Something began yesterday that is altering reality forever.
The word ‘find’ has its meaning in discovering something that was previously absent. Our minds typically go to keys and TV remotes, but you can also find feelings like love or despair. One of the best moments of this occasion is when you find money in a pair of pants you haven’t worn in a year. In any case, when something is found, you are changed. It may be a little change, like five dollars richer, or it may be a big change, like the spouse of your dreams. Finding something that was at one time absent is life altering, and John wants us to realize in John 1:35-51 that something has been found and that something is life-shattering.
Of the 11 times the word ‘found’ is used in the Gospel of John, five of them are within this passage. The most important one to note is when Andrew finds his brother Simon and tells him, “We have found the Messiah”. This is because this is the only time in the entire Gospel of John that he uses this word in the perfect tense. The perfect tense is a tense used to explain an action that happened in the past, but it still intrudes into the present. It would be like finding that five-dollar bill in your pocket every single day. The truth of what happened yesterday is still as real and actual as it is today. So when Andrew tells his brother that he has found the messiah, the promised king to Israel, he is saying that something began yesterday that is altering reality forever.
This alteration in the life of the disciples is immediate, and it should be for us as well. Below are two practical ways we can be challenged as we examine whether we have found Christ to be our Messiah.
The first way it changes their reality: they immediately drop everything they are doing and begin following Jesus. What obstacles are in the way of you fulfilling the purpose God has for you? (This could be sin, career, lack of faith, wrong relationships, selfish ambition, etc.)
The second way it changes their reality: they evangelize. They begin telling those whom they have a relationship with about what they’ve found. Do you see your family and friends as your first ministry? Are you having conversations with them about what you have found in Christ?
