https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A43-51&version=NRSV (John 1:43-51) I was talking with a friend a few months ago about an interesting job opening in a company that she really wanted to work for, and I said, ‘Why don’t you apply for it?” She said, “Because I’m not sure I am qualified for the job.” And so she didn’t apply. She knew we live in a qualification-conscious society. In the business world bosses are looking for qualified candidates with the right credentials in education, background, and skill set. In the athletic world, coaches look for the most qualified, proven players in order to put together a winning team. This is true even in the world of the church. My home church just put together a search team to find our next pastor. They have a list of qualifications as they search for that individual. All this emphasis on qualifications sometimes can leave people feeling less than adequate and not so good about themselves or their place in the whole scheme of things. Maybe even feel a little stuck and useless. Scripture has an encouraging lesson for us today as we observe Jesus in the beginning stages of His mission. He is recruiting disciples to join Him in His mission. In our story today, we find Jesus choosing two men to be His disciples. His choices – Philip and Nathanael – are surprising because as we closely examine them, we find they lacked the qualifications one would think were necessary to be on the Savior’s salvation team. Look at the first character, Philip. As we do some research on him, we don’t find much. Not to be confused with deacon Philip in the book of Acts; Matthew, Mark, and Luke just use his name in the listing of the twelve disciples. He doesn’t stand out; he’s not a rising star. He seems to be a quiet, in-the-background, ordinary, unimpressive sort. John’s Gospel is where we find some information about Philip. He was from Bethsaida, in Galilee, which means he probably was already friends with Peter, Andrew, and Nathanael. He could’ve been a fisherman, which doesn’t exactly qualify him to reach people for Christ. We know he was religious, because he was seeking God. He was Jewish even though his name was Greek meaning “lover of horses.” We know he knew his Old Testament Scriptures as we see him telling Nathanael about his discovery of the Messiah who would come and save the world. I found Him! he says. After this calling in John chapter 1, we don’t hear a lot about Philip. What we do hear about him is not all that impressive. He always seems to be in over his head. For instance, in John chapter 6 – the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand – Jesus asks Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” John, in an editorial comment, said, “Jesus said this to test Philip.” He already knew what Philip was going to do; Jesus was testing his faith. Since Philip had watched Jesus turn ordinary water into gallons of wine and heal all kinds of people, one would think Philip have said, We can feed them, but instead Philip responds, “Impossible! I’ve done the mental calculations. It would take six months wages to feed them. We can’t feed these people.” Then Andrew steps up with a little boy who had five loaves and two fishes for Jesus to use. He blesses the food and five thousand people are fed. It seems to be a lack of faith in Jesus and His ability to do the supernatural that is at work in Philip. He’s not really all that promising, wouldn’t you agree? In John 12, some Greeks who wanted to see Jesus came to Philip, perhaps because his name was Greek. He thought to himself, I suppose, These people are non-Jews. We’ve never handled a situation like this. What should I do? I don’t want Jesus to be mad. It would set a bad precedent if I brought them. So instead of introducing them to Jesus as they had asked, he had Andrew handle it. Again, it appears that Philip was feeling over his head, indecisive, and afraid. In John 14, the...