Witnesses, Seekers, & Skeptics | Sunday, March 24, 2024

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:1–5)

Three witnesses, some seekers, and a skeptic—and a Savior who came seeking them all.

Palm Sunday and the Calling to Be Witnesses

Today is Palm Sunday, an important day on the church calendar. We've been studying Judges in the Old Testament, but we're detouring to the New Testament book of John. One of the pitfalls Christians fall into is assuming the people we interact with already know the stories of Scripture—and that is increasingly untrue in our culture.

Palm Sunday celebrates the day Jesus entered Jerusalem at the beginning of the passion week, which culminates in the crucifixion on Good Friday and the focus of next Sunday, Resurrection Sunday. As Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, multitudes sang from Psalm 118, "Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," waving palm branches and laying them before him. "Hosanna" means save us now. They were proclaiming him as King and Messiah.

Rather than rehearse the beginning of the end of the story, I want to go back to the very beginning—John chapter 1. Among the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic gospels because they give basically the same synopsis of Jesus's life and ministry. John is different, and it is a beautiful story. Today I want to look at three witnesses, some seekers, and a skeptic.

From the Beginning, God Sent Witnesses

John's gospel opens with some of the most beautiful writing in literature—and for Christians, divinely inspired Scripture. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This Word, the logos, is not a thing but a person, the Creator through whom all things were made.

If you are a believer and follower of Christ, God has called you. We sometimes think God calls missionaries, worship pastors, preachers, and evangelists, but not us. Yet in Acts 1 Jesus said, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me"—in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts. If he said it to us, he would say you shall be witnesses unto me in Escondido and North County and California and to the uttermost parts.

Peter says we are to "proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2). In Mark 16, Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." If you're a follower of Jesus, you are called to be a witness.

In verse 6 we read, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe." The word witness is the Greek word from which we get martyr. When we hear "martyr," we may think of Foxe's Book of Martyrs and feel uncertain we want that. But the basic meaning is a proclaimer, a witness.

This is point number one: from the beginning, God sent witnesses to bear witness to his glory. In verse 14 we read, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." God came into this world to show his glory and bring grace and truth, and he ordained witnesses to declare this good news.

John's Message: Behold the Lamb of God

John the Baptist was an early witness of the glory of Christ. On Palm Sunday we have later witnesses crying "Hosanna." But what was John's message? In John 1:29: "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

John was a surly character—wearing camel's hair with a leather belt, eating locusts and honey, preaching in the wilderness and calling people to repent. Multitudes came to hear him, and he baptized people in water. He explains why: "Therefore I came baptizing with water, that he should be revealed to Israel." He bore witness: "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained upon him... and I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God."

God had told John that upon whomever he saw the Spirit descend and remain, that was the one. I have a feeling that as John baptized, he was watching for the Spirit. At a certain point Jesus came to be baptized, and as he came up out of the water, the Spirit descended like a dove and a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." That is why John came to baptize—to reveal Jesus.

When John said "Behold the Lamb of God," his Jewish hearers understood. These were levitical words. The book of Leviticus outlined how the children of Israel could approach a perfectly holy God despite the major problem of sin. To come into God's presence, they had to offer a lamb as a sacrifice for sin. John points to Jesus as the true sacrifice, the Lamb of God, the Son of God who has the very nature of God—the logos who became flesh and dwelt among us, the Incarnation.

Jesus Came for a Sacrificial Purpose

This is at the very beginning of Jesus's ministry—before he has preached, healed the sick, cast out demons, fed the multitudes, or walked on water. From this we discover point number two: from the beginning, Jesus came into the world for an essential, specific, and sacrificial purpose.

What we celebrate this week, especially on Good Friday, was the purpose from the beginning. It's not that Jesus came as a revolutionary preacher who caused trouble and got himself killed. He came for a sacrificial purpose. Good Friday did not happen to Jesus—he came to make it happen.

This is the message the church has preached from its earliest days. The early creed in 1 Corinthians 15 declares "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." John the witness declares it: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

Meeting the Seekers

In verse 35: "Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples." Disciples are followers or learners. The day after he first said it, John repeats himself: "Behold the Lamb of God!" Sometimes people need to be told twice. Effectively John was saying, You will not find what you're looking for from me—follow him.

John is an amazing character because he understood his role. He knew he was a signpost pointing to Jesus, and he had no problem with that. Verse 37: "The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." That was John's intended goal.

Then verse 38: "Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, What do you seek?" This is point number three: Jesus came into the world seeking seekers—and he sends his followers to do the same.

John's task as a witness was now essentially complete. That can be hard for us, because we like followers; it makes us feel important and needed. But our most important and useful role is to point people to Jesus. John knew this so well that in John 3, when people came worried that everyone was now following Jesus instead of him, he said some of the most profound words in Scripture: "He must increase, but I must decrease."

What Are You Seeking?

Jesus asked, "What do you seek?" It's an important question, but we don't always know our own answer. Some seek pleasure—we live in a pleasure-seeking culture. Others seek peace, rest, fortune, wisdom, or knowledge. The 16th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal said, "All men seek happiness." Everybody is looking for something, and Jesus knows that what every person ultimately seeks is found only in him.

Paul writes in Colossians that in Christ "dwells all the fullness of God in bodily form," and only in him are we complete. You will never be satisfied until you find your fullness in him.

The two disciples said, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" Jesus said, "Come and see." Remember those words—they will be important later. They came, saw, and remained with him that day, around the tenth hour.

Finders of Seekers

Verse 40: One of the two was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. "He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, We have found the Messiah (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus."

This is point number four: Jesus aims to make his followers into finders of seekers. Later he will tell Andrew and Peter, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." He wants us on the lookout for people who are looking for something—hope, love, joy, rest, happiness, and ultimately God.

Every person you meet is a seeker of something, and they will be dissatisfied with anything they find in this world, because nothing in this world can satisfy. People sing, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." They are groping in the dark.

Paul spoke about this in Acts 17 in Athens, a city full of temples and idols, with altars even to an unknown God. He told them, "God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is he worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything." People are groping in the dark to find something that will fill their hearts, but they will only find it in him—"for in him we live and move and have our being."

Philip, Nathaniel, and the Skeptic

Verse 43: "The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and he found Philip and said to him, Follow me." I think Philip was the other unnamed disciple from verse 37. Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter. Like Andrew, he became a seeker of seekers. Verse 45: "Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

Now we meet the skeptic. Verse 46: "Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" We all have a Nathanael in our lives—the naysayer who corrects your details, who always has the hard question. And honestly, his question is valid. No major prophecy predicted anything coming from Nazareth.

As we go into the world seeking seekers, we will come across skeptics—and it's often the skeptics who hinder us from sharing the good news, because we fear being asked a question we can't answer. I grew up in the '90s with classes on evangelism and apologetics that taught us to anticipate questions and have answers ready. I love apologetics—I'm getting a doctorate in it—but the problem is those classes can make Christians afraid to talk with people, because there are so many questions we can't fully answer.

Come and See

How did Philip deal with Nathanael? "Philip said to him, Come and see." Where did he learn that answer? A few days before, Jesus had said to him, "Come and see." A good disciple imitates his master. Philip was asked a good question, didn't have a polished answer, and simply said, "Come and see."

That is a valid answer to hard questions. People will ask cosmological questions and raise dilemmas about evil in the world, and you don't always need to say, "Here's the answer." Sometimes you simply say, "Come and see." This is what we might call come and see evangelism.

Here's the wonderful thing about skeptics like Nathanael—point number five: Jesus loves turning skeptics into saints. He's been doing it for thousands of years, and he's quite good at it. I'm a natural skeptic, and there are probably more than a few skeptical, cynical people in this room. Sometimes the answer to your fear is simply, "Come and see"—come check it out and see whether Jesus really is the Christ and the Messiah.

Do the Work of an Evangelist

I share all this on Palm Sunday because I want to encourage you to fulfill your calling by doing the work of an evangelist—someone who shares the good news that Jesus called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. There are people in your neighborhood, your family, your workplace, and your school who are groping in the dark, trying to find satisfaction they will never find in this world. It is only found in Christ.

If he has called you out of that darkness and into his marvelous light, he has called you to share that good news. And you do not have to have every answer to every hard question. All you have to do is imitate your Lord and say, "Come and see." Amen.

Closing Prayer

Father God, thank you for these three witnesses—Andrew, Philip, and John—these seekers who became witnesses, and this skeptic. Lord, connected to every single person standing in this room today are dozens and hundreds and even thousands of seekers and skeptics who are groping in the darkness, seeking satisfaction, trying to fill some void in their lives, and they will never find it in the things of this culture or this world. Lord, would you give us by your Spirit the enabling power and boldness to share the good news of you who called us out of darkness into your marvelous light—you who have made us a people who previously were not a people, you who have given us mercy who had not obtained mercy. Lord, would you cause us to be a conduit of that mercy to other people this week and in the coming weeks, because there are so many people here in Southern California who desperately need the good news of your gospel of grace. So God, would you work in and through us. We ask this today in Jesus's name, and all those who agreed said, Amen.