Greater Things Than These

Introduction Morning! My name is John McCormick, Renovation U Pastor Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone, but here we are somehow I am excited to end the year spending time with you all this morning Star Wars intro It’s no secret that I love Star Wars In my home office I have Star Wars: toys, Legos, a rug, 8 movie posters, slippers, and even the original theatrical versions of the original trilogy on VHS But wait, there’s more! Before episode 7 came out and Disney decided to throw out the expanded universe, I had read just about every book, played every video game, and watched every movie and series And that even includes watching the Star Wars Holiday special three times If you don’t know what that is, it’s possibly the most cringe worthy film ever made in the history of movies And I watched it THREE TIMES It is completely safe to say that I have spent my life obsessed with Star Wars And I have poured more of my time into learning everything about it than almost anything else I have found the stories, characters, and ideas so exciting and intriguing that I just had to know more Because of the incredible draw that it’s had on me, I find myself eager to learn more about every little thing Including some really weird and obscure details about it Some of you just started coming up with questions to try and stump me later, I look forward to it Having this wealth of knowledge allows me to enjoy little details in movies and games that others would miss But it also means that the expectations that I have for each new thing is incredibly high I want to see more, learn more, and experience the joys of Star Wars in a new way I love experiencing the same things again, but I want more Which also means that when they change things that, in my highly professional opinion, RUIN STAR WARS, I probably get a little more upset than the average person too And I feel that way because of that investment I’ve made into it Do you have something like that in your life? Where you are always expectant and hopeful for more? It might be an author or a book series that you really love Or it could be a different series of movies Maybe it’s a sport or racing cars Whatever that thing is for you, I’ll bet you’re a lot like me in that you want more, bigger, better As humans we are wired to keep searching, keep learning, and keep growing It’s natural that we would have this kind of excitement and desire for things we are passionate about! We are always looking for even greater things to experience or enjoy But we’ll come back to that in a moment Jumping in to John We are going to be continuing in our series in John this week and we are finishing chapter 1 this morning Go ahead and grab your Bibles or the Bibles under the chair in front of you We’ll be in John chapter one which is on page 724 in the Bible in front of you We’re starting at verse 43, so just look for the little 43 on that page Let’s go ahead and start reading there John 1: 43 51 (reference only) This passage is so perfectly timed for us this morning New Years is a time for looking backwards and looking forwards and John does both of those in his first chapter He is looking back on all of these encounters that people had with Jesus And he ends with looking forward to what Jesus will reveal to his disciples and to us This is an interesting story and it’s the only place that it occurs in the Bible Honestly, it’s a little strange to us because we are missing some of the context We don’t know why Nathanael was grouchy about Nazareth Was it regional rivalries or some kind of prejudice? Did something happen to Nathanael right before this story that put him in a bad mood? We just don’t know Scholars also don’t agree on what the reference to the fig tree means Was Nathanael sitting under a fig tree? Is it a reference to some Rabbis who taught their students under fig trees? Or is a use of the common phrase “under the fig tree” which at that time meant studying the Jewish Scriptures (our Old Testament) We can’t know which one it is accurate for these two things because the Bible doesn’t give us enough information But whatever the case, the fact that Jesus could name exactly what Nathanael was doing before he arrived has a major impact Take a look at it, Nathanael arrives and Jesus describes him, then Nathanael is suddenly wary How does this guy know him? How could he know what Nathanael is like? And then Jesus drops the real surprise on him, that he could see Nathanael BEFORE he arrived Suddenly, Nathanael goes from being dismissive to declaring that Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel That’s a HUGE shift! Imagine Jesus walking up to you and saying that he saw you earlier today or a week ago And he says that he loved that secret dance party you had to All I want for Christmas is you That would certainly have a big impact on us too Connection to Jacob I want to take a minute and unpack this interaction between Jesus and Nathanael Because there are some parallels being drawn to the Old Testament here that I don’t want us to miss Let’s first look at verse 47 again in our passage Notice the last word in the verse, which is “deceit” Let me put up a verse on the screen for you where this word is used Genesis 27:35 But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” Notice that it’s the same word again! This passage is a part of the story where Jacob (who later is renamed to Israel) steals his older brother’s birthright and then in this passage his blessing too! Isaac (Jacob and Esau’s father) tells Esau that Jacob got the blessing deceitfully Jacob is well known for being deceitful before his encounter with God Nathanael would have known the Scriptures well and he would know the story of Jacob And the first thing Jesus says to Nathanael is basically “here is an Israelite in whom there is NO JACOB” Did you catch it? It’s actually kind of funny Nathanael is like Israel (who’s other name Jacob) without having any Jacob in him, none of the deceitfulness He is like Jacob without having the deceitfulness that Jacob was known for He represents what Jacob was supposed to be after he encountered God and was renamed to Israel! Do you see now why Nathanael immediately starts asks Jesus how he knows him? Jesus gave him a huge compliment And after Jesus explains that he saw Nathanael, he responds by believing without any hesitation He even identifies Jesus as the Son of God, something that will take even Peter a long time to admit I guess good things can come out of Nazareth after all, huh? But the parallels don’t stop there, look at the last verse again Jesus says that you (and it’s plural here so it’s more than just Nathanael) will see heaven open and the angels ascending and descending on the son of man This is actually two Old Testament references put together The first which is “son of man” comes from the book of Daniel which Jesus uses to refer to himself a lot This prophecy and this title are one of the ways that Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah The second is in Genesis 28:12 and it is a dream that Jacob has Jacob dreams that there is a stairway to heaven… and then plays an amazing solo on electric guitar Just kidding Jacob dreams that he sees this stairway/ladder and there are angels ascending and descending on it Let me tell you something, there are no coincidences with God Jesus identifies that HE is the stairway that the angels are ascending and descending on We’ll talk about why that is super important in a little bit Think about this connection: a moment ago Jesus compared Nathanael to Jacob, and then tells him that he will see the full version of the dream that Jacob had thousands of years before This is AMAZING! Nathanael the Israelite that Jacob was supposed to be will get to see the fulfillment of the vision the original Jacob had Nothing is wasted with God! Now imagine being in Nathanael’s shoes for a second during this The man you now know is the SON OF GOD just gave you one of the highest compliments that you could imagine and then tells you that you will see the fulfillment of the vision of one of your greatest forefathers Whoa My mind would absolutely melt hearing that In that moment, I would develop a new excitement, a new pursuit even greater than the one for Star Wars In fact, that is exactly what happened to me When Jesus found me, when I encountered him myself, I became fixated on him When I saw him for who he really is (and I saw myself for who I really am), I decided He was someone worth chasing after with all of my might Like Nathanael, my eyes were opened and I saw Jesus as he really is And in that moment, that was way more than enough For Nathanael in that moment, Jesus seeing him ahead of time was enough Do you see Jesus as enough? Does he shine brighter than your passions and your pursuits here on earth? I want you to really think about this today, because this is super important Do a comparison in your mind of how much you want to know every detail about Jesus versus how much you do the same thing for other things We should want to know more, feel his presence more, experience him more There is so much more than just the moment when you met him or first heard about him! And Jesus himself shows us this by what he says to Nathanael: you’re impressed that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than that He could have just left it at the miracle of seeing Nathanael ahead of time It could easily have been the end of the story In the same way, He could have just revealed himself to us and just left it at that Except that Jesus didn’t come to save us and then leave us to our own devices He came that all of us might know him more, that he could show us even greater things about himself All we have to do is follow and seek him Titles of Jesus John uses the beginning of his letter to show us just how much there is for us to find Check this out, there are 6 different titles Jesus is given in the last 22 verses I want you to write these down because this is so cool We’ll fill them in on the screen as we go We start with John the Baptist in verse 29 who says that Jesus is the: Lamb of God This was a few weeks ago where Jesus is compared to the sacrificial lamb The difference is that he is our perfect once and for all sacrifice Next is John the Baptist again in 34 who says that Jesus is the: Chosen One This one comes from Isaiah 42:1 where he prophesies that God is sending a servant who is his chosen one, and who will have the Holy Spirit upon him Which John the Baptist sees happen at the baptism of Jesus where the Spirit descends on Jesus as a dove Andrew is up next in 41 when he tells Peter that Jesus is the: Messiah The Jews would have all known that this marked Jesus as the savior and deliverer of Israel Philip comes next in 45 where he tells Nathanael that Jesus is the: Prophesied One He mentions both Moses and the Prophets have prophesied about Jesus He is the culmination of all of the prophecies across hundreds of years Finally, Nathanael himself gives the last two titles in verse 49 where he names Jesus: Son of God King of Israel These followers each describe Jesus a different way and share a different part of who Jesus is Think about that, 6 different ways to describe Jesus from just 22 verses Each title captures a different aspect of Jesus and what he came to do And yet, they just barely scratch the surface! I want you to see what John is doing in his gospel, he has a perspective and is trying to show us something Because it’s not just these six titles that he is showing us This whole first chapter is really just his introduction and he is building to the climax in verse 51 Let me list off all of the ways Jesus is described in chapter one here for you rapidly: Word, God, Light, Flesh, Glory, Ancient, Lord, Lamb of God, Chosen one, Rabbi, Messiah, Prophesied one, Son of God, King of Israel, Son of Man That’s 15 different titles or ways to describe Jesus in 51 verses John is very intentionally showing us and his Jewish readers that Jesus is the one, the savior, the Son of God Do you know Jesus? Do you know all of these things about him? John is showing us that Jesus as far more than a man or a good teacher He is the son of the Living God, God himself, the Messiah, and on and on Jesus is not someone you just know everything about immediately We will spend our entire lives learning about him, and yet only scratch the surface He is someone worth knowing! John brings it all to the climax with the story of Jesus meeting Nathanael and specifically that reference to the vision that Jacob had Nathanael identifies that Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel and Jesus says, but wait there’s more! Not only is he all of the things we listed, he is the ladder from Jacob’s vision What does that mean though? What does it mean that they will see angels ascending and descending on him? Don’t miss this, hear the climax straight from Jesus’ own mouth He is saying that he is the bridge between Heaven and Earth From the very beginning of his ministry, he is summarizing the entirety of the gospel for us And he does so using a vision from thousands of years before! If this were the Gospel according to John… meaning me John, this is the point where I would drop the mic Because just from this one chapter we can all see there are far, far greater things to know and see Greater things than these And my question to us this morning is: Are we eager to see far greater things about God and from him? Are you eager to see far greater things from God? Do you get excited at the thought of knowing more about God and what he has done? Do you feel eager to see what God can do with your life, to see what more he will do? Or even just over the last two months, does what John has shown us over this one chapter get you excited? Because he just dropped on us SO many different ways to think about Jesus So many different lenses that we can view him through to know him more Really the question is: if Jesus walked into the room right now and said, “follow me,” would you drop everything? Because that is exactly what he does every single day He comes to you saying, “follow me” And we in turn are called to go to others as Andrew and Philip did and say, “come and see” just like Pastor David talked about two weeks ago The message they hear from Jesus is the same one he has for us: “follow me” And just like Jesus promised to show Nathanael and the others with him at the time, we will see far greater things Let me give you some examples of just things that I have seen in my time following Jesus In Africa I have seen: Blind people regain their sight Deaf people that are able to hear again A mute child that said their very first word ever, she said: Amen A crippled man whose leg felt cold and dead to my fingers, and he began to walk without crutches again And that’s just barely scratching the surface, and frankly it’s not even the most amazing miracle Because I have seen tens of thousands of people give their lives to Jesus Tens of thousands of eternities changed FOREVER You want to talk about greater things? I’ve seen some wild stuff! And you know why our team in Africa got to see those things? Because we heeded the call to Follow, even when it meant going to the far end of the earth Did we see those things because we were perfect, or that we had everything figured out, or because we prayed just the right way, or even that we were special in any way? NO! I’ll tell you right now that none of those things are true about me And yet, because we were willing to follow, we got to witness the awesome power of our God and know him in even greater ways Do you believe that those kinds of things can actually happen? Do you long to see them? Let’s even talk about the history of our church The chairs you are sitting in right now, the building you are in right now, the land we are currently on, the corner lot, the expansion, the extra acre over by KinderCare Each one of these is a miracle that God did We prayed like crazy each time asking God to do greater things than we could ever imagine And you know what? He knocked our socks off Every. Single. Time. Each time there was absolutely no way that we could do it ourselves Only God deserves the glory for them! Now don’t hear me wrong, God doing even greater things doesn’t mean that everything will always be sunshine and rainbows Jesus doesn’t promise that following will be easy Jesus had to die which the disciples scattered They were terrified and persecuted For us in Africa things went wrong all over the place Our building project has been challenging and an emotional rollercoaster at times But God does promise that if you follow him, if you truly seek after him, you can see so much more than you ever imagined And I’m not even talking miracles and things, you can know him, see even more of him That is the real miracle, getting to be close to and know the Living God himself That is what Jesus is inviting you into, everything else is the cherry on top And do you ever wonder what you may be missing out on? Think of all of the things that Jesus wants to show you (or do in your life), but you don’t get to see them or experience them because you keep saying no to following Him more deeply What if you started saying “yes?” Let me tell you what you will find if start to say yes: You will find a new pursuit, a new purpose that far exceeds anything you can find here on earth Seek after Jesus, learn everything you can and follow him Because I’m telling you there is nothing better than him And he will always have so much more to show us And NOTHING can ruin Jesus Let me pray Copyright: John McCormick Renovation Church in Blaine, MN You may use this material all you like! We only ask that you do not charge a fee and that you quote the source and not say it is your own.