As I was studying this passage, I happened to be listening to a sermon from Perry Noble, Pastor at NewSpring Community Church. It was more of a training than a sermon. He was traveling across South Carolina, to their other campuses and leading evangelism conferences. He referenced this verse and came up with this catchy phrase based off of John 1:43-45 and it stuck with me. Upon further research into their church, they use this statement as a core belief in their church for evangelism/outreach.
So here is what I was seeing as I read this passage and then you will see how the "found people find people" idea finds it's importance.
Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee He found Philip and said to him, "Follow Me."
44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
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, son of Joseph."
This passage is huge and I am sure that you can already see the first part of this "Greater Things" idea here....
1. Jesus found Philip - We all have a tendency to say, "I found God" or "when I found God, __________" but the reality of this idea is, God finds us. Yes, there are very specific passages in the Bible that tell us to search and seek for God, I love those verses, but the idea, in view of this passage is that God was never lost. and even better, He knows our exact location, always. For us, our seeking comes as a response to Him finding us first. God is not playing some cosmic game of hide and seek with us.
- I have been doing some research and I will post my findings of the "Hide & Seek" idea when I am finished.
2. "Follow Me" - This is huge and will be discussed in one of the next posts. Remember this simple statement because it truly unlocks the fullness of the passage. What does it mean to follow? Think about that for a while, it deserves some real thought to be grasped deeply. One of our students defined it this way..."to imitate Christ" - BINGO!
3. Philip found Nathanael - if "follow" means to imitate, and Christ found Philip, what else was Philip supposed to do, but go find someone himself. When you have met the Savior, life will never be the same as we once knew it. Philips immediate imitation shows the urgency of this.
So we put this principle into practice on night 1 of the 4 part series of "Greater Things" back in January 2013. The "what" was now defined....found people find people! So we asked each student to write names of the friends that they were going to invite to the 4th night of the series on sticky notes and we displayed them for 3 straight weeks as a visual reminder.
On the night of the 4th lesson, I was busy getting the praise band all set for the evening and finishing up the final touches of the lesson when some of our leadership students walked in and started placing more chairs around the room. I stopped what I was doing and told them to not do that. We wanted the kids packed in and sitting close. "You don't understand," one of the guys said to me, "we are going to need every chair we have." I didn't believe them because we have done "invite a friend" emphasis before and after 17 years of being a Youth Minister, I have pretty much nailed what to expect....I was dead wrong on this one.
I'm a big believer in visuals and on this night, they created the visual by living out this biblical idea that we talked about for 3 straight weeks. It was awesome to watch their eyes light up when the Bible came alive that night for many students. The number 1 excuse I get from students about why they don't read their Bibles is "it doesn't relate"...they can't say that anymore! This was truly a "Greater Things" moment for me, the regular students who attend and those who were invited. There is nothing "Greater" in my opinion than to see the "I don't get it" light bulb disappear from a teenagers life and watch it be replaced with the "Holy Smokes, I get it now" bulb.
Jesus promises to show us "Greater Things" and through faith in these incredibly relevant Biblical stories (despite by lack of faith in the actual follow through), we got to see John 1:43-45 come alive on January 27th, 2013.
So we discussed the "what"....."find people," the toughest thing to do is the "how" and we will take a look at that "Greater Things" moment in the next post....John 1:46.
- Jay
This passage is huge and I am sure that you can already see the first part of this "Greater Things" idea here....
1. Jesus found Philip - We all have a tendency to say, "I found God" or "when I found God, __________" but the reality of this idea is, God finds us. Yes, there are very specific passages in the Bible that tell us to search and seek for God, I love those verses, but the idea, in view of this passage is that God was never lost. and even better, He knows our exact location, always. For us, our seeking comes as a response to Him finding us first. God is not playing some cosmic game of hide and seek with us.
- I have been doing some research and I will post my findings of the "Hide & Seek" idea when I am finished.
2. "Follow Me" - This is huge and will be discussed in one of the next posts. Remember this simple statement because it truly unlocks the fullness of the passage. What does it mean to follow? Think about that for a while, it deserves some real thought to be grasped deeply. One of our students defined it this way..."to imitate Christ" - BINGO!
3. Philip found Nathanael - if "follow" means to imitate, and Christ found Philip, what else was Philip supposed to do, but go find someone himself. When you have met the Savior, life will never be the same as we once knew it. Philips immediate imitation shows the urgency of this.
So we put this principle into practice on night 1 of the 4 part series of "Greater Things" back in January 2013. The "what" was now defined....found people find people! So we asked each student to write names of the friends that they were going to invite to the 4th night of the series on sticky notes and we displayed them for 3 straight weeks as a visual reminder.
On the night of the 4th lesson, I was busy getting the praise band all set for the evening and finishing up the final touches of the lesson when some of our leadership students walked in and started placing more chairs around the room. I stopped what I was doing and told them to not do that. We wanted the kids packed in and sitting close. "You don't understand," one of the guys said to me, "we are going to need every chair we have." I didn't believe them because we have done "invite a friend" emphasis before and after 17 years of being a Youth Minister, I have pretty much nailed what to expect....I was dead wrong on this one.
I'm a big believer in visuals and on this night, they created the visual by living out this biblical idea that we talked about for 3 straight weeks. It was awesome to watch their eyes light up when the Bible came alive that night for many students. The number 1 excuse I get from students about why they don't read their Bibles is "it doesn't relate"...they can't say that anymore! This was truly a "Greater Things" moment for me, the regular students who attend and those who were invited. There is nothing "Greater" in my opinion than to see the "I don't get it" light bulb disappear from a teenagers life and watch it be replaced with the "Holy Smokes, I get it now" bulb.
Jesus promises to show us "Greater Things" and through faith in these incredibly relevant Biblical stories (despite by lack of faith in the actual follow through), we got to see John 1:43-45 come alive on January 27th, 2013.
So we discussed the "what"....."find people," the toughest thing to do is the "how" and we will take a look at that "Greater Things" moment in the next post....John 1:46.
- Jay
