Well, if you have your Bibles, could you please take them out and turn to the Gospel of John. This evening we'll be continuing our series in the Gospel of John with a sermon I have entitled, Jesus Calling. This evening we'll look at John chapter 1, verse 35 through to 51. So John's Gospel, chapter 1, Verse 35 through to 51. The Word of God says, Again the next day, John stood with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and seeing them following said to them, what do you seek? They said to him, Rabbi, which is to say when translated teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, come and see. They came and saw where he was staying and remained with him that day Now it was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which is translated the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him he said, you are Simon the son of Jonah, you shall be called Cephas, which is translated a stone. The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee and he found Philip and said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 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. And Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said to him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these. And he said to him, most assuredly I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open and all the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man. This is God's word. Let us once again pray. Oh our God and our fathers, we come now to a time of hearing from your word. We ask that you would speak to us. That, Lord, as we hear the voice of Jesus tonight from the Gospel of John, as we hear our Saviour call, I do pray that we would hear the call and we would respond. That, Lord, we would listen to the voice of Jesus and that we would follow after him all the days of our life. Oh, Lord, please be exalted now, I pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, this evening we are continuing our series in the Gospel of John, and as we work our way through the Gospel, we are coming to a bit of a transition in the text. So far in John's Gospel, in Chapter 1, we have seen a summary of who Jesus is. We've been told in big and broad terms some wonderful truth about the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the eternal God, who has put on flesh and dwelt among us. We have heard grand truths about Christ. But then we also heard the testimony of John the Baptist. John who testified about what he saw and what he heard, and then we saw his declaration that Jesus indeed is the Son of God. Everything in John chapter 1 and everything that will follow in John's gospel is all pointing forward to a great truth. It is all pointing to the truth of who Jesus is and also the fact that we need to do business with Christ ourselves. You see, John is written, this gospel is written so that we might encounter God through Jesus. We cannot be passive bystanders as we go through this gospel. As we look at John's gospel, the whole thrust of the book is pushing us to a point where the question is going to be asked of us, what will you do with Jesus? You have heard about him, you have learned about him. Will you follow him? And tonight as we come to these final verses in John chapter 1, we see a transition occur where we move from hearing testimony about Jesus to actually seeing Jesus speak for the first time in this gospel. So far we have learnt much about Christ, but now we see Christ speak. And as Christ speaks in this passage, we see that he is calling people from different backgrounds and different contexts to come and follow him. John the Baptist in the previous passage declared, get ready, Jesus is coming. And now Christ is on the scene saying, I am here, follow me. And as we unpack this section of God's Word tonight, I hope that all of us will hear the clear call of Jesus to follow Him. If you are already following the Lord Jesus Christ, then I would encourage you to keep on following Him. Don't look back. Keep following the Saviour. Keep going after Him. Devote your entire life to the service of King Jesus. But tonight, if you are one who has not heard the call, who has not responded to the call of Jesus to follow him, then tonight, may you hear and may you respond. As we look at our passage this evening, I think that we can see clearly that Jesus calls different types of people. and in particular I want us to focus on three different types that Jesus calls in this passage. There are three different types of people that Jesus encounters in this section of God's Word and he calls all of them to come and follow him. Now this tells us that Jesus wants people from all backgrounds, all contexts and all different classes to be his followers. The Christian church is not to be made up of people from one particular context and one particular type of people. Rather, the followers of Jesus should be made up of people from all walks of life. And as we look at this passage, we see that Jesus first calls people who we would deem to be seekers. Secondly, we see that Jesus will call people that are indifferent to him. And even in this passage, as we conclude, we'll see that Jesus calls sceptics to come and follow him. There are different types of people in the world, seekers, indifferent, sceptics, yet Christ calls all of them to follow him. And as we see the example of Jesus calling these people, the question we have to be asking ourselves is this, are we following Christ? also. So let us begin by looking at Jesus calls the seeker and we see that in verse 35 to 40. As we look at our text we see here tonight a rapid movement in the narrative of the gospel of John. A few verses earlier we were told that two days previous some religious teachers came to John the Baptist asking him a variety of questions and because of their questions they earned a rebuke from John the Baptist where he said, you don't even know who the Messiah is, he is standing in your midst but you are missing him. The next day John then saw Jesus and he called out that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and he called on everyone to look at him. Now we come to the day that our passage is addressing tonight. There is this rapid movement in the text. We are covering a period of a few days. And as we look at our text, we see that the day after John baptised Jesus, the day after he said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, John the Baptist encounters Christ again. In verse 35, we are told that on the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples. The assumption we make from the text is that he is still at the Jordan River, he has two disciples with him, and as he is going about his ministry, he notices Jesus walking by. And once again, John calls out, behold the Lamb of God. He tells his disciples, the two that were with him, look, the Lamb of God. And our Bible verses tell us tonight that these two disciples heard what John said and they started to follow Jesus. In verse 40 we learn that these two disciples, one of them is Andrew and the other is unnamed. We know from the internal text of the book of John that this is John, the one who wrote the Gospel of John. So we have Andrew and John standing with John the Baptist, and there's a lot of Johns in John's gospel, but we have John, the author of the gospel, and Andrew with John the Baptist. They hear the call to follow Jesus, and both of them immediately start following after Christ. Now these two men, at some point of time, would have heard all the news about what John the Baptist was doing. So they went out into the wilderness, and they found John the Baptist, they heard what he was preaching, and they obviously believed the message of John. They repented, and they were ready for the coming of Messiah. They became disciples of John the Baptist. But now that John the Baptist, their teacher, is telling them to look to Jesus, they decide it's time to change teachers. They leave John the Baptist, and these spiritual seekers begin to follow Christ. They look at Jesus as the only one who can offer them hope, as the only one who can rescue them from their sins, and they begin to follow Christ. And as Jesus walks by, the two disciples literally start to follow him. John and Andrew start to follow Jesus. And Christ turns to them. And he says, what do you seek? What are you looking for? Why are you following me? That's a very good question that Jesus asked these seekers. Why are you following me? What are you seeking? So many people seek Jesus for the wrong reasons and the wrong motivations. They pursue Jesus for all the wrong reasons. So Christ checks the motivations of these two seekers. What do you seek? Now the disciples of John the Baptist, Andrew and John, respond to Jesus by saying, Rabbi, which is teacher, where are you staying? That almost sounds like a non-answer. Why are you following me? What do you seek? Teacher, where are you staying? It doesn't sound like they answer the question, but they actually are if you enter into the Jewish mindset. If you understand that Andrew and John are Jewish men and they are responding to Christ in a Jewish way, you can see that they are actually giving a beautiful answer, a brilliant answer to the question that Jesus asks them. Jesus says, why are you following me? What are you seeking? And they say, where are you staying? Now this is indicating that they are prepared to leave everything and follow after Jesus. They are saying by their answer that they are prepared to follow Jesus and go wherever he goes. They are prepared to follow him completely. You see, in that culture, if you wanted to become a disciple of a teacher, then you literally followed that teacher around. You would go where they went. You would spend all your time with them. You stayed where they stayed. You lived where they lived. Life was done together. So by them saying to Jesus, where are you staying? They were saying, I'm going to follow you no matter the cost. Where you go, I will go. I will follow you. And Jesus responds to their question by simply saying, come and see. Come and see. This here is the call of Jesus to come and follow him. He is calling on these two men, these two spiritual seekers to be his disciples. Come and see. Well, they did. They did go and see where Jesus was going. And they followed him from that time onwards. They stayed with Jesus. Now, these two men, as I have said, would be termed the spiritual seekers. They're spiritually minded people. They were religious in a sense. They were looking for Christ. They were seeking the truth. That is why they were with John the Baptist. John the Baptist said, get ready, Jesus is coming, and they went, right, where is he? We want to find out who the Messiah is. They're spiritual seekers. They would be much like people today who have an interest in spiritual things, people whom the Lord has been working on, softening their hearts to the point where they're beginning to ask questions about who God is and how they can know him. Andrew and John were not passively sitting by. They were seeking. They were looking. They were trying to find out who the Messiah is. And we have people in our culture, in our context that are very much like that. They seek. They pursue. They're trying to work out who God is. Perhaps they show they are seeking by the fact they go to church. Maybe they're reading their Bible. They know that God exists but they can't seem to find Him. They are seeking. And if that is the case for any of you, if you are a seeker tonight, then let me give you comfort from God's word in Jeremiah 29, 13. God says in that verse, you will seek me and you will find me when you search with all your heart. Tonight, if you are someone who is seeking, who isn't sure about Christianity, who is trying to find out who God is and what He is like, then the call of the Scripture is follow Jesus and you will find God. Know Jesus and you will know God. And Christ calls on you this evening to come and see. He calls on the seeker to come and see. And if you are seeking God, if you are pursuing God, if you're trying to work out who He is and what He is like, then know this. The only reason you can seek God is because God is first seeking you. God loves us first, therefore we love Him. We seek God because He first sought us. So if you are seeking tonight, The question is, will you be found by God? Would you be like Andrew and John and follow after Jesus? So Jesus calls the seeker to himself. But next we see in our text that Jesus calls the indifferent to follow him. And we see that in verse 41 to 44. Jesus in this passage begins calling many people to come and follow him. He calls the seeker and now he calls the indifferent. He calls two men who are hard-working men. They are your typical working-class people. They are the salt-of-the-earth kind of men. They work hard, they try to do the right thing, they are perhaps moral men, and we see from our passage that these men are indifferent to Christ. They're not actively looking for Him. Now, the two men we meet in our passage are both fishermen, which means they had a very hard and difficult job, But they had a job that was very important. They fed their community. One of the men was named Simon, but we know him more commonly as Peter. And the other man is Philip. Both of these men were fishermen. They lived and worked in the same village. They had probably grown up together. They probably went to synagogue with each other on the Sabbath. But what is fascinating from the text is this. Neither of them are looking for the Messiah. Neither of them are actively looking for Jesus. They are indifferent. They are going about their life. They are going about their daily routines. They have a living to make. They have hard work to do. They couldn't be like Andrew and John who gave up everything to go out into the wilderness to follow a religious teacher. They couldn't do that. They worked hard. They are indifferent. But their indifference is about to be challenged. Andrew, who is the brother of Simon, is overjoyed by the fact that he has found the Messiah. So out of gratitude and love for Christ, Andrew rushes off and finds Simon, his brother, and he says, I have been rescued by Jesus. We have found the Messiah. Andrew has been rescued by Jesus and he wants everyone else to know Jesus too. So Andrew finds Simon and he says, Simon, we have found the Messiah. Now we aren't told in the text what Simon says to this news. We aren't told how Simon responded to the news. But what we are told is that Andrew takes Simon back to Jesus. Andrew takes Simon, who wasn't looking for the Messiah, and he takes him physically to the Messiah. He takes Simon to Jesus. And we know from other parts of the Gospel that Simon, or Peter as you might want to call him, his life is radically changed. He meets Jesus and he goes from being indifferent to being one who isn't actively seeking Jesus, to being one who devotes his entire life to love and service of Christ. And eventually this man would even lay down his life and be killed for Jesus. From indifference to following Christ. But then our text tells us about a second man who was indifferent and we see in verse 43 that this second man was in Galilee. And we're told that Jesus wanted to go to Galilee. Jesus wanted to go to this place. And when Jesus gets there, he finds Philip, a man who was a hard worker also. Another man who was indifferent. And Jesus comes across Philip and Jesus says to him, Philip, follow me. Follow me. Now this tells us that Jesus is the one who is actively looking for people to call to himself. Jesus is the one seeking and saving the lost. Jesus is the one who is pursuing people. Now that shouldn't surprise us because if you step back and look at what Jesus has done as a whole, we see that he left the glories of heaven. The eternal God left the perfections of heaven to come to this earth to seek and save sinners. The Bible says, here is a saying worthy of all acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Christ comes to seek the lost. Christ comes to save the lost. And he does that through dying on the cross for sinners and then rising again from the dead. So Jesus seeks out Philip. He finds Philip and he says, Philip, follow me. Philip, to this point, was showing no interest in Christ. He wasn't out in the wilderness listening to John the Baptist preaching. No, he is working. He's a hard-working man. But then his indifference is interrupted and is changed immediately when he encounters Jesus. He leaves off what he is doing and he begins to follow Christ. And as we look at Simon, as we look at Philip, we see them as a good example of people in our day and age who are apathetic towards Christ. These men were apathetic towards Jesus before they encountered him. They are indifferent and I think in many ways they represent what the vast majority of our nation is like tonight. There are so many people in our country tonight who are indifferent towards Christ. Now spiritually they're not indifferent because everyone who sins is at war with Christ. But when I say they are indifferent towards Christ, what I mean is this. They are not actively thinking about Him. They are not considering Him. They are not examining His claims. They are living and breathing and acting in society as if there is no God. In Australia, we would say that these types of people have a, she'll be right, mate, attitude. She'll be right, mate. Whatever happens will happen, don't worry about it, it'll all work out alright in the end. She'll be right. And that's the attitude that Simon and Philip have. We're not actively looking for Jesus, that's the attitude our society has. They're indifferent to Christ. People go through their days, they go through their life not giving Jesus a second thought. Now they may say they believe in God. Perhaps they even go to church at Christmas or Easter or other special events or when friends invite them. But overall, they're indifferent. They don't care about what will happen later in life. They don't care about what occurs after death. They live for the here and the now. Now, these people may be moral. They may want to do what is right. They may be hardworking, just like Simon and Philip. But they don't seem to have time for God. And perhaps tonight there are people listening who are indifferent. Go through the religious motions every now and then, but come tomorrow I'm not going to think about Jesus. But what we need to realise is this, that even though we may not think of Christ, our indifference, our apathy towards Jesus actually shows that we are living a life of hostility towards him. We might think that we are neutral towards God, But neutrality is a myth. We might not actively consider Jesus, but the mere fact that we are not thinking of Christ, the mere fact that we are not loving God with all our mind, says that we are hostile and against him. Yet Jesus comes to the indifferent, he comes to the apathetic, he comes to those who are not looking for him, and he says, follow me. To refuse that call would be to show that you're not indifferent. To refuse that call would be to show that you're God's enemies. But Simon and Philip hear the call and they follow Jesus. What about you? Have you heard the call from Jesus to follow me? Christ calls the indifferent. But then we also see that Jesus calls the skeptics. We see that in verse 45 to 51. As the narrative moves forward, we see that Philip, the one who has now just started following Jesus, wants other people to know Jesus also. There's a beautiful picture there with Andrew and Philip. They meet Jesus, they encounter Christ, and they want everyone else to know Jesus also. And Philip has come to know and love Jesus, so he goes off and he finds a man who turns out to be sceptical. He finds a man named Nathanael. Now upon meeting Nathanael, Philip says to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Philip says, we have found the one that is prophesied in the Bible. We have found the long awaited Messiah. His name is Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Now just as an interesting side here, Philip actually makes a mistake in his evangelistic efforts. He gets it right that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah. He gets that right. But what he gets wrong is the fact that he says Jesus is the son of Joseph. He's not. Jesus is the son of God. Joseph might have been his earthly father but he was not the physical descendant of Joseph as the Jews would think. But we can forgive Philip for his zeal and his error here because he's only been following Jesus for a few hours. He follows Christ and says, I want everyone to know him, so he goes out and he evangelises Nathaniel. But Nathaniel hears this. Nathaniel hears what Philip says and he is sceptical. He hears the claims that Philip puts forward and he simply says, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Now some commentators say the reason that Nathanael responds that way is because he is fiercely proud of the town he is from. Just like Cornwall and Devon have a rivalry, so did where Nathanael was from and Nazareth. But whatever the case may be, what we see is that Nathanael is sceptical. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? In essence he's saying, whatever, I don't believe you. He doubts. He is sceptical. How do we respond to such a sceptic? Well, if you look at some evangelism training we see today, they tell you right now, this is where you bring out your apologetics. You line up the sceptic and you blow them out of the water with good apologetic argument. And there's a time and place for apologetics, but Philip doesn't respond to scepticism that way. Philip responds to scepticism, not by getting into an argument, But he simply says to Nathanael, come and see. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Whatever, I don't believe you. Come and see. The best way for Philip to answer the sceptic here was to introduce the sceptic to Jesus. You don't believe me? Come and see. Come and look into it yourself. Come and examine the claims of Jesus for yourself. Come and see. And perhaps people listening might be sceptical. I know there have been people in churches that have gone to church their whole life and they have a sceptical attitude. I know people who have sat in churches that have turned out to be atheists at heart. And perhaps tonight God who knows your heart knows that you're sceptical of Him. And if you are sceptical, then let me invite you to come and see. To come and see, to find Jesus for yourself. Why not take the Gospel of John and just read it and be introduced to Christ? Come and see. Now Nathaniel hears the call, he goes, OK, I'll look into this. So he goes with Philip and he meets Jesus. And as Nathaniel approaches Jesus, Christ does something that shows that he is not like any other religious leader. Christ calls out and says, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Nathaniel hears this and he answers and says, How do you know me? And this is where Jesus reveals that he is God and he knows all things. He said, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you Jesus reveals that he knows things about Nathanael that no one else knew the skepticism on Nathanael disappeared quickly he encountered the Son of God and his skepticism meant nothing I remember on the night that the Lord Jesus rescued me that all the sceptical arguments I had, all the doubts I had about the truth claims of Jesus Christ, disappeared the moment I encountered him for myself. And that is what happens to Nathaniel. He encounters Jesus. and the scepticism he has, the objections he has, the arguments he makes against Christ just disappear. His mouth must have been hanging open because all he can say is, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. And Jesus replies simply by saying, you haven't seen anything yet. As we go through John's Gospel, we'll see that Jesus does many more miracles and many more wonderful things. But in our day and age, Nathaniels abound. Some of them are religious Nathaniels, just like this Nathaniel. They think they have it all together, but they don't know Jesus. They're skeptical about his claims. They don't believe what Christ said about himself. This may be a person from another religion. who thinks they know God through their deeds and their efforts and their form of worship. But Jesus declares to those people who are sceptical, those religious sceptics, that if they don't know Him, then they can never know God. But we also have atheism, which is growing in our society. Ian mentioned this morning in the sermon that atheism is the fastest growing belief system in the West. The non-religious group, the atheist group, is growing. And atheists like Nathaniel are sceptical of Jesus. They question him, they doubt him, they wonder if anything good can ever come out of Christianity. Yet to the religious sceptic, to the atheistic sceptic, to those who doubt and question Jesus, I would simply echo the words of Philip. Come and see. Come and examine the claims of Jesus for yourself. Pick up the Bible and test what Christ has said. Examine the claims of Jesus. And I am convinced, as one who went from skeptic to believer, is that if you are honest, if you approach the Bible honestly and openly and listen to what God's Word says, eventually you will cry out with Nathanael, Jesus I'm amazed Christ I'm at awe you are the Son of God Nathaniel is overcome he cannot help but be in awe of Jesus he has to stand back and say this is incredible you are true you are the Son of God and Jesus calls the skeptics to follow him come and see. Throughout the Gospels we see that Jesus is constantly calling on people to come to Him. In fact, as I said earlier, that's the whole purpose of John's Gospel. This whole Gospel is dedicated to bring us to the point where we will come and follow Jesus. God desires people to know who He is. God desires for the lost to come and love Jesus because it's through knowing Jesus that we know God You see, all of us desperately need Christ. We all need to follow Him. We all need this Saviour. We all need to follow Christ because as a people, we have all sinned against God. The Bible says, for all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. The sin that you and I have committed, the rebellion that we have done against our Creator says we deserve death, judgment and hell. But the good news is Christ, the one that we are to follow, is the one who left the glories of heaven and he came down to this earth to rescue us from our sin. Our sin said death and judgment but Jesus is so loving and kind. God loves you and he shows that love and kindness in that Jesus dies on the cross for sinners. He dies the death that we should die. He is our substitute. He takes the full wrath that is rightly deserved for us upon himself. And then three days after he died, he rose again. And now because he has life, he offers you life. And the Bible says in response to this Jesus and all that he has done, we should follow him. To follow Jesus means you turn from your sin. The Bible calls that repentance. It means you trust that he died on the cross for sinners. and he rose again from the dead. And if you do that, the Bible says you'll be completely forgiven and you will have life. Jesus calls on all of us to follow him. The question tonight is this, are you following? Are you following Jesus? I don't know your heart. I don't know where you stand with God, but God knows your heart. Are you following Christ? Are you following the one who calls you this evening? Follow me. Tonight, may the Lord seek us, may we be found by him, and may we all follow after this kind and wonderful Jesus who calls every single one of us to come unto him. Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we do thank you that you are the God who seeks and saves the lost. That you are the God who left the glories of heaven and came to this earth to pursue sinners. Lord, tonight may we seek you and may we be found by you. May we heed the call tonight to follow you. May we leave all and follow after Jesus tonight. And may we spend our entire life in service of you. We pray all these things for Jesus' sake. Amen.