Go ahead and take out your Bibles and make your way to the
book of John. We're going to be in John
Chapter 4, finishing up John chapter 4 this morning.
If you did not bring a Bible with you, we've got some
underneath the seats in front of you.
If you're using that Bible, it's page 889.
We have any gardeners in here, Any green thumbs, anybody.
Very small handful. That's surprising.
I think one of the most satisfying things about
gardening is watching the progress from a small seed into
a mature flower or mature fruit tree or whatever it might be.
Right, Watching that progression.
I'm not much of A gardener, although I love growing basil.
I've, this is actually the first year that I've lived in Florida
in the last nine years that I've actually been able to grow
basil. I finally put it in a big pot
and it's out in the sun all the time, which is what it needs.
And so my basil is growing wonderfully.
But basil is amazing because it starts out as a dull, black,
tiny little seed, and then you put it in the soil and water it,
and over time it blossoms into something beautiful and vibrant
and alive. And for me, very, very delicious
because I make my pesto sauce with it.
So I want you to keep that image in your minds, this image of a
seed growing and blossoming. We're doing a series through the
book of John. We've been in it for several
months now, and today we are looking at a story about a man
who starts with a seed of faith. And through the course of the
story we get to watch that seed of faith blossom into something
wonderful, which is for him, saving faith, for him and for
his family. So let me begin with just a
brief moment of quiet before we read God's Word.
I want to give you a chance to cast any cares or anxieties that
you have. Just give them over to God.
I want to give you a chance to quiet your heart and your soul.
As Gordon mentioned earlier, we often come in very distracted,
very busy, very preoccupied with a lot of cares from life.
And so we like to take a moment before we hear from God, just to
pause and to release those things over to Him.
And so I want to encourage you to just take about 10 or 15
seconds and pray to Him, ask him to open your eyes and open your
heart that we might hear from him this morning.
So let's go ahead and do that. Then I will read, read the text
for us and pray. John chapter 4, starting in
verse 43. After the two days, he departed
for Galilee. For Jesus himself had testified
that a prophet has no honor in his own 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 and all his
household. This was now the second sign
that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this
story and this Father and his faith.
I thank you for the gift of faith.
I pray that you would give us all a gift of faith, that we
would trust You at your word, Jesus, that we would trust you
for our eternal salvation, but also that we would trust you
every single step along the way. And so help us and bless us and
strengthen us as a church in faith we pray in Jesus name,
Amen. OK, so Jesus here is returning
to Galilee from the town of Saikar, which we've have been
reading about the past couple weeks.
The story of the woman at the well.
Jesus encounters this woman, offers her living water that
will satisfy her soul forever. She believes, she trusts him.
She goes and she tells her fellow city members and they
come and they trust in Jesus. And now we pick up the story in
verse 43. It says after the two days he
departed for Galilee. Galilee is where his hometown
would have been. And this is this is interesting.
I want to pause here just for a brief moment because John is
very explicit to say after the two days.
So that means this story that we read today happens on the third
day. If you were here when we were
preaching through John chapter 2, the story of Jesus turning
the water into wine. Do you remember which day that
miracle happened on? Remember, oh, you guys, I know
you were here. A lot of you were here.
It happened on the third day. So John's doing something.
There's a story within the story.
What else happened that was very significant in history, very
significant in Christian history on the third day, Jesus's
resurrection. So even just in the way that
John is telling these stories, he is pointing us forward to
this coming reality of that. There's life on the third day,
there's abundance on the third day.
The wine of the Kingdom is poured out on the third day.
There's resurrection on the third day.
John is telling a story within the story.
This child in this story is as good as dead.
But then on the third day, he's he's raised, he's resurrected.
So Jesus leaves Sidecar in Samaria.
He comes back to Galilee where his hometown of Nazareth is
located. In verse 44, John adds
parenthetically. He says, for Jesus himself had
testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.
So the people in Jesus's hometown in Nazareth, in the
region of Galilee are not honoring him as Messiah.
They don't see him as that yet. He's too familiar.
This is the Jesus that we grew up with.
I saw him when he was in his diapers, and I saw him when he
was just a teenager. And he's claiming to be the
Messiah. Not so sure about that.
And so Jesus in this story is going to do another miracle to
show them who in fact he is, that he is God in the flesh,
that he is the Messiah come to save Verse 45 it says.
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 they are welcoming him, but
they are not welcoming him as Messiah.
They're welcoming him as maybe just a zealous rabbi, you know,
this man who was cleansing the temple like we we heard about a
few weeks ago. They're even welcoming him as a
miracle worker, this man who does these mighty feats.
He turned 120 to 150 gallons of water into fine wine.
John tells us that he did other signs when he was with these
people. So they're welcoming him, but
not yet as Lord, not yet as Messiah.
One of the commentators I read said this.
He said they have a faulty faith that is based on miracles.
They have a faulty faith that is based on miracles.
So they admire Him for the tricks that he can do.
They welcome him, but they don't worship him.
They like his miracles. That's cool, but we don't like
your message that you are God in the flesh.
Not so sure about that. I would say if I just look at
the church in our day and in our culture, there are many people
who have a faulty faith. Many people would say things
like I like Jesus, I like his teaching, but I don't believe
that he's God and I'm not going to worship him.
I mean, even the Dalai Lama, one of the most famous spiritual
figures on the planet, likes Jesus, admires Jesus,
appreciates Jesus's teaching, but refuses to confess that
Jesus is Lord. So Jesus here is about to do
another powerful work to back up his words and further prove that
he is more than just a miracle worker.
He is God in the flesh. So let's carry on.
In the story, verse 46, we meet a desperate man with a
devastating problem. This Father, so it says.
So he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had made the
water into wine. That's Jesus, of course.
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 we need another character in
the story. This official, the new English
NIV, translates it. He's a royal official.
The King James Version translated that he was a
nobleman. So we don't know a whole lot
about this man. Is he a Jew or is he a Gentile?
There's not a lot of detail. It's likely that he was a member
of King Herod's court. And so he was probably because
he's a mention as an official and a royal official.
He is part of the ruling elite. So he's a man of importance.
He's a man of financial means. He's a successful man.
He's a powerful man. He would have had access to good
food and the best Roman doctors, the healthcare system, medicine.
We find out later in the story he has servants, so he has a lot
of resources here. But the story tells us that his
son was ill to the point of death.
There are few things that will bring a man to his knees faster
than having a sick child. Several years back when one of
my daughter's was very ill, she was right around 1 year old and
she had a terrible stomach bug. So she had basically been
throwing up everything that we tried to feed her for like 2
solid days, severely dehydrated. And I remember one night it was
like two or three in the morning and I remember she'd been crying
and she had thrown up again where I was holding her.
She was so weak, she could not even hold her head up.
And as a father, I was just terrified in this moment.
What do we do? Do we take her to the ER?
Is there some other kind of medicine?
And I'm thinking, I wish I could absorb this sickness into myself
so that she could be healed. All right.
There's great compassion and mercy for your children when
they are sick. And so here is this man, here is
this father, and his son is ill to the point of death.
This is a terrifying situation, and it says that he had heard
that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee.
He hears about Jesus, the miracle worker, the man who
turned water into wine. He's here, he's close.
He's in Cana. Cana's about 20 miles up the
road, up the hill from Capernaum where this man lives.
And so he says, I'm going to take the, I'm going to make the
trek and I'm going to head up there.
So 20 mile trek, it's all uphill because Capernaum is 700 feet
below sea level at the next to the Sea of Galilee.
Cana is up in the hills. So this guy literally goes up
the mountain to meet Jesus. He is desperate.
He has exhausted all of his other options.
The best doctors can't help him. He can't just fix this by
himself. He does not have the power to
solve it. And so he asks Jesus to come and
heal his son. He believes that Jesus can help
him. He believes that Jesus can help
him. And so we see in this man seeds
of faith. Remember that little tiny black
basil seed? We see seeds of faith in this
man. Before I go on, though, I want
to, I want to just try to make a kind of a bigger application and
point that I think John is showing us as we read through
the gospel of John. He's showing us as he crafts his
gospel and he tells these stories that all kinds of people
need Jesus, and Jesus is willing to help all kinds of people.
In John 3, we see a religious, educated Jewish man who comes to
Jesus, Nicodemus, right? And Jesus is revealing himself.
He's calling him to believe. He's helping him.
In John chapter 4, we see an outcast Samaritan woman who
comes to Jesus. Jesus offers himself to her.
He tells her the truth. She comes to him.
Now we see a powerful, successful official coming to
Jesus requesting help, and we're going to see Jesus helps him.
Jesus helps all kinds of people. He helps the down and outers.
And usually when we think of Christianity, we think of the
down and outers, people who have had a hard life.
But I like to also say Jesus loves to help the up and outers
too, right? People who are very successful
in the eyes of the world, very educated, wealthy, powerful,
looked highly upon, but are very empty inside, spiritually
destitute. Jesus helps them too.
Jesus loves to help people who can quote a lot of Bible verses,
and he loves to help people who have never even cracked open
their Bible and they could not recite one verse to you from
memory. He's come for both.
He loves to help pH DS, and he loves to help high school
dropouts, men and women, powerful and weak, from every
corner of the globe. Jesus loves to help people.
He's for people. He loves people.
And so here is a man who has a desperate need and Jesus is
going to step in and help him. And next we see Jesus do
something a bit unexpected. Look at verse 48.
So this man has made this journey to come find some help
from Jesus the healer. He's desperate.
Verse 48. So Jesus said to him, unless you
see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
So Jesus resists him a bit. Jesus pushes back on his quote
UN quote faith of the official, but also you have to understand
in the original language, when Jesus says you, he's using the
plural form. So he's talking to the official,
but he's also talking to the people of Galilee and he's also
talking to us, right? He says you So.
And if he was from Florida, he'd probably say y'all.
OK, so, So y'all, unless y'all see signs and wonders, y'all
will not believe you are hungry for miracles and signs and
wonders. You love the tricks that I can
do, right? You're, you're all for that.
You. Oh, and you.
Ah, when I do these miraculous things, you treat me kind of
like I'm a Las Vegas sideshow magician, right?
You think that's pretty cool? You welcome me because I do
miracles, but the miracles are not the point.
The miracles are not the point. You know what the point is?
The man behind the miracles is the point.
Don't forget that The man behind the miracles is the point.
Miracles are signs that point to the fact that Jesus is Messiah,
Lord and Savior, worthy of worship, worthy of honor.
That's the point of the miracles.
How many of you have driven to Crescent Beach before, right?
You make the track, head out east on 39th and just keep
going, right? You got to turn somewhere in
Palatka. You go north a little bit, but
there's a sign there, right? There's a sign that points you
to Crescent Beach. It would be ridiculous if you
got out of your car at that sign and said, there's the sign, here
we are. And you've set up your little
beach chair and you put your umbrella in the ground and you
put on your sunglasses and you start posing for selfies and
sending them to your friends saying, I'm at the beach.
You're not at the beach. You.
That's just the sign. You've not made it yet, right?
The sign is pointing to the greater reality, the substance
of what you're looking for. The sign is pointing you toward
the beach in all of its glory, right?
So the point is not the sign. The signs merely point to the
destination. The point is not the miracle.
The miracle points to the man. The point is not the wonders.
The wonders give a little sample of how wonderful he is.
So don't be so enamored with the signs.
Don't be so in love with the miracles.
They are great and they are helpful, but they are meant to
lead us to the person of Jesus. Now, some of you come from faith
traditions that over emphasize the miracle, OK, the signs.
And I think there's a danger in that.
I think, I think in those groups you're you're walking on thin
ice. And if, if you're unaware of
that, there are some groups where where Christianity can
feel a little bit like an infomercial.
You know, it starts out in black and white because they all do.
And your life is terrible, right?
Poor you, everything is going wrong.
But if you just come to Jesus, get your miracle and he will
offer you health and wealth and prosperity and healing for 1999.
And if you do it in the next 30 minutes, then it's a 2 Fer.
It's just this, it's, it's, it's all about what you can get.
It's all about the miracle. If your faith is built on what
Jesus can do for you and the miracles that He can do, what
happens if it doesn't happen? What happens if you don't get
the miracle? If your faith is built on that,
then your faith collapses. Now, I want to be clear.
I believe that God does miracles, and I believe that we
should pray for Him to do miraculous things among us.
I believe in His power. I believe that the Holy Spirit
works today through Christians who pray.
He does signs and wonders that we should seek those things.
We should pray, we should ask, but we should not build our
faith on the miracle. Build your faith on the
foundation of Jesus and His finished work on the cross.
That is solid ground. That is steady, that is stable,
that is enduring. That Jesus came in the flesh.
He died on a cross for your sin and for my sin.
He rose again on the third day victorious.
And he rules and reigns forever and will rule and reign forever,
and all who trust in Him will rule and reign with him forever.
That's solid ground. You could build your life on
that, Paul says in First Corinthians chapter 3 verse 11,
he says, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which
is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Job in the Bible is an
incredible example of this if you're familiar with the story
of Job. Wealthy man, big family, very
successful and then everything goes wrong, right?
I mean, everything like literally his life just implodes
and his children, I mean, it's just tragedy, right?
He loses, he loses everything. He loses his family, he loses
his own health. But you know what he says?
He says though he slay me yet I will hope in him though he slay
me. Even if I don't get the miracle,
that's OK. I'm going to continue to hope in
him. That is faith in God, not faith
in what God can do for you. The Father and these Galileans
had a faulty faith that was built on miracles.
It was not enough. Their quote UN quote faith was
not enough to save them from the biggest problem that they had
and that we have the problem of sin.
And the Bible's clear. The wages of sin is death.
It leads to separation from God, who is life, separation from His
presence, which is life and light and joy, and it results in
eternal damnation and separation from Him in hell.
That is their biggest problem. That's our biggest problem.
Saving faith is a faith that personally trusts in the person
and work of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, not just a
generic I believe in God and I believe God can do miracles.
That's this kind of kitschy thing that is rampant in the
culture. I believe you believe.
Of course I believe in God. You know who else believes in
God? James tells us that the demons
do, and they tremble. So Jesus is going to mercifully
show this man and all of us that he is more than just a miracle
worker. OK?
He's not just your Las Vegas magician sideshow dude.
Excuse me. He has God in the flesh.
So let's continue on the story. We start to see the faith of
this man blossoming into full grown faith.
Verse 49 says the official said to him, Sir, come down before my
child dies. So this official is undeterred.
He asks Jesus to travel with him, Come back with me, take
this trip 20 miles down the mountain to Capernaum so you can
heal my son in person. Verse 50, Jesus said to him, go,
your son will live. Go, your son will live.
So he says to the man, he says I'm not going to go with you,
but I will heal your son and I'm going to heal your son at a
distance with a word. And you're going to have to
trust me. You're going to just have to
believe me and trust me. Believe the words that I speak,
not just the miracles that I do, not just the signs and wonders.
Don't just like me for that, but believe me based on the words
that I speak, believe that I am God.
God who spoke and creation came into existence.
God who creates and heals and restores and saves by the power
of His Word. You know, this is one of the
themes of God. You read the Genesis chapter 1
and 10 times it says, and God said and God said and God said
and God said 10 times by his word, his word has power.
And so Jesus is he's flexing here is what he's doing.
He say, I'm not, I'm going to heal him.
It's just going to be by my word.
So now this official has a choice, right?
He's at a bit of a crossroads here.
He can stay and keep begging. Come on, that's not enough.
I need you to know, come with me like you're my little, you know,
my, my rabbit's foot. So I can kind of rub you and,
you know, do my good luck charm. Or he can go try to find
somebody else to help him. Maybe there's another healer
somewhere. Maybe there's a priest, maybe
there's a prophet somewhere else.
Maybe there's some other doctors that I've not tapped into yet,
Somebody else who can help me. Or he can believe and trust in
Jesus's word and simply obey. What does he do?
second-half of verse 50. The man believed the word that
Jesus spoke to him and he went on his way.
The man believed the word that Jesus spoke, and he leaves.
And so we see the seeds of faith growing, right?
The seeds of faith are growing. The only way that this Father
could leave Jesus in peace is if he actually believes that Jesus
can do what he said he's going to do.
This has gone beyond now. This man just likes Jesus for
his tricks. This official believes that
Jesus is more. He believes that he has power.
Even his very words have power. And he believes to the point
that he starts walking 20 miles home.
And I was thinking about that journey this week.
Think about that, every single step of the way he had to trust
that Jesus was going to do what Jesus said he was going to do.
Every single step of those 20 miles.
I don't know how many steps that is.
I mean, I think, I think for a good day, 10 mile day, it's like
20,000 steps or something like that, 23,000 steps.
So 50,000 steps. He has to trust Jesus.
This is walking by faith, right? This is what it means to walk by
faith. So this man is getting closer
and closer to what I would classify as genuine saving
faith. Second Corinthians chapter 5,
verse 7. For we walk by faith, not by
sight. Hebrews 11/1.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction
of things not seen. Hebrews 11/6.
And without faith it is impossible to please him.
For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists,
and that He rewards those who seek him.
Romans 117, which is quoting Habakkuk 2 Four.
The righteous shall live by faith.
This man is zeroing in on saving faith.
So let me just ask you, let me ask us, where do you struggle to
believe what Jesus has spoken and just start walking?
Where do you struggle to take him at His Word, to believe in
His promises, and to just start walking?
I'm sure you struggle somewhere. We all do.
Maybe for some of you, it's in this whole notion of salvation,
right? That trusting in Jesus actually
leads to eternal life. John 316 For God so loved the
world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life.
You struggle to believe that one.
But when you humble yourself, when you turn from sin, when you
trust in Him, you have to understand that is a promise.
Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
It means He will catch you when you jump.
He will save you when you put your trust in Him.
He will forgive you of your sins, past, present and future
when you turn to Him and trust in Him.
And as you trust Him, as you follow Him, what you will find
is He will confirm His goodness to you.
He will confirm His love to you, and you will begin to experience
the abundant life that Jesus offers to you in this life.
But it requires a step. It requires steps of faith.
You know, a really good image of what salvation is like is the
whole story of the apostle Peter when he's in the boat with the
disciples during the storm and Jesus comes walking out onto the
water, the stormy water, and Peter sees Jesus, they think
he's a ghost and what's going on?
And Peter sees Jesus and Jesus says, come out, come, come to
me, you know, come to me. And Peter's like, what?
Come to you. Do you see where we are?
We're in a boat in the middle of the water, like waves and like,
what do you mean come to you? This is water.
Don't you don't understand physics and biology and how this
stuff works? Like I step out there, I sink.
No, come to me. Faith is putting that foot out
on the water and trusting in Jesus's words that he will catch
you. Some of you need to step out in
faith today. Jesus has been calling you,
you've been wrestling, you've been maybe counting the cost,
wondering if it's worth it, wondering is it, is it a real
thing? Is it actually going to work?
And I would just call you today to be like Peter and put your
foot out in the water and just take that step.
Be like this Father, take Jesus at his word and start the
journey. It's one step at a time.
You trust him, one step at a time.
Trust him today with your first step, turn away from your sin,
put your trust in Jesus and the Bible says you'll be saved.
Many of us trust him with provision, right?
Provision, Matthew 644 says, but seek first the Kingdom of God
and his righteousness and all these things will be added to
you. And the all these things that
Jesus is talking about is your material needs, right?
Food, clothing, things like that.
Not all your wants, right? Not the big screen TV and the
house in the neighborhood, in the, you know, the car and all
the stuff, But he says I'm going to take care of you.
If you seek me first, you seek my Kingdom first.
I will care for you. I will provide for you.
Many of us are terrified that if you really live for Jesus, if
you really trust him with your time, if you really trust him
with your money, if you really trust him with your life, that
you will have lack, that he's not actually going to come
through, that we're going to end up suffering somehow because of
our sacrifice for him. Let me read a story for you.
This is from a member of Vita Springs churches, so
encouraging. It's a story of someone who was
challenged to walk by faith and to trust God with a very basic
kind of provision. Listen, he says, in the months
leading up to my graduation from University of Florida, I began
searching for a job. I applied for a few jobs in the
Panhandle, closer to where I grew up, at a location I had
always desired to settle down in.
I also applied for a few jobs in Gainesville, but up until this
this point, I had always viewed Gainesville as nothing more than
a temporary home. Shortly after, I received a job
offer from an engineering firm in Panama City, and after a few
days of praying and seeking counsel, I accepted it.
The next few days were very difficult for me.
It was a very emotional time, partly of mourning the
friendships I had made in Gainesville that I would miss.
But there was also more to it that I don't know how to explain
other than to say it just felt wrong for me to leave.
I had grown tremendously in my faith during my time in
Gainesville. As I was challenged and
encouraged constantly by the community around me, I continued
to pray and seek counsel to navigate these feelings.
Ultimately, I felt as if God was reminding me of all that He had
done in my heart and speaking to me that He wanted to do more in
me in Gainesville, swallowing my pride and going against worldly
wisdom. With no other jobs lined up yet,
I decided to trust what I believe to be the voice of God.
So I turned down the job offer that I had.
Fast forward a few. And that's terrifying.
By the way, there is the stepping out onto the water
because he believed that God had spoken to Him.
Fast forward a few months and I received a job offer from a
local engineering firm that was actually more in line with my
interests and I started dating a lovely lady.
Look at that. 2 for one to whom I am now married.
I was very encouraged by God's faithfulness to me.
But I believe, and this is very key, I believe even if things
did not seem to work out this well in the end for me, it would
have still been right for me to stay.
That looks a whole lot to me like faith, trusting Jesus for
provision. Where do you struggle to trust
him that he's going to care for you, that he, he sees you and he
knows your life and he knows your needs and he's actually
with you and he actually has power to be able to like arrange
things in different departments and companies and in the economy
so that you can be provided for as you seek to obey him.
Some of us struggle to trust Jesus for wisdom, but there's
promises in the Bible for wisdom.
A great one is James chapter one, verse 5.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives
generously to all without reproach, and it will be given
him. So you're facing a situation,
you don't know what to do. There's not a verse about it in
the Bible that you can just turn to, right?
And we face these kinds of situations a lot in our life.
It's just unclear. God, I don't know what to do.
But, you know, you have all wisdom.
You are all knowing. You know, all of my days, every
one of my days is written in your book.
And so, Lord, please lead me. Please give me wisdom.
Do you do that? Do you pray to Him?
And then just trust Him that He is going to provide the wisdom
that you need in the moment that you need it.
I had a really fun conversation with one of our members a couple
weeks ago. He quoted that verse.
We're talking about this topic, and he said whenever I need
wisdom, I pray that God would give me wisdom.
And he says he's going to give me wisdom.
So then I just start acting like I have wisdom.
And I thought that's really smart.
I think that's the right way to take that verse.
You know, it's not naive. You're not being gullible
because God has promised that to you and to me.
He's going to give you wisdom when you need the wisdom He is
faithful to provide. Where is God pressing you to
believe and just walk? I'm sure there are a lot of
situations in this room right now that you're in, you're in a
spot, right? He's, he's calling you, he's
pressing you. You're facing some situation
and, and you're trying to path it out in your mind and figure
out all the details and you just can't and it's driving you kind
of nuts. It's stressing you out and God
is just saying, hey, just take a step.
Just come here, get out of the boat, come follow me.
Trust me, the Father is doing this.
He's he's going to trust in Jesus's word and step out and
start walking home. Verse 51, it says as he was
going down, so he's going literally down the hill back to
Capernaum. His servants met him and told
him that his son was recovering. So while dad is gone on this
trip seeking help for the boy, the boy starts recovering.
This is such good news and such unexpected news that the
servants don't want to wait until the father gets back.
So they start hiking 20 miles up the mountain too, to go find
him. And they're going to tell him.
And so verse 52 it says. And so he asked them, the the
official asked the servants the hour when he began to get
better. So when did this happen?
When did this start? And I wonder what's going
through the father's mind. He's like, wait a second, is
this coincidence? Is this good fortune?
Like how this is unexpected. And they said to him,
second-half of verse 52. 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.
So 3 observations from this last little passage #1 yesterday.
Yesterday at the 7th hour, the official trusted in Jesus's word
so much that he spent the night in Cana.
Do you see that? Yesterday is when the boy was
healed. Yesterday is when Jesus spoke
that word. Now it's today and he's walking
back home and he meets his servants.
He trusted in Jesus to the degree.
I mean, he could have made it home by nightfall after the
conversation with Jesus. The 7th hour is around 1:00 PM
OK, You get a horse, you get an Uber, and you end up back in
Capernaum in, you know, a few hours and then you can see your
child. But something happened in that
conversation, in that interaction with this man really
trusted Jesus. He's like, you say, he's going
to be healed, OK? And who knows what he did the
rest of the day in Canaan. He found a restaurant, maybe he
had some other friends there. He did some business, but he
didn't rush home. He trusted.
He waited #2 the fever left the boy the same time that Jesus
spoke, right around 1:00 PM. So John is very clear here.
The healing is a result of Jesus's word.
Not coincidence, not natural factors, but because Jesus spoke
and that boy was healed. And John confirms this in verse
54. He says this is now the second
sign that Jesus did when he came from Judea to Galilee.
This is a work that Jesus has done.
And 3rd, the sign, the miracle did what the sign was meant to
do. It pointed the official and the
whole family, the officials family and the servants.
It pointed them to faith in Jesus.
It pointed then not just to the miracle, but to the man behind
the miracle. What started as a little seed in
this Father. Just desperation, right?
He's just desperate for some kind of solution and help.
It has blossomed into fully grown saving faith.
The Son is saved from physical death, but more importantly, the
whole family is saved from spiritual death.
Jesus wasn't just a magician to them.
He became their savior. They became worshippers of Jesus
the Messiah, the Savior King. So let me just close our time
here with a kind of a really practical point here.
How do you grow in faith? Anybody say I want to grow in
faith? OK, great story, you know, I
love it, inspiring, I believe it.
How do you, how do I grow in faith?
And I just have two very simple things to leave you with that
hopefully will challenge you and that you can dig into a bit that
you and I might grow in faith #1 How do you grow in faith?
You must immerse yourself in the Bible.
You've got to immerse yourself in the Bible.
Romans 10/17 says so. Faith comes from hearing and
hearing through the word of Christ.
If you want to grow in faith, you have to hear the word of
Christ. And that means more than one
week on a Sunday, somebody on a stage reading it to you and
talking to you about it, right? We've got to immerse ourself in
the Bible. Reading the Bible regularly is
hearing Jesus's words regularly. Reading the Bible regularly is
like downloading a new operating system to your mind and into
your heart. It changes your interface with
Jesus. It changes how you think about
Him. It changes how you relate to
Him. It changes how you believe Him.
You start to think like Jesus. As your mind is renewed, shaped
into the image of Christ's mind, you start to think the thoughts
that He has. Your instinct becomes faith.
You know Him more, and when you know Him more, you believe Him
more and you trust Him more. Faith becomes more instinctual.
So as men and women, we have to immerse ourselves with the
Scripture and for some of you that's a daunting thing and I
would just encourage you, like I encourage anybody else, start
small and grow it over time. If it's hard for you to get into
your Bible every day, then don't set a goal of I'm going to sit
down and I'm going to read through the whole Bible cover to
cover in the next three months. OK?
Some of you who have amazing willpower and self-control might
accomplish that. 99.999% of us. Otherwise we'll just fail.
We won't do it, and then we'll be discouraged, right?
So start with a chapter a day. Start with 5 minutes in the
morning while you're eating your cereal or your bagel or whatever
you eat, and then grow it over time.
But if you want to grow in faith, we must be immersing
ourselves in the Bible #2 how do you grow in faith?
Learn to slow down when you have situations that are challenging
your faith. OK, learn to slow down.
Our flesh wants us to go fast and be frantic and fix the
situation right now, right? I have this annoying habit.
My wife and I'll be talking about something and she'll bring
up some issues, some problem. And I immediately pull out my
phone and I start Googling the solution.
It's like, put your phone away. Like, we don't need to do that
right now. It's like, I want to fix it
right now. OK, we got an issue.
What's Google? What's the answer?
You know what? Google's not God.
OK, Seems like it. Lots of knowledge there.
Omniscient. Google's not quite omniscient.
God is, but Google's not God. We want to go fast in the flesh.
But you know what the Spirit wants us to do?
Slow down, right? Slow down.
Seek Jesus. Gather yourself.
Recall what the Bible says. Frantic and faith don't mix, OK?
Frantic and faith don't mix. Remember that rather than be
frantic, go slow, pray, turn to the Bible.
Get counsel from a trusted friend who's mature in the faith
and they can give you wise biblical counsel.
Get with Jesus right you personally get with Jesus.
Try to discern what he wants you to do.
It's not always super clear and cut and dry in black and white
in the text, right? Sometimes we need to seek God's
wisdom, seek the Spirit who is our guide, and then trust Him
and walk in faith. Immerse yourself in the Bible,
learn to slow down. Those things will help you to
grow in faith. Jesus was and is more than just
a miracle worker. He's the Messiah.
He was the Messiah. He is the Messiah.
He's God in the flesh, come to save sinners.
It's a shame. In verse 44, he says he had no
honor in his hometown, even though he was who he said he
was. He ought to have been honored in
his hometown. And I was just thinking this
week, let's not make the same mistake that they made, right?
He wasn't honored in his hometown.
Let's honor him in our town, OK? Trust in Him.
So we're going to worship Him now.
It's one of the ways we honor Him.
Stand with me worship team, you can come forward.