As I was reading the story of Abraham and Sarah, and how Sarah gave her concubine Hagar to Abraham so he could have a childbecause she was barren. I got to the part where Sarah got jealous when the concubine got pregnant and drove her into the wilderness. There in the barren waste land, with no food or water, she was about to die when the angel of the Lord led her to water. Some scholars feel that this was none other than the Lord, because it tells us that she gave a name to the “Lord” who rescued her and spoke prophetically to her and her unborn child. Look at it in
Genesis 16:13 And Hagar gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." The one who knows my past, present and my future..
I was also looking at the first chapter of John’s gospel which presents us with more than we can wrap our minds around without very extensive study and analysis. It’s more than we could explore in one study such as this. But our focus today is, about how John emphasizes that WE CAN SEE GOD. Look at the words from this scripture in John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. v2 The same was in the beginning with God. v3 All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. v4 In Him was life; and that life was the light of men. v5 And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehends it not.” The light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends it not…
It’s so like what Hagar says “I have seen the one who sees me”….who shines a light in my darkness.
John lays it out plainly. “No one has ever seen God.” But then he says it is Jesus His only Son who has made Him see’able. When you look at those first verses, of John, the theme of BEING ABLE TO SEE, is paramount to discovering it’s truth and finding yourself in that light. John uses a couple of different words for seeing, and he uses these “seeing” words more often than any writer in the New Testament. Now there were a lot of people who might have seen Jesus…seen what color hair he had, or how tall he was, or that he was a Jewish man.
But John joins Mary, Joseph, Zechariah and Hannah, who really SEE him here. Just like the others I have mentioned, John had a revelation from God that this Jesus was the Lamb of God. He saw with his eyes, but more importantly, he saw with his SPIRIT…he understood who Jesus was. Often in the gospel, the use of the word “see” has this double meaning. It’s the same in English. I see something, but then suddenly, it’s as though a curtain opens and I really, truly SEE!!!! I suddenly comprehend a deeper meaning beyond what my eyes had been viewing. I see and then, I SEE. He sees Jesus, and then he SEES JESUS, and says, “Here is the Lamb of God.”
Being a disciple means you believe in someone, it means you live with them, you travel with them, you stick with them through thick and thin. The two disciples who were following John the Baptist… now, they are following Jesus. What shifted their allegiance? Certainly the clue we are given is that John has pointed out to them that this man is the Son of God, the long awaited hope of Israel. John’s words were enough for them to pack up and start following the one John pointed to. Now Jesus sees the two men following him, there were crowds of people around him. But Jesus SEES them … he knows them, not as casual passers-by, but as people whose eyes have been opened to really SEE HIM.
And he asks them a question, “What are you looking for?” These are the first recorded words of Jesus in John’s gospel. The first words of “God made flesh”, the first words out of His mouth in this gospel are “What are you looking for?” The two men formerly known as disciples of John were put on the spot, and they were unprepared for this question. You would think they might say, “We are looking at the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the hope of Israel. That’s what you are” In fact later the next day, Andrew, one of these disciples, excitedly goes to his brother Peter and says, “We have found the Messiah.” He thinks he sees who Jesus is, here on the second day after meeting him. But it is only three years later, as they have been with Jesus, as they have seen Jesus in the garden and seen Him on the cross and seen Him laid in a tomb, that they realize the depth of what it meant to SEEJesus.
But they aren’t ready to totally commit to what they see, so they respond to a question with a question, “Where are you staying?” It’s an engaging question, because it shows they want to be with him, they don’t just want a five minute Q & A with Jesus on the street…they want to spend time with him. They need to see more, and to take in more, in order to properly respond to Him. So their question doesn’t just mean, which house do you sleep in, which street is it on… It means, if we follow You, where are we going? How will this change our lives?
But John’s gospel has already given us the inside scoop.
John has just told us, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us?” So when the disciples ask, “Where are you staying?” or “What is Your address?”, you can imagine Jesus answering with a little smile on His face as He hears this question, because He knows the answer will blow these men away. He doesn’t sit down and lay out the facts. He doesn’t give them a ten point summary of why he is the Messiah, or what it means to leave heaven and come to dwell with humans. Instead he tells them to come and find the answer and SEE for themselves.
Because we as humans live in the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus walked there too. We were all the living, who were dying, but Jesus came to transform the dying into those who would live with Him eternally….. Come and SEE, that was the message to the disciples. Come and let your eyes be opened…..And of course the miracle at the end of the gospel is the glorious realization of actually seeing the power of God over sin and death. The disciples see the empty tomb, but it is only when they physically see Jesus’ resurrected body again, that they really SEE THE EMPTY TOMB and what that means for all of us, for all eternity. What a chapter, this first chapter of John is! I think it’s too bad that we mostly only read the first part of the chapter… And we hear Jesus’ question today, “What you are you looking for?” What is it that you think you want to see, because it is only the smallest part of the bigger thing which you will come to know, as you follow Messiah and your eyes are able to really, trulySEE.
What are we looking for together? Are we looking for the same thing, or are we looking for different things? Because what we are looking for, will determine what we see. God is moving and working and walking through the minutes, hours and days of our lives, but wesimply fail to notice because that was not what we were looking forand expecting to see.
Important things can happen, and you will not notice them if you are not SEEING them for their deeper meaning. Jesus’ question, “What are you looking for?” is really important. It’s central. Because we must re-train ourselves to look for the right things. What am I looking for? Is the job, just about getting a paycheck, or am I there to focus on more eternal things? Am I so busy providing for my family, that I fail to provide for my family the ability to see and recognize Jesus through all their days?
Am I so caught up with my problems and challenges, that I fail to be sensitive to those around me, who are looking and searching for meaning and purpose in their own lives? Check, check, check.
How many situations and circumstances were not what we expected, and how many places were not where we would rather be? But in those places and in those circumstances. How often do we want our cake and eat it too…the power of God is working among every terribly broken situation, and through every crisis.
As you go through it, and you cried out for God to show up, (and you did’trealize, God was showing up, all the time). “Jesus was standing in the midst, in His risen power, and it should have been a time of worship, and a hallowed, sacred time, but because we were looking at the wrong things, we missed it when it walked right by us, and stood in front of us! It’s about, what we are looking for.“The light shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends it not”
Peter in the storm, cried out “Lord, let me come to You”….That’s what truly seeing Him will do….Our quest, our assignment, is to lookfor Jesus, to find Him wherever we go and whatever the situation… If we do, we will be seeing Him all over the place. If I’m looking for other things, which may be fun things, feel good things, comforting things, or even important things that I really treasure, well, guess what, I might just miss the pearl of great price that is right there in front of my eyes. The only thing worth really looking for is Jesus. You can get caught up in looking for a nicer home, or a bigger bank account, or better job, and those things are not bad, but if we spend our time distracted by that, we might miss something of far greater value…..
So, what will that look like? Jesus standing there, saying, “Come and see.” It would be great to be able to report to you that every situation will be dramatically turned around, the way we want it to be. That everyone will be thriving, successful and prosperous the way we want to see it! But truth be known, we can’t reallyknow what that’s going to look like, even as we obey His calling and His promptings of the Spirit.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the call went out “Come and See”… As He healed the lame, the blind, the deaf and the dead… the call went out “Come and See”…. When he turned the water into wine, multiplied the loaves and fishes, cast out demons, folks were saying “Come and See”… Every since He walked out of the tomb and went from hell to heaven.. folks have been coming to see that empty tomb and remembering that the power of death is broken, to see Him is to be set free from the power of sin, sickness and death!
It doesn’t always happen on our time frame, and it doesn’t always happen the way we want… Can you see Jesus, the potter in your life…. because we are the clay, not the potter… and the clay must submit to the potter’s plan, and surrender to His shape and design. But there is not a moment where the potter is not present, if we could see…. To see that the kingdom of God is dependent on our surrender to be where He is, doing what He is doing.. wherever that may be!What we are looking for determines what we see, and that can change who we are!
We must keep our eyes peeled to see that Jesus is present in ways that our minds cannot take in. To SEE the potter in the doctor’s office where we get the bad news. SEE the potter working with us when we get the middle of the night phone call saying there’s been an accident. SEE the potter in the storm. SEE the potter when you’ve just been told “You’re fired”…. Have you found the potter, workingin this pandemic? If we are looking for Jesus, we will always find Him. There is no power on earth or in the spiritual realms that can stop Jesus from being involved in every aspect of our lives together. What will that look like in our future? There was a fellow in Philadelphia who went to the flea market and found a frame he liked. It was only a couple of bucks, in the frame was a dusty print of a country church. It was torn and faded, but the guy liked the frame so he bought it.When he got home he opened it up and out tumbled a neatly folded sheet of old parchment paper. It was the Declaration of Independence. What everyone had thought was a two-dollar painting at a flea market actually contained one of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence printed on July 4, 1776, worth over 2.4 million.
Sometimes Jesus is hidden from those who don’t know what to lookfor or where to look… At the prison, a personal tragedy, a homeless person, the hungry…. He said as you have done it unto the least of these you’ve done it unto me… and suddenly there is Jesus, where we least expected Him…..
Come and SEE, that’s the invitation David received from his brothers when he brought their lunch. Come and see this giant who curses and threatens Israel. So when David SAW what was happening, he saw a cause, but he asked why is no one is going forth and takingGoliath’s challenge. Why is the entire army of Israel cowering from the verbal assaults of Goliath, he said, “Is there not a cause?” That’s why we’re here today. It’s why we’re seeking to move forward in faith: “Is there not a cause?” If you’ve met some giants lately, you know that they make you feel small and weak. They can scare you. They definitely will intimidate you. When Goliath walks through your life, His sword and spear represent everything that intimidates you, frightens you, and makes you want to run the other way! Away from your calling, away from your purpose, away from obedience, away from your destiny!
Giants continually kept the people of God from God’s will and His best. They either limit them, hinder them, or totally prevent them.There will always be giants, (tell someone “There will always be giants) not only personally but corporately as believers. Attempt anything for God and there will be giants. So we have a choice. We can live infear because “there are giants” or we can SEE that there is a greater, a more eternal cause! So, how can we take on the giants that we face so that we can live in the blessing, freedom and victory that God wants to give us?
This well-known story of David and Goliath gives us some powerful insights. It’s a story filled with contrasts—Saul and the armies of Israel viewing the situation from a human perspective said (“Have you seen this giant?”).
David viewing things from God’s perspective, says “All I see is an uncircumcised Philistine, who is defying my God?” Saul had confidence in his armor, as long as David was the guy wearing it, but David had confidence in his God.
Saul was concerned about his own image but David was concerned with the honor of God. From David the giant killer we learn how to take on the giants in life, and to overcome the giants of life, we need a spiritual perspective. From a human perspective, Goliath was too much giant! He’s over nine feet tall, his armor weighed 125 pounds. The tip of his spear alone weighed 15 pounds. He was huge.
Goliath challenged Israel to a battle of two champions—their champion against him. The losers would become the slaves of the winner. Who would control who…..This was aboutwinner take all. This plan saved time and potentially avoided useless bloodshed, but it only worked if someone accepted the challenge. (no one was willing) The tipping point of the victory was about what they saw…..Israel was in a “but what if we lose” mentality… David was thinking “but what if we win” We rarely understand how much depends on our single act of obedience! How many are affected when we are able to truly SEE!
When the giants are able to keep you in disobedience, the battle is lost before it is ever fought! David has a spiritual perspective! Saul and the armies of Israel were afraid because they measured everything by the power of Goliath, David measured everything by the power of His God….
David saw it as a conflict between God and the forces of evil. Saul and his soldiers saw Goliath and thought, “He’s so big we can never kill him!” David saw Goliath and thought, “He’s so big, I can’t miss, no matter where I throw the stone, I’m going to hit a piece of Goliath!” If you want to slay a Goliath, you must begin by seeing it as God sees it and know that God is in it with you. You’ll not conquer it if you don’t see things from God’s perspective. How you SEE is the starting point for the victory. Notice two things about David’s faith, the kind of faith we need… We need a faith rooted in personal experience, and that comes from obedience and faithfulness. This wasn’t David’s first outing in the school of faith. As a teenager, he’d proven God in his place as shepherd. He had seen that God was working through him, in every challenge and every test. First it was a lion then a bear, now would be no different….Enemies come and go, but he knew that God is constant! What is your track record?
As David stood before Goliath, his faith was in his personal relationship with God, and He knew God was there in every situation, It wasn’t his religion it was his relationship. David knew that how he handled Goliath, was a demonstration of his relationship with his God. He also had no illusions about what was really going on here… and while he was no match for Goliath, David knew that when that giant took on God, he got in way over his head. Get it straight, they’re not fighting you, they’re fighting God!
Peter understood this when he said, in 1 Peter 1:7 “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ”. (Hey, gold is up to $2000.00 an ounce)
David’s vision was filled with God and therefore everything else was whittled down to proper size. He saw Goliath but he saw him from God’s perspective, and that made all the difference. Throughout the pages of Scripture, whether it’s David taking on Goliath or Abraham leaving everything to follow God, Noah building the ark, when the whole world is against him, Moses leading the Israelites across the desert, Nehemiah building the walls of Jerusalem, or the disciples leaving everything behind as they follow Jesus….It was about what they SAW!
The God inside of you is bigger than the giant in front of you….Agiant is any situation in our path which blocks the way and keeps us from walking with the Lord in the way He wants us to go. It can be a person who opposes us or it might be a combination of circumstances which when taken together block us from doing what God wants done. For most of us, the greatest giants are the ones we face on the inside, not the outside. Usually those inner giants defeat us much faster than any giant we face on the outside. That’s called perspective… it’s also called vision! It’s in the mind where the battle must be fought and won. Many of us are facing a giant right now. It may be an impossible situation at work or home. It may be a financial difficulty or a broken relationship. It may be a task before you that you know you can’t handle. It may be a dream that seems unreachable. Perhaps your past failures are trying to insert themselves into your future. What was behind you is now standing in front of you…. Giants by definition are enormous, threatening and intimidating. They want to fill up our vision, until we can see nothing else but the problem, or the risk of failure in front of us.
James 4:7 “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he must flee from you.” As believers, the battlefield is where we grow upand mature spiritually. We will never grow up and mature, until we dare to meet the enemy head on, in the power and might of God’s Spirit within us. There’s nothing like war to turn a novice Christian, into a veteran believer. There are always giants in the promised land. Israel would still be in tents in the wilderness, if there wasn’t a Caleb and a Joshua spirit to drive them out and possess the land… As long as we run when the giant rears his ugly head, we’ll have to face him tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that. He won’t go away until we stand up and fight him. Goliath never leaves on his own, he must be defeated. Goliath came back twice a day for 40 days until David went down to face him in the valley. Your giants are the same way. They’ll never leave on their own. Until you stand and fight in Jesus’ name, until then, they win every time.
David didn’t realize it, but he needed Goliath. Can you see it….Onthe other side of Goliath, was his destiny, dreams fulfilled, God’s will accomplished… In the same way we need our own giants today, because we’ll never become all that God wants us to be without them. You may be praying to be delivered from them, God intends to use the struggle you face to make you stronger. Giants don’t come to defeat you, but to elevate you and promote you to the next level. John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”! Everyone else saw the carpenter, Mary’s son, the Nazarene. But John saw Him for who He truly was. As we move through our days, and face our giants, may we see our Lord in the midst of it all, moving and working to glorify God, and then having seen Him, that battlefield is transformed into a place of worship!!! John 1:11 “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. v12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: v13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”.
I want you to thank God today for the giants God is using to bring your blessing to you. Take a moment and see yourself running to them and not away from them, like David did with Goliath! Put on the full armor of God, take the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God and win this, so you can move on…..You don’t have to keep facing it next month and next year…. Defeat it now, and move into the blessing!
