JOHN084 - You'll See Better Things Than That and You'll Believe

John 1:43-50

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Music by Jeff Foote

Transcript

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Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast, and I hope you are having a super day. I got a little koi pond in the backyard. It's not that impressive, but it's really unimpressive when it has a string algae bloom. So I was like, today's the day. I'm just going to get in the pond and I'm going to start ripping out algae with my bare hands. And I did it. My little fish were in there with me, and they were like, thank you. They didn't say it, but they felt it. I could feel it. I ripped all that algae out. Now it looks better. I'm going to make it look better yet tomorrow. And then there was a sprinkler line that broke, and I dug a big hole. It was under some patio stone. So we had to pull all that out. And my son helped me. A couple of his friends happened to come over. And rather than being like, we don't do things like that, we do video games without even being asked. They were like, ooh, mud pit, let's fix it. And they all jumped in there, all up to our elbows and goop. It's so much fun. And we fixed it. It totally works. I got a video out today on my YouTube channel. I made a video about a Native American Catholic church with a whole bunch of Arapaho accoutrements. Very interesting video. It's been a long process to get that finish lined. Now it's done. My buddy Hunter helped me with that. He crushed it. And then I had uh a little guest appearance here. Was it maybe yesterday, the day before, something like that? And I haven't been telling you about the guest appearances because it feels weird and snooty. They've been a lot better than I expected. They've been pretty cool. I wrote this book six weeks ago. We've talked about it a ton. I know some of you are new, some bringing everybody up to speed. I wrote this book called The Lightning Fast Field Guide to the Bible. HarperCollins put it out in their subsidiary, Zonderman, and they're really good at publishing books, right? So at some point in the book publishing process, somebody sat me down and they were like, hey, we're gonna put on a bunch of like shows and stuff, YouTube and podcasts and old school radio and some TV stuff. And it doesn't have to be hard. Just show up, talk about the Bible. Everybody we put you with, they're all pros. They're gonna make it fun. And uh, you know, we'll just kind of get the word out about the book and we'll end about the podcast. I know a lot of you are are new here, probably because of one of these little appearances I've been doing lately. And I really didn't know what to expect. I thought that it would be kind of weird, and maybe I was a little amped up because you know, I did get sat down and they're like, hey, things are about to get interesting. You're about to get a bunch of weird unsolicited emails from scammers and stuff. When you publish a book, that just it's gonna happen. You're gonna hear from a lot of people posing as famous authors. Don't worry, no famous author actually likes your book. It's people pretending to be them to try to get you to give them money. And it's just, you know, hey, first time publishing a book, it's gonna get weird for a while. You're gonna see some very interesting stuff, and you're gonna do these appearances. Okay, well, you know, they framed it up the right way, but you know, maybe I was kind of coming into it a little bit nervous, but they've been really cool. The conversations have been fun, and part of the reason I'm having a super day is because uh again, yeah, yesterday, a couple days ago, whatever it was, I had another one of these appearances, and it was super. I had a conversation with a lady named Janet Parshall, like Marshall, but with a P. And she's like an old school pros pro radio host. She does a syndicated show on Moody Radio, and she actually read the book. It was pretty cool. I got on there and she had really smart questions, and we had a lovely chat, and it was very fun. And she, I mean, she honored me, she did like a big push. Like, you should go check out the book, you should go check out the 10-minute Bible hour, the podcast. And so, oh, I remember when I was, it was two days ago, and here's how I know because the day that I was on that lovely program with this lovely lady with this lovely audience, she does this huge push to send people over here. And some of you are here because of her. And what do I do? The episode about the gigantic pea dream, the the ancient Persian pea dream. That's what I did, and the thing with the vine and the womb and all of that, like people eating people, just I mean, I wonder how many people came in and are like, what is this dumpster fire of a program? And quickly left. But those of you who are still here from Janet Parshall's recommendation, thank you for hanging around and giving me a chance to uh to make it up to you after the uh Persian-era Bible history pea dream incident of two episodes ago. There is actually stuff about the Bible that I want to talk with you about today, so that we should probably get into. And it kind of relates to what we were just talking about. We're in John chapter one, and we've been hanging around on this introduction of the character Nathaniel. Nathaniel and Jesus are meeting. Nathaniel is wowed by something Jesus said to him that we don't totally understand why it's wowing, but it really worked on Nathaniel. Jesus just says, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you. And Nathaniel is like, Whoa, rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel. And I don't, he's not being snarky, because in verse 50, Jesus, who knows all things, confirms that Nathaniel means it. Jesus said, You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that. He then added, I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. This is kind of an important little moment. We just need to put a marker along the way. Here we are almost on episode 90, and I just read to you the last verse from John chapter one, meaning that we're currently on track for nine trillion episodes in this season. Don't worry about that. It's it's all gonna, everything's gonna work out, it's gonna be fine. But what a great ending to chapter one, because Jesus teases that amazing things are coming down the pike, and he's hinting that it's okay to believe because you saw it. It's okay to believe because of evidence, but also later on, he's gonna echo this affirmation of Nathaniel's belief right at the end of the book of John, in an encounter he has with Thomas after Jesus is put to death and raised back to life, and one of his disciples, who will come along here in just a little bit, he isn't around when Jesus starts showing back up and he doesn't know what to make of the whole thing. Everybody's telling him, like, Jesus is back to life, and he's like, I unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were and put my hand in his side, I will not believe it. So that's kind of weird given everything Thomas had seen for him to dig in like that, but hey, it was honest. Now, before I read you the way this scene finishes out here at the end of John in John chapter 20, we're about to read verse 26. We just gotta set this up. Jesus was not there when Thomas said that stuff. And Thomas was very specific. I gotta see the nail marks in his hands, and I gotta put my finger where the nails were, and I gotta put my hand into his side. Those are my conditions for belief. If I don't see that, if I don't behold that, I am not going to believe it. It's very specific, right? Well, kind of reminds you of something very specific that's hinted at in John chapter 1. Nathaniel was saying or doing or thinking or something underneath that fig tree. And somehow Jesus knew what it was exactly, and that translated into lifelong devotion from Nathaniel. Okay, back to John 20. Let's see how it plays out with Thomas. John 20, 26. A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came in and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Oh, put your finger here. See my hands? Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. Dang. I mean, it's the exact same thing, right? Thomas gave this incredibly specific list of things that Jesus would have to do if he is going to believe. And then Jesus shows up and somehow he knows exactly what that incredibly specific list of things is. Not only is he back from the dead, but he just knows stuff that he shouldn't be able to know. And he knows exactly what needs to be said to Thomas, whose name is forever linked to the action of doubting. He knows exactly what to say to him, to flip Thomas from stubborn, dug-in, highly conditional disbelief to Thomas experiencing hearing what Jesus said. And what happens next? Verse 28. Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God. Well, there it is. There's that one bit of the confession that, as we've looked at confessions over the last few days, was missing. We've seen everything else, the king of Israel, the son of man, the son of David, the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah. We've seen all of those confessions of Christ from the disciples in one place or another where we've been looking around lately. But now we get the big one. My Lord and my God. Jesus isn't just some guy. Jesus isn't somebody who God created and raised up to saviorhood later on, like a really good version of you and me. He's God the Son, God from time immemorial, God who is the maker of all things, and through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made. God who is life and light, God who was in the beginning, and God who was with God, and God who was God. Everything that John, the evangelist, says about Jesus in the opening lines of the Gospel of John, now finally the disciples are seeing it, you know, in real time, action on the page style by the very end of the Gospel of John as well. So we have this amazing confessional symmetry. The circumstances around it are very similar between Nathaniel at the very, very beginning and Thomas at the very very end. Both of them thought some stuff, both of them probably said some stuff. Jesus somehow knew what it was. And well, also he came back from the dead, which is pretty impressive. And that was enough for combined Nathaniel early on and Thomas at the very end for them to confess combined, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel, my Lord, and my God. That is a pretty comprehensive confession of Christ. But how does John 1 round out? Well, in the same way that I had somebody sit me down a while back here and be like, hey, you're about to experience some, you know, it's just some uh wild stuff, stuff that you haven't seen before. No, it's just book publishing, it's not that wild, it's just some weird emails and some you know guest appearances and meeting some new people and stuff. It's been cool, but in the same way, somebody was nice enough to give me a heads up, like, hey, this is gonna be interesting. This is this is gonna be a little different, what you experience next. So Jesus goes over the top and doesn't promise, hey, this will be interesting, or this will be a fascinating new chapter, or you're gonna get some weird emails. No, no, no, no, no. Instead, he issues this warning, this promise, if you will. Hey Nathaniel, you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree, you shall see greater things than that. Well, clearly he did. What kind of greater things? I don't know, nature surrendering to Jesus' voice, demon legions evicted, lepers cleansed, outcasts restored, dead people coming back to life. How about this one? A fig tree that withers under prophetic judgment of fish with a predicted coin in its mouth to pay temple taxes, feeding thousands of people from one lunchbox, and ultimately the most remarkable thing of all, Jesus himself being put to death and coming back to life. Yeah. Yeah, Jesus' prediction that Nathaniel was going to see some stuff. And if you thought me knowing things about you under the fig tree was impressive, oh yeah. What do you see? This other stuff. That prediction, uh, it worked out. If anything, it's a slight understatement on Jesus' part. So there's this interesting relationship as we get out of the end of John chapter one between seeing stuff and believing what you saw and confessing things that are true about Christ. And it all kind of fits together. It's a little teaser, it's a little example of what John is trying to get us as readers to do, which is believe. Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Those words are the very next thing in John chapter 20, after the Thomas incident. It's the very next verse after the Thomas incident. Jesus says, Because you've seen me, you've believed. Blessed are those you've not seen and yet have believed. Jesus did a whole bunch of other stuff, but this is written down so that you would believe, and that by believing you would have life in his name. The point is this it's not just for the people who lived back then, it's for us. It's not just for those who got to see it firsthand with their own eyes, it's for us. That's why John is writing all of these things down. He's very direct with it. And the process of belief that these guys went through as they gradually at their own paces figured out who Jesus is and then confessed him and believed, that process is also our process. And that process, by the grace of God, gave the disciples who confessed him rightly and followed him life in his name. And that process, which is by the grace of God and the work of God alone, does the same thing in the lives of people today. And this is the Christian hope. And that Christian hope is it's played out in microcosm in John 1, and the promise of it all is played out there. And just in case you forget what happened in John 1, you get a matching symmetrical process of belief moment at the end of it all in John chapter 20. And yeah, for you and me as we continue to work through this thing, we're gonna see some pretty incredible stuff as well. Looking forward to unwrapping it with you. Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.