What seek ye?

John 1:35-39 (Part A)

This sermon is divided into 2 parts. Part A deals with the question, “What seek ye” and Part B will cover  “Where dwellest thou?” and “Come and See”.

In John’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus asked a very important question, “What seek ye?”. 

Most of us, especially when we are young, go about seeking things that we thought are worthy and later find that it is quite useless to us. It will be a good lesson to teach our children to consider the question, “What are you seeking?” before they embark on their plans. 

I always like the old Chinese slang from a variant of the Hokkien clan that we must not “Te lang see” which is to blindly follow people to destruction. Young kids learn bad things by following their peers like smoking. They just “Te lang see”. The forbidden list goes on to drugs, speaking foul languages or addiction to social media. If both the young and old can question themselves “What seek ye?” before blindly following their peers, then I believe they will be able to avoid most of these bad things.

In our brief life, we seek after many things and some of these things are essentials but not all are useful as I mentioned above. It is sad to know of people getting married and getting divorced later. The matter becomes more vexatious if there are kids in the family. It means that the question of “What seek ye?” was not properly explored before they jumped into the marriage.

Coming to religion, the question of “What seek ye?” is very important. When I say it is very important, I do not overstate it because this question needs to be repeatedly raised in every aspects of the subject. In the Oxford dictionary, religion is defined as “The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods”. Interestingly, the only living creature on earth interested in seeking for a religion is the humankind. Animals have no interest in this subject. There are many types of people in the world and on the subject of religion, every person can ask themselves what they seek in a religion that they want to embrace. Some wanted a faith which allows them to interweave with the society they reside. Some wanted a faith to expand their business networks with their contemporaries and some seek an answer to their spiritual needs.

Since most of us are Christians, I will not ask “What seeketh ye?” in Christianity. I trust you would have asked yourself sincerely this question and that you will have accepted the faith with the right reason, which is to secure eternal life and not the frivolous reasons mentioned above. 

I will ask the next question: What seek ye in relation to the church you choose to attend? 

Similar to the question on what they seek in a religion since there are so many religions in the world, “What seek ye?” in the church is important as there are so many churches with different doctrines and inclinations. I will not give an opinion, but would like all of you to consider it yourselves after you provide your personal honest answers to the above question. 

The subject of my article excludes those who do not think they even need to attend a church! In these people’s mind, as long as they believe in Christ, they are already saved and going to church to remember the Lord Jesus is just another churchy activity. I can only say to those who hold this view that they are grossly wrong and they need to seek a proper spiritual counsel.

What seek ye in the Church? The below questions and some answer probing will help you in your self-evaluation. 

1. What are my motives to come to this church? Some possible answers are given below. It may not be exhaustive.

a. To worship God

b. To serve God

c. To socialize and meet friends

d. To become a leader amongst the Christians here. I notice that the folk here are not well learned in the Word 

2. The church practices. You are going to invest a lot of time on earth in the church you attend and the worst outcome is spending time in practices that is not in congruence with God’s mind. A list of the more common church practices are given below.

a. Baptism

b. Communion

c. Role of women in the church

d. Priesthood of believers, does the church practice allows me to exercise my duties as a priest of God (1 Peter 2:5;9)?

e. Music: Is the church introducing music appropriately in its program? 

3. What is this church’s stand in relation to doctrines or teachings in relation to our faith? The doctrines listed below are some typical teachings that affect our belief:

a. The Trinity

b. Humanity and Divinity of the Lord Jesus

c. Salvation by grace 

d. Offer of salvation to all, does the church believe in Calvinism?

e. One race, does the church promote racism? If yes this is in direct contradiction to the first chapter of Genesis where all of us stem from Adam

f. Inerrancy of the word of God

g. Strange tongues. Is the church correctly interpreting the teaching on this subject?

4. Will God be pleased with me attending this church?

When you meet God at the Judgment seat, have you asked yourself on what will God say regarding your way of worshipping Him in the church? Will He be pleased? Or will He says you are doing it your way or someone’s way and not His way. This is a very important subject because you cannot undo your actions when you meet Him.

Part B: “Where dwellest thou?” and “Come and See” (John 1: 35-39) 

When the disciples, Andrew and John were following Jesus, their reply to the Lord Jesus’ question on “What seek ye” was “Where dwellest thou?”. A cursory reading of this passage may puzzle us on the reply. I guess when the Lord Jesus asked the two followers "What are you seeking?", they would probably answer something like “ We like to follow you because John the Baptist says you are the Son of God” or “We want to seek the Son of God that was declared by John. Are you the Messiah”? Therefore when the disciples reply “Where dwellest thou” we have to do some thinking to understand why the disciples made such a reply.

I believe the reply of the disciples with a question is an act of politeness. They would have many things to ask the Lord and the reason for the answer to the question “Where dwellest thou?” is to ask for permission to visit the Lord in His house and privately ask Him all the questions they seek to learn. They might have deemed it rude to immediately stop the Lord in the way to ask what they seek. The Lord, being omniscient, graciously granted them their request when He said “Come and see”. It was recorded in verse 39 that it was the tenth hour and they abode with Him that day. The tenth hour is 4pm in the afternoon using the Roman time of reckoning.

It is interesting to imagine what the disciples saw in the house. We could correctly guess from the Scriptures that the house is a simple house with nothing expensive. Although it houses the Son of God, there is no grandeur in the place. Some would say, “Why was such a simple structure offered to the Son of God when He was on earth?” The two disciples may have read in Isaiah 66:1, “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest?". Therefore, when the disciples see the Lord dwells in such a simple house, wouldn’t they be dismayed?  The two disciples responded very positively after seeing a bland dwelling place. Despite the humble dwelling, they believe Jesus is the Messiah and Andrew immediately reached out to his brother, Peter, with the good news.

The contrast in the dwelling place of the Lord Jesus and lofty expectations of God’s house in Isaiah 66:1 can be reconciled when we understand who the Lord comes to seek. He is seeking those who genuinely wanted to seek God. Those that are not interested in finding Him will never see the Lord’s glory but only see the literal humble dwelling. Only those that genuinely wanted to find him will see beyond the humble dwelling place and see the Lord associated with the house mentioned in Isaiah 66:1. I believe it is the mind of God to deliberately conceal His glory so that only those that seriously love Him can see Him. It was prophesied in Isaiah 6:9, “And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not”. 

In Part A of the earlier sermon, I asked fellow believers to check themselves “What seek ye?” in the church they are attending. Some people seek to attend churches that can satisfy their earthly needs. Things like jobs opportunities, marriage partners, business connections or just mixing with the well-known in society are available. Furthermore, some look for well-recognized church leaders that are able to prophesy about the future and even perform miracles! It will be interesting to transport these Christians with such expectations back to the time when the Lord Jesus was on earth. When they see the Lord Jesus’ dwelling place, would the sight satisfy what they seek? Also, would the state of the Lord in society make them desirous in following Him? Would you follow such a person where even His brothers on earth did not believe in Him? It was recorded in John 7:5 “For neither did his brethren believe in him”. 

When we consider the above matters and coming back to our present situation, we might appreciate that the three statements, “What seek ye?”, “Where dwellest thou?” and “Come and see” have great relevance to us today in relation to the church we attend. All of us should carefully make our decision after honestly checking our personal answers to the questions raised in Part A.

To conclude this sermon, I would like to advise believers not to seek for ostentatious things in churches, whether they are big or small. We should adopt the Berean Christians attitude as taught in the following verses.  

Act 17:10-12: 

v.10: And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 

v.11: These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.  

v.12: Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

One should be constantly reminded of the Lord’s simple dwelling place and be not distracted by unscriptural or worldly attractions. It grieves my heart when Christians are so caught up with the world’s attractions with pastors needing even private jets to do their ministry! Our Lord’s instructions are given in His precious words, the Bible, and it is your duty to check it whether those things were so. 

Jesus said in the simplest of words in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. 

Are we doing things in His Name alone?

With God’s Blessings,

CL