string(7) "m-66998" Burnt Hickory Baptist Church

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Feb 07, 2021

Phillip: You Don't Have to Have all the Answers

Phillip: You Don't Have to Have all the Answers

Passage: John 1:43

Speaker: Matt Petty

Series: The Twelve That Changed The World

Category: Sunday Sermons

Keywords: faith, jesus, disciples, meeting needs, leading, philip, the twelve, making a difference

Philip | The Twelve | Matt Petty | Burnt Hickory As we dive deeper into the twelve who changed the world, we take a close look at Philip. Maybe not as renown as some of the other disciples, he always wanted to have the answer for every problem. In his encounter with Jesus, he realized that sometimes, we don’t need all the answers. Pastor Matt shous us that we also don’t need all the answers, especially to answer Jesus’ call, lead others to Him, or to even meet people’s needs in His name. Don’t let your lack of knowledge stand in the way of walking in faith and obedience.

Good morning church, I just want to out of the blocks this morning, just tell you how thankful as from the leadership of this church, how thankful we are to you for how you have wrapped your arms this week around the Stephens family, how much you have meant to them, what you've done for them. And then also on behalf of the Stephens family, they wanted me just to let you know how much they appreciate how much love has come from you guys keep praying for them, this week, and in the weeks to come from their loss of Mike. It has been an incredibly, incredibly tough week. Well look if you were here last week, you jumped into the beginning of our new series that we're calling, "The Twelve that Changed the World." And, we're looking into the life of the disciples, the first apostles, Jesus's first crew that He changed the world with. Now, we said last week, and we saw just from looking at them as a group last week, we took a moment to examine them as a whole and how they move through life, we saw that the reality is the one thing that sticks out, when you look at all of them together is the fact that they were incredibly ordinary. That they weren't like Uber talented, or they weren't from these huge influential kind of government families. And we also made this kind of observation that if I was tasked, or if you were tasked, let's just be real for a minute, with putting a team together that was going to change the world, it probably wouldn't have been them. I mean, they probably wouldn't have made the cut or even got a resume to the top to get an interview. I mean, they were just that ordinary. They were just kind of that un-shiny, if you would. But here's what we said about that.

This is actually really good news. Because that's where most of us live our lives. Most of us live our lives in the fact that we're just ordinary people, we're ordinary people. And we hung all of what we said on this principle last week that Jesus looked into these ordinary people, He selected them, and He sent them to impact the world. And man, I just couldn't get past this idea. I can just feel the relief, you know? Because how many times do, we fall into this trap of feeling like that I really, I don't have anything to offer or I don't have anything to give or maybe you get into a point in your life where Satan is kind of pressing into you a little bit and you begin to doubt that God, can you use me? Or can you make me into somebody that can be useful for your kingdom? Well, this series, I hope you felt it last week. And I hope you're gonna feel it through every week, just to be honest. This series has given us the ammunition to look back at Satan and go, you know what, you're right. I'm not super-duper, uber talented, and I don't have a lot to offer, but I'm a child of the King. And that's what matters. That's what matters. But we don't get there by happenstance. And so, on the backside of last week, we looked at this process of what was it that took these disciples from making them ordinary, average Joes and changing them into guys that change literally, the world, that lay the tracks for the church, and really is a lot of the reason that we're here today. We looked at this process, and I'm going to show it to you again, because I think it lays some foundation for us today. And the reality is Jesus walked us through this process where they were introduced to who Jesus was. They kind of felt the power and the presence and they had a little bit of taste of who he was and then they were invited into a relationship with Jesus to where they walked with him, they knew him, they experienced him and then they were taught the principles of what it looked like to live this godly life in the name of Jesus. And then they were invited into a mentor program with Jesus, to be mentored and how to live in His power, how to live in His principles, and then they were transformed by the Holy Spirit by every day of the renewing of their minds. And then finally they were sent. And they were encouraged and set free to engage in the mission of Jesus. And look, I'm just going to tell you, I'm not up here just wanting to give information. The goal of last week was for all of us to look at ourselves in this process and just ask, where am I? Am I stepping into the next spot of my life to be sent by him? Well, that was last week, that kind of laid the foundation. Well, this week, and the weeks to follow, we are going to start walking through some of the specific lives of some of the individual disciples. And here's why. Because I think every single one of them pulls a principle from life, as well as pull some personality, and just some influence. And we can see ourselves and we can see different parts of who we are through their lives. And we can look at their specific journeys of how Jesus led them and taught them and how he took them into this next step of life. And we can allow them to speak into us. Now, obviously, we're probably not going to do all 12, that would take us to about June, we're not going to do that. But we're going to pull a few of them into our world that I think represent a lot of who we are today. We're going to start with the apostle named Philip, we're going to start with the apostle named Philip. Now I know you're a little disappointed, it's not one of the top three, right? It's not when it's in the inner circle, it's not even in the first list, it's kind of that B rate disciple. He's in the middle of the list on all the lists. But listen, I need you to know that Philip has a message that absolutely can pierce into your soul. And I promise you it can if you'll let it because I know. I know a lot of you. And I know myself and everything I looked at in Philip this week, all I could do is go oh my goodness, that's who I am. That's who I am. And I know because I get your emails. That's who you are to.

The apostle Philip, if we invited him into a conversation today, knowing what he knows now and knowing and is walking with Jesus, he would look straight into your eyes, and he would look straight into my eyes and he would say these words. He would say, Matt, listen to me, you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to have all the answers. He would look into just who I am and say, Matt, I know your personality. I know you're a systems guy, I know that you like the same things. I'm telling you. I am one of the most plain-Jane people on this planet. I like the same thing. I like the same seven meals. I like the same restaurants. I like the same places. If I get a pair of shoes, I like Melissa to pry them off my feet. I mean, I like consistency. And I liked all the boxes to be checked. Can I get an amen for the box-checkers of the world? I'm a process guy. If it doesn't come with a process, I don't want to do it. I'm just that guy. I'm a guy that gets up almost every day and looks at my to do list. I keep an Evernote file with boxes. I love the feeling of ticking a box off when something gets done. I love answers. I love process. And listen, Philip does too. Philip does too. We're gonna see it today. But Philips taught me a lesson this week. And he's taught me the lesson that sometimes I don't have to have all the answers to step out of my faith. Sometimes I don't have to have all the answers to just say, Yes Lord. And have a feeling because I know you, some of you are gonna learn this too.

So, who is Philip? Philip's one of those disciples that we don't look at a whole lot. So I think we need some introduction to who Philip is. He was born in Bethsaida, it's kind of the northern end of the Sea of Galilee. If you've ever looked at those maps in the back of your Bible, all two of us, it is on that little top of the very top tip of the Sea of Galilee. If you remember from your reading of the New Testament, there's a lot of disciples from that area. You've got Simon and you've got Peter and Andrew his brother was born in that same town. James and John two of the other guys were in the town right beside them. And here's the cool part about it. Growing up since they were the same age, they would have known each other, they would have played together. And here's how we know that both of their families were fishermen families. They were both fishermen family and don't think like being from Atlanta. Oh, you're from Atlanta. I'm from Atlanta. That's not how it is. All right. It's like being from that Town in South Georgia. That one little town that doesn't even have a stop sign town where they know you, your business and your grandma's. I mean, that is kind of the town that these guys grew up in. So they knew each other from birth, and Philips family was a Greek family. Now it's pretty interesting because there were some Greeks in that area only because another history moment, only because that Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC conquered a lot of this area. Some of you in history are like, Oh please, Matt, no. But no, it's important. He conquered that area, some of the Greeks moved to the whole area, they dispersed into the area of the conquered territory. This would have been Philips family. Philip, interestingly enough, is the only disciple in the whole list of the disciples that never gets a Hebrew name. He keeps his Greek name. I don't know why? If you know, tell me, I couldn't find out why other than the fact that he came from a Greek family. And there was this little Greek moment where a Greek guy had a question one time and they were like, go talk to Phil. I mean, that's all I could find in the whole Bible. He came from this Greek family and the reality is, we have to look at Philip a little bit differently. Because there's three different Philips in the New Testament. And it's really easy to let them run together. You've got King Herod the evil king. In early in the gospels, his brother's name was Philip. That's not the Philip we're looking at. You've got the Philip of the book of Acts, chapter 8, Philip the evangelist that led the Eunich to the Lord canvasses Eunich. That is not the same Philip. The Philip we're looking at is the Philip of the disciples. Now, the word Philip, I don't know why this is really important, but you never know, you might need it in trivia. The word Philip or the name, Philip means lover of horses. I don't know why that's important. I just thought it was something we needed to talk about. But also, Philip is only mentioned by the gospel writer, John. Now I don't know if they had a special relationship. I don't know if it was just kind of in John's special flow. But obviously Philips name is in the lists of disciples in the other gospels, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke, none of them mentioned any of the affairs of Philip, but John in his Gospel does. So, if you have a copy of scripture, I want you to give with me in John. The Gospel of John, and we're gonna watch Philips life roll through his plight with Jesus. And then the reality is one of the one of the most, I guess it's almost depressing on one side, but not on the other is that on one side of the coin, when you see Philips life, it just really feels like that old Phil gets a bad rap. I mean, he gets a really bad rap through the Gospel of John, because he's always kind of speaking out of his personality and not out of Jesus's power. He's always kind of misspeaking or thinking materialistically or are thinking kind of a human can do or can-do attitude. But on the other side of Phil's life, we kind of see every now and then he kind of lets his guard down a little bit. He lets God begin to step into his life, and he's used by God. And if I can just be super honest, I feel like I live a lot of my life in that tension, amen? I feel like there are moments where I can just kind of see some progress in my life, where I'm like, you know what, I did it today? You know what I did? I spoke to that. I did that. But then I can also see moments in my life where my faith gets crunched by the fact that I haven't checked all the boxes, or I can't answer all the questions. And so I wanted to start with Philip today, not only because he's just the ordinary of the ordinary disciples, but also because I think he lives in the tension that a lot of us live in. Just being honest, of that, if we don't have all the answers, we're not going to step out in faith.

So, I want us to see us life today from this. So, if we were to invite him in, I think that Philip would have kind of five different areas that he would want to speak to us with. And he would basically say, look, you don't have to have all the answers, to do five things. And number one is this. He would say to us that you don't have to have all the answers, to answer the call of Jesus. You don't have to have all the answers to answer the call of Jesus. You say, Matt, what do you mean? Well, let me show you. It's in the Gospel of John, remember, the Gospel of John starts with John showing us, John the Baptist, all right, it gets a little confusing. John is writing and he's talking about another John named John the Baptist. All right? And so, John the Baptist is the last prophet, he's speaking towards the coming of the Messiah. And he's lifting up Jesus's name and telling everybody that he can meet that the Messiah is here; that Jesus is coming and that he wants to represent Him well. One of my favorite lines by John the Baptist is when he looks back at Jesus and he says, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes the sins of the world." And we see that John begins to preach about Jesus. He begins to teach about Jesus and these guys start following him. These guys start kind of getting into his group a little bit. And in this guy named Andrew meets John, and here's about Jesus. He goes and gets his brother by the name of Simon, that becomes Peter later on, and they go get John who is writing this Gospel, and they're kind of invited into the mix of what is happening by this guy named John the Baptist. And then all of a sudden, they begin to kind of fall in love with not John the Baptist, but with the person that John the Baptist is preaching about, and that is Jesus, when they meet Jesus. But I want you to see what happens next. John chapter 1:43, let's see what happens to Philip. It says this, "The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said, Follow Me." Now you may want to outline that or circle it or highlight it, whatever you want to do. "Finding Philip, he said, Follow me." Philip, like Andrew and Peter was from the town of Bethsaida. Now think about the context, just for a minute, this is important. You see, these guys, they didn't know hardly anything about Jesus. They're beginning to put the pieces together being Jewish kids, whether it's Abrahamic or Hellenistic doesn't matter. They're beginning to put the pieces together in their minds about this guy named Jesus might just be the one that we've been looking for. He's been the one that our ancestors have been talking about, that we've been celebrating the Lord's Supper over and coming of this King, and they hear this guy named John the Baptist preaching about Him. And finally, this guy named Jesus pops on to the scene. He looks at Philip, I love this. He looks at Philip and Jesus says this, follow me. Follow me. And I want you to notice what happens next. He does, he follows Him. Now, this is important. Jesus not only spiritually finds Philip, but he also physically finds Philip and he invites Philip into a relationship with Him. Now, I know this doesn't seem like a big deal. But let me flesh it out for you just a little bit. Because man, I'm so glad this is how it happens. You see, in the first disciples, when they came to Jesus, they kind of got washed out in the mix a little bit. We kind of just find Peter and we kind of find John and we kind of find Andrew and they just kind of get invited into the process a little bit. But I want you to see what happens to Philip right here. It says that Jesus intentionally, alright? Look at it, intentionally found Philip. He left where he was, he found Philip and what did he do? He invited him into a relationship with Jesus. And I'm so glad that it says that. Can I tell you why? Because that's exactly what he wants to do with you. He wants to invite you into a relationship, He finds you. I hear all the time, and this is a well-meaning statement. I hear all the time. People say things like man, I just found Jesus. You didn't find Jesus, He found you. He was never lost. He was never like, oh, boo, here I am. No. He found you. And this is good news. This is incredible news. Because when Jesus finds Philip, he calls Philip. Philip responds to the great dance and we can talk about that over coffee one day. And it's this incredible moment where we see that Philip doesn't have all the answers, but he knows that he's being called by Jesus. And what does he do? He submits to the Lordship of Jesus.

Do you realize that at this point in the disciple’s plight, they knew nothing? They knew nothing. Don't look at them as like having everything all together. All they knew was this guy. We think He's the Messiah. He invited us to follow him. I can just hear like the murmurings of people going, Hey, who do you think that guy is? I can just hear Philip, going, well look, all I know is that guy named John over there says that He's the Messiah. He's the Savior. All I know is He's done a few miracles and all I know is that's good enough for me and I'm on that train because He called my name. Can I tell you that's where God wants us? That's where he wants us. But I feel like we're advancing into technology and information so far sometimes that we choose not to submit ourselves to Jesus until every single thing that I have a question about gets answered. But I want you to remember an important truth right here. Look, you don't have to have all your stuff together to come to Jesus. You don't have to have all your questions, answers to come to Jesus. You don't have to have the pieces of your life put together to come to Jesus. You don't have to have all the answers. No, you surrender when Jesus calls you, and then He begins to work through you. That's the process. That's why John 6:44 says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up on that last day." This is why John 6:65 says, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them." Look, when we're called by Jesus, we are set to respond to Jesus and then He begins to do what? Renew our mind. If you were waiting to come, if you were fighting the call of Jesus on your life because you don't have all your answers met, I got news for you, you're never gonna have all your answers. How do we know that? We're seeing it right here. We're seeing this apostle, called by Jesus respond to Jesus, then He begins to sanctify you and mold you. Listen, never let Satan drag you into this moment that you can't know, Jesus, if you don't know, all the answers, doesn't happen. So, Philip just knew He is the Messiah. But what happens next, look at this next verse. So, Philip follows Jesus and then he immediately does something. Verse 45, "Philip found Nathaniel," I love this, "and told him, we have found the one that Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote-Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph." Now look, when we read that in English, it feels a little bit flat. But I guarantee you, there's emotion there. I guarantee you, there's a feeling of, hey, we're a little bit excited about this and then watch what happens. Watch what Nathaniel does. Nathaniel says in verse 46, "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathaniel asked like Alabama, what? I mean, he says this. Sorry, I didn't mean that. "Nathaniel asked. Come and see, said Philip." That was not in the notes, Nathaniel asked. Come and see, said, Philip. When Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said to him, Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. How do you know me? Nathaniel asked Jesus. I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you. Then Nathaniel declared, Rabbi, You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel." And there's a lot there that we can say. But I just want to show you what Philip did right here. So Philip, not only is telling us that you don't have to have all the answers to respond to the call of Jesus. But secondly, Philip is telling us right here that you don't have to have all the answers to lead, listen to this, someone else to Jesus. You don't have to have all the answers to do that. You say Matt, how do you know? I know because there's literally one verse later, and he didn't know anything before. It's not a break, there's not weeks here. It is part of the same conversation. What happened? Philip looked at this guy, he barely knew his life was changed and he was transformed. And all of a sudden, he said immediately, I can't contain what just happened in me, and what can happen in you, and I gotta tell you about it. Nathaniel, I gotta tell you.

Let me ask you something? Did Philip know exactly what to say right here? No, he didn't. Did Philip know all the answers to life's questions right here? No, I promise you he didn't. Could fill up give a theological as well as a anthropology answer to the dinosaurs and evolution right here? No, he could not. Could he give an answer to all of the mysteries of the Old Testament? No. Did he know all of the New Testament? No, it didn't even exist yet. He couldn't have known it. Did he know all of the things later about who Jesus was going to be? No, he didn't. All that he knew is his life was changed. And he wanted that for his friend, Nathaniel. That's all he knew. But what do we say most of the time when somebody like me, looks at somebody like all of us and says, look, you can lead people to Jesus? You're like, oh I don't know if I can do that. I don't know enough. Look you don't have to have all the answers. What did he say to him? It's my favorite words. It's three words in verse 46. That changed the world for me. All that Philip said to this guy was, Hey, we found Him. Come see Him. That's it. That was his whole response to the gospel. Look, he finished. He's like, Look, you gotta come see this guy. Can I just tell you; I've met some of the biggest and most talented evangelists on this planet? I mean, I'm talking about the guys, you can't drag out of restaurants because they're talking to the busboy about Jesus for 45 minutes. These are the guys I'm talking about. But can I tell you some of the people that I know that God uses the most? It's the people that don't have all the answers and he goes, look, I just know that God changed me. I just know that God set me free. I know that there was this thing in my life and all of a sudden it wasn't in my life anymore, and I cannot explain it. Well, what about the dinosaurs? I don't know about the dinosaurs. But I know about Jesus. That's the people that God is looking for. You see Philips natural tendency was to draw back in conversations and not answer until he had all the answers. But man, am I so glad that God is showing himself in these moments. Look, you don't have to have all the answers to answer the call. You don't have to have all the answers to lead someone else to Jesus. We're seeing it right here but also number three. You don't have to have all the answers Philip would tell us to meet people's needs, in the name of Jesus. You don't have to have all the answers to meet people's needs in the name of Jesus. The next time we see Philip, the next time doesn't go so well. I'm just going to tell you now, the next time we see Philip is in John chapter 6. In John chapter 6, this is one of my favorite miracles of the Bible. Jesus has this crowd around Him, all of the disciples are with Him. Jesus must have preached a beautiful message that day, because they'd been there all day long. And I mean, let's just face it. That's a good deal. They've been hanging out with Jesus. Matthew's account of this in John 6 says that it's nighttime and people were hungry. I mean, there wasn't a drive thru Sonic didn't exist. They were there. They were hungry. And then Jesus with all of these people, some people believe about 15,000 people were looking around and He notices the crowd. Look at this in John chapter 5. "When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward Him, He said to Philip," now who is Jesus talking to? Philip, that's great. Me and you. We're gonna do this together. Nobody else cares about what's going on in this moment right here. "He said to Philip." The last service didn't either, it's okay. "He said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" Now pause there, I want you to leave that on the screen. Now, what is Jesus doing right here? Jesus is looking at Philip, because remember, Philip is his administrator. That's his job. All right? We'll talk about that in a minute. He's looking at Philip and he's like, hey, Phil. Phil, come here. Come here. It's not the rest of the disciples. He was like, Phil, come here. We need to feed these people. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? And I love this. Watch Jesus. I'm so glad I'm not Philip.

Look at this verse 6. "He asked this, only to test him, for He had in mind what he was going to do. Jesus is playing some kind of Jedi mind trick on Philip right here. He's like, hey, Phil, come here. Come here. Come here. Come here. I know you're the admin guy. I know you're the problem solver. I know you're the Chip Vincent of the disciple world, here is what I'm going to ask you. How are we? How are you protocol Master? How are you about to feed all of these people? Now Philip was the kind of guy that you go to meetings with all the time. He was the kind of person that is on your PTA board. And Philip was a "no man". You know, those "no people" that no matter what it is, you can't do it. There's not enough of and the process isn't right. That was Philip. But Jesus already knew what he was about to do. He already knew how He's about to solve this problem. So poor Philip is being set up for failure here. But here's why Jesus wanted to teach Philip a lesson. Anyone to teach us type A people a lesson. And he wanted to tell us that sometimes the boxes don't get checked. Sometimes we have to leave the world of process and we have to step into the world of faith. He's about to show us right here. Jesus is teaching us this message that sometimes, trusting Jesus does not make earthly sense. Sometimes the pieces just don't add up. Because you know, Peter was the administrator, right? You know that Peter had already ran the numbers. You know it. Peter already counted the people; he had already looked at it. Hey, Judas, how much money we got over there, you know that he already knew what this was gonna look like? I'm not reading into it. Look at verse 7. "Philip answered him, it would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have one bite." One bite, you know, Jesus is like, ahhhh these guys, really? What did Phil do? He fell back into his materialistic thinking and his materialistic mind, and he didn't let the miracle worker be expressed. And isn't this easy to do? Isn't it easy to look at our lives and look at what God is calling us to do and look at what is going on around us? Isn't it easy to put it on our process grid and sometimes pull back from the faith that God asked us to step in? Man, it's such a great lesson. But what should Philip have said? You know, I've been thinking about this all week. And this is my sanctified imagination. This is not the Bible. But here's what I think Philip should have said, All right, because we can say this from this point looking backwards. Phillip should have looked at Jesus and went Jesus, if you want to feed these people, you're gonna have to feed these people. That's all I got. You're gonna have to feed these people. And it would have been a totally respectable answer for him to say that Why? Because that would have been him. Looking at Jesus going Jesus, I got no idea how we're gonna feed these people. But I know somebody that does, because it's the same person that fed our ancestors in the wilderness for years. Same person to turn water into wine, it’s the same person that is promised to me to have eternity, I could just see Philip, he should have looked at Jesus and went Jesus look, as the administrator of the group, I will use my gifts, I will use my abilities, I will put these people in a line, but you're going to have to give the food. And then Jesus would have been like, that's my boy. That's my boy, Phil. But he doesn't do that. Just like a lot of us a lot of times when we get in these faith moments, what do we do?

Doesn't make sense, right? I can't give to that. Can't do that. Can't commit to that, can't give that time. Why? Because it doesn't make sense on our checkboxes. But what is Philip saying here? Those who thought I can't do this, thank goodness for his friend Andrew, right? And the rest of the story in verse 8. Thank goodness Andrew bails him out. He bails poor Phil out right here and look at verse 8. Another of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother spoke up. "Here's a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will that go among so many? Jesus said, have the people sit down." Chumps, alright, He didn't say that. But I could just hear it in my mind. "There was plenty of grass in that place, they sat down about five dozen men were there. Jesus then took the loaves and gave thanks and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish." Now, Mark Batterson says this and ahhh this is so good. Look at this quote. He says, "Sometimes, we need to set aside our materialistic, pragmatic, common sense concerns and learn to lay hold of the supernatural potential of faith." Of faith.

Can I just tell you that faith is the lost art of Christianity? I believe that the information train of this day has overtaken the faith train. Now, I'm not I'm not opposed to information, you know, my heart better than that. I I love the word. I love to study. But I think there's moments where it just doesn't make sense that we just need to take the step and I think that's what's going to take us to the next level of who we are in Jesus and filled the show in this, you don't have to have all the answers to meet people's needs. But I want to see number four. Also, number four, you don't have to have all the answers to trust in the promises of Jesus. You don't have to have all the answers. Do you know what there are some promises of Jesus that are just not going to make sense in our sinful finite minds? They're just never going to. There are mysteries of the gospel, there's the bigness of God, there is the idea that the maker of the universe put on flesh and died for my sins. And I can grab hold of a little bit of that, and that promise, but there are sometimes where I just don't have all the answers and that's okay. That's okay. We see it in the next time we see Philip, you would think that out of John chapter 6, Philip would have got his act together, but he didn't. He didn't. The next time we see him is in John chapter 14, and they're in the upper room. And Jesus is given them their last pep talk before he is crucified. And Jesus looks at these guys in John chapter 14:1-7 And he says this, I just want you to see verse seven, out of this next block of Scripture, it says this. Jesus tells them, I'm going, I'm preparing a place, I'm gonna come back for you. And then Jesus says this on the last side, he says, Look, "If you really know me, you will know my father as well. From now on, you do know him, and you have seen him." What is He doing? Jesus is looking at His disciples, He's going, look, me, I am Jesus, but me and the Father, we are one. This messes with some of our messianic brothers. We are one in substance, that's another day, but we are one person. And then Thomas is like, Ah, okay, I get that a little bit. Then Philip opens his mouth in verse 8 and says this, I love it because Philip has to have all the answers. "Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." You know, Jesus, it took everything he had just not to go seriously. I just said, I and the Father are One, one verse ago. Look at verse 9, "Jesus answered, don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father living in Me who is doing His work?

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves." He's looking at Philip and going Philip, your questions are about to drive Me crazy. Trust me. Just trust me. Philip, you can trust. What is He saying? Literally, Jesus is looking at the administrator of his group saying, you can trust my promises, even if you have question. That's the tension He wants us to live in. That we can trust the promises of God, I love that we are seeing the inner circle of Jesus have this moment of God, I'm not sure what to do with this moment. Can I trust your promises? And Jesus is like, Yep, you can. You can, even if you don't fully understand them, you can trust them. And then what did Jesus do? Did Jesus kick Philip out of the room right here? No. Just like He doesn't kick us out of the room, when we're foolish sometimes. He speaks to him. He loves him. He loves on him; he has compassion on him. And then he just reassures him. Can I tell you, it's at these moments when we're dealing with these ideas of, I'm really not sure how to do this, that we gotta lean into the promises that we do know that Jesus has given us life and life more abundantly, that Jesus is for us and not against us, that Jesus says to seek him first and then he's gonna add all these things on to us that Jesus says that He will never drive us away once we are in His love. I love Romans 8 where it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Philip says, Look, you don't have to have all the answers to trust in the promises of God, you just have to know that He is for you, for you. And here's what happens. When you trust in those promises, the other promises begin to grow in your spirit. Here's number five, this is the last one. Number five, Philip would just look at us. And I could just sense him leaning in a little bit and just almost have a little bit of a shame going, you know, I kind of get a bad rap in the Gospel of John. And he just tells us look, you can, you don't have to have all the answers to change the world. In the name of Jesus, you don't have to have all the answers. Here's how I know he would say this. Immediately when Jesus left those disciples in the Upper Room, in John chapter 17, we find Jesus He's praying to God in the garden, and He's praying for His disciples specifically, He's praying for why because He knows that they're a ragtag group of ordinary guys that He is tasked with a monumental task. He looks at him in John 17:18 and says this. He looks at God, he says, "As you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." Now, here's what He's really saying there. He's looking at God going God, I don't know how this is gonna happen. These guys, they're about to scatter. They're about to run. They're not going to be found. I'm about to give my life for you, God, they are still struggling. They've given themselves back to their human thinking, they've given themselves back to the old themselves. But God, despite their limitations, despite their lack of qualifications, despite Philips controlling attitude, God help them change the world. Change the world through your power. Look, I hope, I hope you're seeing the theme of every single one of these things. The theme is Jesus working in us through His power.

That's the theme. Can I just tell you; you are not the supplier of the power? Your job is to be available. Everything else is on God. Your job is to say, Yes, Lord. Everything else is on you. Your job is to go Lord, if you want to feed them, feed them. Your job is to say, I don't know all the answers, but you can come and see. Your job is to say, Jesus, my life. Here you go. See, it's not our ability, it's our availability. It's about us, answering the call and leading others and meeting people's needs and trusting in the promises of Jesus. And ultimately, it's about us changing the world. Let me tell you something about Philip. History tells us that after the resurrection, and after the ascension, Philip ends up in what is now modern-day Ukraine. He ends up moving there to take the gospel to that area. And he's incredibly successful at it so successful that he was threatened by the monarch of that time that if he did not quit, they were going to kill him or banish him from the whole country. Well, it ends up that half of the monarch’s family ended up meeting the Lord ended up meeting Jesus. The rest of them got so angry at Philip, they put him in prison, they shipped him out of the country to what is now present-day Turkey. It's Turkey now. Listen to what happened in Turkey. Same thing in prison, he began to meet people that began to come hear his message, he began to meet guards and members of the royal family and they begin to meet Jesus, they begin to hear the message of Jesus. Did he have all the answers? No. But did he have enough of the answers to tell them about Jesus? Absolutely. You know why I know this, because he led so many of them to the Lord that eventually the other side of the coin ends up saying, we got to take care of this guy. And they martyred him. Depends on who you read whether he was stoned or crucified, we're not really sure. But he gave his life for Jesus. He came full circle, a guy that stood there and looked at Jesus and wait, we can't do this is now either being put on a cross or being stoned in the name of Jesus? Why? Was it because he had all the answers? No. It's because he had enough of the answers to say, hey, it's not me, it's my faith in Him. It's my faith in him. So, here's my question today. Are you going to allow the transforming power of Jesus, give you the ability to sometimes quit, check in the boxes, and sometimes just start taking the steps and allowing Jesus to move? Look, I don't know what that means for you. I don't know where you are, and your family is in this moment. I don't know if that means today, you need to finally submit to the calling of the Holy Spirit and give Him your life. I don't know if that means today, you finally need to look at that person that you know and go, Hey, you need to know Jesus. I don't know if that's today. You said I need to plant in this church and begin to flourish and walk in a discipling relationship. I don't know if that today means you need to start giving and quit worrying that God is not going to provide. I don't know if that today means you need to drop some of the things in your life that is hindering you from taking these steps of faith. But I do know this, Peter would say, look, you don't have to have all the answers. As long as you've got the answer of who the Messiah is. His name is Jesus. I want to pray over us for a time of decision.

Lord Jesus today, God, I'm just asking you to move. But I'm praying right now that there are people that in their souls are sensing, something is stirring. And God if they have never given their life to Jesus today, Jesus, I pray that you make it incredibly clear to them that this is the moment that they just need to say to you, Lord Jesus, I'm inviting you into my life. I'm giving you my heart; I'm submitting my heart to you. Become my Savior, become my Lord. God, I'm praying that right now that is the hearts of some people that are hearing this message. They're giving their lives to you. God, if it's them, I pray that they let us know or let a friend know so that we can follow up with them from our next steps program. God, I pray that there's people in these rooms and joining us online that God at this very moment is saying, I have to drop the limitations of my earthly thinking and start living my life in a way that faith takes over. Whatever that looks like. Because God we know that You are the way maker, and You give us life. Thank you, Jesus. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

Let's stand and sing together. If you need to respond, you can do it through the next steps number on the screen, you can do it through the app. There's a next steps button. But man, give Jesus this moment of faith.

 

Follow Along with the Message

The 12 That Changed the World #2 Philip - You Don’t Have To Have All The Answers.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS TO:

1. Answer the   of Jesus.

John 1:43; John 6:44; John 6:65 John 1:45; John 1:46

2. Lead   to Jesus.
3. Meet People’s  in the Name of Jesus.

John 6:5-6; John 6:7; John 6:8-11

4. Trust in the   of Jesus.

John 14:1-7; John 14:8; Rom. 8:38-39

5. Change the   for Jesus.

John 17:18