We've been thinking over these last few Sunday evenings about the question, what does it mean to meet God?
And to think about this, we've looked at the encounters that Jesus has had with the various people in John 2, 3, and 4.
However, we've looked at what it means for the one who was God and is God to come face to face with ordinary human people.
And we've seen these various figures do that.
And what Jesus has made clear is that as He has come into the world, He has done that in order to bring true cleansing from sin and true joy.
Chapter 2.
He's come to bring true birth.
Chapter 3.
And He has done that in order to bring out of us true worship.
So that last week, the first bit of chapter 4 with His encounter with the Samaritan woman.
He has promised, He has offered these things.
Cleansing, joy, forgiveness, salvation, new birth, new life.
And this evening, in the encounter that Paul read for us, we see how it is that we get involved.
See, we're back where this section started in Cana in Galilee.
See that there in verse 46.
And that marker, mention of Cana in Galilee, is a bookend.
We should think of this section, this section we've been in over these few weeks as a literary unit.
And Jesus is telling us this evening how it is that we receive the cleansing of new birth,
how it is we can engage in the true worship that He has called us to offer.
And we see what that means in this exchange with this official and His Son who is dying.
And the answer is true faith.
If He's come to bring true joy, true cleansing, true birth, and He wants true worship, how do we get involved?
The answer is true faith.
If anyone will receive these things that He has promised, if we will be given any of these gifts, they will only come by faith.
Now, I've noticed that people in our culture will talk about the idea of faith really quite freely.
I was recently asked by the son of a friend of mine if I would take his wedding.
The couple aren't part of a church, and I'm the only Christian minister that they know.
So, he texted me out of the blue and asked me if I would help him with this.
And he said, to be honest, you're the only minister I know.
So, it was in a category of one, that's why I was invited.
I met with him to discuss what this was going to entail.
And we talked a bit about our relationship and about marriage and things like that.
And I asked the question, well, you want me to give you a Christian wedding?
What do you think of Christianity?
What do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ?
And they both paused and looked at each other.
And then she spoke up and said, I've never thought about that.
My faith is strong.
I definitely believe.
I'm just not sure what it means.
I mean, I'm definitely a person of faith.
What do you think of Christianity?
What do you think of the Lord Jesus?
Well, it's not altogether clear.
And plenty of my unbelieving friends would say similar things.
Very happy to talk about possessing faith.
Very happy to say that faith is part of their life.
But when pushed on the object of that faith or the substance of that faith, well, let's move quickly on.
And, of course, there's a Christian version of this as well, where faith is talked about in a kind of abstract way.
I was talking to a pastor who kept saying in the course of our conversation, well, such and such a person, he has faith.
Another person, well, he's very open to faith.
When we talk about faith and so on and so on, and I'm thinking, which faith?
Faith in what?
Faith in whom?
We can talk about faith in the abstract.
We can say that we are a person of faith, but actually, it's what that faith is in.
It's the nature of that faith that actually really matters.
There are all kinds of things that we can believe in.
And if we're entrusting our lives to those things, lots of them may be a total waste of time.
So, it's really important that we understand that the faith that we possess is a faith that actually does something, connects us to something or someone.
And that is what Jesus is concerned with in this section this evening.
He explains what he's looking for.
And he starts by exposing the wrong kind of approach to him.
And then he holds up the kind of faith that takes hold of the good things that he has offered in these chapters.
So, first, let's look at the wrong approach.
Here's the wrong approach to Jesus.
Point number one, Jesus on my terms.
Jesus on my terms.
And we would call that selfish faith.
That's what's going on at the start of verse 43.
After 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.
The Samaritan woman we saw last time had seen that he was a prophet.
Do you remember?
Sir, I can see you are a prophet.
She knew that he spoke for God.
She listened and she responded to him.
But look at verse 44.
He's not received that way back in Galilee among his own.
Among his own people.
It says in verse 45 that they welcomed him.
But what's striking there is that this is the only time in the New Testament that that word is used.
And it isn't John's usual word for being accepted or well received.
So, what's going on here is that they say, yeah, come into our town.
You're welcome here.
Come on in.
But they don't welcome him for who he is.
We're told that their interest comes from having seen what he had done in Jerusalem at the feast.
Chapter 2, verse 23.
When he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.
Plus, of course, they will know about the wine miracle the last time he was in town.
What's happening is they're welcoming him as a sign giver.
But nothing more important than that.
Yes, come and do the things that we ask you to do.
The miraculous, the impressive.
You see, when you press a bit, you see that their welcome for him is based on what he can do for them.
It's based on what they can get from him.
Not really for who he is.
One commentator says their welcome is drenched in self-interest.
And then initially, it looks like this official in verse 46 is on this same self-interest train.
Verse 46.
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.
Concerned initially, I want you to do what I want you to do for me.
And in a sense, let's be honest, who can blame him?
There is nothing a father wouldn't try if his little boy is dying.
Nothing.
But we need to see that there's more going on here than a father trying to get a miracle worker to save his son.
Look at verse 48.
The tense of these pronouns is important when it says,
The you there, both times, is plural.
So, Jesus is speaking to the man, but he's also speaking past him to the Galilean crowd around him.
The crowd that we've been told want Jesus on their terms.
A crowd that Jesus makes clear don't want Jesus for who he is, but for who they want him to be.
The Jesus that will give them what they ask.
And Jesus rebukes this kind of faith, this selfish faith, which is really no faith at all.
Now, Jesus here is not talking about the sort of weak or fluctuating faith that we so often experience.
We have good days and bad, if we're honest with ourselves.
There are times we all want to say, I believe, help my unbelief.
And we mustn't forget that Jesus says elsewhere that all he requires is faith the size of a mustard seed.
It is not the size of our faith that matters to him.
It is the object.
The challenge that he's laying out here is about what motivates our faith.
And therefore, where our faith is really placed.
The Galileans here are spectators.
They're not in the arena.
They're looking on.
They're not truly believing.
Their attitude was, yeah, you're welcome here as long as you will do things for me.
You're welcome here, Jesus, as long as you will do things for me.
Now, we see that everywhere in our culture.
The most crass expression of that that you see in the church is the so-called prosperity gospel.
I will come to God in order that he makes me rich.
I will come to God in order that he will make me healthy.
The prayer is, God, if you do this for me, then I will do dot, dot, dot.
It's a conditional prayer.
This is how you think.
If your heart says, I will come to God if he gives me what I want.
If that is your heart, you don't want God.
You want what God can give you.
And you use God to get the thing that you really worship.
You see that?
I was talking to Paul last week about that great Mrs. Merton sketch.
Don't know if you remember it back in the day, Mrs. Merton, when she had Debbie McGee on the show.
Debbie McGee, for those of you that are about 35 and under,
she was the wife of a much older, much shorter wig-wearing magician called Paul Daniels.
He was a TV superstar.
And Mrs. Merton starts her interview by saying,
Tell me, tell me what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels.
It's the same kind of thing.
Tell me, Jerry Hall.
Tell me, Nicole Kidman, whoever it is.
What attracted you to the billionaire Rupert Murdoch?
We can have the same sort of approach to God.
I'm here for my best life now, and I want what he can give me.
I don't really want him.
So this is the question we need to ask ourselves.
Do you want a Christ who gives you the life that you want?
A kind of cosmic sugar daddy.
A spiritual Rupert Murdoch who's going to give you everything that you want in the here and now.
And you kind of take him on those terms.
There are things that you want from me,
and I'll put up with those in order to get the thing that I really want.
Or do you want a Christ who was with God and is God?
The creator and sustainer of everything.
A Christ who does what he does,
and we worship him no matter what.
Because in his infinite kindness,
he has cleansed us from our sin,
he has given us new birth to eternal life,
and he satisfies our deepest longings for God.
The things that he gives us we do not deserve.
We don't come looking for them.
We come for him,
and he gives us those things in the process.
Is your faith in Jesus for what you can get out of the relationship in temporal terms?
That is, is your faith in Jesus for what you can get in the present
on the basis of the things of this world,
the Jesus of Joel Osteen?
Maybe you can have a more spiritual version,
a bit more like the Galileans.
Your faith demands supernatural experience.
I'll come to you if you give me these supernatural spiritual experiences.
Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
Or will you ask yourself,
have you put your faith in him because he is God the Son?
And he is worthy.
And the truth is you are astonished that he allows you into a relationship with him.
See, you can't actually have Jesus on your terms.
He rebukes the Galileans for thinking that they can.
We need a different approach.
So here's our second point.
If the first point is Jesus on my terms,
selfish faith,
the second point is Jesus on his terms.
And we might call that Christian faith.
And that's actually the approach of the official.
So this man,
a better translation here would be royal official.
That's what the Greek word implies,
or states actually.
He's likely a high-ranking official
to Herod Antipas,
who wasn't actually a king,
but thought of himself that way.
And therefore,
he would have called his officials royal officials.
Either way,
this man is a high-profile political figure.
And he has asked Jesus to heal his son.
Jesus,
we've just heard,
has issued the rebuke to the crowd.
And then verse 49,
the official said to him,
Sir,
come down before my child dies.
What we have here is this man pushing back.
He's persisting with Jesus.
Without regard for his reputation,
without regard for what Jesus might say to him,
he pushes back.
The Sir here is actually Lord,
the word Lord,
a term that an inferior would use
to address a superior.
He's being humble.
He's coming back,
and he's saying,
Lord,
I'm actually not just asking for healing.
I'm asking because I know that you're the Messiah.
And what I want us to see
as his exchange with this official unfolds,
as Jesus' exchange with this official unfolds,
the official embodies for us
what true faith looks like.
If you want to be a Christian,
this is what is required of you.
This is what faith,
Christian faith,
looks like.
There are three elements
that I want to highlight.
The first is this.
He trusts Jesus alone
can give life.
He trusts that Jesus alone
can give life.
He's saying,
there are people here
who want you to perform for them.
There are people here
who want you on their terms.
But verse 49,
Lord,
come down before my child dies.
He is making it clear
that he believes
that Jesus is the only one
with the power to save his boy.
The language there,
my child,
it's my dear little boy.
It is a term of the deepest endearment.
And as he comes to him,
it is an expression
of complete dependence.
Do you see,
he makes no claim
on why Jesus should heal his boy.
No demands why he is owed this
in any way.
It is just a plea.
Lord,
come down before my child dies.
Many ways,
it's a prayer.
It is the prayer
of the father of a dying boy.
He is crying out,
trusting that Jesus
will put things right
because he knows
that only Jesus can.
if you and I want
the eternal life
that is held out
in chapter 3,
if we want the living water
that alone will satisfy,
in chapter 4,
there is only one source.
The same Lord Jesus.
We saw last week
with the Samaritan woman
that everyone who drinks
of the water of our culture,
the water that our culture says
we're all about
and will satisfy
and will bring joy
and happiness,
whether it's money,
sex,
or power,
or some version thereof.
Whoever drinks
of that water
will thirst again.
You can pour
as much of those things
as you can get hold of
into a human soul
and they simply vanish
because they cannot
bring us eternal life.
That only comes
through Jesus.
And true faith,
Christian faith requires us
to trust Him
and nothing else.
That's the first thing
this official shows us.
He trusts Jesus alone
can give life.
The second thing he does
is he trusts Jesus' word.
He trusts Jesus' word.
Verse 50,
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.
The official makes his request.
Jesus responds by promising
that his son will live.
Literally,
it is your son lives.
And what does the man do?
He believes.
The narrative is really specific.
John is careful
to ensure here
that we know
that the grounds
of this man's believing
are the word
that Jesus spoke.
There is no sign.
There is no wonder.
There is no miracle
to observe.
There is no burning bush.
There is nothing like that.
There was actually
nothing to see.
The official believes
the word of the eternal word.
He trusted in who he is.
He trusted in what he said
he would do.
That is the essence
of true faith,
taking him at his word.
We today,
we're not promised the miracles,
but we do have Christ's word.
And to take him at his word
is a non-negotiable
for a Christian.
We receive what he says
as the word of the eternal
Son of God
and we do what he tells us.
Now to be clear,
taking him at his word
extends beyond the bits
in red in the Gospels.
He takes the Old Testament.
Jesus takes the Old Testament
as God's authoritative word.
You know those times
when he said,
have you not read
in Moses?
And the rest of the New Testament
expounds what he says.
Taking Jesus' word
is about taking the whole
of Scripture seriously.
But,
even if we do stick
to what Jesus said,
the words that he uses
in the Gospels,
or even what he has said
in these encounters
that we've been looking at
over these Sunday evenings,
in these couple of chapters
that we have,
even if we were to take him
at his word,
on that basis,
our lives should be transformed.
If you trust that Jesus
has come to bring joy
through the cleansing
of your sins,
it changes how you view yourself.
It changes all of the
negative self-talk
that you run around
in your head.
If you believe
that Jesus has come
to bring joy
through cleansing you
from your sins,
guilt is taken away.
It has no place
in your life.
Shame has been dissolved.
If Jesus says,
you are clean,
and you are free
to experience joy,
that is true freedom.
It changes your experience
in the present.
If you trust that you have
new birth,
new birth that reaches
into eternity,
not on the basis
of your behavior
or your performance,
but on the basis
of the grace of Christ.
It reframes everything.
Glory lies open before you.
Whatever your experience
in the present is,
glory lies open before you.
And however long
you've got between
now, this moment,
this evening,
and when you step across
into eternity,
all that lies ahead of you
is good.
However difficult it is now,
the future is bright.
It also means
that you don't need
to claw and grasp
and strive
for everything
in the present
because something better
lies ahead
in the future.
You can let things go.
You don't need
to sweat the small stuff.
If this life
is all there is,
probably best
to sweat the small stuff
because you might
miss out.
But if this life
actually
is
going to come
to an end
physically
at some point,
but then glory
lies open before you,
well,
you can forgive
as you have been forgiven.
you can let things go.
You can live
as a free person.
Our culture
is obsessed
with all kinds
of things
that simply
enslave us.
You've got to have this.
You're enslaved
to that desire.
You've got to have that.
You're enslaved
to that.
You've got to make sure
that you get justice
in this moment
because of what
you've experienced.
Imagine if you could
just let them all go.
Well, you can
if you're a Christian.
It reframes everything.
And when you know
and trust
that Jesus
connects you
to a spring
of living water
that bubbles up
from within
despite what's going on
at ground level,
that's what springs do.
You can build
whatever you like
on top of a spring
and it will
eventually crumble
because the spring,
you can't stop it.
It just comes up
and keeps coming.
You can build
the heaviest big things
on top of them.
You can build
a massive construction.
It will eventually
fall down.
Whatever is going on
at the top,
that water will find
its way up.
That is why Jesus
uses the language
of a spring
of living water
that will come up
from within.
When you trust
that that is yours
in Christ,
the gray
and the dreary
and the painful
and the sad,
even the heartbreaking,
all of those things
are given a new perspective
because you know
those things
are temporary.
You know that the Lord
has entrusted them to you,
yes, for a time
and however hard they are,
that spring cannot be thwarted
and one day
everything sad
will come untrue.
!
True faith
trusts Jesus' word
even when we can't
see the outcome,
even when our prayers
go unanswered,
even,
and this is especially
relevant in these days,
even when it is
culturally costly
to take them
at His word.
So let me say to you,
what does Scripture say?
Do that.
Believe that.
Order your life
around that.
You say,
well, I can't do that.
What will people think?
Don't let the opinions
of others
keep you from the life
of eternity.
So,
the official goes
on Jesus' command
to His son,
servants come with
the good news.
Verse 51,
see the good news?
His son was alive,
not recovering,
actually,
it says that he was alive.
Actually,
literally,
it says,
his son lives.
He wants to double-check
when exactly that change
in his son happened
and he asks him
and it was just at the point
the previous day
when Jesus had said
he lives.
In that moment,
his faith is confirmed
and he takes
the next natural step,
which is the third element
of true faith.
The first is
that he trusts
that Jesus alone
can give life.
Second,
that he trusts
Jesus' word.
And thirdly,
verse 53,
he trusts his family
to Jesus.
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.
His household.
See,
we're not told
how this happened.
Either he told them
about Jesus saving the boy
and they put their faith in him
or more likely,
I think,
as the father of the family,
he then leads them
in the things of Christ.
I met Jesus.
He is Lord of heaven and earth.
From this day forward,
this is now
a Christian household.
The flow of the passage
takes us to that point.
The figure goes,
do you notice this?
The figure goes
from being described,
first of all,
as a royal official,
verse 46 and 49.
He's then the man
in verse 50
and then he's the father
in verse 53.
And it is as a father
that he leads his family
in the things of Christ.
If a husband gets converted
to Christ,
he would tell his wife
that the home is now Christian
and it will be led
along Christian lines.
Can't convert his wife,
of course,
but the home
and any children
that they have
will now be led
according to God's word.
That's what it means
to lead as a Christian
husband and father.
If a wife is converted,
it is different.
She doesn't lead,
but she does use her influence
in a Christian way.
1 Peter 3 gives you
the pattern for this.
If the gospel comes in
to a family,
it changes everything
and that family
is ordered accordingly.
And as the text
draws our attention
to the man's status
as a father to this son,
this is an outworking
of the covenantal relationship
in the Christian home.
The promise of salvation
in the Lord Jesus
is for you
and your children.
And fathers are
to raise their children
to trust Him
in the same way
that they do.
And did you notice
this is not
graduate Christianity?
It's one of the first things
He does after believing Himself.
Of course,
we know that it's
God who saves anyone.
We've just seen
that true faith
requires us to trust
that Jesus alone
can give life.
But we need to see
that the main way
that God grants this life
is through families
and the raising
of Christian children.
If you are a Christian dad,
as you trust Jesus
for life yourself,
as you trust His word,
trust your family to Him
as well.
Lead the home spiritually.
Model trusting Jesus' word.
Pray with and for your family.
That is how your household
will exude the aroma
of Christ.
So when we come to Jesus
on His terms,
not selfishly,
but on His terms,
as He demands us to,
it will mean
trusting Him for life,
trusting His word,
and trusting our families
to Him.
And we can hear that
and we can think,
that sounds pretty demanding.
That sounds pretty tough.
But I want,
as we close,
I want to tell you
that you can do it.
You can do it.
Yes, the culture
is pushing the other way.
If you're going to trust Jesus
in this way,
you're going to have to walk
against the tide.
But you can do it.
You can do it.
You can do it
because Jesus
has gone ahead of you.
See, come back
to that carefully constructed move
that the text makes
from royal official
to man
to father of a son.
You see,
as we see that move
in the text,
we are supposed to hear
the echo
of another father
and his son
and another death
that was followed
by a resurrection
to life.
You see,
the life that we trust
Jesus for
has been won
for us
through his death
and resurrection.
He is the life.
He's the way.
He's the truth.
But he is the life.
And so,
we have life in him.
It is as we trust him
that we receive
the life
that is his.
And the word
that we trust
for this life
is the word
of our Savior
who went to these lengths
for us.
The word
that we trust
is the word
of a Savior
who lived
the life
that we should
have lived,
who died
the death
that we should
have died,
and who was
raised to life
that when we
trust him,
we are trusting
the one
who is life
himself.
And what this
means is
we can confidently
trust ourselves
and our families
and anything else
for that matter
to him
because he has
loved us
to this degree.
We love him
because he
first loved
us.
And we can
love him
only because
he first
loved us.
And that means
that true faith,
the faith that we're
called to here,
is always a response
to this
immeasurable grace.
And that is a grace
that changes
everything.
Let's pray.
Amen.