Our Call by Jesus John 1:43-51
This week we are again looking at the beginning of Jesus ministry. And today we see him beginning to gather his disciples to him. In the verses before these we have two of John the Baptist’s disciples leave him and follow Jesus. One of them is Andrew and he brings his brother Simon to Jesus; and Jesus renames him Peter.
This morning Jesus sees and calls Phillip who in turn brings Nathaniel to the group. And there is something we should notice in all this. Jesus is not arguing with anyone. Jesus is not brow beating anyone. He’s not preaching in depth, deeply theological sermons to these men. Jesus is simply offering them the opportunity to be a follower of his. Jesus is letting them use their God given gift of free choice to be or not to be a follower of his.
Now I know some will say these men were pre-destined to be disciples, maybe that’s true. But I see the Holy Spirit may lead them to be disciples but if they decided to pass on the opportunity, they would have lost their blessing and destiny. But it would not have stopped God’s plan.
God called me to study his word and to reach others for him, and believe me I dragged my feet. If I had not followed what God asked of me, I would have lost a great blessing but it would not stop God from reaching others, and God would have led someone else to you.
So you know, I get this thought from Genesis 3:2 “We may eat from the trees in the Garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden.’” If God did not give us free choice he would not have put the tree there in the first place. God wanted Adam and Eve to remain perfect in Eden. He told them what he wanted but it was their choice to abide by it or not.
God gives all of us free choice. We walk out of the church; we can go right or left. We hear the Gospel, we can believe or not. God does not force us to love him. Nowhere in the Bible did I read about someone who wanted to hate God and was forced to love him. We ask the Holy Spirit to open someone’s mind and heart to the Gospel but it still is that person’s choice to accept Christ or not. If the Holy Spirit forced us to accept God, we would be no better than robots. Where would God’s love for us be in that.
But, as to our reading, let’s pick apart verses 45 and 46. “Phillip found Nathaniel and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about…and whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth…’
‘Nazareth, can anything good come from there?’”
There are two things embedded in this exchange. The challenge that Nathaniel is facing is his prejudice. Nazareth was at that time a town with a bad reputation. One of the main Roman roads passed by there and Nazareth had become a rough place to be. As far as Nathaniel was concerned,
nothing good could come from there.
The other issue here is selective hearing. How many of us when listening to someone hear one or two words and instantly make up our minds as to how we feel about the topic. We stop listening to the words and are simply waiting for our turn to talk.
Nathaniel was doing this to Phillip. Their conversation indicates they both know the scriptures about the Messiah. But when Nathaniel hears the word Nazareth, he instantly made up his mind and dismissed all he knew about what Moses and the Prophets wrote about the Messiah.
We all can be like Nathaniel. We can let our prejudices interfere with our judgment. We can all make decisions based on assumptions from partial information, partial because we don’t listen to the whole conversation.
Next we have Nathaniel coming to Jesus, and Jesus tells him he knows him even though they never met. Verse 48, “How do you know me…I saw you while you were still under the fig tree.”
Jesus saw Nathaniel just like he sees each one of us. I’ve talked with people who have told me, “God doesn’t know me.” Today Jesus is saying no matter where we are in life, no matter where we are in our relationship with God, or even if we don’t have a relationship with God; he is standing right in front of us waiting for us And it is as easy as saying “Jesus I need you, come to me.”
Verse 50, “…I saw you under the fig tree.” We know nothing in the Bible is filler so why a fig tree? If we go back to the prophet Jeremiah we see he was given two baskets of figs. Jeremiah 24:2, “One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten.”
Ok, we have good and bad figs, but later in Jeremiah 24 God says “Like the good figs I will regard those as good, I will give them a heart to know me; but like the bad figs which are so bad they cannot be eaten, I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed.” The figs represent two peoples; those who believe in God and those who do not.
Matthew’s Gospel has a story about a fig tree. Matthew 21 puts Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. He was hungry and went up to the fig tree. Matthew 21:19 “Seeing a fig tree by the side of the road he went up to it but found nothing on it but leaves. Then he said to it, ‘May you never bear fruit again.’” Here the fig tree represents ancient Israel. A nation thriving with an abundance of leaves, a nation thriving with an abundance of rules and traditions about God; but like the tree lacked fruit Israel was spiritually lacking. The Gospels show Jesus often rebuked the Pharisees for their pomp and circumstance, for their long prayer shawls and ornate robes; their leaves, and for their lack of spiritual knowledge, their lack of leading people to the grace of God; their lack of fruit. Also in Matthew 21 is Jesus parable about tenant farmers. In it he says, “Therefore I tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people who will produce its fruit.” So the fig tree can be seen a representing the failure of God’s people to share God’s love and grace with others.
Also we see Jesus curses a fig tree and it withers. A prophesy of the destruction of Israel in AD 70, only 37 years later.
All this shows us the fig tree represents both those who follow God and those who do not. It represents the spiritual vacuum the Pharisees worked in and it represents the grace of God. Nathaniel by the fig tree is important. He is a man brought up in the spiritually void system of laws, yet he comes out from it and sees the light of Jesus, and he follows him.
How appropriate for this tree to be specifically mentioned here at the beginning of Jesus ministry, for Jesus has come to reach those bad figs; the sinners, and to expose the tree with only showy leaves and no fruit by showing sinners God’s grace and not the pomp and circumstance of the spiritually void system of the Pharisees.
Today’s scripture is from the very beginning of Jesus ministry and his calling of his first disciples.
In these verses we can see theological truth and take from them lessons for our lives.
God loves us. God loves us so much he does not want us to be like preprogrammed robots,
He gives us the great gift of free choice. He gives us the freedom to believe or not. And yes there are consequences for us if we choose not to believe, but he is always just in front of us offering us redemption; glorification and salvation with a simple “follow me.”
Jesus tells us to be aware of and to put aside our prejudices. People not like us, people who don’t dress like us, people who live different from us; none of it precludes them from being good people. None of it precludes them from being children of God.
Before we dismiss someone because we think they live in sin we need to remember two things.
One: even though we don’t like to think it, we are sinners the same as they are, no better, no worse. It’s by the grace of God our sins are forgiven.
And two: it is the sinners our Lord came for. No one he met was excluded from what he had to offer. No one we meet should be excluded from our best. Reaching out to others is the mission of all Christian fellowships.