PHILIP—HIS CALL

PHILIP—HIS CALL

John MacArthur

It is interesting, incidentally, to note that at the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus had to say, “Follow Me” to Peter (John 21:19, 22). Peter apparently still needed that encouragement after his failure on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. But Philip was the first to hear and obey those words. From the outset, Jesus actively sought Philip. He found him. He invited him to follow. And He found in Philip an eager and willing disciple.

It is obvious that Philip already had a seeking heart. Of course, a seeking heart is always evidence that God is sovereignly drawing the person, for as Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44); and again, “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father” (v. 65).

Philip’s seeking heart is evident in how he responded to Jesus. “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote; Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph’” (John 1:45). Obviously, Philip and Nathanael, like the first four disciples, had been studying the Law and the Prophets and were seeking the Messiah. That is why they had all gone to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist in the first place. So when Jesus came to Philip and said, “Follow Me,” his ears, his eyes, and his heart were already open, and he was prepared to follow.

Notice something interesting about the expression Philip used with Nathanael: “We have found Him.” As far as Philip was concerned, he had found the Messiah rather than being found by Him. Here we see the classic tension between sovereign election and human choice. Philip’s call is a perfect illustration of how both exist in perfect harmony. The Lord found Philip, but Philip felt he found the Lord. Both things were true from the human perspective. But from a biblical perspective, we know that God’s choice is the determinative one. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you” (John 15:16).

Still, from a human perspective—from Philip’s point of view—this was the end of his search. By God’s grace, he had been a faithful and true seeker. He was devoted to the Word of God, and he believed the Old Testament promise of a Messiah. Now he had found Him—or rather had been found by Him.

Philip not only had a seeking heart, but he also had the heart of a personal evangelist. His first response upon meeting Jesus was to find his friend Nathanael and tell him about the Messiah.

I am convinced, by the way, that friendships provide the most fertile soil for evangelism. When the reality of Christ is introduced into a relationship of love and trust that has already been established, the effect is powerful. And it seems that invariably, when someone becomes a true follower of Christ, that person’s first impulse is to want to find a friend and introduce that friend to Christ. That dynamic is seen in Philip’s spontaneous instinct to go find Nathanael and tell him about the Messiah.

The language Philip used betrayed his amazement at discovering who the Messiah was. The One of whom Moses wrote, and the One foretold by the prophets, was none other than “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,” a lowly carpenter’s son.

 

“Twelve Ordinary Men: HOW the MASTER SHAPED HIS DISCIPLES for GREATNESS, and WHAT HE WANTS TO DO with YOU © 2002 by John MacArthur