “Philip found Nathanael.” What Jesus did, Philip did. Followers of Jesus, follow Jesus—which is to say, we follow in the footsteps of our Savior. Followers of Jesus do the sorts of things he did.
Look with me some more. Notice v. 46.
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
If you asked me where I was born, I’d say Columbia, Missouri. If you asked me where I was from, I’d say Jefferson City, Missouri. Jesus was born in Bethlehem but lived most of his life in Nazareth. Nathanael probably knew the Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah coming from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). So maybe he’s confused about a Messiah from Nazareth because the Bible says he’ll be from Bethlehem.
But that’s not really the issue for Nathanael. Here we see Nathanael’s pride is about to keep him from seeing the beauty of Jesus. Nazareth is a town without a stoplight and without a grocery store. If you blink, you’ll miss it as you drive through town. How can “one who is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2) come from such a lame town with such backward people? Can you hear Nathanael’s pride and prejudice? Nothing good can come from Nazareth.
Look, though, how Philip responds. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t rebuke. He doesn’t give seven reasons Nathanael is wrong. Philip just says, “Come and see.” Where do you think he learned that evangelism move? John wants us to see Philip learned it from Jesus. Look at back at last week’s passage to vv. 38–39.
Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.”
This is how the message of Christianity spreads. Some of you don’t yet know what you think about Jesus. Okay, keep coming and keep seeing. Some of you are followers of Jesus. Great, keep coming and keep seeing. But as you come, as you follow Jesus, follow Jesus. Bring people with you. You don’t have to have been following Jesus for fifty years to help others follow Jesus. In fact, if you say you’ve been following Jesus for fifty years but you’re not helping people follow Jesus, then you’re not really following Jesus. Following Jesus involves following Jesus. Philip’s been following like five minutes, and he’s following Jesus. You can do this too.
I think of the goofy lines in the Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham. “I would not like Jesus here or there. I would not like him anywhere.” “Okay, okay,” you might say. “Try him, try him, and you may!” Well, you don’t have to make it rhyme. In fact, you shouldn’t make it rhyme. But you could say this to someone you love. You must say this to someone if you follow Jesus. It could sound like this to a coworker: “You seem to feel really strongly about Jesus, and you seem to be pretty against him. Would you want to come to church with me and see what he’s like?” You could say that. Say it to someone this week.
Or you could say to a friend, “You seem to feel really strongly about the Bible. But—and I’m not trying to offend you—it also seems like you’ve not really read it much before. Would you be interested in reading the Bible together? Tomorrow is the fourth of July, but I have lunch free on Tuesday. We could get together to talk about the Bible, to see what’s really there.” Say that this week to someone.
Part of the reason we have a church softball team is the fun of feeling athletic, getting the text message to come out of retirement, but mainly it’s about saying to people who don’t know Jesus, “Hey, there’s more to us than softball. There’s a guy named Jesus. Come and see.” My parents are here this weekend, as well as my father-in-law and mother-in-law. Growing up I heard from my dad—and I just asked him again about it yesterday—the story of how someone told my father who Jesus was and how a man drew a diagram on the back of a pizza box. The person who said to my father, “Come and see,” changed a family tree.
2. Why should you follow Jesus?
So, the first point is that followers of Jesus follow Jesus. Now let’s talk about why we should follow Jesus. I’ll say it differently. Let’s talk about what we see when we come to see. I’ll be brief, but I want you to notice four beautiful truths about Jesus.
First, we see the beauty that Jesus is the one seeking you. I’ll read again v. 43. “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’” Jesus is seeking them. Jesus is finding them. And he’s seeking and finding you. In John 1:13, we read that the children of God are those, “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but [born] of God.” In other words, God seeks out his children. That’s good news. And Jesus is doing his seeking right now, not merely in the abstract or collective, but in particular. That’s the next beautiful truth we see about Jesus.
Second, we see the beauty that Jesus sees you. In v. 43, Jesus finds Philip, one man in particular. And then we read in v. 47, “Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’” Nathanael, apparently, is something of a straight shooter. The last thing we’ve been told that Nathanael said mocked Jesus’s hometown. The doubts he has about Jesus are sincere. Your doubts about Jesus may be sincere, but they do not need to keep you from him. He sees you and your doubts. Maybe you have doubts about the Bible’s view of sexuality or maybe you have doubts about the supernatural aspects of the Bible. Or maybe you doubt, perhaps because of soemthing really hard in your life, if God even loves you.
Now, we don’t know exactly what the line “I saw you under the fig tree” means. Was Nathanael doing something good and spiritual, like praying under the tree, and Jesus saw that. Or, as Pastor David made a pun in our preaching meeting, maybe Nathanael was doing something shady under the tree. We don’t know. But Nathanael knows that Jesus has seen him and knows him, and that’s what matters. It would be like me saying to a new visitor here at church, “Nice to meet you; that was a scary dream you had last night. You must be really worried about cancer.” Or, “I saw you driving to work, and I know the financial struggles that are pressing upon you.”[1] I don’t know those things, but Jesus knows your struggles and sins and worries. And he loves you. You may feel completely alone and that no one sees the trouble you’re going through. But that’s not true. This leads to the next statement about the beauty of Jesus.
Third, we see the beauty of Jesus’s wonderful and lofty titles. I don’t have time to get into this, but we’ll keep circling back to the titles of Jesus over and over again, just as the gospel of John keeps circling back to them. He’s the Word at the beginning (v. 1). He’s life (v. 4). He’s the light that shines in the darkness and can’t be overcome (v. 5). He’s the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (v. 29).
In our passage, he’s the one pointed to throughout the whole Old Testament (v. 45). He is, as Nathanael says, “the Son of God! . . . the King of Israel” (v. 49). And at the end of the passage, Jesus calls himself the Son of Man (v. 51). We may not think much of that title. But there is a place in the Old Testament where a prophet sees a vision of a heavenly throne room, where God the father is on a throne and thousands upon thousands are there to serve him. And then comes in, we read, “one like a son of man.” That’s Daniel 7:13. Just listen to what’s said next by this prophet of the Son of Man. “And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom [is] one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:14). When we’re introduced to Jesus, we’re introduced to something better than green eggs and ham. We’re introduced to the one who gives us access to heaven itself. Look at v. 51.
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.”
Here, Jesus is alluding to another story in the Old Testament. A passage in Genesis 28 we call “Jacob’s ladder.” I don’t want us to get lost on all the allusions, but Jesus is saying, “Heaven comes down to you, and you go up upon me.” That’s what he means. I used to take the language of “angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” to mean that angels were landing upon his head and flying away again, like birds flying out of a nest and grabbing something on the ground and going back up to the nest. But that’s not the imagery. It’s more like the image of an escalator, where the angels ride up and down on the escalator. And Jesus says, “I’m that escalator. I’m the stairway to heaven. Heaven comes to you through me.” I mentioned my father became a Christian when someone drew a diagram. I don’t know what it looked like exactly, but it probably looked something like this. It’s the bridge diagram. In our sins, we can’t get to God. But we get to him, not by our good works, but when he dies in our place on our behalf. This leads to the last point.
With Jesus, there is always more beauty to see. At first, Nathanael doesn’t believe anything good can come from Nazareth. Then he says, Woah, You’re him; you’re the Messiah! Jesus says, “You actually believe too easily. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
But actually, you might notice the footnote in the version of the Bible we use. It points out that the “you” in v. 51 is plural, meaning “y’all.” Jesus is widening out from just Nathanael, and even just Philip and Nathanael. He’s saying to you, Y’all ain’t seen nothing yet.” When you follow Christ, there’s always more of him to see, in this life and the life to come.
Conclusion: The Happy Undoing of Our Pride and Prejudice
But you have to come. Don’t let your pride keep you from Jesus. Nathanael could have walked away. You may be walking away. His gospel-work may seem small and insignificant. He’s not from Rome or Jerusalem, from Washington DC or Los Angeles. He’s not from the centers of governmental or cultural power. And his people and their message may be simple. And their gospel story may not look like power. But it is powerful. It changes lives, if we’ll let go of our pride and prejudice.
I guess, since the book Pride and Prejudice was published over two hundred years ago, I can spoil the ending and tell you it has a happy ending. But Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy waste a lot of time and heartache before they get over their pride and prejudice. Nathanael doesn’t waste much time. No matter how much time you’ve wasted, you can have more of Jesus if you want him. Seek him because he’s seeking you.
And that’s the good news I want to end with. Also, over two years ago, a very famous document said something about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the second paragraph of the Declaration Independence we read, “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” May God help them to be more and more true in our country. The good news is that the Christian message actually offers even more. It’s not just that you can pursue life and liberty and happiness but that life and liberty and happiness are pursuing you all of your days. He has a name: Jesus, the Son of God, son of Man.
Let’s pray . . .
Sermon Discussion Questions
1. Why was Nathanael skeptical of Jesus?
2. Who are some people you could invite to “come and see” Jesus?
3. Where do you see in the passage that Jesus is seeking people?
4. Have you ever heard of the “bridge diagram” about Jesus? If not, Google pictures of it and what it means and how it tells the story of the gospel.
[1] I’m getting these illustrations from Gavin Ortlund in his sermon “Jesus Knows” on this passage at The First Baptist Church of Ojai on June 5, 2022.
