34. Good News: Jesus and John's Gospel Part 3

G'day, Dave here.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God for kids.

It's really exciting to see more and more people come on board and start listening.

It's great to have you with us.

Please tell as many people as you can about

the show.

People didn't seem so keen to fill in the

survey from last week, though.

I think I'll have to go back to the drawing

board and come up with some better questions for you.

I wonder if anyone's worked out why I've chosen a baby as the picture for this John

series.

If you have, or if you want to have a guess,

send me a message@faithfulgod.net.

dot I want you to imagine that you've just

heard some fantastic news.

Maybe your favourite athlete just won a gold

medal at the Olympics, or you just found out your family is going to have another baby.

Or you discovered that someone is going to give you a million dollars.

Now, how would you feel if I then said to you, you can be excited, but youre not allowed to

tell anyone, you cant let anyone know.

Its like your mouth is glued shut.

Like how would that make you feel? Would you feel more happy about the good news

or less happy? My guess is it would make you less happy.

It'd be really frustrating because good news is for sharing, right?

When you hear something that makes you really excited, you want other people to be excited

with you.

In today's story, some people hear something

really exciting and they can't wait to find someone to tell.

It's time for our next episode of stories of a faithful God for kids.

In our last episode, John the Baptist was really excited.

He'd been waiting and getting people ready for someone super special to arrive.

That person was Jesus.

When he did arrive, it's like John was jumping

up and down saying, that's him, that's him.

He doesn't want to keep the good news to

himself.

And then nothing happened.

John had lots of people following him and they should have been just as excited as him.

But we don't hear anything from them now.

It's the next day and John's going to try

again.

He's standing there with two of his followers.

He sees Jesus and he tells them in verse 36 of John, chapter one, look, the lamb of God.

This time, the two followers get what they're meant to do.

They've been following John, but he's just been getting people ready for someone more

important.

Now they turn away from John and they start

following Jesus.

In verse 38, we're told Jesus turned and saw

them following him, he asked, what do you want?

They said, rabbi, where are you staying? Rabbi means teacher.

Jesus answered, come with me and you will see.

So the two men went with Jesus.

They saw the place where Jesus was staying and stayed there with him that day.

It was then about 04:00.

Finally, the good news about Jesus is starting

to spread.

Finally, some people have clicked and that he

is the one they've been waiting for.

And once that's happened, once they've

realised the good news, they don't want to keep it to themselves.

One of the two men is a guy named Andrew.

Andrew's got a brother named Simon, though

pretty soon he's going to be known as Simon Peter.

And we're told in verse 41, the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon.

He said to Simon, we've found the messiah.

Messiah means Christ.

Remember, the Christ is the one God promised to send to fix all the problems in the world.

Finding him is huge news.

And Andrew can't wait to tell his brother.

He takes him off to meet Jesus.

Amazingly, even though Simon's meeting Jesus,

it seems like Jesus already knows him.

He already has a plan for him, so much so that

he's even been able to give him a new name.

In verse 24, we hear Jesus looked at Simon and

said, you are Simon, son of John.

You will be called Cephas.

Cephas means Peter.

That's why he's known as Simon Peter and

sometimes just Peter, even though it doesn't sound like it.

Cephas and Peter are actually the same name, but in two different languages, just like

Messiah and Christ are the same word in different languages.

So the good news about Jesus has spread again.

The next day, Jesus makes a decision.

He reckons it's time to head off to an area called Galilee.

He wants to bring more people, though.

He wants the good news to spread further.

So he finds a guy named Philip, who's from the same town that Andrew and Peter are from, and

he says, follow me.

Philip is really excited.

He seems to have a pretty good idea of who Jesus is.

And remember, good news is for sharing.

So he rushes off and he finds his mate.

That's australian for friend.

He finds his mate Nathaniel, and tells him the

good news.

In verse 45, he says, remember that Moses

wrote in the law about a man who was coming and the prophets also wrote about him.

We've found him.

He is Jesus, the son of Joseph.

He's from Nazareth.

And when Nathaniel hears this amazing news, he

says, nazareth.

Can anything good come from Nazareth?

Oh, ummdhdeme that's not a very exciting response.

But if you've got some great news, even if someone doesn't believe it, you really want to

prove it to them so they can enjoy it too.

So Philip takes Nathaniel off to meet Jesus so

he can see for himself.

Now, just like with Simon Peter, Jesus

actually knows Nathaniel even before Nathaniel knows him.

When Jesus sees Nathaniel coming towards him, he says in verse 47, he is truly a person of

Israel.

There is nothing false in him.

Nothing false means there are no lies in him.

There is nothing fake about him.

That sounds pretty great.

But what's Jesus actually trying to say about

Nathaniel? Well, about a thousand years before this, King

David in the Old Testament had written a song called a psalm.

It's psalm 32.

And in there he talks about his sin.

He says that for a while he tried to hide his sin.

Have you ever done that? You do the wrong thing, but you don't want

anyone to find out.

It's like you're lying or being false.

False with everyone else, false with God, even false with yourself.

King David says things only got better when he got rid of that falseness.

When he told the truth about his sin and confessed it to God, then God could forgive

him.

His friendship with God could be fixed.

And David says that the person who has nothing false in them, who's actually honest about

their sin and wants to be forgiven, that person is happy.

When Jesus sees Nathaniel, he knows that he's that sort of guy.

Nathanael actually wants his sin dealt with.

He doesn't want to hide it.

How good is it then that Nathaniel's come to the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the

world? Nathanael, he's a bit shocked.

He's like, how could Jesus possibly know this about me?

So in verse 48, Nathaniel asks, how do you know me?

Jesus answered, I saw you when you were under the fig tree.

That was before Philip told you about me.

Now Nathaniel's like, mind blown when there's

no way that Jesus could possibly see me.

He still knew exactly where I was under a fig

tree.

Do you remember from last episode how we

talked about clues, how God put clues all through the Old Testament so that when Jesus

came, you could recognize him? Well, in the second last book of the Old

Testament, Zechariah, God actually talked about fig trees.

In chapter three, he says that when his special servant comes, he'll take away all the

sin in the land.

Things will be so good, you'll be able to

chill out and relax.

You'll invite your neighbour over and where

will you relax with them? Under a fig tree, Jesus is hinting that the

servant has come.

That's him.

The time when God takes away sin is here.

This is the best news in the world, especially

for a guy who's honest enough to say he needs his sin taken away.

Nathaniel is so excited, he isn't grumpily saying anymore, ugh.

Does anything good come out of Nazareth? No. Now he believes the good news as well.

He says to Jesus in verse 49, teacher, you are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

Jesus replies by basically saying, you ain't

seen nothing yet.

He uses a title for himself, the son of man.

That's Jesus way of speaking about himself.

This is what he says.

He says, you believe in me because I told you I saw you under the fig tree.

But you will see greater things than that.

And Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth,

you will all see heaven open.

You will see angels of God going up and coming

down on the son of Mandev.

Far out.

That's pretty impressive.

Again, though, Jesus is picking up on a clue

that God left in the Old Testament.

Do you remember who the first three Israelites

were? There was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And Jesus is referring to something that happened to Jacob.

There was a time when Jacob had had to run away.

Hed been really dodgy to his brother Esau, and now Esau wanted to kill him.

Jacob had to run away with virtually nothing.

When he went to sleep, he even had to use a

rock as a pillow.

That does not sound very fun at all.

But God wanted to show him that he was still looking after him.

So while he was sleeping, God showed him a vision.

Let me read it to you from Genesis, chapter 28, verse eleven.

It says, he came to a place and spent the night there because the sun had set.

He found a stone there and laid his head on it to go to sleep.

Jacob dreamed that there was a ladder resting on the earth and reaching up into heaven.

And he saw angels going up and coming down the ladder.

And then Jacob saw the Lord standing above the ladder.

The Lord said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your grandfather, and I am the God of

Isaac.

I will give you and your descendants the land

on which you are now sleeping.

Your descendants will be as many as the dust

of the earth thou hast spread west and east, north and south.

All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.

I am with you, and I will protect you everywhere you go.

And I'll bring you back to this land.

I will not leave you until I have done what I

have promised you.

You see, even though things looked bad, God

was with him.

God had chosen him.

And God was showing Jacob all this so he'd know that God was faithfully looking after

him.

Jesus knows that God's with him.

Jesus knows that God's chosen him.

But he's saying to Nathaniel and his other

disciples, they're actually going to see things that prove that God is really with him.

This is such great news.

You know, the good news about Jesus, it wasn't

just for people back then.

It's for everyone, everywhere.

That's why John wrote down the good news.

It's why I'm telling you this good news.

And remember, good news is for sharing.

John the Baptist told his disciples.

Andrew told it to his brother Simon.

Philip told Nathaniel, who can you tell?

Who do you know who doesn't know the good news about Jesus yet?

Sometimes if you tell people, they might not believe it at first, just like Nathaniel

didn't believe it at first.

But that doesn't mean you just give up.

You can pray for them that God will help them to believe the good news, that Jesus has come

to save us.

He's come to take away our sin and bring us

into God's family.

You can tell them what you've found out about

Jesus.

You can invite them to church or tell them to

listen to stories of a faithful God for kids.

If you believe this good news about Jesus,

dont keep it to yourself for the disciples.

Theyre about to see Jesus do his first ever

miracle.

Jesus is about to give them a taste of just

how great he is.

But thats a story for next time.

Hi again.

Last week I told you about the playlist I've

set up on Spotify called SFG for Kids.

It's got a whole lot of songs on there that

link to the things we've learned on the podcast.

If you want to hear a fun one for today's episode, check out good news by Johnny Burns.

It feels a little bit like the Bible passage we looked at today.

Good news by Johnny Burns if you've worked out or you want to guess why I've used a baby

photo for our John series, send me a message.

Or if you have any questions or comments, send

them in@faithfulgod.net.

dot grown ups thanks again for letting your

kids listen.

If the show is helpful, please consider

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