1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock,
and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 2nd
Sunday after the Epiphany is taken from John 1:43-51, it’s entitled, “The God Who Calls,” dear brothers and
sisters in Christ.
2.
Paul
Harvey, the famous radio star, tells about a raw winter night on which a farmer
heard a thumping sound against the kitchen door. He went to a window and
watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the warmth inside, beat in
vain against the glass storm door. The
farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn for the
struggling birds. He turned on the lights, tossed some hay in a corner, and
sprinkled a trail of crackers to direct them to the barn. But the sparrows hid
in the darkness, afraid of him. He tried
various tactics: circling behind the birds to drive them toward the barn,
tossing crumbs in the air toward them, retreating to his house to see if they
would flutter into the barn on their own. Nothing worked. He had terrified
them; the birds couldn’t understand that he was trying to help them. He withdrew to his house and watched the
doomed sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like
lightning from a clear blue sky: If only
I could become a bird—one of them—just for a moment, then I would not frighten
them so. I could show them the way to warmth and safety. At the same moment,
another thought dawned on him: He had
grasped the whole principle of the incarnation, of Jesus taking on human flesh
to suffer and die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
3.
Jesus
our Immanuel, God with us, has taken on human flesh in order to call us to
Himself for our salvation. Here in the
first chapter of John’s Gospel we see the God who calls us to the forgiveness
of our sins and to follow Him. The first
chapter of John’s Gospel has been called, “chapter
of great finds.” And that description
fits well. For again and again we read
of people “finding’ and of people
being “found.” Of Andrew, we read that “He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found
the Messiah” (which means Christ)” (John 1:41). Of Philip, we are told that he “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.” And of
the Savior Himself we read that “He found
Philp and said to him, “Follow Me.” It’s
such finding and being found of which John 1:43-51 speaks. Here in our text from God’s Word this morning
we see the God Who Calls Us into His
family to eternal life.
4.
Andrew
had told his brother Simon, “We have
found the Messiah.” He would have
spoken more correctly if he had said, “The
messiah has found us!” The piece of
steel may say, “I have found the magnet,”
But that will never change the fact that it was the magnet that attracted the piece
of steel. In the parable of the lost
sheep, it was the sheep that was lost and not the shepherd. In the parable of
the lost coin, it was the coin that was lost and not the woman who owned it
(Luke 15). The sheep couldn’t find the
shepherd, and the coin couldn’t find its owner, and so the shepherd went out in
search of the sheep, and the woman searched high and low for her coin until she
found it.
5.
It
is this kind of finding that the evangelist records in John 1:43: “Jesus found Philip.” This is just one example among many of
the God Who Calls us into His family. Philip was found by his Savior, just as is
every sinner who comes to Christ.
Luther, in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed,
says, “I believe that I cannot by my own
reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the
Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel.” (Luther’s Small Catechism with
Explanation, pg. 147). Paul, in speaking
of the manner of his coming to the Savior, says he was “apprehended” by the Lord—literally the word means that he was
overtaken by the Lord and “laid hold of”
while he was trying to run away. And at
the end of his life, as he reflects upon the manner in which the Lord “found” him and took him into His
kingdom, Paul wrote to his student Timothy, “God
saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because
of HIs own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages
began” (2 Tim. 1:9). If anyone had
asked Paul whether he had found Christ or Christ had found him, there can be no
doubt as to how he would have answered.
This is The God Who Calls us
into His Kingdom.
6.
It’s
a source of endless comfort to us as believers to know that among the millions
who crowd the highways and byways of this topsy-turvy world, his Lord found
him, singled him out and called him as His own.
To every one of us, Jesus our Savior calls us and says, personally and
individually: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are
Mine” (Isaiah 43:1).
7.
Jesus
found Philip. He’s the God who Calls us to salvation. Yes, and what a happy day
for Philip! Jesus found you too! What a blessed thought! You are his, and He is yours—because His love
found you and took you to be His very own.
“Oh, the height of Jesus’ love, Higher
than the heav’ns above, Deeper than the depths of sea, Lasting as
eternity! Love that found me—wondrous
thought! Found me when I sought Him not. (LSB 611:2)
8.
Here
in John chapter 1 we see that through the spoken Word of God, the Holy Spirit called
Philip and Nathanael, and they were brought to Jesus, He worked in them and
they followed Jesus, and He created in them a longing to be with Him. Through the spoken Word, the Holy Spirit
worked faith in them so that they might see more than Jesus, they might see the
Christ that He was.
9.
The
common thing that brought these men to Jesus, created the following of Jesus,
and made them want to be with Jesus was the spoken Word. Through this Word of God they would see
Jacob’s ladder between heaven and earth replaced with a human ladder. The flesh and blood of the Son of Man would
be rungs of this ladder that was fixed to a cross. As there is no Jesus apart from the spoken
Word, so also there is no faith apart from it, no disciple of Jesus apart from
the spoken Word, and no path of discipleship in Jesus apart from the spoken
Word. Praise be to the God Who Calls Us into His family through
His Word, through Jesus, the Word made flesh!!!
Amen.
10. Prayer: Blessed Lord Jesus, we thank you with our
whole heart that, although we have wandered far across the wilderness of sin,
Your gracious love has found us. Make
and keep us ever grateful for Your mercy.
Grant that, as Philip was found by You and as he gave his life to You,
so we may give ourselves to You and follow in Your steps. Keep us faithful, blessed Lord, faithful unto
death, and grant to us, according to your promise, the crown of eternal
life. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment