The Word: John Talk 6 (1:43-51)
Gilbert Lennox · The Word
19 October 2025
https://media.glenabbey.church/talks/the-word-john-talk-6-1-43-51

[0:01] Good morning.
[0:04] They say that every day is a gift.
[0:07] It's a rather wet gift this morning, but it's still a gift.
[0:11] It's great to see you.
[0:13] And if this is the first time either here or watching online and wondering what we're doing, we are walking our way through John chapter one, his introduction to the life of Jesus the Messiah.
[0:29] So let's read today's encounter.
[0:33] This is from John 1, and it's from verse 43 to 51.
[0:41] And I'm reading from the Christian Standard Bible.
[0:45] If you, like me, are so used to reading the NIV, the Northern Ireland version, and have been doing for years.
[0:54] Sometimes it's nice to mix it up a bit and read another way of expressing things in English.
[1:00] We are blessed to have so many.
[1:03] And I have found this quite helpful and refreshing.
[1:07] So this is from the Christian Standard Bible.
[1:12] Verse 43, the next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee and he found Philip and told him, follow me.
[1:23] Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.
[1:28] Philip found Nathanael and told him, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law and so did the prophets, Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.
[1:43] Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
[1:45] Nathanael asked him, "Come and see," Philip answered.
[1:51] Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said about him, "Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit."
[2:03] "How do you know me?"
[2:05] Nathanael asked.
[2:07] "Before Philip called you when you you were under the fig tree, I saw you, Jesus answered.
[2:16] Rabbi Nathanael replied, you are the son of God.
[2:20] You're the king of Israel.
[2:22] And Jesus replied to him, do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?
[2:28] You will see greater things than this.
[2:32] Then he said, truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
[2:45] So John's opening words the next day remind us that what we have in this chapter is not just a series of disconnected incidents.
[2:55] There's a sequence, there's a series of days which in fact ends in chapter two with the dramatic events of the wedding in Canaan.
[3:05] If you don't know about that well, you'll find out about that next week.
[3:09] So John wants us to consider these events together as part of a whole, which is why we've been doing what we're doing.
[3:20] And so far, Jesus has two named disciples, Andrew and Peter.
[3:27] We thought about them last Sunday.
[3:30] The next day after his encounter with them, we have another double encounter, this time Philip and Nathaniel.
[3:41] And one interesting little thing about these two separate encounters is that John places the emphasis on the second person mentioned in each one.
[3:55] Not so much in Andrew, but particularly on Peter.
[3:58] And now more Nathaniel than Philip.
[4:02] And he does this simply by calling attention to how Jesus described these people, what he said to each of these two individuals.
[4:15] So a decision is taken to head north to Galilee.
[4:22] And many translations, just as we've read, insert Jesus here as the one who decided, and that could well be the correct interpretation.
[4:31] But the text actually just says, he, the next day, he decided to leave for Galilee and find Philip, leaving open the possibility that it may in fact have been Andrew who found Philip and brought him to Jesus just as he had brought Simon Peter, which would mean that everybody in this chapter who comes to Jesus comes by being invited by someone else.
[5:00] Now, I can't prove that.
[5:02] I can't prove that in the case of Philip, certainly, But the point is still important.
[5:09] The importance of the introducers or the inviters.
[5:16] As Christians, we're used to using the word witnesses.
[5:20] But the term witness has all kinds of other connotations.
[5:24] Maybe we should change the vocabulary a bit and think of ourselves as inviters.
[5:31] As people who issue an invitation.
[5:33] as introducers, individuals inviting other individuals to come to meet Jesus for themselves.
[5:44] Philip was from the same small town, we're told, as Andrew and Peter, probably known by Andrew, if not a close friend.
[5:54] Philip in turn then finds Nathaniel to tell him about Jesus and to invite him to meet him and I think we can sense his excitement in the words that are recorded for us
[6:09] here we have found the one and there's a there's an echo of that are you the one we've already read it in John and now he's saying we have found the one now for those of you who are fans of the John Mars romance thriller and the Netflix series.
[6:29] We're not talking here about the one of DNA matching.
[6:34] Rather, we're talking about the one of prophecy matching.
[6:38] We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and so did the prophets.
[6:46] We have found the one whose identity and coming were written into history were spoken of described in detail in advance promised by their ancient scriptures so therefore the details cannot be faked the one the messiah the savior of the world the one every
[7:05] jewish child learned about from their grandparents the one that delegation of academics that we read about earlier that came to talk to john the baptist the one they were looking for the one who carried the hopes not only of the nation but according to the prophets the one who carried the hopes of the
[7:25] world no wonder Philip was excited like the kind of excitement I imagine a person would feel if you'd made some great medical breakthrough like Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin or Crick and Watson discovering the double helix structure of DNA.
[7:48] Only this is a different kind of discovery and it is in a different and vastly superior category because this is a person and not just a person but the person, the one, God's Messiah, to use John the Baptist's words earlier, this is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world.
[8:18] There is no one else comparable.
[8:23] So excitement was definitely in order.
[8:27] And when we are truly excited, the natural instinct for most of us is to tell a friend, which is precisely what Philip did.
[8:40] He went and found Nathaniel to tell him.
[8:46] That's the way it works.
[8:48] My wife was making fun of me last night because she asked me, did I want to watch Match of the Day?
[8:53] And I said, grumpily, no.
[8:55] No excitement about it.
[8:56] Why not?
[8:57] Because Newcastle lost.
[8:59] Great tragedy.
[9:01] Those of you who follow the premiership, you know how those deep feelings, etc., etc.
[9:08] excitement you know when they win the rare occasion you want to tell somebody you want to talk about it so Philip had found something much better but then excitement isn't everything as we will discover in a moment but it is something not the kind of worked up faked enthusiasm but genuine excitement it isn't the whole story but it is attractive and sometimes it is even compelling.
[9:37] The challenge would come later for Philip and Andrew and the others, how to retain that excitement, to keep inviting others to consider Jesus.
[9:53] When the initial surge of enthusiasm begins to wane, when life gets in the way, when illness, when they're tired, when they're facing big problems in family or in work, or when they've been mocked and opposed for their claim.
[10:17] And it is certainly one of the challenges I have discovered at this age as well as any other age.
[10:27] How do you either retain or recover the initial excitement over having found the one?
[10:40] Now, we all have different personalities, and we express excitement differently.
[10:48] And I'm not suggesting for a moment that we need a personality transplant, although someone may tell us that we do.
[10:55] But that's not what we're talking about here.
[10:58] But there may be a need sometimes for a recalibration of our own heart, of our own perspective, of our grasp of who this one is, of the changes that he has brought about in our own lives.
[11:20] I suspect that when Peter came to write his letter, his first letter, written much later in life, he had that in mind as he's writing to folks who are Christians who are living on the margins of society and life was tough and they had no human rights in that culture and there was persecution, it was difficult.
[11:40] And he reminds them of what there is to get excited about in many different ways.
[11:46] One of the famous statements when he writes them, he said, you know something?
[11:51] He called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
[11:57] Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
[12:04] Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
[12:11] Now I have to confess that I was never into drugs before I became a Christian and the worst crimes were probably stealing from my mother's baking cupboard and when a friend brought a packet of crisps into primary school and wouldn't give me one I just went and knocked the crisps on the floor.
[12:34] And then when the teacher said disgusted with me, Gilbert, pick those up.
[12:40] And I did, and I ate them.
[12:44] So it's not a great story that's going to make a Netflix series.
[12:49] But these changes are as true of me as of anyone else.
[12:56] And sometimes I think thinking daily and deeply about these realities might stir our excitement a little.
[13:11] Our realization that we have something to share and get us talking about them.
[13:22] But as I said, excitement isn't everything.
[13:25] And Nathaniel wasn't exactly swept away by Philip's enthusiasm.
[13:30] Nazareth?
[13:31] Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
[13:34] Now, this is the kind of reaction that most of us dread when talking to somebody else about our faith, when talking about, gee, you've got to be kidding me.
[13:46] That's rubbish.
[13:48] There's nothing in that, et cetera, et cetera, more colorfully, I'm sure.
[13:56] Nathaniel was clearly not holding back the two guys may well have been friends but that wasn't going to stop Nathaniel from saying what he thought and it was blunt but here's the thing at least there was a reaction
[14:14] at least Nathaniel said something it wasn't a kind of whatever
[14:22] you know what that's okay for you that's fine, just leave me alone.
[14:27] There's no apathy here.
[14:29] It may sound strange to say it, but at least this was a first step.
[14:36] It mightn't have led very far, but it was a first step.
[14:40] Something was stirring, and it's actually quite difficult to get some people to bother even getting this far because many people just don't care.
[14:52] Perhaps folks like Nathaniel.
[14:56] You know, good religious folks, but they don't want to be disturbed.
[15:00] They don't want to have to think.
[15:04] And maybe not religious, just good folks get on fine without it.
[15:08] As far as many are concerned, the Christian church and the Christian message behind it are spent, bankrupt, irrelevant, nothing to offer.
[15:17] Jesus may well have been cool guy, decent and all that, but certainly wasn't the one.
[15:23] They aren't even looking for the one.
[15:26] And dismiss all claims in that direction without further thought, without evidence, without even bothering to ask a question.
[15:33] At least Nathaniel asked a question.
[15:37] Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
[15:41] Well, Philip, can it?
[15:44] I mean you say you find the one Moses and the prophets wrote about.
[15:48] Show me where they wrote about Nazareth.
[15:53] I mean don't be so naive.
[15:56] How can you possibly expect me to believe.
[16:00] That he is the one with that kind of introduction.
[16:03] And you can see the problem.
[16:05] There's some vague reference.
[16:09] But no specific mention of the city of Nazareth.
[16:13] Everybody knew that Messiah was coming from Bethlehem.
[16:16] Even King Herod knew that.
[16:20] Of course, a closer examination of the evidence would reveal eventually to Nathaniel that Jesus did in fact fulfill the criteria.
[16:26] He had been born in Bethlehem.
[16:28] He grew up in Nazareth.
[16:30] It was just unfortunate, wasn't it, that Philip, in his excitement and his enthusiasm, was making acceptance of Jesus as the one virtually impossible for an authentic Orthodox Bible-believing Jew, like Nathaniel, to accept.
[16:48] He must have thought that Philip had lost his mind.
[16:54] But then there might have been another problem.
[17:00] It was the personal certainty with which Philip spoke.
[17:06] we have found the one I mean seriously how likely was that after hundreds of years that his mate Philip no great theologian as we have discovered or historian or politician or academic his mate had actually found the one that all sought that the prophets wrote about that all longed for
[17:37] and in any case thoughtful religious people like nathaniel tend to struggle with this kind of personal certainty it just sounds so confident so arrogant so self-assured after all as the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson is supposed to have said,
[18:04] isn't it better to travel hopefully than to arrive?
[18:08] I'm sure you've seen that often.
[18:10] I prefer both, frankly, when I'm going on holiday.
[18:15] But there you are.
[18:17] So to claim as Philip was claiming that Messiah had come, And that he, Philip, knew him personally.
[18:28] Well, that was just a bit too certain, a bit too close for comfort.
[18:32] It didn't leave much wriggle room for someone who might prefer to remain hopeful, but agnostic at best.
[18:42] I mean, you can't really be sure, can you?
[18:46] We have found him, the one.
[18:50] He's here.
[18:53] And Nathaniel would know immediately that what Philip was offering was not some extra special edition of what he already had.
[19:00] Not paying deeper attention to religious devotions or going more often to the temple or devoting himself to a program of social action.
[19:08] This was a matter of a person.
[19:12] The one here, up close, personal.
[19:15] And that can be unsettling.
[19:21] Can be disturbing.
[19:25] and Nathaniel didn't have a bad life in fact the evidence is that he was quite enjoying it relaxing in his garden sitting under the fig tree enjoying the rewards he had no doubt worked for in his life and it was every Jewish dream written in the prophets in the old testament to sit under their vine and under their fig tree well at least he had half that wasn't bad a lot more than a lot other people had.
[19:54] And now Philip had just come in and destroyed it, exploded into the middle of his peace, shattering it with wild claims that Messiah had come.
[20:09] Couldn't he just leave him alone?
[20:11] Well, apparently not.
[20:13] Philip had sought him out deliberately to tell him.
[20:15] So what was Nathaniel to do what would you have done if you had been nathaniel he could laugh it off he could tell philip to grow up or at least leave him alone go and study some theology and come back to him whatever
[20:32] and yet well i suppose the trouble was the cat was out of the bag and couldn't be put back in how could Nathanael have any peace of mind now because his friend had come and said we have found the one Moses wrote about
[20:52] and he believed Moses and it sounded unlikely with that reference to Nazareth especially but yet Moses did write about the one to come and so did the prophets and Nathanael believed the prophets So if he was truly serious about truth, as he would have claimed to be, how could he not at least find out some more?
[21:17] And then there was something else.
[21:20] See, life for him was reasonably good at the moment.
[21:25] But for many others in Israel, it wasn't that great.
[21:29] And that dream of having your own place and good relationships and sitting under a vine and a fig tree.
[21:40] Well, fine for him, but there are many others who didn't enjoy that.
[21:47] And even at that, was that all life was about?
[21:54] Was there not a little bit more than vines and fig trees and holidays and homes and things and people, relationships?
[22:05] All important, valuable, but is that what life is?
[22:10] And then what about those who never even enjoy that?
[22:15] Is there no answer?
[22:16] Is there no justice?
[22:18] Is there nothing beyond this life?
[22:20] Is there no savior of the world?
[22:22] Is there no Messiah?
[22:24] Is there no the one?
[22:29] So while what Philip said was clearly unsettling,
[22:35] what if he really had found the one?
[22:39] Wasn't it worth at least a deeper look?
[22:44] Well, Philip may well have realized that his initial approach to Nathaniel hadn't been a wonderful success.
[22:52] So instead of doubling down on that and trying to defend himself and risk putting his foot in it yet more, he wisely simply said to Nathaniel, come and see.
[23:08] Can't answer all your questions, Nathaniel,
[23:12] but come and see.
[23:14] You don't have to answer all your questions because in the end you need to come and see.
[23:19] for yourself.
[23:20] You need to make up your own mind.
[23:24] And we all do.
[23:27] Of course, we can't come and see in the same sense that Nathanael did with Jesus literally, physically in front of him.
[23:36] That's why John's writing.
[23:38] Because John was there.
[23:40] He did see.
[23:41] He's writing for multiple people,
[23:44] multiple generations who would never see the evidence of his own eyes and what he saw and heard and tasted and so on so that we also can come and see and that's our invitation to read not just john one but the whole of the gospel to come and see for yourself you're interested in truth we can't answer all your questions but why not why not come and see that's why the invitation
[24:14] to read John is so important.
[24:18] It gets me out of the way as an inviter, as an introducer.
[24:27] I can maybe help a wee bit along the way, but it gets me out of the way.
[24:31] It gets you and anyone else to come to Jesus yourself and find out.
[24:42] These things are written, says John, that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and that you might have life in his name.
[24:49] This is testable.
[24:52] There's stuff that you can find out in terms of the fact, and then there's stuff that you can experience when you come to know the person.
[25:01] This is testable.
[25:06] Nathaniel had his prejudices, obviously, as we all have.
[25:14] I was, believe it or not, listening to a song by The Who yesterday.
[25:19] Now, I know that's not, you know, maybe everybody's favorite thing.
[25:24] But in their song, The Seeker, these words resonated.
[25:28] I've got values, but I don't know how or why.
[25:32] I love that because that really describes most of us.
[25:37] we have values all sorts of ways that we judge and assess the world and very often we don't know how or why we have them what we instinctively think might in fact be right
[25:49] but for all the wrong reasons alternatively it might be wrong for all the right reasons you can think about that when you go home nathaniel was right about nazareth having nothing to do with
[26:03] what the prophet said and many would have agreed with him even more that he was right to be a bit suspicious of Nazareth as a northern town that is more open and exposed to trendy Greek ideas than his home village of Bethsaida which is much closer to the center of authentic biblical Judaism it's a bit like I suppose I'm going to offend a whole lot of people here the way people from Ballymena think about people in Belfast, you know, that this is a true city.
[26:33] Well, it's not a city yet.
[26:34] He knows.
[26:36] But you know the idea, prejudice.
[26:39] But neither of those things was sufficient basis for rejecting Philip's claim that he had found the one, the only way of dealing with prejudice is to expose it to the facts, to the truth.
[26:51] So then the question was, was Philip honest enough to do that.
[26:59] Are you really serious about seeking truth?
[27:02] Do you really want to know?
[27:04] Is it important enough to you?
[27:07] Well, he could say it wasn't a trivial issue.
[27:11] If this person was truly the one, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, that would change everything, including his own comfortable life under his fig tree.
[27:23] When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, because Nathanael in the end obviously decided to miss his regular golf game or coffee out with his friends, to go and see for himself,
[27:40] Jesus spoke these words.
[27:42] Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.
[27:49] Now that might sound to you as a rather weird greeting because they were all Israelites.
[27:56] Why single that out?
[27:59] And in whom there is no deceit, guile.
[28:05] Actually, it's the word for Jacob.
[28:12] So he's actually telling him, here is a true Israelite in whom there is no Jacob.
[28:18] Now that would mean something to an Israelite.
[28:23] Jesus is saying two things.
[28:26] Yes, he's an Israelite, but he's a particular kind.
[28:31] He's one who isn't like his forefather Jacob.
[28:36] He's one, he's not a schemer.
[28:37] He's not full of dishonesty and pretense.
[28:42] Despite his hostile reaction, almost dismissive reaction to Philip, this is not someone who engages in flattery.
[28:50] It's not someone who says what he thinks people want to hear.
[28:55] He says what he thinks, even if, as Philip had discovered, he could be blunt.
[29:01] You knew where you stood with Nathanael.
[29:04] He was genuine and genuinely interested in the truth.
[29:11] And when Jesus said this to Nathaniel, he was gobsmacked.
[29:19] He was totally taking it back.
[29:22] How did Jesus know this particular thing about him, about his personality, his value system?
[29:33] They'd never met before.
[29:35] So he did the thing that he did.
[29:38] He asked another question.
[29:41] how do you know me?
[29:46] What would you have said if you had been Jesus?
[29:49] You see we as readers know more than Nathaniel.
[29:53] So we listen to this question how do you know me?
[29:55] And we're going well how would he not have known him?
[29:58] This was the word become flesh.
[30:00] This was the agent of creation.
[30:02] Nothing was made without him.
[30:03] Here's the light of the world.
[30:05] This is the lamb of God.
[30:06] How did he not know Nathaniel?
[30:09] But Jesus didn't say any of that.
[30:13] Because Nathanael wouldn't have known it yet.
[30:16] He doesn't say to Nathanael, do you not know who I am?
[30:22] But the words he chose shook him to the core even more.
[30:27] Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.
[30:35] Now, I didn't mean that unknown to Nathaniel.
[30:39] Jesus had been hiding behind the neighbor's wall in Bethsaida, watching him.
[30:46] Long before Philip called him, Jesus knew him.
[30:54] He saw him.
[30:57] He saw him in his own patch, under his fig tree, in his own life.
[31:06] I saw you.
[31:12] And Philip and Nathaniel, particularly Nathaniel now, he discovers himself in the presence of the God who sees him.
[31:29] How would that make you feel?
[31:32] See, there's many people who think, see this as menacing, as a threat, like the great eye of Sauron in Lord of the Rings.
[31:40] God, nasty, vindictive, watching you all the time, looking for that mistake so that he can come down on you in judgment worse than the surveillance regimes in China or North Korea, etc.
[31:53] One of our granddaughters, I'll not tell you which one, sent us a funny video this week in which she told us this story.
[32:01] As she was going into her school dining hall, she saw a bowl of apples with a sign over it that said, Just take one.
[32:10] God is watching.
[32:13] Further down the line, she saw a bowl of cookies with no sign over it.
[32:18] So she got a felt tip, got a piece of card, made another sign and put it over it.
[32:23] And the sign said, Take as many as you like.
[32:26] God is watching the apples.
[32:33] you see the thing is
[32:36] if the God of the Bible is real he must be omniscient knows everything sees everything and Nathanael knew this theory as we do also but it's one thing to know the theory it's another thing to realize that applies to me
[32:58] I can't hide he sees me he's always seen me he knows me he knows my inner life and that can come as a shock
[33:15] and yet the ground didn't open up and swallow Nathaniel there was no lightning strike no avenging angels just Jesus the blue sky the ground he stood on
[33:36] amazing amazing
[33:43] knowing that God sees is perhaps a threat to
[33:51] those who want to hide something.
[33:56] Those who are dishonest, those who are out to deceive and gain advantage over others.
[34:04] But Nathaniel wasn't like that.
[34:07] He was genuine.
[34:10] And as such, I imagine that instead of perhaps the initial thought of fear, there was an enormous sense of relief.
[34:25] I don't need to pretend.
[34:31] This God sees everything, knows me.
[34:34] What would be the point of pretending?
[34:39] I don't have to pretend.
[34:42] I can stand here, if you like, naked, open,
[34:48] and yet not consumed.
[34:52] This is the amazing story.
[35:00] Some of us fear being seen.
[35:06] But perhaps deep down, all of us long to be seen, to be truly, deeply seen, to be noticed, to be known,
[35:23] to be accepted, to be valued, to be forgiven.
[35:32] And that's what Jesus was offering Nathaniel and what he's offering to you.
[35:44] And he did the only thing he could, which as it turned out was the right thing to do.
[35:49] His prejudice gone, his doubts gone.
[35:52] And along with Philip, he could now say, I have found the one.
[35:59] He acknowledged Jesus.
[36:02] as son of God and as his and Israel's true king.
[36:07] And now you discover, and with this I finish,
[36:12] that this is just the first step.
[36:17] Necessary one, but just the first.
[36:19] You will see greater things than these, Nathaniel.
[36:21] You'll see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
[36:26] You believe me because I said I saw you beneath the fig tree?
[36:30] Well, fig trees are okay, aren't they?
[36:33] And vines and a nice home, a restful place, clothes to wear.
[36:38] These are good things.
[36:39] We're not foolish for needing them or desiring them.
[36:44] But there are greater things.
[36:46] These things get destroyed in the end by death.
[36:51] But death is not the end.
[36:53] There is an eternal world.
[36:56] Heaven is real.
[36:57] And one day, Nathaniel said, Jesus, you will see heaven opened.
[37:06] It's amazing when God calls time and stages the return of the king.
[37:17] Angels ascending and descending.
[37:21] You notice what it doesn't say.
[37:23] It doesn't say the angels were descending out of heaven and ascending back up again.
[37:29] The angels are actually on Jesus.
[37:32] They're going out from him and back to him because he's the center of the government of God.
[37:38] The angels are God's servants.
[37:40] They're his civil service.
[37:41] So if you're a civil servant, you can put that on your CV.
[37:47] Angel.
[37:49] And he found himself face to face with a person on whose shoulders, breast, the government of the universe.
[38:00] When you think of that,
[38:04] when you think of the indescribable glory of it,
[38:12] that one day as a child of God, you will both see and enter.
[38:21] Well, Ballyclare seems a wee bit small, doesn't it?
[38:25] And Belfast and Ballymena and my current life in Coleraine.
[38:31] It's good.
[38:32] There's lots of great things about it.
[38:36] But it's only the introduction.
[38:38] There's a far bigger story to be told.
[38:43] As C.S.
[38:44] Lewis writes in his wonderful essay, The Weight of Glory, Sometimes we are far too easily pleased.
[38:58] Come and see.
[38:59] Take the first step and find that it is a step into the real world.
[39:08] Let's pray.
[39:09] Father, thank you for your word to us.
[39:12] Thank you for the power of the simplicity of the story, how so much is conveyed in so little language
[39:27] that speaks to our human desire in the end to be known, to be seen, to be loved.
[39:40] And thank you that that's what you bring to us through coming into this world.
[39:48] As Peter wrote, we were once in darkness.
[39:52] You brought us into your marvelous light.
[39:55] Once we were nobodies.
[39:56] Now we are the people of God.
[39:58] Once we had not received mercy.
[40:01] Now we have received mercy.
[40:05] Excite us about it to the point where we talk about it.
[40:13] And even if we make the odd mistake along the way, as Philip did in his enthusiasm, thank you that that in the end is not what matters.
[40:27] Enable us to invite family, friends, neighbors, children, grandchildren, cousins.
[40:38] to come and see, to leave their prejudices behind
[40:44] and come and meet Jesus.
[40:48] We pray in his name.
[40:49] Amen.
[40:49] Amen.