Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Friday the 4th of April, 2025, Mark Thompson, Principal
of Moore Theological College, speaks on John 1:35-51 and the calling of Jesus' first disciples.
Mark reminds us that the invitation extended to them is the same as it is for us.
Come and see who Jesus is and follow him.
Jesus is the Christ, the one we've been waiting for, the fulfillment of all God's promises in the Old Testament.
So come and see.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that you have given us your word.
We thank you for the way your word encourages us.
We thank you for the way your word challenges us.
We thank you that through your word and by your spirit, you are shaping us into the image of Jesus.
And we pray, father, that as we listen this morning, you might take all distractions from us and help us to hear your voice.
For this, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.
So John, chapter one and uh, beginning at verse 19.
Sorry, beginning at verse 35.
That was last week, wasn't it?
The next day, John, again was standing with two of his disciples and seeing Jesus walk by.
He said, behold the lamb of God.
And two of his disciples heard what he was saying and followed Jesus.
Jesus turned and saw them following and said, what do you want?
And they said to him, rabbi, which is translated as teacher, where are you staying?
And he said to them.
Come and see.
Then they went and saw where he was staying and remained with him that day.
It was the 10th hour.
One of the two who had heard John and followed Jesus 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 as Christ.
He took him to Jesus, seeing him.
Jesus said, you are Simon, the son of John.
You'll be called Kfa.
Which is translated as Peter.
The next day he wanted to go out into Galilee and find Philip, and Jesus said to him, follow me.
And Philip was from beside the city of Andrew and Peter Philip found Nathaniel and
said to him, we found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law and the prophets.
Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.
And Nathaniel said to him, can anything good come outta Nazareth?
And Philip said to him.
Come and see.
Jesus saw Nathaniel coming towards him and said about him, behold a true Israelite in whom there's no deceit.
Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me?
And Jesus said to him, I saw you before Philip called you while you were under the fig tree.
Nathaniel answered him.
Rabbi, you are the son of God.
You are the king of Israel.
Jesus answering said to him, do you believe because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You'll see greater things than these.
And he said to him, you all will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man.
Well, in the marvelous providence of God, we arrive at this passage in John's gospel on the Friday before we all head out to mission.
What a wonderful part of God's word for us to be hearing and thinking about this morning.
The first pillars of a new community are being built as first two, then another, then another, and yet another start the journey of discipleship.
Andrew and his unnamed friend count to peanuts and John, then Andrew's brother, Simon.
Then Philip.
Nathaniel at the beginning of this passage, Jesus walked by John the Baptist alone,
and at the end of it, he has five disciples who'll become five of the apostles.
It's one of those passages that just gets richer the more you read it.
It's delightfully simple and just as delightfully rich and encouraging, come and see.
The invitation extended in both halves of the passage.
Come and see finding the one who is the answer to all the Old Testament promises from every section of the Old Testament.
If we had time to trace them back one piled upon another in these paragraphs.
The Lamb of God, the teacher, the Messiah, the one Moses wrote about The son of Joseph, the son of God, the King of Israel, the son of man.
Then simply bringing people to Jesus.
The most important thing Andrew ever did is summed up in five words.
In verse 42, he brought him to Jesus.
That's all he needed to do to be part of changing the world.
He brought him to Jesus.
Well, let's take a little closer look at these two paragraphs and then zoom back a bit to think about why it is.
Apart from the sheer excitement of the story, why it is, we need to hear what happened that day.
Well, these events are anchored in history, real live history.
If you'd been there that day, you would've seen it happen.
Yet the eyewitness testimony to these events is recorded as part of a gospel.
The entire purpose of which we read in chapter 20 verse 31, is.
That we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing we might have faith in his name,
might have life in his name, real history, but more than real history, a testimony that calls for a response.
So let's start with Andrew, his mate and his brother.
When we left off last time, we were still in the first week of Jesus' public ministry.
We just heard John the Baptist.
Remarkable testimony.
Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
The answer to the longest standing promise of God concerning the one who will deal with sin.
Sin, the root cause of all our frustrations and shame and guilt.
We might not call it sin, but we all know there's something wrong.
The one God promised would come and deal with that forever was here at last.
And with that testimony, uh, John has completed the task that was assigned to him.
The reason John had stepped out into public ministry in the first place, as he himself
announced in verse 31, was so that this Lamb of God might be revealed to Israel.
Everything about John was tied to this testimony.
It was the reason for the strange close, so reminiscent of the prophet Elijah in two kings, one.
The strange diet, the repeated calls to repentance, the baptizing of those who wanted to repent, making a noise in the wilderness.
All the things recorded about John in the other gospel, it's all about this, all part of the preparation for the one who would come after him.
And the climax of all that preparation was this testimony, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
I. It was a testimony that John gave on more than one occasion, and I can't imagine for a moment that he was mumbling into his beard as he gave it.
When Andrew and his unnamed companion heard it, they knew it was not something they could ignore.
We don't know how long they'd been with John the Baptist, how much he'd prepared them privately.
For this moment, we don't know because we're not told.
But when they heard John testify, they left him and followed Jesus.
There's not the slightest sign that John is miffed by this.
He didn't spit the dummy like Prince Harry complaining that he's the spare overshadowed by his big brother.
He didn't resent their abandonment of him to attach themselves to this new teacher.
This was after all what he had been preparing them for.
Pointing people to Jesus.
Remember, that's what John was all about.
John wasn't fazed by the departure of these two men, but neither was Jesus.
When he asked them what they wanted and they told him they wanted to know where
he was staying, he doesn't brush them off or tell 'em to stop bothering him.
Instead, he issued to these two men.
The most wonderful of invitations, come and see.
It's just brilliant, isn't it?
Come and see.
So simple.
You get a window into the compassion of Jesus at this moment.
Come and see, and they don't just come and see where he's staying.
But yes, they did do that.
They get to come and see him and stay with him.
These words are going to be used again, uh, in a little while, but this first time they're on the lips of Jesus.
The invitation comes first from him.
Those who want to follow him don't ever have to be afraid of rejection.
His invitation is extended in this, this simple and direct way.
Come, come and see.
Matthew would put it a little differently on a very different occasion.
He records Jesus saying, come to me all you who labor and are carrying burdens and I will refresh you.
We are going on mission, and I hope you have the opportunity to invite people to come, to come and see Jesus, to come and follow Jesus.
To come and stay with Jesus, to find out for themselves who he is, what he's like, what he's done to see and hear Him in the gospel testimony to him.
But in the first instance, the invitation comes from him.
Come and see.
It's that simple, not fill out this form in triplicate and wait your place on the queue, not pass the test.
And then you'll be ready to come.
Not prove you are ready and fully prepared or worthy.
Just come, come and see.
Now of course, this is a unique moment.
Uh, two disciples of the forerunner.
Now following Jesus, they physically heard those words of Jesus and they saw where he was saying and they saw him.
But the invitation is basically the same to all those who ask questions today.
Come and see.
Yet the best part of the scene, at least in my mind, is what comes next, isn't it?
Andrew left to find his brother.
He first found his brother, his brother, Simon, and he told him, we have found the Messiah.
We've found the anointed deliverer, the Promised King, the one we've been waiting for and hoping for for so long.
Andrew had come and he'd seen, and he knew that John's testimony was true, and now he couldn't contain it.
He knew he must share it with his brother.
Simon couldn't just keep this news.
News this good.
Himself.
This wasn't just for him.
Simon needs to come and see too, and in those precious words, he took him to Jesus.
Seems that Andrew was always taking people to Jesus.
First here, his brother Simon.
Then the boy with the loaves and the fish in front of the vast crowd of 5,000 people.
Then together with Philip, he brought the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus.
He was always doing it.
It was a habit, almost a a reflex action.
Everybody needs to come to Jesus.
He knew that and he brought them to Jesus.
But as far as we can tell, Andrew was just an ordinary man.
A fisherman.
Nothing out of the box, nothing spectacular.
But his enthusiasm and his testimony were the instruments that God used to bring Simon and many others to Jesus.
So here, I think, is the first piece of encouragement from the passage.
It is Jesus who calls people to himself, come and see.
He did it then and still does it today through very ordinary people like me, like you.
But there's something else taught in this passage.
Don't expect that when you do come to Jesus, everything will stay the same.
When Simon came with his brother, Jesus renamed him.
Uh, that might sound.
Quite a trivial and insignificant thing to do.
Give the man a new name, a nickname, Tomo gmo, the Orange Dog.
That one was made up by Chase, Toon, by the way.
All just a little bit of fun, meaningless, but on this occasion, it was not meaningless.
It was not trivial.
It was indeed very significant.
Simon's life was going to be different from that point on, radically different, and Jesus told him this in front of his brother.
Things were gonna be different there as well.
The change in Simon would impact his brother too.
Now, of course, coming to Jesus won't always lead to a name change, but it will mean a change
because following Jesus is not just an extension of the life you've been living up to now.
It's something new and exciting and transformative.
Not always easy or smooth sailing that's not promised, but new and exciting and transformative.
The one who bought you with his blood,
is it work crafting and shaping?
Growing you into the disciple who is ready to do what he has for you to do.
So the simplest of patterns in Andrew's evangelism, when you think about it, seeking out his
brother, the testimony we found, the Messiah, he is the one, the invitation come and see.
And Jesus, who stands behind that invitation, does his work in the lives of those he calls.
Now, isn't that an encouragement as we go out for a week of mission?
But first we should look at the other scene in the story.
In the very first verse of the second paragraph, we're reminded that whatever else is
happening in these two scenes, it is Jesus that is directing the action from the start.
He wanted to go to Galilee.
He wanted to find Philip.
There's actually quite a lot of finding in these two stories.
Andrew and his friend found the Messiah.
Andrew finds his brother Simon.
Philip finds Nathaniel.
He tells him he's found the one Moses wrote about in the law, but only once are we told that Jesus himself did the finding and it's here.
Jesus found Philip.
Verse 43 tells us he went there to Galilee in order to find this man and most of important of all to say to him, follow me.
Certainly he was behind the other findings, but it is his invitation that is offered.
Come and see.
Yes, but this time it's different.
Once again, there's nothing special about Philip, just an ordinary man.
He's not even going to appear very much in from this point on in the gospel.
He was there too, at the feeding of the 5,000.
He's actually the one Jesus asked about how we're gonna feed these people.
He was the one who brought the Greeks to Andrew, and then with Andrew, took them to Jesus.
He was the one in the upper room on the night.
Jesus would be betrayed who said to Jesus, Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us.
But unlike Andrew and his friend, Philip had not been at the river listening to the testimony of John Anish.
Not when Jesus had walked past.
He'd been up in Galilee on the other side of the Samaritan Strip, but when he was called, he could not hold it in.
He'd come face to face with something, someone he had been learning about ever since
Torah school, the one Moses wrote about, the one the prophets had written about.
So Philip rushes off to find his friend Nathaniel, and though he might not have known it, we who'd been reading
John's gospel up to this point, know that he echoes the words of Jesus when he invites Nathaniel to come and see.
Nathaniel almost cannot get beyond the absurd thought that such a significant person would come outta such an insignificant place as Nazareth.
It's the suggestion's almost enough to keep him from listening any further.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth, such a hick town so far from Jerusalem, or anything of consequence?
No sophistication, no importance.
But immediately after Nathaniel asks that cynical question, the invitation is issued.
Come and see.
And once again, the approach is so simple.
Forget about his birthplace or any other measure by which others might choose to assess him.
Just come and see.
Find out for yourself by coming to him.
The great shock for Nathaniel is that Jesus' interest in him and knowledge in him stretches way back before they were introduced by Philip.
Jesus knew who he was, knew his character, he knew him, and it blew Philip's mind.
Rabbi, you are the son of God.
You are the king of Israel.
At first glance, this might seem like something of an overreaction.
The kind of things my daughters say to me, mockingly as they take the television remote for my hands, my old man hands.
But Nathaniel had grasped the fact that if Jesus had known who he was and how he was, his character could
even know his heart and knew that long before they'd ever met him without any input from others who knew him.
This was not just another teacher.
Jesus tells him this is just the beginning.
Is that why you believe he asked Nathaniel?
Well, you and all of you, there's a move from the singular to the plural.
You might have noticed if you're looking at the Greek text and you, all of you are gonna see much more, much, much more.
I. You'll see heaven opened and you'll see the angels ascending and descending upon the son of man.
You'll see Jacob's dream of Genesis 28, realized the connection between heaven
and earth focused on him and that moment we'll put this one in the shade.
All those titles and roles and promises realized and fulfilled at last and focusing in on this one person, you're gonna see great things Nathaniel.
Strap yourself in.
It's gonna be a wild ride.
You ain't seen nothing yet.
Fringe is a great part of God's word to hear and think about just before mission, isn't it?
But why has it been given to us?
It's more than just a history lesson, but it certainly is that it anchors the
testimony of Jesus in John's Gospel to these facts recorded by these eyewitnesses.
We know why.
We trust the gospels.
Because here in these testimonies is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament story and every story within
it, our confidence is strengthened because we know that those giving these testimonies were there with Jesus.
They saw what he did, they heard what he said.
They became acquainted with his person and his character.
And these real historical events can be relied upon.
On the basis of their testimony.
So these verses feed our faith and grow our confidence.
They help us see what the whole of John's gospel wants us to see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
But I don't think that the great purpose of God laid bare in this early part of the gospel
should keep us from noticing the other reason we're given this record of these particular events.
For these encounters really are the greatest encouragement to us to get moving with sharing the invitation and bringing people to Jesus.
Come and see.
Jesus said to the disciples of John who wanted to know more, come and see Philip
said to the skeptic when his expectations did not match the testimony he had heard.
Not really very complicated at all.
Is it?
Sharing what we found.
Or rather, as Nathaniel quickly realized, who has found us inviting others to come and see taking them
to Jesus, that Jesus made known to us in the testimony of those who are actually there beside him.
It is a great passage to read and to think about before we go on mission together.
It's a great passage to read and think about before we share this symbolic meal together, which as much as anything else
reminds us that the one who issues this remarkable invitation really is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Shall we pray,
father, we do.
Thank you for the invitation.
Extended to us to come and see, and that you drawing us to yourself have made us your own thinking on what your word has to say.
Would you please give us the courage and encouragement to move forward in taking our own
part in this great mission that many others might come and see and they might find Jesus.
And this we ask in his name.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.
Our vision as a College is to see God glorified by men and women living for
and proclaiming Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches, and reaching the lost.
We invite you to attend any of our upcoming events, including this one from the Centre for Global Mission.
Since New Testament times, some of those motivated with a passion for sharing the good news of Jesus, have
embraced ministry in very hard places, struggling with stony ground and with little or no obvious gospel fruit.
For hundreds of years and in many places around the world, this has also been the experience of some cross cultural mission workers.
But what does God think?
Whether in a local church or in a missionary location, how does someone decide between struggling on faithfully, despite the lack of
visible gospel fruit, or moving to more fertile ground where God's Spirit is more obviously working and where fruit is more available?
To help us think through these types of questions, join us for our next Centre for Global Mission event, when Richard Chin, National
Director of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, will help us examine the Bible, and David Williams, Director of Training
and Development at the Church Missionary Society Australia, will give us insights from the history and practice of global mission.
Find out more and register on the Moore College website.
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