2011 8-28 ‘Philip and Nathanael – Two Kinds of Faith’ (Selected Scriptures).

“PHILIP AND NATHANAEL – TWO KINDS OF FAITH”
SELECTED SCRIPTURES

I. Introduction
“I do believe; help my unbelief.” There are few words in Scripture that strike so deeply into my heart as do those; that convict me of my own lack of faith in God as do those. “I do believe; help my unbelief.” It is where I often seem to live, and I suspect it is where you often live as well.

Who spoke those words and what were the circumstances? They were spoken by the father of a boy who was possessed by a demon.
*Mark 9:20-24
20 And they brought the boy to (Jesus). And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling about and foaming at the mouth.
21 And (Jesus) asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.
22 “And it has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”
23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If You can!’ All things are possible to him who believes.”
24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out and began saying, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

Why do those words have such an impact on me? I think it’s because they expose my human weaknesses. They expose the remnants of my fleshly nature. Worse, they reveal the doubt that hides in the darkest corners of my heart. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

Listen, I do believe in Jesus. I do believe that He is who He says He is – the Son of the living God. I have turned to Him for forgiveness of my sins and I have put my faith and my trust in Him and Him alone for my eternal salvation. I know that most of you sitting here this morning have done the very same thing. And I know that you struggle with the same thing too. Weak and wavering faith is one of the curses of this fallen world in which we now live.

In my own life, in times of stress or pain or anxiety or frustration or fear, or sometimes in the unmistakable presence of my own sin, I find doubt. I don’t find a great and abiding faith, but I find a frail and fleeting faith. “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

When was the last time you found yourself thinking like that? Every good Bible transla-tion says it. It is true that each one may say it a bit differently, but they all say it.
• KJV – “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.”
• NKJV – “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”
• ESV – “I believe; help my unbelief!”
• NIV – “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
• AMP – “Lord, I believe! Help my weakness of faith!”

There it is! That’s the one! I believe, but my faith is weak. I think it is strong until I am pressed, until I am “up against it,” so to speak. Then I find that my faith is weak.

But you and I should not be surprised that our weaknesses are exposed when we face troubles, trials, and tribulations. The Lord allows it. For one thing, He allows us to go through such afflictions so we can learn what the Apostle Paul learned. Paul learned that God’s strength was best seen in the light of his own weakness. Remember?
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9 (The Lord) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for (My) power is perfected in (your) weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

There is another reason that God allows us to go through troubles, trials, and tribulations. It is so that our faith in Him might grow. In short, it’s affliction that tests our faith and subsequently builds it. Listen as Peter tells us how God builds faith in His children.
*1 Peter 1:3-9
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
6 In this (your salvation) you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,
7 that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perish-able, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

Look again at v. 6. You and I are to rejoice in our faith. “Lord, I believe…” We are able to rejoice in our faith even though our afflictions sometimes cause us to question it.
This is because each time we go through a difficulty or face a hardship, the Lord is building our faith. Think about it. You don’t grow if you aren’t tested, do you?

Now look again at 1 Peter 1:7. When our faith is tested our faith is proved. The more severe the trials (“fires”) the more we praise God when He brings us through them. The more trials God brings us through, the more our faith grows. “Lord, I believe! Help my weakness of faith!” That’s what He does for us, and it is how our faith in Him grows.

In 1 Peter 1:8-9 it’s our faith that allows us to love Jesus even though we have never seen Him. And it’s the result of our faith that will bring us into His presence when our salva-tion is revealed. But until then, along the way, He continually rewards our faith in Him.

Back in Mark 9 we didn’t read beyond v. 24 to see just how Jesus responded to that man with the demon-possessed boy. But you already know what the Lord did, don’t you? The father’s faith, little and weak though it was, was rewarded. Jesus cast out the demon and healed the boy.
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II. Text
Today we’re going to consider the faith of two of Jesus’ apostles, Philip and Nathanael. Scripture doesn’t record either of them ever saying, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief,” but Philip certainly could have said such a thing. And I’m sure there were times when Nathanael could have said it too. Just like us, there were times when their faith wavered.

Philip is a Greek name meaning “lover of horses.” Since all of the apostles were Jews it is likely that Philip’s family came from Greece. Such people were known as Hellenistic Jews. Philip appears to have been the leader of the second group of the twelve apostles because his name is always listed first among them. That group consisted of Philip, Nathanael, Matthew, and Thomas. (The first and most prominent group included Andrew, his brother Simon Peter, and the “Sons of Thunder,” James and John.)

While the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all list Philip’s name, it’s only the Gos-pel of John that gives us clear insight into who Philip really was. (Turn to John 1.)

The day after Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, He called Andrew and Simon Peter to be His first two apostles. It was the very next day that Jesus called Philip.
*John 1:43-46
43 The next day (Jesus) purposed to go forth into Galilee, and He found Philip, and Jesus said to him, “Follow Me.”
44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of 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, the son of Joseph.”
46 And Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Here in John 1:46 it looks like Philip has real faith and Nathanael has next to none. But let’s look a little further. In v. 45 it’s clear that both Philip and Nathanael knew some-thing about the OT, what the Jews referred to as the Law and the Prophets. It seems that they had been studying the Scriptures and knew about the coming Jewish Messiah. So when Jesus called Philip he was primed and ready. Therefore, we know that Philip had faith in God’s written Word.

Do you remember what Andrew did immediately after he responded to Jesus’ call? He told his brother Simon Peter. “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:41). Now Philip believes in Jesus and he does virtually the same thing. He goes to his friend Nathanael, and in v. 45 he says, “We have found Him…” Then in v. 46 he says, “Come and see.”

By this we know that Philip was a serious God-fearing Jew who sought after truth and found it. We also know that he had the heart of an evangelist. The first thing he did was tell his friend about Jesus.

There is something important here we shouldn’t miss. In John 1:43 it says Jesus found Philip. In v. 45 it says Philip found Jesus. So which is it? Who found whom? Or asked another way, who decided? Did Philip decide to follow Jesus or did Jesus decide to have Philip follow Him. Both are true! It’s true that Philip decided to follow Jesus. BUT that only happened after Jesus decided to call Philip, and after God had prepared Philip’s heart to receive Jesus, and after God had made it possible for Philip to do so.

Herein lies the classic theological battle between the Arminians, who argue that people make the final decision as to whether or not they will come to Christ, and the Calvinists, who counter that God makes that decision. In simple terms the debate usually comes down to this: Is it our free will or God’s election? Or stated another way, do men exer-cise their freedom of choice, or does God exercise His freedom of choice?

From our own natural, earthly, and temporal point of view, we sought Christ and decided to come to Him. Now in purely human terms, seeing only as far as our finite minds are able to see, that’s right. But from God’s supernatural, heavenly, and eternal point of view, Christ sought us and God drew us to Him. When did God make this decision? He made it before you made any decisions at all.
*Ephesians 1:4a-6
4a …He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world…
5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, (why?) according to the kind intention of His will, (why?)
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (Christ).

The eternal reality is that long before you chose Christ, He had already chosen you. Fur-thermore, when you decided to come to Him, He was already drawing you. He did it all. And you and I thought we came to Christ of our own accord. But Jesus said…
*John 6:44
44 “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me, draws him…

Back to Philip. In John 1:43-46 we saw that he had faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But now watch what happens when his faith is tested at the feeding of the five thousand.
*John 6:5-7
5 Jesus…lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to Him, said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread that these may eat?”
6 And this He was saying to test him; for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.
7 Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not suffi-cient for them, for everyone to receive a little.”

Notice that Jesus didn’t ask Philip if they had enough money to buy bread. He asked him
where they would get the bread. A rich faith in Jesus would have answered, “Why, we’ll get it from You, Lord.” But Philip had set his faith aside and had turned to human reason. “We can’t afford it.” There’s no doubt that Philip had faith in Jesus, but when he was pressed, he didn’t have all that much, did he?

Philip was like so many of us. He was a man of common sense and logic. He was practi-cal, methodical, and clear-thinking…at least in human terms. We tend to applaud people like that, don’t we? We often look up to them and we look for those qualities in our leaders. But too often, such people tend to ignore the supernatural. Is there a lesson for us here? Yes! Jesus, God’s Son and our Lord and Savior, exists in the supernatural.

Are you like Philip? Do you tend to think something is impossible if you can’t apply a mathematical formula or an accepted and established principle to it? What about trusting the God of the impossible?

Consider the next incident in Philip’s life. Some Greek travelers came to him and asked if they could see Jesus. (They probably chose Philip because he had a Greek name.)
*John 12:20-22
20 Now there were certain Greeks among those who were going up to wor-ship at the feast;
21 these therefore came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
22 Philip came and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip came, and they told Jesus.

Why didn’t Philip just take them to Jesus himself? Could it have been because there was no specific rule or established protocol for introducing Gentile converts to Jesus? Or could it be that, while Philip well knew and understood the letter of the Law, he struggled with applying the spirit of the Law?
I think it’s likely that both of those things were at play in Philip’s life. He was so steeped in practicality and human logic that to do something unusual or unconventional simply wouldn’t enter his mind. He was just too rigid.

Do you see yourself in that? Do you need to go “strictly by the book” in everything?
When it comes to telling others about Jesus, ask yourself this: If you love the Lord – as Philip obviously did – then how can you be wrong introducing someone to Jesus? Is there a wrong way, or a wrong time, or a wrong place to introduce someone to Jesus?

Let’s take a look at a third incident from Philip’s life. The setting is the upper room on the night before the crucifixion. Jesus will institute and establish the Lord’s Supper, He will be betrayed by Judas, and He will be arrested. He knows what’s coming and He’s pouring out His heart to His apostles. We pick up the narrative immediately after Thomas says he doesn’t know the way to heaven.
*John 14:6-11
6 Jesus said… “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”
8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how (can) you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.
11 “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; otherwise believe on account of the works themselves.”

Let me paraphrase v. 11. Jesus is saying, “Philip, you’ve seen what I’ve done. Even if you struggle with My words, you should know who I am from what you’ve seen Me do.”

The fact that Jesus is God in human flesh, the Second Person of the Trinity, is not logical in human terms. It doesn’t fit into the so-called wisdom of the world or conventional thinking. And Philip was a conventional thinker. So he would continue to struggle with his faith until the Holy Spirit came and filled him with supernatural wisdom and power.

I’ll say it again. Philip loved Jesus, but the man just couldn’t “think out of the box.” He was simply too “earthbound.” He had faith in Jesus, but it was weak faith. Philip could have said, “Lord, I believe; help me in my unbelief.” He didn’t, but he sure could have.

Philip’s friend Nathanael, on the other hand, wasn’t like that. Matthew, Mark, and Luke called him by his other name, Bartholomew, which means “Son of Tolmai.” So his full name was Nathanael Bar-Tolmai. (Simon Bar-Jonah; Barnabas – Son of Encouragement)
John simply calls him Nathanael, which means “God has given.” It was appropriate because God had given Nathanael great faith.

Everything we know about Nathanael is found in John’s Gospel. When we first meet him we come upon a man with a “smart mouth.” He is somewhat of a “wiseguy.” And that is combined with an ugly streak of prejudice about a city and a people whom he seems to think are somehow beneath him. No one here has a problem like that. Right?
*John 1:45-51
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.”
46 And Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”
48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
49 Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”
50 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these.”
51 And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

“Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” That’s a little bit like some vain and self-important New Yorker saying, “Can any good thing come out of the hills of Tennessee?”
One reason that the Pharisees responded to Jesus as they did was that He wasn’t from Jerusalem. He hadn’t been trained at the feet of the revered and highly esteemed Jewish teachers of the Law. He had no certificates from Bible colleges or degrees in theology from respected seminaries.

To the Pharisees Jesus was just an ignorant “country bumpkin.” To Nathanael, anyone coming from Nazareth was like that. But fortunately, his prejudice didn’t run too deep. He was teachable, and he was about to get a lesson he would never forget.

Look at v. 47. Jesus pays Nathanael a compliment. He calls him a true Jew without a trace of guile. He says there is no deceit or hypocrisy in the man. But even such a man as Nathanael struggled with prejudice. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
So in v. 47 Nathanael is displaying his personal prejudice and is “cracking wise.”

But in a moment his life will change. Look at v. 48. Jesus tells Nathanael about himself.
He asks Jesus, “How do You know me?” Look, Nathanael knows what Jesus says about him is true. Remember, there’s no false modesty here, no guile. But the thing Nathanael can’t understand is how Jesus knows it.

Now don’t forget that just like Philip, Nathanael has studied the Jewish Scriptures. He knows the Messiah is coming and he knows what to look for. His eyes and his ears are open and his heart is ready. Jesus just has to “push the right button.” In John 1:48, He pushes it. “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”

Jesus tells Nathanael something about himself that proves Jesus’ omniscience to him. The fig tree is significant because it was a place that provided shade and coolness during the heat of the day. Fig trees have low branches that spread out as much as thirty feet in every direction. So going under such a tree would provide one with a certain degree of privacy and make for a place of refuge and solitude. It is not unlikely that Nathanael prayed and studied under such a tree. And Jesus knew it.

Jesus telling Nathanael that He saw him under the fig tree was the right button to push.
Nathanael instantly knew who Jesus was. His testimony of faith in John 1:49 is one of the most clear and powerful statements in the entire NT. “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”

Does that remind you of another apostle’s statement of faith? Do you remember what Peter said when Jesus asked him who Peter thought Jesus was? In Matthew 16:16 Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” By contrast, Philip, after three years of being with Jesus, still wasn’t sure. He had faith, weak faith to be sure, but Nathanael had great faith.

He had expressed his great faith in Jesus because the Lord had told him a few facts about himself. Then with that great faith came a promise from Jesus. “You shall see greater things than these…Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus was telling him, “Nathanael, you haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait!”
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III. Conclusion
When the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost He filled both Philip and Nathanael with divine power, and they both faithfully carried the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the far corners of the known world. Just as God does with you and me, He used each man’s personality, each man’s skills and talents, and each man’s strengths and weaknesses, to accomplish His eternal purposes. Remember that Jesus knew full well what He was getting with Philip and Nathanael. He chose them both. If you are saved, if you are a Christian, He chose you too.

What ultimately became of Philip, who began with such a weak faith, and Nathanael, who began with such a strong faith?
Eight years after James was beheaded in Jerusalem, Philip, who had been faithfully preaching the gospel in Asia Minor, was stripped naked, hung upside down by his ankles and pierced so that he would slowly bleed to death. It is said he requested that his body not be wrapped in fine linen because Jesus’ body was so wrapped, and Philip said he was not worthy of such an honor.

Early church records say that Nathanael took the gospel to Persia and India. As far as it is known, he suffered martyrdom when was tied in a sack and drowned in the depths of the sea.

The bottom line with Philip and Nathanael is the same as it was with the other apostles, and the same as it is with you and me. God chooses ordinary people, sinners with flaws, weaknesses, prejudices, and failures, and turns them into Christians whom He uses to accomplish His divine and eternal purposes.

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief, help my weakness of faith!” Is that the sincere prayer of your heart today? Just as Jesus blessed the man with the demon-possessed boy, so too will He bless you. I hope you find great encouragement and comfort in that this morning.

~ Pray ~