The Work of Witnessing

February 22, 2026|The Work of Witnessing|John 1:35-51

JD Cutler

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This morning we will conclude looking at what we call the first chapter of John as we continue studying through the Gospel of John. If you have your bibles go ahead and turn there now. John 1, at verse 35.

What I love about expositional preaching through a book is that we are never far from the context of what we are studying. We get to build on what we have seen as the narrative, or epistle unfolds week after week. The Gospel of John is no different. The end of chapter 1 sets the scene for what follows, Jesus’ first sign miracle, his first interaction with Jewish leaders in the temple, and the first crowds who begin to believe in his name.

In many ways what we looked at last week and what we are looking at this week bridge the gap between John’s theological foundational prologue and the narrative proper where John begins to show what Jesus did and said.

In the prologue, John introduces Jesus as the eternal word of God who is the life and light of men. He describes the incarnation as the light coming into the world. He introduces John the Baptist as someone who came as a witness to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. He tells us at the very beginning that the world did not know Jesus and even his own people, the Jewish nation did not receive him. But he also tells us that there were some both, Jews and Gentiles that did receive him, that did believe in his name, who were given the right to become children of God, who were born by the will and work of God. He establishes himself as an eyewitness who saw the glory of the word become flesh, to which he adds, John bore witness about him and cried out ‘This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. Then last week we saw John’s testimony which is summed up in verse 34. John 1:34 “34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.””

Which brings us to our text today.

What will be the results of John’s ministry and witness?

Will we get to see some of those who believe in his name? What will Jesus do as the light of the world? All these questions hang, at least momentarily, at verse 34.

Jesus has come, John, having prepared the way, has testified to who he is, pointing out to those around him that this Jesus is the one he has been proclaiming. What’s amazing about this transition is that we move from great theological statements and miraculous baptisms to some private, individual conversations, and the light is not spread through great proclamations but through personal witness. Last week we looked at the Heart of a Witness with John the Baptist’s ministry as our example, this morning we continue that conversation by looking at ‘The Work of Witnessing’.

Let’s pick up in verse 35 and read through 51 this morning.

John 1:35–51 ESV

35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). 42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter). 43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 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.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

In this narrative we begin with Jesus alone and we conclude with him having met five of what will become the twelve disciples who he will consistently pour into over the next 3 years of ministry.

As an interesting side note, if we compare John’s gospel to the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we find no formal list of the twelve, 3 of them are never mentioned by name, and others only occasionally. For John’s gospel, the story moves on after establishing the first five disciples, Peter, Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, and the unnamed disciple of John who most scholars agree is John, identified in his own gospel simply as the disciple whom Jesus loved. I don’t believe any of this is by accident, John is writing much later in church history and his emphasis is not on the authority of the twelve but rather on the importance of personal witnessing in the advancement of the kingdom.

Over four successive encounters we see Jesus begin to draw followers to himself in his public ministry. In those encounters I believe there are three lessons for us concerning the work of witnessing. Let’s turn our attention to the first.

I. WITNESSING IS POINTING PEOPLE TO CHRIST

This seems like a simple statement, but sometimes what we need to be reminded of is simple. Listen to the statements that are made by our various witnesses in our text today. ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’, ‘We have found the Messiah’, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote’ Was there more conversation had in these moments? I have no doubt, but John recorded the heart of the messages for us, the element that was the most important in each of these witnesses. They pointed people to the person of Jesus.

Often times some of the objections when we encourage individuals to witness is that they are worried that they don’t know enough, or they may get asked questions they don’t know the answer to. And I get it, I really do, but if you are a Christian, then you know Christ as Lord and Savior. Is there really anything else you need to know in order to be a faithful witness?

The other objection is, I’ll just witness by inviting them to church. That’s great but at that point, are you a witness or just an inviter? Surely, as we will see in the text, there is a come and see aspect to witnessing, but in our text it follows a personal declaration of who Jesus is. Listen, it’s often a combination of both, an invitation following a personal proclamation. And the research seems to back this up. From what studies have been conducted, it is estimated that about 85% of people who become Christian do so through personal relationships rather than mass media or events (e.g., witnessing by a friend or relative). Additionally, over 60% of Christians in the U.S. say they were introduced to Christ through personal evangelism rather than other means. A church service may very well be a part of the conversion of individuals, but it is almost always connected to a personal invitation that comes from a relational witnessing opportunity.

...if you are a Christian, then you know Christ as Lord and Savior. Is there really anything else you need to know in order to be a faithful witness?

Why does this matter? Because I think somewhere along the way we elevated public proclamation over private witnessing and I think we missed it. I think we missed the beauty of what the Apostle John records for us in these verses. If we look at our text, we see this in the natural progression of witnessing that happens in our text. What begins as a public ministry (John the Baptist) quickly becomes personal witnessing. John to his two disciples, Andrew to Peter, Philip to Nathanael.

Let’s look at each one of these encounters a little closer.

Our text picks up the next day after John initially declares ‘Behold, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world’ as Jesus is walking towards him. There he is again, this time with two of his own disciples, when he sees Jesus walking by and he says, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’. Now something about the way he said it or what else he said, caused these two disciples to leave John and follow Jesus. John pointed his own disciples to Christ.

We witness by encouraging others to follow Jesus (even when it means that they stop following us).

These disciples obviously had believed John’s message, they had repented and been baptized, but they did more than that, they ministered alongside John the Baptist, they were his students. In 1st century Judaism, if you found a man that you felt like you could learn from, that you wanted to become like, you could petition to be their disciple. We have no reason to believe that when it says that John was standing with two of his disciples, that this is not the relationship it is depicting, and yet. John was willing to point them away from himself to Jesus.

The closest example in our day would be to ask our parents; are you willing to point your children to Jesus, realizing that if they surrender to him, their lives may be radically different than the one you want for them? Something to think about.

So his two disciples hear him say this and they follow Jesus. Jesus turns to them and says, ‘what are you seeking?’ They say, ‘Rabbi, where are you staying?’ I always thought this was a weird question, but as I studied I came to understand it like this. What are we seeking? That’s a big question, let’s go sit down and talk for a while. To which Jesus responds, come and see. Essentially, Jesus invites them into a deeper encounter with him, apart from John the Baptist. It is late in the day, the tenth hour is not 10 o'clock, but rather in Jewish timekeeping the tenth hour is about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. There isn’t much day left, so they stayed with him that day, indicating they spend the evening and night where he was staying. John, who by the way is most likely one of these disciples, keeps that conversation private, but we know some of what it entailed because of what Andrew, the other of the two does the very next day. There is a statement in verse 41 that can be a little confusing. John says, he first found his own brother Simon. When you look at the original language, John is not saying that before he followed Jesus he went and found Simon, he is saying the very first thing he did the next day, after his encounter with Jesus is go and find his own brother.

And what does he say after spending the afternoon and evening with Jesus, notice the shift, he initially addressed Jesus as Rabbi, or teacher, now he says, we have found the Messiah, which John adds, means Christ. John does this for his broader audience while preserving the original message. Messiah is a Hebrew word, probably spoken in Aramaic here which means ‘anointed one’, Christ is the greek word which means the same thing.

So who does Andrew tell his brother Simon he has found? The Messiah, he points him to Jesus being the promised anointed one.

Peter comes with Simon and then Jesus and Simon have a conversation where Jesus gives Simon a new name ‘Cephas’ in the Hebrew, and Peter in the greek from Petros. The idea is rock. This is so interesting because the reason for this doesn’t become clear for some time. Jesus is indicating that he not only knows Peter already but he has knowledge of who he will become. Andrew, one of Jesus’ first disciples introduces Jesus to his brother, and unknowingly moves himself into the background. We see in the gospel accounts that Peter is one of the three disciples who is closer to Jesus, who get to witness more than the other twelve. Personal witnessing did that, not public proclamation. Friends, can I just say, we never know who we are pointing to Christ and what Christ may do with that person’s life. We see a similar event happen in Galilee with Philip and Nathanael, where Philip points his friend Nathanael to Christ and then brings him to Christ and Christ shows supernatural knowledge of Nathanael.

But for now, I think we see the first lesson clearly. Witnessing is pointing people to Christ. You don’t need a platform to do that, you don’t need a theological degree to do that, you don’t need to have all the answers, you just need to point people to Christ. The second lesson is related but distinct, it is…

II. WITNESSING IS RELATIONALLY REACHING OUT

This isn’t hard to see, but when I say witnessing to others, or pointing people to Christ, how many of you get immediately nervous thinking about cold calling on people by knocking on doors. Most of you except James. How many of you get images of standing on a street corner with a sign that says, the end is near, turn or burn?. How many think witnessing is going out and handing out tracts to total strangers?

God has uses all of that to bring people to himself, no doubt, but most of the time we read about someone being a witness for Christ in the New Testament, with a very few exceptions, like missionary trips, miraculous encounters, it is simply one person telling someone they know about Jesus.

Some of our members are heading back from a mission trip into Mexico and we have at least two more coming up by the end of summer. This is fantastic and I would encourage you to go if you can. There are people who need to hear the name of Jesus in Mexico, and in every other place in the world. But you know what I have come to believe may be the largest unreached mission field in our day, in America at least?

I think the largest unreached mission field is probably the people who live next door to a Christian. We are willing to give money to international missions, we are willing to give to church planting efforts in Texas and around the world, but go next door and engage my neighbor in a conversation about Jesus? No way.

And yet, 4 out of the 5 first followers of Jesus come to Jesus through someone relationally reaching out. Think about all of the relationships you have with non-believers, kids, spouses, brother, sisters, friends, co-workers, parents of your kids’ teammates, yes, even in-laws.

I think the largest unreached mission field is probably the people who live next door to a Christian.

After spending time with Jesus and coming to believe that he had encountered the long awaited Messiah, the hope of Israel, Andrew’s first action was to find his brother. Not go to the religious leaders, not go back to John, not to keep it to himself, not to sit and learn more before he reached out, no, his first instinct is to go get his brother so that he can bring him to Jesus. In my studies I came across a statement that read, ‘The first movement of a heart that has found Christ is to find someone else.’

Similarly, seemingly the same day that Jesus invited Philip to follow him, to be a disciple, he went and searched out his friend Nathanael, finding him under a fig tree and told him about Jesus. 45 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.” Unlike Simon, Nathanael was reluctant, wasn’t he? He says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Because of the praise Jesus gives Nathanael, I don’t think we should see this as derogatory, rather as a statement of caution from Nathanael. He knows what scripture says, it doesn’t mention Nazareth at all, it is a relatively small and unimpressive places. Could the Messiah really come from that place? Nathanael seems to be in that category of a Jewish man who is expecting the Messiah to come, he knows what the scriptures says, and he doesn’t tell Philip, I don’t believe you, but he does push back on the idea that the Messiah is from Nazareth. I’m thankful that the Holy Spirit inspired, through the Apostle John to record this conversation. Otherwise we might be tempted to think when we face opposition in relationally reaching out, we should just stop and throw our hands up.

No, what does Philip say? Come and see. Come and see for yourself.

Come meet Jesus and be convinced yourself. I can hear what your thinking, that’s easy for Philip, he could literally walk Nathanael up to the Word of God in the flesh.

Indeed, when he does bring him, Jesus immediately tells Nathanael that he saw him under the fig tree before Philip got there. This is so interesting. We can only speculate, but what if Nathanael was praying in that moment? From what I understand, one of the reasons to be standing under a fig tree was for shade, what if he had been hearing all the talk about John the Baptist, what if he had heard that John had said that the one who he had been speaking of was standing among them? What if he was praying, asking God for clarity. We can only speculate, but something significant had to have happened under that fig tree, because when Jesus says he saw him there, Nathanael immediately confesses him as the Messiah with a dual confession of of his person and his title. Son of God designates Jesus as the predicted Messiah and King of Israel is an OT title for the Messiah. Philip relationally reaching out and encountering Jesus for himself led him to believe that Jesus was the Christ.

Here’s the question, then. Who is in your immediate sphere of influence who you could reach out for the purpose of pointing them to Christ? Probably more than you immediately think of. Some of you work remotely, some of you are at home all day with the kids, some of you are retired, and you might think, I see the same 5-10 people everyday. Okay, do they know Jesus? And if you have already pointed them to Jesus, who do you regularly see from week to week, month to month? What family members are within driving distance? What about your neighbors? Very few of us, if any, can say we don’t have anyone to relationally reach out to, which if you remember that 85% of Christians come to faith because of personal relationships, is pretty significant.

Studies show that on average we have around 30-50 people from our inner circle to our meaningful social circle. If we include our social network of people whose names we know, who we would stop and have a conversation, people we see periodically that number climbs to 100-150.

If each of us just decided today that we would take the work of witnessing seriously and relationally reach out to even 30-50 people with the intention of pointing them to Jesus, how much impact would that have on the kingdom of God? If a hundred of us reached 10 of the people close to us for Jesus, thats 1,000 people who even if they do not come to Christ will have heard a personal witness concerning Him.

You can preach on the street corner, you can knock on doors, you can go on mission trips to Mexico, but the core of the work of witnessing is simply relationally reaching out to those around you, which brings us to our last lesson.

III. WITNESSING IS INVITING INDIVIDUALS INTO DISCOVERY

We see this in John’s proclamation, Behold, look, there is the lamb of God. Quit standing here with me and go to him. We see this in Andrew’s reaching out to his brother, he brings him to Jesus for Simon to discover Jesus for himself. We certainly see this in Philip’s reaching out to his friend, come and see. Let’s go back to that statement we briefly touched on, that it was easy for Philip, he could literally walk Nathanael up to the Word of God in the flesh. It’s not like you can do that with your Aunt Becky? Right?

Or can you?

Do you believe that this (Scripture) is a record of eyewitness testimonies?

Do you believe that this (Scripture) is the living, active word of God?

Do you believe that it (Scripture) is inspired, inerrant, and sufficient for life and faith? Do you believe that it (Scripture) contains everything someone needs to know to come to faith?

John did. I will remind you again of what he says his purpose in writing is. He says in chapter 20:30–31 “30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John believed if someone just read his eyewitness testimony about what Jesus did and said that someone could believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing they may have life in his name. That’s a powerful statement.

Friends, the greatest tool in your witnessing is too often sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust.

You say, I have told those around me about Jesus and they don’t want to listen. Invite then to read the book of John with you. Forward them some links from our John series. Invite them to investigate Christ for themselves. Invite them to come to church with you and see for themselves.

At the end of the day, no one will come to Christ solely on the testimony of an individual, not yours and not mine. They will come to Christ when they meet Christ for themselves. And man is there a lot to discover. I believe what Jesus says in this passage reminds us that there is always more to see and know about Jesus and therefore there is always more to tell others about. Let’s revisit verses 50 and 51.

John 1:35–51 ESV

50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jesus is impressed, Nathanael believe because he had foreknowledge of where he was, just wait Jesus says! Jesus says that he will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. What a seemingly strange thing to say, until you realize the imagery Jesus is painting.

It is a reference from Genesis 28. Jacob is fleeing from Esau, he lays down for the night and dreams of a ladder, or stairway reaching from earth to heaven. He sees angels ascending and descending on it and God standing above it and God reaffirms the Abrahamic covenant, Jacob awakens and declares, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Jesus is saying that he is the true meeting place between heaven and earth.

Jesus is saying that the Abrahamic promise reaches fulfillment in Him.

Jesus is saying that he is the gate of heaven, or door as he says later.

Jesus welcomes Nathanael’s confession and then promises that he will experience an even greater understanding of who Jesus is.

When we invite someone into discovery of Jesus we are inviting them into a limitless and boundless exploration of the majesty of the Word made flesh. What a thought!

Here’s what we see in our text, sometimes people are willing, sometimes they are reluctant, but witnessing, at its heart is ‘this is who I have come to believe Jesus is and I think you should too, check it out for yourself’.

Three lessons concerning the work of witnessing from our text.

Witnessing is pointing people to Jesus, witnessing is relationally reaching out, and witnessing is inviting people to discover Jesus for themselves.

If you have a history of overcomplicating witnessing or avoiding it altogether because of bad experiences, may God show you the simple truth this morning.

Maybe you are here this morning because someone invited you to discover Jesus, I pray that as we have sang about Him, read about him, and proclaimed who he is, that you have seen clearly for yourself and I pray that you would fall on your face in surrender before a loving and awesome savior.

Maybe you are here this morning and you know who Jesus is but you have not been much of a witness for him, may today energize you to reach out to those around you and point them to the only one who can save them. May we all be reminded that if we are still here, then we still have opportunity to witness of Christ to a lost and dying world, may we all be about the work or witnessing.

Let us pray.