To be Found and to Find

Open your Bibles to John chapter 1. John chapter 1. I'll start in verse 35 and go to the end of the chapter. John chapter 1, verse 35. The next day, again, John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, Behold, the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

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. So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. for it was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and follow Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

And he first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus and Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter. The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. 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 and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. 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 of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.

Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? And Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, you are the son of God. you are the king of Israel. And 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. 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.

Let us pray. Oh, Father, we are here and gathered to hear from you. And we know, God, that the only reason why we would have such a desire to do so is because you have worked already in our hearts by the spirit, applying the work of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We know, God, that all good things that we do comes from your grace and mercy, your power. And so we rely upon you now as we have your word open and as we desire to hear and listen and to obey.

I pray, God, that we would do so knowing that it's by faith in Jesus that it's possible. I pray, Lord, for those who are before me who do not have a desire to listen to your word and do not have a desire to obey Jesus Christ. I pray that you would change their hearts even now and cause them to see that to go another way is utter folly. But to go the way of Jesus is life and beauty indeed.

So I pray, God, that all these people in this room, these dear people in this room, you would give them ears to hear. And you would be with my lips, be with my voice as I proclaim your word. May I say something of value so that truth can be proclaimed, salvation can be proclaimed and be believed upon and lived in light of. Thank you for mercies and grace found in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It's in his name we pray. Amen. Well, again, John is writing this gospel. This gospel, he wrote it to the people reading it so that they would believe upon Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and by believing may have life in his name. That's his aim as he writes this. And if you remember now, he's in the middle of calling his first disciples in the beginning of John. and we've seen how he called the first disciple of Andrew and probably John, in which, if you remember, we learned that to believe upon Jesus is to receive the life of coming near to Jesus and hearing his teaching as they did that first night.

They asked, where are you staying? And they stayed with Jesus and heard his teaching, stood, sat at the feet of Jesus and heard him teach, heard about their sin heard about how he's a lamb of God who forgives sinners and he fed them the word of God from his very own lips and we saw the life that came forth from that as John is describing to us to believe in Jesus is to receive life in his name and to believe upon Jesus is to come to his feet to say master where are you staying and to hear from him the word of God and to hear the word of God from Jesus is to receive life indeed and we saw this manifest in the fact that Andrew immediately finds his brother, Simon, and he tells him, we found him, we found the Christ, and we saw that Jesus changes the identity of Peter and says, you will be called Peter the Rock. And we see that Jesus, when we believe upon him, he changes our identity to fit us fittingly for the life that he calls us to.

And now here we continue in these first few days of the ministry of Jesus as he calls two more of his disciples and we're going to see here that what true belief more and more looks like again if you remember the main point of John is to say that you would believe and by believing upon the true Jesus you'd receive life and so we're going to see more what does it look like to truly believe and indeed if the greatest thing you can do is receive life in Jesus and the thing that the way that gets brought about is believing upon him then our ears again ought to perk up whenever we see this is what true belief looks like. We should never get enough of what it looks like to truly believe upon Jesus to receive life from him. And not only initially, but also am I living a life of true belief upon Jesus?

And so this is what we're going to see here as he calls in two or more of his disciples. We're going to see more about what true belief looks like. And as we come to verse 43, the next day, we see that true belief is being found by Jesus. True belief is being found by Jesus We read in the text in verse 43 the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee Jesus decided to go to Galilee and he found Philip and said to him follow me True belief is to be found by Jesus You see again verse 43 the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.

Jesus doesn't like on a whim decide to go anywhere, right? This isn't like when we randomly decide to go different places or to do different things. Jesus was very calculated in what he did in his ministry. And so him deciding to go somewhere was him being in union fellowship with his father who gave him a mandate of what to do on earth. And we get an example of that in Mark chapter one of how Jesus was always very methodical in what he did.

If you look at Mark chapter one at the beginning of his ministry in verse 35, we read in the text, and rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. So he had sweet fellowship with his father. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you.

And Jesus said to them, let us go on to the next towns that I may preach in there also, for this is why I came out. And he went throughout all of Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. You see what's going on there. Jesus has much popularity at the beginning of his ministry, and they're saying, hey, everyone's looking for you. This movement's really bubbling and growing.

And Jesus says, through his prayer, through being in communion with the Father, he says, we need to move on now to another place. And so when we read again in our text, John chapter one, verse 43, that Jesus decided to go to Galilee, this isn't just like, I'm going to randomly go here. This is, he's in fellowship with his Father and his Father gave him a mandate, gave him a mission that you will go to this place. and the place that he's going to go to is galilee and so again if we're looking at jesus and all the abilities and capabilities that he has uh to to stir to to bring people to be amazed he can really have the ability to create a big movement and for him to decide not to from the wilderness where he's at now not to go to jerusalem but rather to go to galilee it's like deciding to go to larue instead of going to columbus it doesn't make any sense when you're trying to build a movement when you're trying to build an empire right to go to galilee instead of going to a place like jerusalem in fact in john chapter 7 if you remember his brothers who weren't believing upon him they said hey if you're going to do all these things and have this buzz of all these people around and everything let's go to jerusalem during the fest the festival let's really get popular here.

No one's going to do this in secret, but let the world see what's going on here. See, in their unbelieving mind, they think he's trying to build an empire, trying to build this great movement, right? That's what's on Jesus's mind. But what's on Jesus's mind is he came to earth to do the mission from the Father to seek those who are lost and to bring them into the fold.

He came to find his sheep. The father gave him a sheep, gave him a people, and his mission here at the beginning of his ministry is to find those sheep, whether it's in Jerusalem or Galilee, whether it's in LaRue or it's in Columbus, that is his mission. So when Jesus, in verse 43, says he decided to go to Galilee, he had someone to find. And we see who that was.

He says he found, the text says he found Philip. and he said to him, follow me. I want you to notice something about that. Again, true belief is being found by Jesus. Jesus finds Philip and he tells him, follow me. Notice Jesus doesn't ask pretty please. Notice he doesn't say, would you please follow me?

Would you please do that for me? And it's very important when we consider the fact how Jesus finds people today is that Jesus's gospel, the command of it, the proclamation of it is not something in which you say, Purdy, please, won't you please? It is a command, believe upon Jesus Christ. We see this very clearly in Romans. Look at Romans 1, and then we'll look at the very end of Romans.

Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, certainly had this mindset as well. Romans chapter 1, we'll start at verse 1. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, who is descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

We ought to write our letters this way. You know, that's a great way to write a letter. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name. Now take that same kind of obedience of faith, go to the end of Romans, and I'll make my point, is how he finishes off Romans in chapter 16 in the doxology.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you, in verse 25, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed through the prophetic writings, has been made known to all the nations, and look at this, according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith. The gospel is a command to be believed upon. And so when Jesus comes, he's finding Philip.

He comes and he says, follow me. And so it's very important for us to understand that because when he finds us, he's given us something that we need. He's given us something that we need. It's not like, well, you know, there's this option in which you can live for Jesus and that option in which you can live for sin. And they're both viable, you know. And so could you please, you know, like a product, could you please choose this product instead?

Jesus gives us what we need. And again, it's like a person out at sea and he's about to drown and a fisherman comes with a boat. It would be very weird for the person about to drown to require the fisherman to say, would you please come on the boat? Come on the boat. Hurry up. Let's go.

This is what you need. Is he being rude by saying it like that? No. He's saying, come on the boat. Or a doctor who has the medication of our illness We about to die We need medication he going to say take this three times a day for two weeks and it will clear up He not gonna say would you please please take this How silly would that be when it's clearly what we need?

He's gonna say, take this, take this, it will heal you. If I was feeling controversial, I'm not. But if I was, I would talk about COVID shot. I'm not going to, but they did have to ask us to take that. But that's it, I'm not feeling controversial. We're gonna leave it there.

The point is, is that when Jesus finds us, he gives us what we need. And so he tells Philip, follow me. It's a command. It's a follow me and live. How does Philip respond? Philip is told to follow Jesus.

How does he respond? Now, we don't see, and he followed Jesus, but we do see what he does after the command, or that he's told to follow him. And we see that in verse 45, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him who Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote. So you see in verse 43, we see Jesus finds Philip and says, follow me. And we know how he responds because in verse 45, Philip finds Nathanael and says to him, we found him.

We found him who Moses and the law also the prophets wrote. And so now Jesus, the way Philip responds is belief because he then finds someone else and brings them to the fold. And this is really how the church age operates now, isn't it? Jesus called some people to himself through him being on this earth. But for the most part, the way church history has panned out is that he finds his sheep by sending those who have already been found to find more sheep.

And this is what is playing out here before us. Philip found Nathaniel and is bringing him to the fold now. And so true belief is being found by Jesus. You notice there's a common theme here. You see that word found is being used a few times here, right? Jesus found Philip.

Philip responds and finds Nathaniel. This is really what should drive us, right? We want to be the type of sheep that's been found in which the revelation of that is revealed in that we find more sheep. We have a love for Christ and awe of him, amazed that we've been found by him, that we cannot help but go to our loved ones and tell them we have found him.

I have found him. This is a challenge to us. Is my life, as being followed by Jesus, can that be used by Christ to find other people, other sheep? Or rather, would my life rather deter people away from Christ because I'm not a proper testimony of Jesus? But we see here from Philip, the way he responds reveals that he decided to follow Jesus because he goes and he tells Nathaniel and he finds Nathaniel for Christ.

It's very fascinating here. It seems like he would tell Nathanael as he's finding him. And this is the next point. True belief is being found by Jesus. But there's also, this is my next point, true belief is finding Jesus. Because if you notice, what does he say to him?

He doesn't say, hey, Jesus is finding us. What does he say to him? Philip found Nathanael in verse 45 and said to him, we have found him. So it's fascinating that John is going out of his way to say that Jesus found Philip, Jesus is finding his disciples, and then Jesus found Nathanael through Philip. and then Philip says that we have found him. So it's a very fascinating thing.

I think we could see in this text that there's a certain aspect, right, where true belief is being found by Jesus. Amen, right? We all believe in God's sovereignty here. You ought to. We all believe that God is sovereign. It's his power that works.

We all are good, healthy, reformed-minded people here. But that doesn't take away from the fact that in Jesus finding us, we are to find him. And the reason why that's important is because we don't want to get hyper here to where we think, well, I just got to be passive while Jesus has to find me and sit on my hands until that happens. But true belief is being found by Jesus and finding Jesus.

We have found him. You think of like hide and go seek, right? Hide and go seek. And if you are the hider, you're not interested in seeking. You're going to sit in a corner somewhere and just be hiding. It's not even going to be on your mind to seek.

But this is not like the way we are to seek Jesus. Hiding and go seek does not translate to our mindset with Christ. Yes, Jesus seeks the lost. Yes, he finds the lost. If he does not find us, we will never find him. But that does not take away from the fact that on our hearts and minds, we should constantly be saying, I need to seek and find Christ. the working of Jesus to find you does not mean therefore you don't seek him out.

It says we have found the Messiah. We have found him. It is of vital importance that we be people that seek Christ out. Of course, you know, initially, certainly, if you're an unbeliever here and you're listening to me right now, you need to know that you need to do all that's within you to seek Jesus out, to find him. Yes, I am telling you that Jesus will find you, but I'm not telling you, therefore, you can just be passive and sit on your hands.

But you must seek him out because you know it is possible because he has sought me out. If you're a believer and now a seasoned believer, know that your whole life is found in seeking Jesus Christ each day of your life where he can be found. He seeks you out. So this is the reality of the Christian. He seeks me, he finds me, but I find him too Philip found Nathaniel said to him we've found him we have found him and notice how he describes it you know and this is moving on to the next point that true belief is being found by Jesus true belief is finding Jesus and so since it's important that we act and find Jesus we must find and finding Jesus is vital we must do it in a right way then In other words, if you are tasked to find Jesus, you need to know how to do it.

And we see here in the text before us that we need to do it without deceit. We need to find and seek Jesus without deceit Now look at the text here It says we have found him in verse 45 of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote That is all the Old Testament right It all culminating to this one guy that would come and we found him. Jesus is Nazareth, and he calls him Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Now, if Nathaniel ever had a reason not to believe what he just said, it's the way that he just described this Jesus. Because, again, notice what he says. We found him whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote, and the law wrote. So all the Old Testament was proclaiming, there's one coming, there's one coming, and we found him. It's Jesus of Bethlehem.

That would really do it. No, Nazareth. What in the world? And it's Jesus, the son of David. That would really do it. Joseph, who's that?

And so we see there's every reason for Nathaniel to be like, huh? You found the one that all the prophets spoke about that said it would come from the city of David, which is Bethlehem. It would be of David, and he's from Nazareth, and he's from Joseph. Now we know, right, from all revelation that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but he was raised in Nazareth.

So it's an understandable thing to say that he's a Nazarene. And we know that he was, in some respects, a son of Joseph, right? Not by blood, but nevertheless, we see that if there's any reason for Nathanael not to believe what was just said, to not believe, is because he says he's of Nazareth, and of Joseph. And that's exactly why we see his reaction in verse 46.

Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? I mean, that's a legitimate thing to say at that point. is that you're talking about the Messiah, the promised one, supposed to come from Bethlehem, not far from Jerusalem, and you're talking about the north in Nazareth, in Galilee, which is a stinky place. Can anything good come from there?

Again, skepticism, legitimate skepticism. And it's important to know that any time we are seeking Jesus, there's always going to be reasons that it looks not quite right. Like, we do not have all of understanding. You know, if Nathaniel had 100% understanding, he would know the facts here and see, okay, I see the trip up here. But we're not ever going to have that.

There's always going to be roadblocks in the way of why Jesus Christ is truly who he says he is and why you need to give everything to him. There's always going to be a reason to say, what about that, though, as we see he has here. And so he says, can anything good from it? And notice how Philip answers him. He doesn't give them an argument as to, okay, here it is.

Because to be honest with you, Philip probably had no idea. Yeah, I know. I understand. It's weird. He's from Nazareth. I understand the issues here.

He just simply says, come and see. Come and see. And again, I'm not saying that there's not a place to defend the truth of the Bible, Jesus Christ to someone who is an unbeliever, who doesn't believe, who has all these different reasons. But ultimately, you need to call on them to say, taste and see that the Lord is good. There's a reason. There's arguments that can be had.

I don't doubt that. But the ultimate proof is in the pudding. Try Jesus. He will never let you down. I get that can be taken badly. But there is a certain truth value to that.

Jesus Christ is who he says he is. And if you believe upon him, he will give you everything he says he will give you. He's not a liar. And so Philip, by answering him, just says, come and see. Come and see him for yourself. Come and see him for yourself.

Now, again, if Nathaniel was driven by deceit, if he was driven by falsehood, he would say, nah, I'm not going to. In fact, there's other places in scripture where these stumbling blocks prove too much and they go away. They do not follow Jesus because they're driven by not truth, not for what is true, but they're driven by deceit, by sin, by their own, this is my own fleshly desires.

I don't want truth. I want what's fleshly. And so therefore, I'm not even going to pursue this. But someone who is driven not by deceit but by truth, they'll say, okay, I will come. And I will look at Jesus. And this is exactly what Nathaniel does.

He says, just come and see. And again, Nathaniel could have said, no, I'm all right. But instead, in verse 47, he goes. He goes. Verse 47, Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, behold. in Israel, indeed in whom there is no deceit. He's motivated not by deceit, but by truth.

And so he pursues Jesus. He goes to Jesus. And Jesus, seeing his heart, his motivations, he says, behold in Israel, indeed, where there is no deceit. Now, I get lost here, but Jesus is about to refer to Jacob and the ladder, right? We talked about that last week already, that story. And so what was Jacob's name?

Something along the lines of he cheats, deceit, and his name gets changed to Israel instead. So he's probably alluding to that same, that's what is on Jesus's mind. He's saying that this is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. And I think the point that we're getting at, or the point that's being said here, is that Nathaniel had perhaps every reason to say, I'm not going to even follow.

But because he's not driven by deceit, but by truth, he goes to Jesus. And the next point, true belief is being found by Jesus. True belief is finding Jesus. So since we need to find Jesus, it needs to be done right without deceit. And the next point, Jesus has perfect sight when he's finding us. Jesus has perfect sight when he's finding us. we already read in verse 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit Nathanael said to him how do you know me how do you know my motivations how do you know who I am Jesus answered him before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you Jesus is revealing that he's the son of God here that he knows that he can see within to the heart, and he can see us on the outside wherever we are.

Jesus knows everything. When Jesus is finding his sheep, he knows where they are, he knows their condition, he will find them, he knows them. And so we see that when Jesus is finding us, he sees us perfectly. Where we're at, how to get us, he knows our heart, he knows our motivation. He sees Nathanael and knows everything. And so the only response to this, right, when we see just how much Jesus knows, how much he knows us, the only response is what he gives in verse 49, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

You are the King of Israel. That is the only proper response when we come toe-to-toe with the majesty of the divinity of Jesus Christ. I'll never forget coming to faith in Christ truly at 18 and just realizing how much Jesus knows me. Reading in the scriptures and seeing how much he knew my motivations, how much he knew my sin, how much he knew who I was truly.

It's not hidden from Christ Jesus at all, is it? He knows everything. And Philip comes toe to toe with that revelation of the divinity of Jesus and he confesses his belief. you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. He saw, he tried, he went and saw, he tasted and saw. But it doesn't stop there.

So Jesus is perfect sight when he finds us, but his doesn't stop there like a parlor trick. Look what I can do. It's pretty cool, isn't it? But he does it to bring us to a greater place. This is what Jesus does. He finds us to bring us to life.

He finds us, he knows us, he can retrieve us, and he does so to bring us to a greater place. And this is what he goes on to tell Nathaniel. He says in verse 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. I don't think Jesus is saying, man, that's kind of silly that you already believe upon me just because I saw that you were under the fig tree and I know you.

I think he's simply saying that, okay, you believe that, but just wait until you see what I can do for you. You have this belief because you seen my ability to see who you are to know who you are from the inside out Just wait until you can see You see greater things Just wait until you see what I can do for you. And that's what he goes on to say in verse 51.

He said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. He's saying, this is what I'm going to do. You're going to see greater things than simply me being able to know you from the inside out, you're going to see salvation play out before you. Remember what we talked about.

He's referring to Jacob and his ladder. Remember Jacob is fleeing, and he has a dream one night, and the dream is there's a ladder from heaven down to earth, and angels are ascending and descending on this ladder. And Jacob wakes up, and he realizes, man, this is the house of God. This is the very gateway to heaven itself. This is the presence of God manifested right here.

I didn't even know it. And when Jesus says you're going to see greater things than this, you're going to see angels ascending and descending on not the ladder, but on Jesus Christ, on the Son of Man, on me. So what he's saying is you're going to see the very presence and salvation of God. I have found you and know who you are, and you have found me so that I can bring you salvation and the presence of God.

This is what true belief brings, the salvation of God. you'll see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Look at Hebrews chapter 1. Look at Hebrews chapter 1. Remember at the very end, chapter 1, the main point of the book is that Jesus is better. don't go to the shadows and the old covenant practices of worship, but rather go to Jesus.

He's better than angels. Verse 14, he talks about angels. He says, are they not all, that is angels, are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? You see the picture there. This is what angels do. they go out and serve for the purpose that salvation would be sent abroad right are they not all ministering or serving spirits for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation they are to go and help for those who are the sheep the chosen those people who are to receive salvation they are sent to serve them And so Jesus going back to our text in the angels of God you see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man As they're going to serve salvation, as they're going to pursue and give salvation, it's going to be on the back of Jesus Christ.

Because he is the very gateway to heaven, he's the very tool that is used to bring us near to God. So Jesus here, as he's finding his disciples, as they're finding him, he says, you're going to see greater things. You're going to see salvation play out. You're going to see me die. You're going to see me be perfectly righteous. Fulfill the law perfectly in ways that you cannot do because you're a lost sheep.

And you're going to see me, despite my perfection, you're going to see me die like a criminal on the cross for your sins. And you're going to see a dead man rise up to new life and conquer death and sin and bring you together with the Father. You are marveling because I knew you were under a fig tree and I know your heart. You're going to see salvation.

You're going to see your very union with the Father through my work. And this is true belief and the fruit of, that is, life. So we must understand that true belief, again, is being found by Jesus, finding Jesus, not allowing any obstacle in the way. I don't care. I'm going to pursue Christ Jesus the Lord. I'm going to do it without deceit.

And we see that he knows us perfectly. He sees us from the inside out. But it's not to harm us, but rather to bring us unto the fold and salvation and presence of God. You understand, right? in Revelation, Jesus has eyes of fire. He sees everything. And that's for his judgment.

But beloved, you understand that when you are found by Christ and when you find him, he sees you all so he brings you unto salvation? To not minister God's wrath, but his love and peace and joy? That Jesus would pursue you? That you could pursue him? He would know everything about you to bring you unto close to the Father. How can we not have true belief upon this Jesus.

If this is truly available for us right now how can we not leave everything and follow Jesus who has done this great work for us How can we turn around and go somewhere else Whether you are an unbeliever and have never believed upon him, how can you do anything else but to seek after the one who's seeking after you? Or whether you are a seasoned believer who is distraught and discouraged, do you not know that you have a shepherd who loves you? Do you not know that he pursues you?

He seeks after you? He finds you? And he says, you get to seek me, and I'll bring you unto greater pastures? How can we abandon such a thing like that? This is the love of Christ Jesus for you, beloved. Every one of us who would look upon him, who would seek him out.

Do not be deceived. Do not go after other things. Do not go after things in which the devil says, no, this is better for you. An obstacle is put up. Well, what about that about Jesus? Take that deceit out of your heart by the aid of Jesus Christ and pursue Christ instead. let us seek out this Jesus who has done good things for his sheep.

Let's pray. Oh Father, we thank you for Christ Jesus the Lord. We thank you, God, that true belief is to be found by him, but also it's to find him, to pursue him. Lord, may our lives be marked as one in which we delight in seeking out this Christ. I'm so thankful, Lord, that this Christ knows everything about us. He knows our hearts.

He knows where we are. And as he pursues us, he pursues us perfectly with this knowledge. So I pray, God, that every one of us in this room would seek out Jesus without deceit. Lord, we know we are in need of the Spirit to work in our hearts for this to be possible. We know that Nathanael, the one whom Jesus says is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, in which drove him to seek out Jesus.

We know that without the Spirit working in him, he would have been like everyone else, who said, nope, that doesn't sound right. I'm going somewhere else. I'd rather my sin. We know we're in need of the Spirit. So God, we ask, I ask for him to enter into us more and more to cause us to see that it is life to pursue Jesus Christ. Life is found in him.

The union with the Father through his work of his death and resurrection. So may we seek him out today as he can be found and delight ourselves in the pursuit, knowing that he first finds us by his work and power. Thank you, Lord, for all that's laid up for us in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We praise you for him now. In Jesus' name, amen.