We're continuing in our study of the Gospel of John to learn from
Scripture who Jesus is. Last week we saw how Jesus is
the Savior of the world. Today we'll see how Jesus is
equal with God. We'll be looking at verse
starting from verse 43 in chapter 4 all the way to chapter
5, verse 18. As you turn there, consider
this. There are several reasons why
Christianity does not have a good reputation among people,
even though Christians are called to be faithful,
hospitable, kind, generous, caring.
So how could it be that Christianity does not have a
good reputation? Well, one of those contributing
factors comes from false teachings of those who claim to
be Christian. And one of those kinds of false
teachings take a truth of God and bring a wrong application of
faith to it. They say that God can heal us
from all sicknesses and diseases, which indeed God is
able to do, for he is a creator of all things and the great
Physician. But they claim also that God
will heal you from all sicknesses and diseases if you
have enough faith, if you believe hard enough, if you are
good enough, and in most cases, if you give enough money, then
God will heal you. Isn't this a convenient safety
net for such false teachers and faith healers to say, Oh yeah,
see, it's your fault why you weren't healed?
There are countless of testimonies from people who once
trusted in such healing services and such false teachings that
were done in the name of Jesus Christ, only to taint His holy
name with things like greed, manipulation, and abuse.
But when we look to Scripture and see Jesus for ourselves, it
is clear that Jesus did heal people, but not in the way of
swindlers and false teachers. Jesus did not teach that we
could be healed from any sickness if only we had enough
faith, if only we were good enough.
Rather, we'll see Jesus specifically today how he healed
even when faith was shallow, even when faith did not exist.
So be suspicious against people who say God can do things for
you if you had enough faith. Because the Son of God did many
things for the faithless, for the sinful, undeserving people.
God, the Son of God worked so that we could believe in him, so
that we could have life in his name, so that we could come to
trust in His Word, to believe that indeed he was sent from
God, but more so to believe that Jesus is equal with God, to
believe that Jesus is God. So today we'll look at 2 of such
miracles that Jesus performed. They're called signs in
Scripture, as we have seen, because they point to something
beyond the miracles themselves, to something greater, actually
to someone greater. These these signs surely proved
and pointed to Jesus, proving that Jesus is equal with God.
Yet they had two different responses from the people who
witnessed them. So here are the two points of
the sermon that we'll be looking at today.
A sign given to deepen a shallow faith.
A sign given despite a lack of faith.
We'll see in these first instance that Jesus works even
when faith was not really there and how his miraculous healing
helped spur on challenge shallow faith to become real, deep,
genuine faith. See that in verses 43, chapter 4
to 54. And then in chapter 5, verse
one, we'll see in the second sign in the sign given there
that it was done even in a lack of faith in the implications for
us today. So first, a sign given to deepen
a shallow faith. We see this in chapter 4, verses
43 to 54. Please follow along as I read
God's Word. After the two days he departed
for Galilee. For Jesus himself had testified
that a prophet has no honour in his hometown.
So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having
seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they
too had gone to the feast. So he came again to Cana in
Galilee, where he had made the water wine.
And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill.
When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee,
he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for
he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, Unless you
see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
The official said to him, Sir, come down before my child dies.
Jesus said to him, Go, your son will live.
The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on
his way. As he was going down, his
servants met him and told him that his son was recovering.
So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they
said to him, yesterday at the 7th hour the fever left him.
The Father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him,
Your son will live. And he himself believed in all
his household. This was now the second sign
that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
This is God's word, Amen. So after Jesus stop over in
Samaria, he continued his journey up north from Judea to
into Samaria, into his hometown Galilee, as you see in verse 43.
Now, when celebrities today go back to visit their hometowns,
you can just imagine the kind of reception that they would
receive. Similarly, Jesus at this point
was nothing short of a sensation.
The Galileans, it says, saw the signs and wonders Jesus did at
Jerusalem during the Passover feast.
So verse 45 explains how the Galileans welcome Jesus
specifically. Why?
Why did they welcome him? Because they saw his miracles.
It's actually quite different what we saw from the last week
with the Samaritans and John, the writer of this gospel is
working to make that contrast and distinction clear for us.
If you remember, Jesus had a fascinating conversation with
the Samaritan woman at the well in Sikar, which led to the woman
then going to tell everyone in town of what of about Jesus.
And at the end of it, all right, in chapter 4, verse 42, they
said to the woman, it's no longer because of what you said
that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and we know
that this is indeed the Savior of the world.
Such a faith without any miracles.
And out of all places, all people Samaritans, these half
Jews who hated the Jews who were deficient in their worship of
God. These Samaritans believed
without signs and miracles and wonders that he was the Messiah.
The note is given for us in verse 44.
For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in
his hometown. Jesus himself testified, saying
this idiom, this phrase, this proverb, identifying himself
with the many prophets of old who were rejected by their own
people. Indeed, Jesus would later be
rejected to the point of death on the cross.
We heard earlier in the service of that triumphant entry Jesus
made into Jerusalem on the week of his crucifixion.
But only a few days later, people's praise declaring
Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord with
palm branches. It would later turn to cries of
crucify him. He would be rejected later, but
even now in Galilee, despite his warm reception, he was not
honored. That's the point of verse 44,
because true honor after seeing all the signs would be to
believe that Jesus is indeed the Savior of the world, that he is
not only from God or he is with God to do these miraculous signs
like how Nicodemus said in John chapter 3, but to believe that
Jesus is God come in the flesh. So we receive clarity again here
to discern the people's welcoming of Jesus.
On the surface it looks nice, but that's all it was, nothing
else below the surface. So with that we turn our
attention to verse 46. Jesus returned to Cana, the same
town. He turned water into wine and
here now was an official, most likely a royal official by that
title he holds, who had a sick son on the verge of death.
So when he heard that Jesus came to Galilee, he travelled over
about 30 kilometers on an upward incline, because Capernaum was
by the Sea of Galilee and Cana was up by the hills, a journey
that would normally require a full day.
So he comes. He finds Jesus requests to come
back down with him to Capernaum to heal his dying son.
And so the question for us that's lingering here from verse
44, does this man have genuine faith, The faith, that kind of
the faith, the kind of faith that honors Jesus?
And how does Jesus respond? It's somewhat of a cold response
in verse 48, isn't it? Jesus said to him, unless you
see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
Now we should note that the you here is plural.
Jesus's response to the man's request is actually a corporate
rebuke. Unless you all see signs and
wonders, you all will not believe.
Jesus again pointing out the problem of this so-called faith.
It's what John already explained to us back in John chapter 2
verse 23 to 25. If you have your Bibles, please
go back there to read it. It says Now when he was in
Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when
they saw the signs He was doing. But Jesus on his part did not
entrust himself to them because He knew all people and he needed
no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what
was in man. So with that, along with what he
says here, this corporate rebuke, it sounds like Jesus's
answer to the officials request is no, no, I will not come down
with you and no, I will not heal your son.
But what does that man say in verse 39?
Sir, come down before my child dies?
It seems that he's not going anywhere and it's probably
because he is utterly desperate. If Jesus will not come down and
heal his son, there would be no hope left for him, which is why
he sticks around and he asks again, Sir, come down before my
child dies. This royal official may have had
everything people would want, like power, wealth, reputation,
resources, but whatever he had didn't matter at this point
because he was a human being like the rest of us.
Like the rest of us, left to our own means and our own resources.
None of us have what it takes to face death, to face death
ourselves personally, or to face death of a child.
So that's all he cared about. His desperation got him to Jesus
and now his desperation was keeping him clinging to Jesus as
his only hope, for there were no other options.
How does Jesus respond? Verse 50 Jesus said to him, go,
your son will live. Jesus sends a man away with
nothing more than a promise, but with it was a defining
opportunity for this man to believe or not believe.
Jesus knows what's in this man's heart.
Jesus knows that this man thinks.
Jesus needs to come down to Capernaum to do this miraculous
healing. To that Jesus says go, your son
will live. No sign, no proof, just his
word. The man can either now disregard
what Jesus said and keep urging Jesus to come with him, or
simply believe he could try to. He could try to demand for a
sign, something, a coin of assurance or something, or
simply believe. The rest of verse 50 says the
man believe the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his
way. This for us is like watching a
flower bloom in a time lapse video.
We see this man faith come about whatever shallow understanding
he had of Jesus, limiting Jesus to a physical presence in order
to heal. That has all passed and we see
Jesus perform 2 miracles here, healing his Son and granting
faith to the Father. Father's faith deepens as he
goes back home. Verse 51 As he was going down
his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering.
The servants of course did not know what had happened, they
just knew that the Father left the previous day and hoping for
the best. All they knew was that at after
the boy was healed that the boy was suddenly getting better.
So they probably were sent to go find the Father and tell him the
good news, not knowing what had happened.
Now interestingly, see what the Father asked them in verse 52.
So we asked them the hour what the hour when the when he began
to get better? And they said to him yesterday
at the 7th hour the fever left him.
The Father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him,
your son will live. And he himself believed in all
his household. To be clear here, Jesus did not
merely wish that the son will live.
It's not like how we tell people, I hope you feel better
soon when they're sick. It's it was also not a
prediction that the child would get better.
Like how our doctor told me my daughter, even though she had a
massive bump on her side in the emergency room and I was in
panic mode, she already had the mum's vaccine.
So he said he predicted and everything he she would get
better and she did get better in a week, exactly as the doctor
predicted. But this was not that.
This was Jesus his words that caused the healing to happen.
The very moment Jesus spoke, the words go, your son will live.
Instantly, that sick, dying boy over in the next town some 30
kilometers away, was miraculously healed.
Verse 54 reminds us to not get stuck on the sign, but the point
of it all. For this was the second sign
that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
John wants us to consider what specifically who the sign points
to. The whole point of miracles was
to be face to face with Jesus himself and to be thrust down in
worship and say, Oh my God, there is no one like you.
Remember, from the very beginning of John's Gospel,
Jesus was introduced as a man, as the one who was in the
beginning with God, and all things that were made were made
through him and in him was life. That life was the light of men.
This is the reason why when Jesus speaks, reality follows
because Jesus is God, the eternal divine Son of God who
came in the flesh. And like how God spoke to
miraculously create all things, here Jesus spoke to miraculously
heal the point of the signs. By this point, I hope you have a
mental bookmark at John chapter 20, verse 30 to 31.
There John writes for us. Now Jesus did many other signs
in the presence of the disciples, which are not written
in this book, but these are written, the ones that's written
for us 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. So where are you in regards to
faith in Jesus? Perhaps you're in a desperate
position of desperation for change, for a miracle from
Jesus. But to be clear, desperation is
not necessarily faith. Genuine faith in Christ is
believing him and trusting him at His word.
Like how this man, this Father, believe the word of Jesus even
without any evidence or proof of what Jesus said would come true.
To believe His word without any proof or sign because that means
you believe in the one who gave that word.
So I believe the challenges. Challenge here is for you who
are not Christian. Will you believe the words of
Jesus even if he does not write a message in the skies?
You might want that. You might want some kind of
miraculous sign or just other easier ways for you to believe
in Jesus. But will you first consider and
study the words of Jesus you already have access to?
Don't wait for a miracle to come back.
Don't wait for God to follow through on on a on a random
challenge you give to God. Oh God, if you do this then I
will believe instead. See, look to what you have
already available to you in this Bible here.
See it says that Jesus came to die for sinners who would turn
to him in repentance and faith that he came to suffer the
judgement, the punishment that you deserve.
And then on the third day rose again from the dead, defeating
sin and death. I'm I'm we're glad that you're
here and learning more about Jesus and we pray that as you
look to Jesus, you will see a better sign than a miraculous
healing. You will see God's that you
would see God's perfect love in perfect justice, even as we sang
today, Heaven's peace and perfect justice, kissing a
guilty world in love through the death of Jesus Christ.
May you see the only way as you look to Jesus to be saved from
your sins and eternal death and separation from God, genuine
faith in Christ is believing in Him and trusting him at His
word. So believe in Him today.
For the Christians here, brothers and sisters, we have
the same challenge actually, because as we put our faith in
Jesus, it doesn't necessarily get any easier to trust in His
promises. But through every faith shaking
situation that comes our way, the challenges, will you still
believe? Will you continue to believe?
We don't necessarily have the kind of promise we don't.
This promise from Jesus like this Father did.
He doesn't say go, your loved one will live.
He doesn't tell us go the cancer will be healed or this tragedy
will be overturned. But when we are in Christ by
faith, we can keep walking in that faith until we get home to
our eternal home because of what God's word says many places.
But for example, first Peter chapter one verse 3.
According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. And we know that this life,
because of His word, we know that this life of suffering will
one day be over and we will one day be resurrected like Christ
with new bodies. Christ will do away with all sin
and death. He will wipe away every tear
from our eyes. He has given His Word and He
will do it. This one is not a matter of if
He will, but when. And so we trust in His ways.
We trust in His time. My brothers and sisters in
Christ. May you see then, every faith
shaking situation that comes your way actually comes from
God's hand. For He is working to deepen our
faith in Him. Believe and continue to believe
in His Word. That's how Jesus work through
the shallow work. Through a shallow faith, Jesus
also work a miracle, a sign despite a lack of faith.
Let's now turn to John chapter 5.
Follow along as I read from verses 1 to 18.
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to
Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the
sheep gate, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five
roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of
invalids, blind, lame and paralyzed.
One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years.
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already
been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be
healed? The sick man answered him, Sir,
I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred
up. And while I'm going, another
steps down before me. Jesus said to him, Get up, take
your bed and walk. And at once the man was healed,
and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. We'll pause there as the scene
shifts. We are back in Jerusalem,
brought to a sad and pitiful scene.
Before we saw one Father hopelessly desperate.
Now we see a multitude of invalids.
The word literally means weak. The weak, the weak people
gathered around in a pool in Jerusalem.
This pool marked by these five colonnades, these pillars that
were supporting a roof. Just imagine hundreds of people
who were physically suffering. The blind, the lame, those who
could not walk without difficulty, the paralyzed, those
who could not move at all. And here was one man who was an
invalid for 38 years, that is almost as long as I have been
alive. He could not move without the
help of others for that time. What's interesting to note here
is that they were there perhaps to beg, for that was their that
was their only means of livelihood.
But more specifically, as we're told, because of a superstition.
We hear it when the man says in verse 7 how he thinks he could
be healed if he is the first one into the pool when the water is
stirred up. Now the water could have been
stirred up by natural springs or other plumbing reasons unknown
to us, but apparently there was a superstitious belief that an
Angel would come from the Lord to stir up the waters.
And the first one in the water will be the one to get healed
from whatever disease they had, whatever physical ailment they
had. Well, sometime later, as I make
a note on the literary aspect of the Bible here, bear with me.
Sometime later, when the scribes continued to copy the Gospel of
John by hand, they inserted this popular belief.
So if you look at your Bible, it has, it should have a footnote
where verse 4 should be. And I hope you notice as I was
reading, where's verse 4? It's not a typo.
It's because verse 4 was taken out.
The footnotes in the ESV translation of my Bible reads as
as such. Waiting for the movement of the
water for an Angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons
into the pool and stirred the water.
Whoever stepped in first after the healing after after the
healing of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.
Now the reason the footnote it it is a footnote.
It's because the first, the writings of scripture did not
always have verse numbers. Verse numbers were added in more
modern times, and by that I mean around the 1500's.
The purpose was to help people study the Bible so that you
could easily refer back to specific verses.
But then after these verse numbers were added, older
manuscripts of Scripture were discovered and more reliable
copies of John's gospel did not contain verse 4.
And so that's why we see it as a footnote.
It's there, though still meant for us to understand what we
would, what we could understand without the footnote.
That here was a superstitious belief.
Jesus asked this man, does he want, do you want to be healed?
And all that he could hold on to was this superstitious belief.
If he were just the first person to go in when the water stirred,
he would be healed. In any case, he's hopeless,
helpless without anyone to put him into the and he said to him,
do you want to be healed now? Isn't Jesus question strange?
We would all assume to somebody who was not able to move freely
and have an able body for 38 years.
Isn't that a obvious question? That's a redundant question to
ask. It might be strange, but
actually if we pay careful attention, it's profound on the
heart level because Jesus's question exposes the reality
that not everyone who is sick necessarily wants to be healed.
We could say whoever is sick needs to be healed.
But the point here of Jesus's words causing us to wonder at
his question is, does he want to be healed?
Leon Morris provides helpful insight.
He knows how a man who had been disabled for so long had
probably settled into a pattern of life, most likely as a beggar
dependent on people's generosity to live.
But if he was illed, it meant a life with wonderful
possibilities, yes, but also with unknown perils.
He would have to now earn his own living.
But how? He was not trained in a
particular trade that he could pick up quickly.
And while people would be willing to help and invalid, who
would be as willing to help an able bodied man.
So did he really want health with all of its privileges, yes,
but also its responsibilities? Jesus asks this question to make
him consider and make us consider.
Did he really want to be healed? Well, it's clear that he wasn't
sure of Jesus as a person. Not only that, he completely
lacks the faith to answer Jesus's question.
This is what we know of him. This is what we see of this man.
He simply says in verse 7, sticking to his superstition.
Sir, if only had someone to get me into the pool first, then I
would be healed. Maybe at best he thought, oh,
was Jesus offering me a hand? Is he going to wait with me
until the stirring of the waters and help me into the pool the
next time it was stirred up? No, Jesus was offering much more
than that, much more than help. Despite his lack of faith, Jesus
said in verse eight, said to him, get up, take up your bed
and walk. And at once the man was healed
and he took up his bed and walked again.
Jesus spoke, reality followed, and the man was healed.
The bed that carried the man throughout his life, now he was
carrying it around. Which by the way, seems to be no
point to carry his bed around other than to be a physical
reminder, a physical sign of his physical transformation.
But to us, to the readers, it should be obvious by now if
Jesus could heal a man by his word, a dying child in the next
town over, he could surely heal a man who was laying right
before him. Because Jesus is God, because
that's what the hearing praises for the glorious thing God has
done. We see a few problems.
Let's continue in verse 9 till the end, the end of verse 9
again until the end. Now that day was the Sabbath.
So the Jew said to the man who had been healed, it is the
Sabbath and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.
But he answered them, the man who healed me, that man said to
me, take up your bed and walk. They asked him, who is the man
who said to you, take up your bed and walk?
Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for
Jesus has withdrawn. Jesus had withdrawn as there was
a crowd in the place. Afterwards Jesus found him in
the temple and said to him, See that you are well, sin no more,
that nothing worse may happen to you.
The man went away and he told Jesus, and he told the Jews that
it was Jesus who had healed him. Let's pause there.
Keeping the Sabbath was the 4th commandment.
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
On it you shall not work. The first problem then comes
from the Jews who enters a scene like the Sabbath police.
Hey you, it's not lawful for you to carry your bed.
I just want you to pause and think of the absurdity of what
they said in this situation. The Jews just witnessed a man
who laid as an invalid for 38 years now carrying the very bed
that carried him. They should be saying, wow, what
on God's green earth happened to you?
How in the world are you carrying your bed?
No, instead they pull out the Sabbath yellow card and say,
what are you doing? Now?
If this man had been carrying around a bunch of beds, setting
up a stall, selling them, yeah, that would be a valid violation.
If he was in the bed moving business, that would be a
violation. But this no way.
The second problem we see here is that the healed man is not
like the Father with the healed son.
The 1st is a problem in the reception of the people.
The second is a problem in the one who received the healing.
We see that this man is not a model of faith to follow.
He lacked faith in Jesus. He doesn't even know who Jesus
is, let alone he doesn't even try to pursue the man who
miraculously healed him from a 38 year long condition.
All he's found doing is blaming Jesus.
He made me do it for breaking the forth commandment.
Not only that somehow his disability had somewhat in some
way caused was caused by his life of sin.
Now I want us to be clear, not all sickness or disabilities are
directly caused by sin, but sometimes it can be like in this
case for this one particular man, there was a direct
connection. We see how Jesus says in verse
14, see you are well, sin no more, that nothing worse may
happen to you, nothing worse. What is worse than suffering for
38 years with a physical disability?
What's worse is suffering in hell for eternity.
That's much worse, the worst of any suffering any one of us
could ever possibly go through. And what is it that gets you to
hell? Follow Jesus's logic in in his
warning here. It's our sin.
Our sin is what gets us to hell. All of us, regardless of our
background, of our upbringing, of our ethnicity, we were all
made in God's image, and we have all turned away from God in sin
and all have fallen short of His glory.
Our sin gets us to hell because sin is a serious grievous
offence against a holy perfect God.
Therefore, as sinners we have a growing debt as we are unable to
give God what He deserves. He deserves pure, perfect
worship, love and obedience. And because we cannot give that
which God deserves, that which we owe God, we are mere
desperate, poor beggars before an infinite God.
So when we consider the death of our sin, the wrongs we have
done, the life we have lived, we must acknowledge and accept that
it is right for sinners like us to go to hell, to suffer in the
worst way possible, because we have in sin done the worst thing
possible against God. But that is the very reason why
Jesus came. We see it as a glimpse as he
comes to approach and select this man who somehow caused his
own condition by his sin. He comes, points him out and
heals him when he had no faith. The reason we know more fully in
the gospel why Jesus came to live the life of perfect
obedience. We should have lived, yet he
died the death we should have died.
So then the cross of Jesus Christ and the empty tomb of
Jesus is the sign of all signs for us, the gospel.
It's how we can know God's great love for sinners.
And by the power of the gospel, we believe.
And whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish, but have
eternal life. Sadly, the Jews could have begun
to see Jesus for who he is, but rather they went the complete
opposite direction, stuck in their sin, blinded by their own
rules and regulations that they added to God's law, distorting
His law, distorting ultimately who God is, the God of grace and
mercy and love. See how they respond when they
find out it was Jesus. Verse 16 And this was why the
Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these
things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My
Father is working until now, and I am working.
This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill
him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but He was
even calling God His own Father, making himself equal with God.
The Jews believed that only one can be found working on the
Sabbath and that one was God alone.
Yes, God rested from His work of creation, but He was working to
sustain and uphold the universe He created.
So while people were resting from their work on the day of
Sabbath, God was working to give them life, breath, their very
being. So when Jesus said my Father is
working, Until now, the Jews knew what Jesus was talking
about, but they were horrified that he said it that way,
calling God not our Father or the Father, which was common,
but calling him my Father. He was claiming a unique
relationship to God in ways no one else relates to God.
Jesus was saying is it OK that God works to heal, restore life?
Make people whole on the Sabbath, then so can I.
My Father is working until now, so I can work on the Sabbath
too. Now in the eyes of the Sabbath
police, this was worse than a yellow card.
This was the red card of all red cards.
It was blasphemy to say that you are equal with God.
Yes, if it were not true it would be blasphemy.
But what the Jews could not get over was the fact that Jesus was
not just making himself equal with God.
He not like he was pretending he was equal with God.
He indeed as God the Son was equal with God.
He indeed the as the second person of the Triune God,
sharing in one work and the one purpose of the one God.
Jesus knew it was the Sabbath. He could have performed this
sign any day, anytime, any any day of the week.
Yet He chose to do it on this Sabbath day.
And to be clear, He didn't break the Sabbath by doing what He did
in the life of this faithless man before a faithless people.
Jesus was exposing the sinful nature of their hearts, their
hearts that were so stuck on their religious commitment, on
their man made rules. They saw themselves fit and
healthy without any spiritual disease before a holy God.
And so their eyes were blinded, they could not see God if He was
standing right before them, which he was in the flesh doing
the work that only God could do. There's actually something
severely wrong in their logic how they could not put the
pieces together. If they were so dedicated,
devoted to the law of their God and to their God, how could they
not know? How could they not see?
Because of their sin, because of their resistance against faith,
resistance to submit to God, even though they were claiming
they were doing that, even though they were claiming they
were submitting to God. Their hearts were like a fiery
furnace where the desire to kill Jesus began to burn the opposite
direction of faith. When we see them, we realize
that is actually the way and the condition of every sinful heart,
each one of us. We were dead in our sins.
We were enemies of God, rebellious against Him,
unwilling to give what He deserves and to instead to take
His place. Come up with our own rules, come
up with our own way to live own standard, and then go live by it
thinking everything is well with us and everything is wrong with
the world. Easy.
It is to miss God. When we live like that.
And so. This ends with just the clear
warning, a word of warning for for us that we must come to see
the signs the way that we're that we we ought to see them
knowing. That it's our own sin.
Blinding us so in all of this. How are we to?
Understand miracles, signs and wonders, then, well, hopefully
very clearly, we see that we should not seek any new signs as
a condition of our faith in Jesus, because we don't need to.
We don't need any more signs. All we have, all we need we have
in scriptures to know who Jesus is, to know that he came as God
in the flesh to live the life we should have lived, yet died the
death we have died to be all. We need is the scriptures.
To know Jesus in his love, in His, in His grace, in His
kindness, in his towards sinners, in His mercy towards
sinners like us, we ought not look for signs for faith, but we
ought. To look to.
Jesus to know Him. That we may.
Believe in what he has accomplished.
On the cross. In our place.
But then what? About our ongoing.
Needs our ongoing prayers and requests.
Well, of course, God. Can heal and which is?
Why when people are sick, we, we pray to our God who is able to
heal, to provide healing, for the purpose of turning people to
faith, to deeper faith, to true faith in Him, to remind us.
That we are dependent on. God, even for our very life,
even though if we eat well and exercise well, sleep well, if we
do all the right things, still our lives are at the mercy of
God's hand. So of course we can pray and ask
for God to do works of healing. When when even all the medical
advancements and technology come to its end, we know God can
heal. And so we do pray.
But. What do we do?
When we don't see healing, When we don't receive those answers
to those prayers. Should we?
Wither away in our faith, or should we all the more look to
Jesus? We should look to Jesus.
We should look to his life, to his example.
We should look to how. He.
As fully God and fully man made a way.
For sinners like us. To help us in our faith, we sung
earlier in the. Second verse of your will be
done. Looking to Jesus, how he fully
God and fully man he the fearful weight of true obedience and how
it was held by Jesus Christ alone.
What wondrous faith to bear that cross, to bear my sin.
What wondrous love. My hope was sure when there my
Savior prayed Father, not my will, but yours be done, not
only. An example of faith, but.
By the faith he exercised to bear that cross.
Our hope in this life, in whatever sickness, whatever
ailments, whatever disabilities, even in the face of death
itself, because even though this man was healed and he could
walk, he would need to face death.
He would one day need to meet his Maker.
But because of Jesus and his. Act of obedience.
Our hope is sure there when he prayed in the garden, Father,
yet not my will, but yours be done.
Then when we look to the cross, He acted in obedience to.
Die a sinner's death. And then when we look to the
empty tomb. When we look to Jesus.
How he? Obeyed how we took.
On that fearful weight of true obedience and faith, we can be
sure, friends, we can be sure that we don't have to worry
about anything in this life because the worst?
Thing that could happen to. US has been taken care of.
And in that way, God. Is still working until now.
He is calling people to faith. He is working salvation in even
in the most stubborn of hearts so that we can continue to pray.
And He is working His work of sanctification in us.
We can be sure of this, that he who began a good work will bring
it to completion at the day of Christ.
Jesus works to help. Us in faith, so believe in Him,
believe in His words, receive healing for your souls and live.
Let's pray. Thank you Lord, for the signs
that you have given in scriptures that point to Christ.
Thank you for the guidance so that we may not be stuck on the
signs and miracles, thinking that we need to somehow wait for
more signs and miracles so that we can believe.
No, You have provided all that we need for faith in the Gospel,
in your Word, in your Scriptures, and all this.
Points to Jesus Christ who? Is our Lord and Savior.
So we ask, would you continue to sustain us?
Lord, sanctify us in our faith and as you do and continue to
show who Jesus is to a dying, hopeless, helpless world that
many more may come to believe and trust in me in Jesus name.
We pray. Amen.
Let's take some time now to consider all that we have heard
in in the sermon and in in the preaching of God's Word.
Consider it for yourself what you learn about you, about your
own. Need about your.
Own sin. Consider what you learn about.
God who he is. Who Jesus is what he?
Has done why he. Has done it and.
If you were to believe. All this as true.
How would your life be different?
How would your life be changed? Consider this as we for
personally before we continue to respond to God's Word
corporately.