How to Activate Your Faith

Amen, amen. And is this mine? Let's open in our Bibles to John chapter one. John chapter one. I always like when it's as few people as possible because it's just very intimate. What the Lord put on my heart today is especially for you all and so I hope this is helpful. Look at John chapter one. I'll read a few verses. Look at verse. We're going to read verses 35 to the end, 35 to 51. Let me read a few phrases for you. Verse 39, he saith unto them, come and see. Verse 46, Philip saith unto him, come and see. Verse 50, at the end, thou shalt see greater things than these. I want to talk with you all today about this phrase, come and see, come and see. And we're going to read this whole passage together and study it. I didn't know what to call this sermon, but if you like, you could call it how to activate your faith, how to activate your faith. Here are seven other titles I was coming up with. Come and see Jesus, or do you have a come and see attitude, or we could call it don't stop believing, but that's the title of a famous song, or do you still have faith in Jesus, or we could call it come and see is the way to be, but that's too corny, or we could call it active faith, or we could call it a come and see approach to faith. Those are my like eight titles. I didn't know what to call it, but what I want to get at is this, how to activate your faith. And I believe our Lord gives us the way to activate our faith right there in those words. He says, come and see. It's a very inspiring little phrase. Let me give you a little more introduction, and then we're going to read straight through this text and study it. I want to build up your faith today, and I don't know how to do that. It's one of the most difficult things for me as a preacher or as a pastor to try to build up your faith. I'm sure you've all felt that when we counsel together, when we talk together. It's hard for me to build up your faith. Really, we need God to build up our faith, don't we? But we also have these commands in the scripture that make it so that you have to build up your faith. Christ says here, come and see. He pulls on us. He says, you have to exercise your will. That's a very mysterious thing, like you were praying about, Clay, these mysteries of God. How in the world can I get more faith? I don't know. It's somewhat difficult, but this passage keeps coming back to me. And think about it, brothers, right now, just the few of us in the room. In the last probably six months, I believe I've heard everyone in this church, including me, pray on a Wednesday that we're lacking faith. Can we all confess that? I think we've all had times, right? The last six months, 12 months, where we say we're lacking faith. Lord, help my unbelief. And so those confessions, and I'm included in that, it just got me thinking, how, Lord? How do we get more faith? How do we believe more? How do we encourage each other to get more faith? So that's what we're heading for today. And I hope I have something to give you here. I believe I do, from the Spirit. Why does our faith ever get knocked down in the first place, though? Think about that. It can get knocked down through waiting, maybe. We say, I want that. We're hoping to get there, but we're just waiting and waiting. And hope deferred makes the heart sick. You all know that proverb. So the waiting can actually make the faith start to wane. We can hurt, right? We can get hurt, and then we start to say, maybe I don't believe so much that God's at work here. I'm in such pain. I just don't know how to believe. We can become lukewarm, and then we just, we don't know how to get out of it. Well, Christ tells us in Revelation that he tells the lukewarm church to repent, right? But we got to think about that. If you're lukewarm, if you're just like gray in your Christian life, how do you get out of it? How do you get faith? We can become worldly, and we just start chewing on the stuff the world offers, and then what happens to our faith? It just weakens, no? We cannot see what we're expecting, not see what we're waiting for, and then all of a sudden, we just realize, I don't have an active faith anymore. I don't have a happy faith. I'm not expecting things from God. You've all experienced that, no? We've all confessed that, no? So I'm just wanting us to think together, how do we get over it? How do we get, how do we move past that to a place where we can say, okay, my faith is activated. My faith is active again. I'm believing again, Lord, right? One answer I think is right here. From the lips of Jesus, he says, come and see. He pulls us in. That's this beautiful phrase, come and see, come and see. I believe that's the phrase that'll activate our faith, but think about this with me for one second. Hebrews 11, verse 1. Anybody have it memorized? Now, faith is, anybody know that beautiful verse on faith? Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, right? Think of just that first phrase, because that can help us. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the substance of things hoped for. So think about this. Something you're hoping for, like let's say heaven. Everybody here hoping for heaven? Amen. Okay, picture that that is just a circle. Heaven is a circle, right? That's your hope. You have a hope of heaven, but faith is the substance of things hoped for. So faith is filling in that circle, filling it in with knowledge of heaven, filling it in with assurance of heaven, filling it in with love of heaven, filling it in just with a believing expectation of heaven. Amen? You all see that? Okay, what about a goal in your life? You have a goal that in 10 years something will happen for you, right? Or in five years something will happen. That's a hope, right? That's that circle of hope. But faith is the substance of things hoped for, right? So you take that goal and you have to fill it in. You have to give it some substance. That's what faith is. Am I making any sense to you all? Faith is you fill in that circle and you say, okay, I'm assured of it. Lord, I'm talking to you about it. Lord, I believe you for it. Lord, I expect it. You see, I'm excited about it. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Amen? And that's what we're talking about today. I believe when Christ says to the disciples right here, come and see, what he's telling them is basically fill in that circle. Put some substance in that hope circle. I hope I'm making some sense. I hope you're all following me. Fill it in. He's telling us fill it in with stuff like yes. Stuff like he's able. He will. I'm assured of it. I'm looking forward to it. And what I think we're going to see in this passage right here is that a Christian who has faith must be explored. Like I'm talking about filling in that circle, the Christian who has faith must be looking ahead, must be exploring, must be exploring new territories. Exploring Christians have faith and not exploring Christians don't have faith. I hope you all start to get that as we look at this message today. Think of these new babies in our church. As they become healthier and healthier and fatter and fatter, what are we going to find about them? They start exploring more and more. They start to flip over and then they start to want to go over here and then go over here. And then they're trying to figure out how to get up on all fours and how to propel themselves forward. Right? And so it's that like that exploring instinct that's going to show us, okay, the baby's healthy. He just wants to do more. He wants to find out more. He wants to explore. That's at the essence of what we're going to talk about today. How do you activate your faith? You come and see. You explore more with Jesus. Amen? Okay, let's read through the text, verses 35 to 51. And I'm going to show you these three come and see words. There are three times when people say, come and see. And I'll point them out to you. Let's read this beautiful, beautiful passage. And one more thing I wanted to say. Right in this passage, we see Jesus activating the faith of his disciples. And that's why I want to go here today. When his disciples first get converted, Jesus pulls them in and makes them believing explorers in the kingdom of God. And that's what I want to bring out today so that we can have our faith activated like them. I pray it's helpful. Lord Jesus, make it helpful for us. We so badly need our faith activated, Lord. We need it, Lord. Thank you. Amen. Verse 35. Just watch this scene unfold, brothers and sisters. Verse 35. Again, the next day after John stood and two of his disciples, that's John the Baptist. And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, behold, the lamb of God. Now, right there, John gives everybody a clue, doesn't he? He says, look, behold, look at him. There he goes. The lamb of God. John triggers this come and see thing that we're going to talk about by saying, look, behold. Verse 37. And the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following and saith unto them, what seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, come and see. Now, pause right there. That's the first come and see. Everyone want to mark that in your scriptures? It's that verse 39. And what is he saying? Come and see where Jesus dwells. They've all asked him in verse 38. Rabbi, where do you dwell? Where are you staying? And in verse 39, he says, come and see. Come and see where Jesus dwells. Now, look at this, everyone. They say, where are you dwelling, Rabbi? And he doesn't say at 4 Brentwood Street or I'm dwelling in Portland or I'm dwelling over there. What does he say? He says, you all come check it out. Come look. Come live with me. Beautiful. Let's look on. Verse 39. They came and saw where he dwelt and abode with him that day. So they're not just asking questions, they're now living with him, they're dwelling with him, they're spending time with him. For it was about the 10th hour. Verse 40. One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother, Simon, and saith unto him, we have found the Messiah, which is being interpreted the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, thou art Simon, the son of Jonah, thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone. So what's going on here? They've all asked him, Rabbi, where do you dwell? He said, come see. Come dwell with me. They dwell with him. Then they start telling other people about him. They tell Simon Peter about him. And then by the time we get to verse 42, Christ is renaming Peter. Isn't that amazing? It's not just where is Jesus, but it's we're starting to live with Jesus. We're hanging out with Jesus. We're even letting him give us new names if he wants. Oh, it's getting intimate here. Verse 43, let's go through the passage. The day following, Jesus would go forth into Galilee and find Philip and saith unto him, follow me. So there again, Christ is calling someone in. Forty four. Now, Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathaniel and saith unto him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. OK, so what's happening here, everyone? Jesus finds Philip. Philip is from the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip, in verse 45, finds Nathaniel. What's going on? There's this relay race. No, everyone's starting to call everyone else into the kingdom. It's a glorious picture, is it not? Verse 45, again, Philip finds Nathaniel and says to him, we've found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Forty six. And Nathaniel said unto him, can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, come and see. OK, that's the second come and see everybody marking that the first one was in verse 39. The second come and see is in verse 46. And this is amazing. Nathaniel says to these guys who are these Jesus freaks, they've just started following Jesus. Nathaniel says to them, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? He's basically saying, I don't think so. I don't think you found this messiah you claim to have found. And what does Philip say to him? Come and see. Come check it out. Verse forty seven. Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and saith of him, behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. Now, that's amazing. Why does Jesus say that to Nathaniel? In verse forty six, Nathaniel said, I don't think you guys have found the messiah. Nothing can nothing good can come out of Nazareth. And what does Jesus say in verse 47? He said, look at this guy. He's perfect. He's not a liar in him. There's no guile. Do you all see what's going on here? Nathaniel mocks Jesus's hometown. And in verse forty seven, Christ, I would say Christ mocks him back in a way. He basically says, OK, consider it's like this. If I told you all I'm from Worcester, Massachusetts, and you all say, are you kidding me? That's a dump in some ways. But you say that's a dump. And then I reply to you and say, you're my good friend. I love you. Right. That's what Christ is doing right here. Nathaniel says, no way. He's not the messiah. Nothing good comes out of Nazareth. And Christ says, ah, a man who never lies. Not funny, but the beautiful thing we notice is verse 46, where Philip steps in and says, why don't you come check it out, Nathaniel? Come and see. And what ends up happening to Nathaniel is that his religious assumption actually gets broken. His religious hang up gets broken. With this, come and see. Philip is saying, come check it out. And what Nathaniel is going to find is, oh, I was wrong. Oh, the messiah came out of Nazareth. So beautiful. Let's go on. Verse 48. Nathaniel saith unto him, whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered, now, isn't that interesting? How did you know me? I think at that point, Nathaniel sort of spooked. He's like, I just mocked this guy's hometown. This guy just totally accepted me and called me an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. He actually complimented me. And then in verse 48, it's like he's a little spooked and says, how did you know me? Jesus answered and said unto him, before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. That's beautiful, isn't it? Jesus, how did you know me? Well, I've been watching you. Verse 49. Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the son of God. Thou art the king of Israel. See, Nathaniel's whole life has been changed. He's shocked by what this man is saying. This man actually accepted me and called me an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. And then this guy has been watching me and he actually loves me and cares for me. And then look at Jesus's reply in verse 50. Jesus answered and said unto him, because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? What's Christ saying there? He said, really, that's all it took because I was I caught sight of you a little while ago. And then he says this, thou shalt see greater things than these. And that's the third come and see you all marking this verse 39. Jesus says to them, come see. And then verse 46, Philip says to Nathaniel, come and see, come and take a look. And then what does our Lord do in verse 50? He amps it up even more. And he says, thou shalt see greater things than these. He's basically saying not only come and see, but come and see on steroids. You're going to see much greater things than these. It's going to be so much more amazing. Verse 51, and he saith unto him, verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man. Amen. Isn't that beautiful? I hope that what I've said thus far is not too scattered for you. Let me clarify this one more time. As we watch this scene unfold, this phrase come and see appears three times. The first time in verse 39, we learn that if we're his disciples, we must come and see where Jesus dwells. Everybody with me? That's the first thing he says. Why don't you just come check it out? Come live with me. Come stay with me. Come and see where I dwell. I'm not just going to give you a fact that I dwell over in that city. Come eat with me. Second thing he does in this passage through Philip and Nathaniel, verse 46, we hear that we ought to come and see our religious hangups. Think about this with me. Look one more time at verse 36. Nathaniel has a religious assumption. Nathaniel has a religious hangup. He thinks he knows something and he says, no way, not Nazareth any day. That place is a junk heap. No Messiah, no good thing is coming out of Nazareth. And then what is Jesus's very fresh, very new disciple say? He says, come and see. Come check it out. So this second come and see is come and see your religious hangups. Come and get your religious assumptions jostled and worked on by our Lord. Amen. That's the second one. And then there's this third come and see in verse 50. Where Nathaniel is shocked, this guy has noticed me. But in verse 50, Christ says that was all it took because I saw you under the fig tree. Then you believe and Christ gives an incredible promise. Thou shalt see greater things than these. Here, I would say, come and see deeper spiritual realities. He's basically saying you have to go deeper. So let me give you these one more time. Come and see where Jesus dwells. If we want to activate our faith, that's the first thing we must do. Come and dwell with Jesus. Come and hang out with him. Come and give him your time. If you want to activate your faith. Secondly, come and examine your religious hangups. That's what he teaches the disciples here. What religious assumptions do you have that are crippling your faith? Those are the stakes of the passage. And then thirdly, come and see deeper spiritual realities. In verses 50 and 51, Christ is saying, if you want to be a disciple of mine, if you want an activated faith, then you need to look into deeper spiritual realities. It can't just be because Christ saw you under the fig tree. There's something more that you're going to see, Nathanael. Amen. So finally, I'm going to try to apply these three come and sees to our hearts. And I hope this helps to activate your faith. But first, I want to tell you, what are we all seeing in this passage? Christ is calling his disciples and he's calling them to faith and he's activating their faith. And I want you all to almost consider those the three semesters in the school of faith. The first one is you have to be with Jesus. The second one is you have to get your religious baggage out of the way if you want to have an active faith. And the third one is you have to dive in to deeper spiritual realities. All of these have that sense we were talking about of come and see, come and explore. And I think the sense we're getting here is if you want to have an active faith, you as a Christian need to be always exploring. My best friend, when I was five years old, was a young man, also five years old, named Blakey Buckaloo. And when I tell people about Blakey Buckaloo, nobody believes me that his name was Blakey Buckaloo. But that was actually his name. Out in my hometown of Nazareth, of Worcester, Mass. Blakey Buckaloo, he was an amazing kid. He was crazy, totally crazy. And he was like a little explorer kid. And he had this come and see sort of attitude. And I think it sort of made me also a bit of a crazed kid. But he was an amazing friend. So I want to just tell you a little bit about Blakey Buckaloo. He lived in the basement of his house. And his parents had a fish tank upstairs. And we would go to the kitchen and we'd get little bowls. And then we'd go to the fish tank when the parents weren't watching. And we'd take a fish out and put it in the little bowl with some water in it. And then we'd take it to the basement. And then we'd get up on his brother's bed and then jump from his brother's bed onto his bunk bed. And then we'd get into the ceiling tiles in the basement, you know. And we put the little fish in the bowl up in the ceiling tile. And we'd just leave it there. And then we'd come back and try to find it later. Anyway, so Blakey Buckaloo just instilled in me this exploring thing, right? Every part of his house was so exciting. It was like, dude, the fish tank is up there and we can take the fish and bring them down and we'll get them up in the ceiling. And then out the back door, you wouldn't believe this, there was this there was this little pond and it was really grimy and all these reeds around it. And there was a snapping turtle, just one snapping turtle who would just circle the pond. And so we'd always go out and try to find him and not get bit by him. So he was just, Blakey Buckaloo is just pressing me to explore, explore. Let's look here, search here, search here, search here. And what I want to impress upon you today is that that's how we activate our faith. If you're in a place where you say, my faith is lagging, I'm getting lukewarm, I'm getting dry. Christ says, explore, come and see, come take a look. I don't know what else to tell you, except that that's how we get our faith activated. And we got to become like little explorer kids again, who are just looking around. Amen. You all following me? Let's apply this to our life then. How do we activate our faith? First, you have to come and see where Jesus dwells. Look again at verse 39. They ask, where do you dwell? And he doesn't give them an address. He invites them. He says, come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt and abode with him that day. If you want to activate your faith, and you all know this, you have to spend time with Jesus. You have to come and explore and figure out where does Jesus dwell? And I know almost all of us would say, okay, that means I have to be better at prayer, right? And in a way, I need to say that's true. If you want to activate your faith, you have to go to the prayer closet. And you can find that closet wherever you want. It could be in your car. It can be in your house. It can be out by the pond where the snapping turtle is, wherever. But you have to go where Jesus dwells. You have to go to the prayer closet. That's Matthew 6, right? You have to go to that secret place where your father will see in secret. And you have to dwell with your God. We know that. But I want to give you a little more. And I was saying this two weeks ago. If you all want your faith activated, you need to find Jesus dwelling everywhere. Let me quickly give you a few other places where he dwells. Because did you all know that he doesn't only dwell in the prayer closet? He dwells everywhere. What about nature? Acts chapter 7, verse 48, Stephen's sermon. He says, How be it the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Go out this summer. Take a vacation. Get into nature and say, I'm going where Jesus dwells. Heaven is his throne. The earth is his footstool. I'm going to go spend time with him there. Amen? But we have to be conscious of it. We have to say, I'm going outside and that's where my Jesus dwells. Jesus also dwells among the people of God. Psalm 22, verse 3 says, But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. What does that mean? Where does Jesus inhabit? Where does he dwell? When we all praise him, he dwells among us. Isn't that beautiful? You've got to go spend time. You've got to go be where he dwells. So be with the people of God. Sing praises. Get these praises going. Ah, he also dwells in our conscience. Psalm 81, verse 7. God says, I answer thee in the secret place of thunder. Anybody heard of the secret place of thunder? It's like that still small voice that Elijah knew. It's the voice of the conscience. It's the secret place here. But you know, there are times when you say, Lord, I need to dwell with you. I got to get closer to you. I need my faith activated. And he comes and he speaks, boom, right there. The secret place of thunder. He speaks to your conscience and all of a sudden you're like, I'm definitely doing that. I'm definitely not doing that. That's the secret place of thunder. The conscience. He dwells in the state of our heart. So he doesn't dwell in everyone's heart, does he? But he dwells in certain heart states. He doesn't come down and dwell in your sinful heart. No. But Isaiah 57, verse 15 says, God says, I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. So will you spend time with Jesus through the state of your heart, through the state of your spirit? You say, Lord, I'm going to be humble here. And in humbling myself, I'm spending time with you. And then your faith is activated. And then what about everywhere? Is there anyone here who's become skilled at dwelling with Christ everywhere? That's the high calling of the Christian Colossians three in verse 11. Christ is all and in all. Where are we going to dwell with Jesus in the closet, in nature, among the people of God, in the conscience, in the state of our heart and everywhere? Amen. Now, listen, what am I talking about today? We're talking about how to activate our faith. And we saw that the first way Christ right here activates the faith of his disciples is he says to them, come and see where I live. Come and dwell with me. Come and spend time with me. If you're having a faith problem, but you're not willing to go dwell with Christ in those places, then there's no help for you. Second, let's activate our faith. We're applying these truths to our heart. Let's activate our faith by coming and seeing our religious hangups. Look again at verse 46. Nathaniel thought he knew something and he said, can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? And Philip says, why don't you just come and examine that religious assumption? So here I want to ask you all, where's the place in your life where you say, can any good thing come out of that? Where's the place where you all say that? In the last six months or so, the Lord has just led me by about five different things to study the early Pentecostal preachers around 1900 to 1910. Men like Harold Horton and William Seymour and Smith Wigglesworth. And you know, I don't know why I have no idea why the Lord brought me there, but I do know that before I studied that, I would have said with Nathaniel, can any good thing come out of Pentecostals? You see what I'm saying? We all have these little religious hangups, these religious assumptions, and we can just say, no, there's nothing there for me. I don't even want to look into that. I don't want to look into that. There's nothing there for me. And so I'm confessing my sin because as I started to read these people, I've told you all many times, you don't have to agree with everything, but some of their writings are absolutely brilliant. They're as good as the Puritans. They're amazing. And so what happened to me there? I was like Nathaniel. No good thing comes out of that. And then somehow the Lord spoke to my heart and said, why don't you come and see? Why don't you check it out? That's what we need. And it's up to you to go figure out what are your religious hangups? Where are the places where you've closed the door? A few other things I wrote down here because we find these everywhere. These little religious legalistic things in our hearts. How about thinking bad of God? Everyone here would say God is good. Everyone here would say I'm a Christian, right? But then there are these little moments where you say, no, he's not going to do me any good. And then we're being just like Nathaniel here. We're saying no good thing can come out of a Messiah who comes from Nazareth. I've found so many people who reject one person of the Trinity. Have you ever seen that? Okay, I'm good with Jesus. I don't really know about the Father. Oh, I'm good with the Father and the Son, but I don't really want to talk about the Holy Spirit. Have you guys ever seen that? That's basically saying no good thing can come from there. And you're blocking off some part of God. What about part of God's character? You can say, yeah, I know this God that we all believe in, but not his goodness. I don't believe he has any goodness for me. And you're being just like Nathaniel. What about providences? All of us, I'm sure, can do this. You say, that happened to me. No good thing came out of it. That happened to me. And no, God can never turn that around for good. No good thing comes out of that. Then we're being just like Nathaniel. Any good thing come out of Nazareth? Well, what do we need to do to activate our faith there? Come and see. Why don't you examine that in light of scripture? Come take a look. What has that providence that you call evil, what has it done to you? How has it humbled you? How has it made you a better Christian? Come and see. What about assuming that parts of you will never be comforted or never healed? Has anyone ever done that? We say, yes, I'm a Christian and God is working on these 75 percent of me. But this little problem I have in my heart over here, no, it's not happening. Nothing's ever going to change there. What are we doing there? We're saying, no good thing can come out of this Messiah from Nazareth. I'm rejecting him. I'm cutting him off when it comes to that. Or what about being against parts of the Bible? We've all done that too, haven't we? When we say, I'm an all Bible person, but I don't want to talk. I don't want to look into that part of the book of Acts. I don't want to look into that part of first Corinthians or that part of Ephesians. That's being just like Nathaniel where we say, no good thing can come. Am I making my point? Are you all following me? The second thing we need if we want to activate our faith is we have to come and see our own hangups. Now, I'm telling you all to be active. You have to be active. You have to do this, right? Christ says to his disciples, you come and see. You do it. He's not saying, wait until God reveals it to you. He's saying, you actively tear the band-aid off. And third and finally, verses 50 and 51, that's the last come and see. Christ calls us to come and see deeper spiritual realities. And this one is so important. Let's read it one more time. Verse 50, Jesus answered and said unto him, because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? Christ is saying, that was enough. Is that all you want from me? Do you just want commonplace Christianity? Do you just want Sunday to Sunday Christianity? Do you want a scheduled Christianity? Do you just want the physical? In the next half of that verse, he says, thou shalt see greater things than these. And in effect, he's saying, remember that Christianity is about exploring mind-bending spiritual realities. This is so important. We can do that first one and say, OK, I'm going to clean up my prayer life. I'm going to try to dwell with Christ more. We can do the first thing and say, I'm going to identify religious hang-ups in my life and try to get rid of them. But here Christ says, no, you have to go way beyond that. You have to remember that Christianity is about something that should just blow your mind. You could even say on a daily basis, this thing that we're in should just explode our hearts and blow our minds every day. Amen. He's saying, you shall see greater things than these. Are we just living in past testimonies? Are we just saying, oh, he saw me then. He saved me 10 years ago. He saw me under a fig tree. And that's enough for me, I believe. Christ says here, you shall see greater things than these. Look at verse 51. And he saith unto him, verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see. This is this final fireworks come and see, right? Ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Instead of just commonplace Christianity, just Sunday-to-Sunday Christianity, just woe is us if we ever get into professional Christianity, if we ever just say, that's enough for me. Think about it. We ought to be looking for mind-blowing spiritual realities like this. We ought to be figuring out our eschatology, looking into the future and saying, how is this going to go down? And then it just makes your mind go, whoa, what? We ought to be looking into prophecies, all the prophecies of the Bible and thinking that's being fulfilled. That was fulfilled. That's going to be fulfilled, right? Our minds are getting blown by the Bible. We ought to be looking into the character of God like that A.W. Pink book, right? And we're reading another chapter. I just, we really do need this. What about the author of Hebrews? Does anybody know what's the thing that he's always looking to do? But he keeps saying to them, I can't tell you guys about this right now because you're not ready. It's interesting. It's Melchizedek. He's like, he wants to talk about Melchizedek, but he keeps saying, but you guys aren't ready. I can tell you a little bit about him. He was the king of Salem, right? And he goes into these little details, but it's like the author of Hebrews wants to bring us up into the third heaven. He wants to show us these beautiful things and they're not ready. You could say they're at these first two steps. They just trying to figure out their prayer life, or they're just trying to get over their religious hangups maybe. But he's saying, I want to take you deeper. I want to take you deeper. For me, it just happened in the last two weeks. I heard Stanley Frodsham preach, and it was on Psalm 72, and it just blew my mind open. And it was just, it was on these simple promises of God, but it was just, whoa, I've never seen Jesus in that way ever. My question for you, are you all doing that? Have you, are you remembering that Christianity is about seeing greater things than these? And you know, what is it ultimately about right here in verse 51? He said, come and see. And then Philip says, come and see. And then 51, Christ says, you're going to see. And he says, hereafter, ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. What's the big spiritual reality he's telling them they should look out for? The mediatorial glories of Jesus Christ. He's saying, that's what you should look out for. He's linking Jacob's ladder back there in Genesis, right? And he's saying, there's, remember, you all remember that ladder? You're going to see that ladder, and that ladder is the Son of Man. And you're going to see angels going up it and angels coming back down it. And he's telling them, like, you have to go deeper and deeper and deeper. It's not just that there's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. But it's also that that Son of Man is Jacob's ladder and the angels of God are ascending and descending upon it. And Christ has opened up the floodgates of heaven for you. And he's carved this channel between your heart and heaven. And there are angels descending, right? You see, he's basically telling us, you look into who Christ is. You look into how he's mediating the love of God to the love of your heart. You open up your mind to these spiritual realities. The final thing he's teaching us is that we must have our minds blown and our hearts melted by spiritual truth. Amen. Let me repeat these one more time. If you want to activate your faith, you must come and see where Jesus dwells. You must spend time with Jesus. If you want to activate your faith, secondly, you must come and see your religious hang-ups. You must get over them. If you want to activate your faith, you must come and see deeper spiritual realities. I just want to remind you all of that. You have to be explorers if you want to have faith. You have to keep moving forward. You have to keep exploring. The minute you shut that off, your faith will also shut off. Amen? Amen. Do you have a come-and-see attitude? That come-and-see approach to faith. That's what we're talking about here. One of the most beautiful passages in the Bible, isn't it? It's just so full. It's so beautiful. Let's pray. Lord, I ask you that you help those of us here to activate our faiths. To be more believing, Lord. To not doubt you. I ask you, Lord, that you give us energy in our faith life, Lord. That you help us to fill in that circle and say, there is substance to my hope. I'm believing what I hope in. Lord, give us faith. Each one of us who have confessed, and it's every single one of us, Lord, that we might lack faith. Lord, give us that faith. But more than that, help each one of us to be actively seeking more faith. To come and see. To come and see. To explore and explore and explore. And be childlike in our faith. We thank you so much, Lord Jesus. We bless your holy name. Amen.