What are You Seeking? (John 1:29-42) | 01.18.26

Sermon Text: John 1:29-42

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Introduction

Welcome back to OGC everyone, today we are continuing our series through the Book of John. Just so I can get a good vibe of the room, quick question: how many people here have read Harry Potter? (Gotta throw a bone to the millennials every now and then). For those of you who have, you’ll probably remember the Mirror of Erised in the first book. 

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For those of you who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, the main character and his friends find a mirror hidden in their school. And written across the top of the mirror backwards it says, “I show not your face but your heart’s desire.” And the kids’ headmaster explains that when you look into the mirror, the mirror reflects to you your greatest desire. And sure enough when the kids look into it, they see their deepest desire. His best friend, Ron, sees himself as captain of the sports team, and Harry, an orphan, sees himself reunited with his parents . No one else can see your deepest desire, only you can.

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And the more I have thought about that mirror, the more I have realized how terrifying that mirror could be. Imagine walking up to that mirror and you think you know what your greatest desire is, but you see what it is that you really desire. And then imagine what if everyone else could see what your greatest desire was. Those of us who are Christians would want to step up to that mirror and see “God’s Glory” or “Jesus” flash up in big letters behind us. But, what if we got up there and “Money,” “Marriage,” “Influence,” or “Comfort” popped up? What if, deep down, we don’t desire the right things. If you looked into that mirror, what do you think it would show?

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In our passage today, Jesus asks these two disciples a pretty mundane question with huge implications. “What are you seeking?” And it is a question that we all have to ask ourselves at various points of our lives. “What am I seeking… really?” In our fast-paced world, there are a million different things competing for your attention and your deepest desire. And what you “seek” is often what you think will lead you to what you desire. 

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So, this question “What are you seeking?” is at the heart of our sermon today. And we are going to follow the path of the passage as we ask ourselves this very question. And I want us all to see, whether you are a Christian or not, that there is hope and good news and an invitation when we desire the wrong things. First, we are going to look at who it is that is asking this question. Then, we are going to look at what the response to it is. And lastly, we will see what the result of the answer is.

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Who is Asking?

First, who is asking this question? Have you ever noticed that sometimes the entire meaning of a question changes based on who is asking it? If you came up to me and asked me, “Clark, what were you doing last night?” I am sure that it would have a very different vibe than if a police officer asked me the same question. Or, a barista asking “What can I do for you?” is very different than a Senator asking that question. Both of them can accomplish very specific but different things for you. So, to better strike at the heart of the question “What are you seeking?” We need to look at the question asker.

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Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at the ministry of John the Baptist. At this point in the Gospel, Jesus has not begun His ministry yet; in fact, He hasn’t even shown up on the scene yet. And that is actually where our passage starts, with Jesus coming into the narrative. And, ya know, if the point of a sermon is to point people to Jesus, John had it pretty made right here. He literally got to point to Him. 

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And John the Baptist does not miss a beat in laying out Jesus’s resume for everyone to hear. “‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks before me, because He was before me,”’” (John 1:29b-30). John even says that this man is the reason that he has been doing everything that he has been doing, “‘so that [Jesus] might be revealed to Israel,’” (John 1:31). John even gets a little Trinitarian to explain what is going on, if you look at verse 33 you can see what I mean. “‘I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit,”’” (John 1:33). And John wraps up this mini sermon by saying that “...this is the Son of God,’” (John 1:34b).

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Let’s break this down, because John throws a lot at us with this description of Jesus. But, each bit of what he says will paint a clearer picture of who is asking us our central question. Group some of these things John said together. First, “a man who ranks before me, because He was before me.” As we saw last week, John is very clear that his ministry was simply to prepare the way for Jesus’s, and here he is reiterating that point but more emphatically. He is claiming that Jesus ranks above him and that Jesus was before John. Well if you have read the Gospel of Luke, who was born first - Jesus or John? John, so what does he mean? Well, John the Gospel writer just spent the prologue of his book telling us about Jesus’s pre-existence and it seems like John the Baptist is communicating that. Makes sense that he ends this mini-sermon by calling Jesus “the Son of God.” 

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Second, John says that Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and that John came to prepare the way so that Jesus might be revealed to Israel. What’s going on here? These two ideas are not opposed to one another, they are tied together to unfold God’s plan: that Israel’s Messiah is actually the Messiah of the whole world. Salvation would come from Israel but would not be solely for Israel. Christ would bear the sins of all who believe in Him - Jew or Gentile. 

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So, what’s with the Lamb metaphor? That’s pretty unique, and a lot of commentators are split on what John (the Baptist and the Gospel writer) are trying to get across. But, this passage is an example of a good way to approach the book of John as we move forward. John likes to do this thing where he will make a statement or use a phrase that has more than one meaning and he means both ideas at the same time. Take the Lamb for example. “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” could be a reference to the Passover Lamb, the lamb of Isaiah 53, the lambs of daily sacrifice, the scapegoat, or the lamb that God provided Abraham to sacrifice instead of Isaac. There’s not really enough evidence to go squarely with one of these options, so John might be drawing all these threads together to say, “This guy is the fulfillment of all of them!”

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So, why does this mini-sermon by John affect the question “What are you seeking?” Because this is what the two disciples hear that prompt them to go speak to Jesus. This sermon (and John’s repetition of it in verses 36) are what move them to follow Jesus. They hear these things about Jesus being the way that God is going to deal with sin, that His ministry will be greater than John’s, that He was “before” John, and that He is the Son of God. You gotta think they’d be thinking, “I’ve gotta see what this guy is like!” There is no box that holds a guy like that, there is no one else on the planet like that.

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We all, believers or non-believers, have a tendency in our hearts to put Jesus in a box - to emphasize the parts that we like and to court off the parts that we don’t. “Jesus was a great moral teacher!” “Jesus took sin really seriously!” “Jesus let those religious hypocrites have it!” But, that isn’t what John does. He doesn’t let his desires shape how and what He takes awe in in Jesus. He just proclaims who He is - as much as He can. 

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The one who asks us “What are you seeking?” is not, a senator, a barista, a police officer, a friend, or a magic mirror. He is the Son of God, the one who ranks before us because He was before us. He is, according to John’s prologue, the very one through whom all things were made. He is the Word of God asking His disciples a question. And now let’s turn to that question.

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The Response to the Question

So, John the Gospel writer tells us that two of John the Baptist’s disciples hear John proclaim that Jesus is the Lamb of God, and they decide to follow Him. And it is this part of the story that Jesus poses the question to the two disciples.

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These two disciples, Andrew and most likely John himself, start to follow Jesus and he turns to them and asks the question that we have been thinking through this morning, “‘What are you seeking?’” (John 1:38a). And just think about the list of answers that the two of them could have said. They were fishermen in the backwoods of the Roman Empire. They could have said they were seeking success, money, power, safety, security, or freedom. But, they were also disciples of John, so they could have said they were seeking righteousness, holiness, and purity.

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What would you say? It might sound cheesy or hokey, but seriously, be honest with yourself: “What are you seeking?” What we seek shows us a lot about our hearts and our desires. In the words of the English Reformer Thomas Cranmer, “What the heart wants, the will chooses and the mind justifies.” That is what the text is asking us. What we seek shows us a glimpse of what is going on beneath the surface of our hearts. When you read the words of Jesus, “What are you seeking?” how do they sound? Is He disinterested? “What are you seeking?” Is He judgmental? “What are you seeking?” Or is He compassionate? “What are you seeking?” Let’s see what happens between him and the disciples.

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“‘What are you seeking?’ And they said to Him, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher) ‘where are you staying?’” (John 1:38). Notice what happened? They gave Jesus the ole “I am going to answer your question with a question.” They didn’t really answer him. Or, did they? 

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We can’t see the hearts and minds of Andrew and John when they were answering Jesus, all we have is the text that God has given us. But, their ‘non-answer’ shows us a lot about their decision and about the nature of following Jesus. We might expect the “perfect disciple” to tell Jesus, “I only desire one thing, Lord: to please you.” But, that’s not the disciples that we are shown. They might not have even known what exactly they were seeking, but they knew the one thing that it involved - the one Person that it involved. So, they wanted to remain with Him. Their question shows us one thing for sure: they wanted to be with Jesus. We could brush past their question like they wanted a MTV Cribs tour of Jesus’s lodging, but that’s not what is going on. They want not so subtly asking to go with Him - to be with Him.

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And what is Jesus’s response? “‘Come and you will see.’ So they came and saw where He was staying, and they stayed with Him that day for it was about the tenth hour,” (John 1:39). “Come and you will see.” Jesus extends them an invitation to remain with Him. They remain with Him for the rest of the day and probably overnight since it was about 4pm. 

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And while this exchange on the surface looks just like some people discussing a travel itinerary, the weight behind it shows the basics of discipleship and following Jesus even to this day. The call of Jesus, through His Word and His church, is still the same. “What are you seeking?” 

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If you are here today and are a believer and are disheartened and discouraged that you don’t seek Jesus enough and don’t desire Him enough, join the club. None of us desire Jesus or seek Him “good enough” or even “enough.” And yet, He keeps asking us “What are you seeking?” Not in a condemning way, but to keep inviting us back to Himself. Jesus asks us “What are you seeking” so that He can tell us “Come and you will see something better.” The Good News of the Gospel is not that you have to fix your desires before you come to Jesus - we cannot do that on our own. The Good News of the Gospel is that Christ died because of our misplaced desires and sin, and now we go to Him for our desires to change. And it is a lifelong process of continually having your loving Savior ask you, “What are you seeking?”

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 As one commentator put it, “Happily our motivation does not need to be perfectly disinterested for us to continue our pursuit of Jesus. Strictly there is no such thing as absolutely pure motive this side of heaven. But Jesus’ question is a salutary challenge to hypocritical unreality. It is a searching question at every stage of life, and He has a disturbing habit of facing us with it at every new crossroad of experience: ‘What do you want?’”

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For those of us who are disciples of Jesus, this passage holds two things in tension that we need to remember on our long path of following after Him. First, He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus does save us from something: our sin, our wrongful desires, and our wandering seeking. But, second, Jesus saves us to something - “Come and you will see.” You know how you experience the “saving from” power of Jesus over your sin? Come and you will see. You know how you experience the “saving to” power of Jesus for new desires in Him? Come and you will see. In both cases the call is to be with Jesus. 

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The Result of the Question

Now, we turn to the final section of the passage, “The Result of the Question.” So the big question is “What are you seeking?” (And I am sure that you are getting tired of hearing that word by this point). But if the question is seeking, what is the answer? What is the result of seeking? Finding. And wouldn’t you know it, the end of our passage brings up that word twice. 

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After being with Jesus for the evening, Andrew comes away with one idea and immediately has to tell someone. So the text tells us, “He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ),” (John 1:41). Did you hear the words? Andrew’s revelation that they had found the Messiah drove him to go find his brother to tell him. Based on Andrew’s iffy answer back in verse 38, he didn’t really know what he was seeking. But he was so intrigued with Jesus that he went to be with Him. And in the course of being with Jesus, Andrew found more than he could have thought to. 

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Quick aside that will be helpful as we go through the Book of John. Now, if you are familiar with the other three Gospels, you might think that John got something wrong here. Matthew, Mark, and Luke make a pretty big deal that who is the first person to say that Jesus is the Christ? Right, Peter. So, what is going on here? Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the “synoptics” because they are often “read together” due to how similar they are. And as you can probably tell just from three weeks of John, John is quite different. But, based on the flow of the narrative of John, it seems as though John might have had access to the other three Gospels and he is filling in gaps in the narrative that the other three Gospels didn’t include in their narratives. So, does Andrew calling Jesus “the Messiah” here contradict the other Gospels? Absolutely not! Just because Peter’s confession is specifically highlighted in the others doesn’t mean that this didn’t happen. Also, both Andrew and Peter in their confession of Jesus as the Messiah still had a lot to learn about what that actually meant.

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And that’s what I want us to focus on. Andrew still didn’t have the full picture of what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah, and yet he still went to find his brother. But, even though he didn’t have the full picture, he remained with Jesus. He continued to be with Jesus over the course of His ministry. And even though Andrew, like the rest of the disciples minus John, abandoned Jesus. Jesus came back to them to be with them. And notice what Andrew does. He doesn’t try to explain anything to Peter, he doesn’t give the story of how he found Jesus, what does he do? “He brought him to Jesus,” (John 1:42a). The result of Jesus’s question to Andrew had Andrew bringing others to what he had found. 

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And that should be a comfort to all of us in both our evangelism and in living life in the community of the church. One of the best things you can do for anyone - believer or non-believer - is to follow Andrew’s example: bring them to Jesus. It isn’t on you what happens after that. Sometimes we can be paralyzed by feeling inadequate in our speaking ability or our wealth of knowledge or in our ability to change hearts and minds, but that’s not what we are called to do. “We have found the Messiah” was enough to draw Peter near. As one commentator put it, “It was being with Jesus that had convinced Andrew that Jesus was the Messiah, and apparently he believed it would be the same for Simon.”

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Practically what does that look like? Andrew physically got to bring Peter to Jesus, we don’t really have that option between Jesus’s ascension and His return. So, how do we “bring people to Jesus?” This is part of our high calling as a “kingdom of priests,” we get to bring the world and each other to God in a variety of ways. I think when we think of “bringing someone to Jesus” we can think of evangelism defaultly. And that is good! That is all we are doing in evangelism, “Behold the Lamb of God” “We have found the Messiah.” We are faithfully pointing to Jesus, and the rest is not up to us. And this “pointing” to Jesus is something we do when we celebrate the sacraments here. Both in the Lord’s Supper and in baptisms, we are pointing to a watching world what it means to have found the Messiah. And on a deeper level, what it means for the Messiah to have found us.

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But, there is a real need to “bring people to Jesus” right here in the church. That part of our calling as priests does not end when we walk through the doors of that church. Whether it is a brother or sister struggling with a certain doubt, a certain sin, a certain temptation, a certain affliction, a certain desire, or even certain successes, we are called to continually bring one another to Jesus. We do this through prayers in the lobby, texting encouraging verses to one another, bringing meals to one another, crying with one another, encouraging one another to keep coming to church. In a world that is trying to give us a million different desires and a million different paths of seeking, these are embodied ways that we tell one another “We have found the Messiah.”

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Conclusion

Over the course of the Book of John, we are going to see that “seek” word appears quite a lot. John uses it 34 times over the course of his Gospel. Sometimes there are people seeking Jesus for good reasons or those seeking Him to kill Him as we will see later on. But, this question we have been wrestling with all day is the first time it appears and it parallels so well with the last time that it appears in John’s Book.

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After the crucifixion, when all seemed lost, one of Jesus’s disciples went to His tomb to put spices on His body. He was dead. But, the tomb was empty and this disciple, Mary, feared that people had taken Jesus’s body away. So, she began to cry. And Jesus appeared before her and asked her a very familiar sounding question, “‘Whom are you seeking?’” (John 20:15). 

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The narrative of Jesus’s ministry starts and ends with a very similar question, but now with Mary we see the answer so much more clearly. Andrew thought Jesus was the Messiah, but now we know He is the Messiah that died for His people and was raised to defeat death. John the Baptist said that He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but now we know He is the Lamb who sits on the throne. And that question is the one that Jesus continues to ask to this day: “What or whom are you seeking?” And every time you open your Bible, go to Him in prayer, take communion, or fellowship with His body, He repeats over and over “Come and you will see.” Until that day where we will see Him as He is.

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