Have you ever noticed how people, in time, begin to look like what they love most? It's true. For example, over time, some people actually begin to look like their pet. If you know someone who is tall and skinny and has lots of curly hair it shouldn't surprise you if you see them out walking their dog one day and it just happens to be a poodle. I'm sure that some of you are by now certain that my dog, Beau, must be a rotweiller. Round face and shorthaired but extremely muscular and athletic in build. Well, maybe some people don't look like their dog after all.

But, some people look like what they do for a living especially if they love their vocation. One of my pastimes is to find a place to sit in the mall while Nancy is shopping and watch people walk by and try to figure out what they do for a living. Teacher? CPA? Doctor? Lawyer? Mechanic? Farmer? I'll admit that this increasingly high tech, low-dress society has thrown me off a bit. But, many people have looks that go with their profession. And, while that's not all necessarily bad, I'll have to admit that I've fought all my life to keep from looking like what I do for a living. You can spot the average preacher at one hundred yards in the most crowded mall. But, no matter how hard I try, every day I look more and more like a preacher. I'd rather look like nearly anything, even a lawyer, than a preacher! But, there's something about this job that begins to take its toll on good looks!

Failing all that, have you ever noticed how some people actually begin to look like their spouse? It's absolutely uncanny how two people with absolutely no genetic connection whatsoever, even in the Missouri Ozarks, begin to look like the brother or sister of the person they married forty or fifty or sixty years ago.

It's almost like what we love most so permeates our being that it begins to shape the way we dress, our mannerisms and even our facial expressions. In time, we will naturally exhibit the traits, even in physical detail, of whatever it is we love most. Maybe even subconsciously we begin to choose those characteristics because, to us, they represent our greatest passion. Over time, what or who we really love, begins to shape not only the way we think but the things we most naturally talk about and even our attitudes. Beyond that it begins to shape the way we dress and live so that, someone observing at a distance or listening to us talk can get a pretty good idea of who or what we love most.

Oh, I could fool you for a while. With just a little effort, I could probably convince some people that I was a math teacher or a neurosurgeon. But, not for long. In time, it would be more than just my lack of knowledge that would expose me. Listening to me and watching me you would learn that I love my wife more than any other woman, my children more than my own life and that I preach the gospel. Or, you wouldn't. It would all depend on whether my wife, my children and my God were that important to me or I just wanted you think they were. There is far more to my wife, my children and my God than I know. But, there is no way to disguise it if you passionately love someone you don't even fully understand.

Now, most of us in Baptist life grew up with a tremendous load of guilt about what it means to be a witness. To share the gospel. To do what is typically called "evangelism." In some cases, we grew up feeling that way because we were being asked to share something with others that wasn't that important to us. We knew enough to know that bearing witness of Christ was part of what it means to be a Christian. But, Christ had not yet so reshaped our values that He was the center of our even our casual conversation. It's almost like we were being asked to talk about poodles when we'd rather talk about rotweillers. Or, to talk about how much someone else loved their pet dog when we'd never had one ourselves. We'd rather talk about our car or our kids or our jobs. But, Jesus?

In other cases, some of us loved Jesus, even passionately, but didn't understand enough about Him to feel at ease discussing Him with others. We were afraid we'd talk ourselves into an intellectual box we couldn't get out of if someone asked the wrong question. So, rather than be humiliated, we just kept our mouths shut and said nothing and lived with the guilt that our silence might send someone to hell. Oh, we might make it to a Youth Evangelism Conference in Ft. Worth in the summer and get all fired up for a while after listening to some beauty queen or star athlete give their testimonies. But, in time, we'd slip back into our quiet corner where we'd rather just watch people than engage them. Either way, lack of passion or lack of knowledge, many of us carried, and still carry, a great deal of guilt around about the witnessing we don't do.

The text we have read this morning gives us another way of living that might free us up from some of that guilt, in part, by giving us the ability to see all of this in a little different light. When "Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, 'we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,'" he was saying more than he could have understood. In a few short words he was summing up hundreds years of Jewish history. But, he was, in fact, telling Nathaniel about the Jesus who had called him and who knew him and who was, the only Jesus He knew. And, there you have it.

When it comes to being a faithful witness to others of the presence of God in this world I don't have to manufacture passion I don't have or try to tell people what I don't know. That rarely works anyway. Some of you have already found that out with your failure at keeping your New Year's resolution to lose weight. You've either found out that there's much more to it than the T.V. commercial promised or you already know what you need to do and just don't have the passion for it. There's nothing worse than the first day of a bad diet you know you won't stick with anyway. But, there's also nothing worse than being caught trying to fake enthusiasm, especially in matters of faith.

Some years ago when I was a youth minister I was responsible for providing ministry to a local boys home in Abilene. The boys in that home attended our church on Sundays and it was my job to extend the ministry of the church to them. So, occasionally, on my day off, I'd got out to the boys' home in the country and just hang out for a while. For some reason I always felt awkward with that particular work. These boys didn't need much more than someone to love them because most of them had come from homes where they hadn't been loved. But, some of them proved particularly difficult to love and, in retrospect, I now know there was much more to it than just hanging out with them. One day, when I was doing my youth-minister-hanging-out-thing one of the boys confronted me and said, "you don't really want to be here, do you?" I tried to deny what he'd just accused. I said I really did want to be there because I cared. But, somehow he knew. With deep embarrassment I can still feel I learned that it's nearly impossible to fake enthusiasm, especially the kind that represents love and especially the kind that represents the love of God. In time, people know who we really love.

Perhaps God has never let me forget that experience at the boys' home that day because He wanted me to remember that people have a sixth sense for genuineness. And, only in the most recent years have I come to realize that all God expects of me is what Philip gave Nathaniel, the willingness to share with others the only Jesus I know.

Listen again. Philip finds Nathaniel and says to him, "We have found him . . . Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." Then, Nathaniel wants to know, "'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?'" Right there most of us would be stumped. We'd start trying to explain things we don't understand. Or, we go to the church and ask the pastor to lead a class on apologetics and hope Nathaniel would show up and be convinced by logic of things that only faith gives evidence. But, all Philip says in response to Nathaniel's question is, "Come and see." That's it. Just "come and see the only Jesus I know."

Philip's knowledge of Jesus wasn't perfect. In fact, when Jesus surprised Nathaniel by proving He already knew him even though they'd never met, Nathaniel asks, "'where did you get to know me?'" Then, Jesus said, "You will see greater things than these." Nathaniel was going to learn even more astonishing things about Jesus than His ability to know people before He met them. But, everything he would ever learn about Jesus he would learn because Philip first invited him to "come and see" the only Jesus he knew.

Now, it goes without saying, I don't know all of Jesus there is to know. Quite honestly, I'm sometimes embarrassed by how little I know and even feel intimidated by how much others know. I have colleagues in the ministry with minds that just astound me. I read their sermons and wonder how in the world one person could be that smart. And, sometimes I'm frightened by how much I don't know when I'm responsible for leading others. But, what this text teaches and what experience has verified for me is that the only thing for which God holds me accountable is sharing with others the only Jesus I know.

The refurbishing of the Pegasus (the red horse on top of what was the Mobil building) downtown has stirred a lot of memories. There was a newspaper article recently about Hilton Taylor of Duncanville who remembers it from World War II because the flying red horse once sent him flying in the wrong direction, literally. In 1942, Mr. Taylor was eighteen years old and in flight training. One night on a flight from Waco to Paris (Texas) he got lost. But, as he was flying over downtown Dallas he saw that bright red horse at what was then the top of the Dallas skyline. He didn't know the horse was in constant rotation and thought, for some reason, it always pointed north. So, he set his flight accordingly only to end up landing out east in Greenville. He did go on to win distinction as a decorated bomber pilot. But, he also learned something about being careful which compass you use to set your course. (Steve Blow, "Let's face facts: I really needed new mug shot," The Dallas Morning News, January 7, 2000, p. 25A)

Please forgive me if I oversimplify for just a moment. But, it seems to me that, if we will just invite people to come and see the only Jesus we know, that we don't have to worry that we've pointed them in the wrong direction because our lives aren't pointing perfectly straight. Just as Jesus already knew Nathaniel before they even met, so He knows everyone we will bring to Him. If we will just tell what we know we may discover that Jesus is quite capable of taking the conversation from there. You will never point someone in the wrong direction by pointing them to Jesus.

The only Jesus I know is not all there is of Jesus. But, the only Jesus I know really is what one of the prophets Philip referred to said He was, "he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others a man of suffering and acquainted with (sorrow); and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases . . . he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:2-6)

I've never seen Jesus. From what the Bible says, He wasn't much to look at anyway. Truth be known, He probably didn't look much like His vocation of King of Kings. But, He looked a lot like those He really loved most because He had lived and still does live where they did and do. So, I've never seen Jesus. But, the only Jesus I know was standing by the bed with me when I watched my mother die and reassured me of life beyond death. He comforted me in only the way someone could who has seen death from the inside of a tomb and then lived to tell about it. The only Jesus I know has stood with me in moments of dark depresssion in only the way someone could who knew the grief of betrayal. He laughed with joy with me when my sons were born in only the way someone could who has children of His own. He has prayed with me and for me. He has assured me of His forgiveness and then held me accountable for living better than the sin that required it. And, He has promised never to leave me or forsake me no matter what. No matter what. That's the only Jesus I know.

Come and see!