Our scripture this morning is from the Gospel of John and We're gonna read this is early on in the whole story of Jesus and so as we read this together This is kind of when the disciples are first assembling and this is kind of how some of it's coming together And so we hear about this guy named Philip and then who he goes to who he goes to talk to next So let's let's read this together Philip found Nathaniel and told him we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law And about whom the prophets also wrote Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph Nazareth can anything good come from there Nathaniel asked come and see said Philip and when Jesus saw him when Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching He said of him here truly is an Israelite and whom there is no deceit How do you know me Nathaniel asked and Jesus answered? I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you and then Nathaniel declared rabbi You are the son of God. You are the king of Israel Jesus said you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that He then added very truly I tell you you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man This word is true.
It can be trusted This is our scripture for today. My name is Alan. I know a lot of you But not all of you I work at the West of foundation at ULM. I'm part of this church and glad to be here with you today I'm gonna be a little bit on the struggle bus this morning I'm typically I have an iPad that I preach with and so everything's on the iPad and I can zoom it in So I don't have to use my old man glasses But this morning I was on schedule I had everything ready and I send my email to my iPad to go over there and put everything on there and my iPad won't come on So I don't know what's going on, but it's dead So I don't have that today So I have paper and glasses and like I can't even imagine how people did this back in the day But here we go, you know, I'm gonna survive without my electronics So it's March and a lot of you may not be basketball fans You may not care, but you know the term March Madness You may have a bracket that you filled out at work or whatever and you don't even know like 95% of the teams Maybe you haven't watched the basketball game all year But you filled out your bracket for the bracket challenge, whatever When I was a kid and this time of year rolled around my dad and I we were really big Arkansas racer back basketball fans My dad loved basketball like that's his sport.
He played in high school He was pretty good and he just loved watching it love talking about it And so back in the day though when I was in high school or junior high whatever You didn't have the internet with the you know if you wanted to see the bracket You had to get it in the paper that came to your house It was delivered by somebody in a car that chunked this stuff in your yard You know you went out and got it opened it up and there was the NCAA bracket And then so I would cut it out with scissors and take it to my dad and say hey Can you go to work and make a copy of this for me at this magical place where there's a machine that can they can run this paper Like stuff we don't even live in now right? But he would go do that and I would usually get my mom to make a poster Give me a poster board and I would take my ruler and make out my bracket and and do all of this stuff to get ready for the Tournament, you know and the thing about it back then This was before even ESPN was the thing right and so to know and they didn't put all the games on TV So to know what was going on you had to be like watching during a game And they would say the score or the score would run across the bottom and you'd fill it in real quick You know and I remember writing in pencil because I didn't want to mess up because you know if it wrote it in ink And then oh no, I got that score wrong I have to go back and fix it or whatever So really really like but you would we would wait stay up extra to listen to the news to find out if Pepperdine beat You know Northern California state a name or whatever, you know games you didn't even care about so you could get your bracket right and For me it was always to about where Arkansas was in the bracket and that's about the only thing I care more now I don't even look at that stuff. I have all this information I don't even care, but I still keep up with Arkansas and so last night they were playing and we I couldn't find a way to stream The game so I was just gonna keep it on the game cast on my phone And I was kind of keeping up with it as we were kind of getting ready for bed and doing all that kind of stuff And I had it right there And our daughter called us and we were talking around the phone And I kept looking to see what the score was and everything and and so I'm really kind of getting tired also at this point And I'm kind of like gosh Can't they just like get up by 15 or 20 and I just go to bed and I worry about it But they kept they kept being close But I had to know I couldn't go to sleep without knowing like I had to see it I had to have the proof it had to be right there in front of me There's one second left on the clock and Arkansas was up by five and there's there mathematically There's just no way they can lose at that point, but it was like I still needed to know I needed to see it I got needed to see it right there And it would be permanent it would matter it would mean something I could go forward I could sleep well and think about how they're gonna play next week and they all that good stuff well When we see stuff we believe it like that's how you know, it's real and so Philip Bringing his friend Nathaniel to Jesus he was talking to him and saying hey We've found the one the Messiah the guy we've been waiting for and he's like oh Nazareth can anything good come from there? That sounds like a bad idea and Philip just says come and see come and see But that's how we prove it.
That's how we connect we see it and then it's real I mean we still do that today like like if you want to prove you did something, you know, you now We don't really show people things anymore We just we just show them our phone and here's the picture You know when I killed the huge buck or I caught the huge bass or here's the picture when I was at the game with the scoreboard in The background and all my friends or whatever, you know or or hey, here's the picture of the the sonogram We're having a baby. We're gonna be parents or or hey, you know, here's my chicken fried steak I ate last night or whatever people do, you know, we see it And we believe it we see it and it's real and Philip he could have tried to explain a whole lot to us And you know, we really don't know how the conversation really went but we do know that he said come and see come and see He was invited to see the Messiah He was invited to know the true King The one they had been waiting for to see Jesus He was invited in come and see come and see So is this kind of Thinking about all this stuff and you see what's different and what changes and and we hear stories all the time about What God has done what God is doing? I work a lot with college students And and so one of the things that I noticed from time to time is when it when a kid really grows when I see a difference So this one kid that I met probably last January and and and watching him and seeing him kind of go through all of last year He plays baseball at ulem and and watching him and and then in the fall When everybody came back to school we had this Bible study with baseball players and this guy came one time And he never came back and every now and then I get a text. Oh, I got to do this or I got to do that You know he would find every excuse to not come and then this January we had this retreat and for a lot of these players It was like hey, we're not gonna just force Jesus on you, but here's Jesus Come and see, you know, here's this God that's good and this kid cam he uh, there's something snapped on that retreat Like it was like he finally saw it I was talking to him a couple weeks ago and and because I've noticed like since that time like here He's marching out two months later if you ask me Alan Who's the who's the kid that you've been around the past year that you've seen the most change in it will be this kid It's a totally different guy even from the way he's on the field and how he handles himself, but also the way he is off the field It's just different you come and see and you see the change You see something different you can almost see Jesus in this guy and so This story of Philip and his friend Nathaniel like bringing him to Jesus like saying come and see Who's watching the chosen who's watching that anybody all right if you're not raising your hand?
I'm more concerned about your eternal destination than anything. You need to be watching the show. It's so good I don't care You know whatever you're watching on Netflix just pause it just forget about it for a night or whatever Insert that into your viewing thing. It is so good.
All right there. I've said it. I have to say it everywhere I go now I get 10 oh no I don't know but um But anyway when they do this scene in that in that movie in that series And Nathaniel is this guy who's broken like his life is like at an all-time low and His friend Philip shows up then even know that then even hadn't seen him in a while And he just shows up to tell him about Jesus for Nathaniel everything was like on its way up And then it can crash him down and he was doubting God and so like God didn't even see him and Philip is like hey come and see we've really found the one so a lot of you in church today in foundry You're here some of you anyway if we raise hands are here because because Chad said hey come and see Come and see and this whole sermon is not gonna be about the past six seven years or whatever and what Chad did and all this kind of stuff But I know that's part of a lot of people's story come and see a chat invited you to come and see what God could do in this place And you've seen stuff or maybe Chad as your pastor was there for you when you were at your worst When everything crashed down and he said come and see come and see what Jesus can do And I get that and that's important and that's part of why we're all here But his Philip and Nathaniel story goes on is they actually talked to Jesus Jesus tells him something even more and if Chad were standing here today instead of me what he would be telling you is that yeah You're here you came and saw but there's gonna be even more We're gonna see even more of what God is gonna do This is just part of it. This is just the beginning It's not all of it and think about this think about how much more important it is not much more important But think about how important it is to be seen Like we need to see stuff for it to be proven to us you know Whatever the doubting Thomas in this needs to see it But think about what it is to be seen Yes, they had to do a wedding and thankfully my iPad did not die on me during the wedding But we were sitting there and I was standing in this gazebo area where the bridegroom We're gonna be and people were kind of coming down the walkway and going and sitting on this side of the yard or that side of the Art and this mom comes down and there's like maybe six steps And she's walking down and she's got a little guy man like I don't know how old he is But he's little and you know for him to take that steps It's like monstrous, you know the kind of things like that But he's walking down everyone and and he was about halfway down and he looked up because I was riding his field of view And and I looked at him I said hey good job But you know and and then and then the next time he did the step he looked back up at me You know just to smile and see what I was gonna say right and the whole rest of the way down That's how it went for him because he was seen by some weird guy that he didn't know you know Whatever but I saw him and it seems taking those steps It was just awesome And I'm sure you know holding on to his mom's hand and being in that moment like a kid like that Like I mean so little and think about all the massive steps He has to take the rest of his life But how big were those steps in that moment for him?
And we're gonna have his mom right there by his side and and people looking at him and smiling and and seeing him in that moment Like to be seen like for where we are and who we are and then also who we can become is so huge Think about the people in your life like like the people that that are around you like how do you value those people do you see those people? Like seeing your spouse Seeing your kids Seeing the people you work with the people you're with all the time Do you really you really see them? I mean I know sometimes we see people we expect them to do what they're supposed to do You know that kind of stuff because the world has to work and we have to move on But do you really see them? Like for what's going on in their life?
For the struggle But then also for who they can become like seeing their potential like seeing something in them before they see it I know his parents we do this all the time with our kids we we see so much in them Before they can even understand it before they can grab hold of it. That's kind of how God is with us. He sees us Before we understand ourselves before we see ourselves And he sees us no matter how we are because he sees us for who we are and he doesn't just look at what we're going through He sees us right in the middle of all that so yesterday this Devo thing that I've been doing or whatever it was just the story of Gideon or like a small part of the story of Gideon if you remember Gideon's The guy who took 300 dudes and went against like 135,000 You know like his army was pretty big and God said well That's too many guys, you know and then they thinned the army down he goes well That's still too many guys and then eventually he gets down to 300 that are gonna You know do this massive surprise attack on this army that's as big as locus the Bible talks about how in the book of judges that There were so many of them you couldn't even count the camels like that's a lot right you think a camel's pretty big You could figure that stuff out But they were so thick in the land that you couldn't even count the camels so imagine how many people that were I was how many soldiers so anyway, this is just before that this is chapter six or so of judges It says the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terra bent at offer which belonged to Joash the Abbe's right Whose son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites the Midianites or the people that They're about to battle and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said the Lord is with you Oh mighty man of valor and Gideon said to him please sir if the Lord is with us Why then has all this happened to us and where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers were counted to us Saying did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian and the Lord turned to him and said Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian Do not I send you and he said to him, please Lord How can I save Israel behold my clan is the weakest in the nasa and I'm the least in my father's house and the Lord said to him But I will be with you and you shall strike the Midianites down as one man And he said to him if now I have found favor in your eyes and show me a sign that it is you who speak with me Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you And he said I will stay till you return God approaches Gideon to call him to lead Israel in a very important battle and calls him a mighty man of valor Where does he find this mighty man?
He finds him threshing wheat in a winepress He's doing something indoors that you normally do outdoors because he's afraid of the very people whom God is going Who's calling him to attack God calls him a mighty man not because of Gideon's natural strength and courage But because of what Gideon will be able to do in the power that God will give him We know this is true because God begins his statement with these words the Lord is with you poor fearful Gideon even questions that Then Gideon essentially says God you must have the wrong address I'm the least son of the most inconsequential tribe in all of Israel How in the world do you expect me to save Israel as this statement reveals Gideon both misunderstands who he is and who God is If you fail to remember who God is in his power glory and grace and you forget who you are as a child in his family You will always Mismeasure your potential to do what God has called you to do you will measure your capability based on your natural gifts And the size of whatever it is that God has chosen you to face Thankfully since God is with you You've been blessed with wisdom and power beyond your own that give you potential you would not have on your own We're chosen people called out of darkness and into light and God sees us For more than we are right now. He called Gideon mighty man of valor. The Gideon hasn't done anything, but his chores He's done nothing but God saw who he could become I mean how powerful is that I mean God's not messing around like he's calling us to do his work And he says I will be with you Like don't worry about what you haven't done. Don't worry about 135,000 Medianites think about what I can do through you and as a church I think we we misunderstand that sometimes we think it's just all about us doing a few things to make it happen or whatever No, God wants to do stuff in us and through us for his kingdom.
We're all still a part of this massive story But when we make it about us and about how we feel Then we lose sight of what God wants to do we lose sight really of what God can do in us God sees us right where we are but he sees us for so much more than we're in right now He sees us because he knows what he can do through us and the difference that can make like now and eternally Call it long game call it big picture call it whatever you want, but God sees us And he sees the little steps we're making But he sees the big steps that we're gonna make later to and he wants to use us And so the last part of this story of Philip and Nathaniel is the conversation they have when they actually get to Jesus like Nathaniel told him hey come and see and so they eventually go and they get to Jesus and they meet him and They have this moment there where Jesus Jesus says hey, here's a true Israelite in whom there's nothing false and the thing He's like how do you know me? I've never seen you before My buddy here just told me about some guy from Nazareth a place that no one thinks anything good comes from But you know me you see me and then he tells him that I saw you under the fig tree And the way they do it in the chosen. It's like I saw you in your pain. I saw you when you felt alone Like I saw you They've been a thing you later says that he knew me before he knew me That's how that's how deeply what Jesus did in that moment touch him like it was like God knew it And so he's like you are the Messiah you were the Son of God You're the one we've been waiting for and then Jesus says you believe just because I told you that That's it.
That's all it took you're gonna see even greater things than that You're gonna see much greater things. I didn't just call you just for this moment. Just so I could say hey I saw you under the fig tree. It's not just about that moment where we switch where where our life is like opened up to God It's about all the moments after that to you Like God just doesn't want a whole bunch of people that wear his t-shirts and you know, you know I mean that's not God wants an army For his kingdom that goes into the world and brings light to the darkness It's not just about that moment under the fig tree.
It's so much more than that And so he says you're gonna see greater things you're gonna see heaven opened and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man So when Jesus says this stuff to Nathaniel who's a true Israelite who's a guy who's been waiting for the Kingdom of God and waiting for the Messiah Son of Man heaven open angels ascending and descending all that stuff like goes way back into the Old Testament times And they he would have thought about the prophet Daniel using the words son of man and a son of man on the throne that And he had dominion forever like that that would have been a key thing for Nathaniel in that moment to hear that phrase And then he says heaven open and angels ascending and descending like that goes all the way back to their ancestor Jacob You remember Abraham Isaac and Jacob and Jacob left and you know did the whole thing where he tricked his dad and stole his brother's birth Right and all that stuff with any was out there on the run and he has that dream like Jacob's ladder dream, right? And you can read it in Genesis it talks about the angels Ascending and descending on the ladder and there's a couple things in here that that connect with exactly right where we are He says he had a dream where he saw a stairway resting on earth with its top reaching to heaven and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it And there above it or beside it stood the Lord and he said I am the Lord the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac I will give you and your descendants to the land on which you are lying your descendants Will be like the dust of the earth and you will spread out to the west into the east to the north and to the south All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land I will not leave you until I have done what I've promised you The sentence that go out to the north and the south and the east and the west all over the place and I will be with you So in the annual here's Jesus say that like heaven open and angels ascending and descending He's thinking about the promise that was made to Jacob right there in that moment And the promise to Abraham two generations before that that God is with them and that all peoples on the earth will be blessed through you That's the greater stuff the greater things that Jesus is talking to Nathaniel about and that God is talking to us about At boundary we have that like greater things right at some point, you know that was our deal Greater things So where we are now is not where we stay because God has called us to greater things Where you are today in your life in your relationship with Jesus as You go and do what you do in your job and in your family in your world of existence. It's not right here It's way more Greater things Jesus says later and this is where the foundry thing came in was that that I will do even you will do even greater things than what I'm doing Because I am with you and that's what God said to Gideon. That's what he said to Jacob.
That's what Jesus says to us I am with you and because I'm with you like Gideon the mighty man of valor I will do greater things in you and through you And so as we move through these next few months and and there's this transition and as a church We don't know, you know what it's gonna look like and all God is thinking is greater things And even his chat and there's transition to Alexandria all God is thinking for them is greater things He's not worried about where we are He sees us right where we are and he sees even greater things down the road his kingdom Greater things Let's pray Father we thank you that you are faithful When our iPads crash when people transition out of our lives when things don't go the way we planned them out When we're on one side of the hill with 300 guys and there's 135 on the other side When we feel like we're outmatched out numbered Let us know that that's never the case Because you are with us and because you are with us We will see greater things And so God I pray that everyone hears that today that in your heart right now as we pray this prayer that you know That the King of the universe sees you right where you are mistakes and all and all he wants is For you to trust him to let go of the past to let him forgive you of your sin to let him set you up in a new way to walk into the greater