John 1:43-45 NASB95
The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, “Follow Me.” [44] Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of 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.”
In verse 45, Philip tells Nathaniel, “We have found Him…” The reality is Philip found Jesus as a result of Jesus purposely finding Philip, according to verse 43. This says something powerful to me about the nature and the heart of God. God is not angrily standing apart from humanity because He cannot tolerate our sinfulness. The fact that God became human in the incarnation of Christ tells us that God purposely came looking for us in our brokenness and found us. Remember, one of Jesus’s assignments was to reveal the truth about God. The truth about God was that He loves us so much; instead of standing at a distance from us in our fallenness, He dove headfirst into our fallenness to rescue us. He rescued us not by removing us from something but by inviting us into something (actually into someone), the very life of Christ. When Jesus found Philip, He said to him, “Follow Me.” I believe a better translation for the word “Follow” that would best convey the original meaning would be the word “Join.” Jesus pursues us and finds us in our brokenness, and invites us to join Him in His wholeness. Actually, in the incarnation, God through Christ joined us in our brokenness by clothing Himself with our fallen humanity – without ever sinning – and on the cross became our sin on our behalf that we might join Him in His fullness and wholeness. We are saved in His life.