He Left Him With His Word
Communion Fellowship Church Podcast
John 4:43-54 (November 3, 2024)
I'll be preaching for you out of John chapter 4, concluding the chapter, verses, I'll be reading 43 through 54. Here now, the very word of God. After these two days, he departed for Galilean. 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 Kaina in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Compernaum, 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 seventh 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. Amen. And thus ends the reading of God's holy, inspired and errant word. May he write his eternal truth upon all our hearts. You may be seated. Once again, John's writing highlights how the ministry of Jesus reveals the contrast between the people's desires for signs and wonders versus true faith in the person of Jesus Christ for who he really is. It also highlights the dichotomy of the power and purpose of signs and the wonders versus the power of his word. We see that from the very beginning when John says that in the beginning was the word. So we need to keep that echoing in our minds as we look at this narrative today that John has a purpose. It's not just a collection of narratives that God inspired John to creatively write this gospel to teach us, not just the accounts, but the actual meaning. John is proclaiming what is the very point of these narratives as he is describing these narratives in the storyline. If you remember, John told us in chapter 20 verses 30 through 31, the very purpose of this whole book, this whole gospel, was that now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which were not written in this book, but these are written 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 the point of these narratives are not just John's point, like John's thinking, "You know what? This will be a good thing for them. This will be helpful. I'm just going to collect these particular stories." Now, God's point, Jesus' point, the very narrative's point, is so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life. It's not just a dead faith, it's not just a generic understanding that Jesus is this, but that it is to give you life in his name. So nothing has changed, so as we go into this narrative, it is very crucial that you have that overarching umbrella of understanding so that you can see pop out of this particular passage and narrative what is the very point of what Jesus is doing. Take a moment here to tell you a little story that I thought of while preparing this sermon, I used to be a fixture installer, like Knox is now, and you all know that. I often have a count, you know, when you do ten years of work, you have all these stories, and there was one particular project that we were doing, both Dave and Lydia have been on before. I don't know if Knox actually went on with one of these with me or not, but it was a Samsung display for Best Buy that was about 25, 28 feet long, and I think it was something like 16 feet tall. It was a huge display. It was the largest fixture or display that I ever installed as a one-piece display that went in one of the walls of Best Buy to display a variety of the Samsung projects. And so it was not only the largest display that I ever did, but also the particular project manager that was over this particular project was one of my most challenging project managers. I had a variety of stories about working with this particular individual, but he liked working with me because I would be willing to work with him and patience and kindness, and we would get the projects done. But one of the things that happened on this display is that this had this huge header that was 25 feet long to have the word Samsung written on it, and it was way up high, and no matter what we did, it seemed like getting all of the joints to be perfect was almost impossible. Do you remember that, Dave? It was a very challenging display, and we would just, no matter how perfectly we did it, there would always be a gap here and there, and they were super meticulous on making sure that everything was just perfect. And after about three-quarters of the way through this project, I don't know how many I had done, I did this one, and I was on it. Sometimes you're just on it, and I did everything by the book and perfectly and sure enough, there was this huge gap up there. And so I called, not the project manager, but the tech guy, because the project manager had had enough of me. He was like, "You're just messing this up. You don't know what you're doing." That's the kind of thing I had to deal with all the time. And I was like, "You know, you talk to your tech guy and figure it out." And so I was calling the tech guy, and he was getting frustrated and I was like, "I've done everything I can. This cannot be fixed." And he started admitting through that conversation that this was a common problem. They had put a pause on the project and put these materials in storage in a non-air conditioned storage unit for about six months during the middle of summer, during a very humid time, and so all the wood had swollen and changed and everything. And I was like, "Yeah, exactly." And now I have something to actually make me feel a little bit better about this. And he said, "But you can fix this." And I'm like, "No, I can't." He said, "Just trust me on this. Go back in there and put screws in these particular locations." And I was like, "No, no, no, no, no. That's not going to do it. I understand physics. I understand construct. Just go in there. Don't ask me to explain. Just put screws in these places." And so I remember going back in. I don't know if Dave was working with me on that particular wine. And I was like, "I'm going to look like a fool, but I'm going to go in there, and I'm just going to do it anyway. And I'm going to land these screws in there, and I'm just going to prove that it's not going to work." And sure enough, I put those screws in those exact locations and it pulled it all together and made it all tight and fit. Still to this day, I don't know how the rule that worked, but it was right. But that moment of walking from talking to him and going into there, all I had was his word, that it was going to work. I had really no faith that it was going to work, but I had to go back in there and try to follow through with that command. Now, this particular illustration falls short of the greatness of this particular narrative, but I want us to highlight that in our narrative today, that we may miss because it's a short narrative, and you can just run through this real quickly, and you can say, "Wow, you know, there's somebody sick. Jesus healed somebody. Praise God to Jesus, look how powerful he is." But there's so much packed into this little narrative that I think is very encouraging for us, both in an admonition type encouragement of correctiveness for us, but also in this assurance for us that God is ultimately putting us through situations like this, not just to fix the circumstances to heal this Son, but so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that in Him that we may have life. That is the purpose of not only this narrative, but also the purpose of it being told to us today. And so may I pray that I may be able to proclaim it to you in such a way that I could be used as an instrument of your own belief. We have to do many things by being left with only His Word. I thought about changing the title of this sermon. The title of this sermon was seeing the signs to believing the Word, and it's like that's really too wordy. I should have just automatically scrapped it, but I was having a hard time when I was putting together a title, but I was wrapping it up. I thought, you know what? A better title for this sermon today, and really the very point that I wanted to leave with you is that Jesus, He left Him the official with His Word. He left Him with His Word. If you look at this narrative, He did not do the thing that the official asked Him to do. He in fullness, where He said, "Come down with me and heal my Son." And what He actually did, He left Him with His Word. And that's the thing that we're supposed to see out of this passage. So my three points for today is one, hear of the wonders and ask. Point two, hear a command and act. And in number three, see the Word fulfilled and acknowledged. So ask, act, and acknowledge. The setting of this particular narrative is right after Jesus experienced one of the most unopposed and open-hearted successes of His ministry. We see there, after dealing with the woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, that the Samaritans started coming to Him. It was actually a story to invoke a type of jealousness to the disciples, to show them what power Jesus had by using this woman who had only known Him that day and to use her as a missionary, and that the harvest was coming in plentiful, that the Samaritans were coming to Him, and not just believing in Him because of what the woman told them, but believing in Him because of the words that Jesus taught them. So this is the backdrop as He's coming from that, but then in this transition there in verses 43 through 45, Jesus is highlighting that again, as He has obviously somewhere else because John is referencing a former proclamation of this, is that a prophet is not welcomed in his own hometown. So we go from the contrast of this celebration of Jesus' successful harvest to now He is going into territory where He's not going to be welcome. Now, I just want to do a quick side note here. I don't want to get in this too long, but a lot of people say, "Wait a minute. So where is this hometown?" Because there's two different ways that the scriptures explain this hometown. One is a physical hometown, which is Nazareth, which is where we hear that being proclaimed in Mark 6, that the people He grew up with would not accept the things that He's doing. But in this particular narrative, when Jesus is going back to Kaina and He's going to this particular official, He's actually going back to his hometown, even though it's not Nazareth, because He's going back to his people. This official is not a Gentile. This is a Jewish official. And so what He's doing, He's going back amongst His people, and He's talking about how His people are not as welcoming to Him. And so that's why there's the transition there, is that Jesus is entering into unwelcomed territory. But it's kind of like what was going on when His disciples had kind of turned off what the whole mission point was when they were focusing on the food, while the Samaritan woman was out proclaiming Jesus Christ. So this is supposed to be reminding us that this circumstance is not a welcome circumstance of people who are truly believing what Jesus is saying. But it's also to have with us this umbrella understanding of the very point that we get earlier in that chapter in the proclamation of Jesus revealing to the Samaritan woman that He is the Messiah. So it's important since we're not just going through chapters at a time on a Sunday that we take all of that with us and remember that this is the circumstance, that Jesus has already proclaimed that He's the Messiah to the Samaritan woman. He had seen the fruit of that proclamation with the Samaritans and now He's entering into a situation where people in Galilee are welcoming Him, but because of the signs and wonders, because of the physical things that He's doing. But they're not totally embracing and trusting the very thing that the Samaritan woman got to hear. We see there, just like in the situation in Mark with his hometown, Nazareth, that it says he could do no mighty work there except that he lay his hands on a few sick people and healed them, and he marveled because of their unbelief. He was saying that he couldn't do that many signs and wonders before them, because their hearts were in the wrong place. Now, at the same time, we know that from even the sermon that we got from Wade, that Jesus knows the hearts of men, and he knows that they're not where they should be, and he does still graciously show forth signs and wonders as he is working with them. And so what we see here is this tension that Jesus is performing these signs and these wonders before both Gentiles and Jews, and sometimes the Gentiles are doing a better job at responding than the Jews are, but there's this conflict. There's this conflict in the heart of men, as they see the signs and wonders going on, they like the signs and wonders, but they're just not getting it, and they're not there yet, but he's the Messiah. And I want to stop here for a minute, and I want us to think about that the setting is supposed to be setting us up as well to be thinking about that same challenge. I know you hear me preach a lot. What, who do you say Jesus is? And I've highlighted before in other sermons that one of the things that Jesus liked to say to people is like, "What do you want me to do, or what can I do for you?" But not only who do you say Jesus is, what do you want from Jesus? It's important for us to ask that question. What do you want? Why are you following him? What are you expecting from him? And then you need to ask yourself the question, do you really want what he has to give you? Does it correlate? As you're looking at this particular story and putting yourself in the same shoes of these characters, do you find yourself wanting Jesus on a very limited basis? If you think about the wedding at Cana, in a sense, I know this is kind of making a crude summary of it, but in a sense they're wanting Jesus to be a better beverage provider, right? They've ran out of wine. Come on, Jesus, help us out here. We're in trouble. What does this have to do with me, woman, in a kinder way than what it sounds? Is that where we are? Are the things that we desire from Jesus limited to certain things like that, or even in a higher sense here? This is a very serious matter, but in the long run are we just looking for a better paramedic to help fix someone who's sick? I think that's the context that we have here when we get to this point. I think that's the verses there, 43 through 45, is to create this tension that there's a problem with the heart of men that we've already been told about earlier in John, and Jesus knows the heart. The heart of men are not where they should be in the proclamation of who Jesus says he is, but I want to encourage you that God's grace comes into that scenario. That if you find yourself in that kind of situation, that you're like, "I don't know where my heart is and what I really want from Jesus." This particular story for us today is encouraging because God is still working with that kind of doubt, with that kind of unbelief even. My first point is to hear of wonders in ask, we see there in verse 47, it says, "When the man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him, and he asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death." Here we are in the very place where the water was made to wine, and it is obvious that people are hearing about Jesus doing great wonders, that he has this great power, and here this man comes to Jesus after hearing about the wonders of God, and he has the boldness and the desperation to ask God for help. Now, we see immediately from Jesus this rebuff, some would say to a point of rebuke, that so Jesus said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." Now, from what I can gather in reading about the proper Greek interpretation of that sentence, it is a "you-all" or even a more pointed "you-people." It is kind of like R.C. Sproul says, "What's wrong with you people?" Here Jesus is almost saying the same kind of thing in a commentary sentence, as this one is coming to him in a desperate situation, his son is dying, and he is like, "Jesus, come with me, come down with me, and heal my son." And Jesus starts preaching to him. People would ask for my resignation if I passed it that way, I am sure. Somebody come to me crying and being upset. Somebody's got a big traumatic situation in their home, and I go, "You know what? People are all..." If I did that, I go, "All right, Charles, you need to resign. Your pastoral skills and bedside manner is out the door." But Jesus is being actually very gracious here to give us this rebuff in the middle of this, because he's not walking away from the situation. He's not ignoring the man. He's revealing to the man not only his problem, but the problem in general that you all won't believe from my word and proclamation alone. I'm going to have to show you these signs and wonders so that you can understand the word. It's actually a gracious rebuke, revealing not just our condition, but what he is going to do with our condition. Because remember, we're going to a place of belief in life. That's where God's journey is for us. D.A. Carson says that this royal official is not interested in Christiology or the fulfilled prophecy, or even the signs and wonders ultimately. He's interested in the well-being of his child. His urgent prayer of help, though, wins the master's healing powers. If we hear of the wonders of God, we may be convicted. We may be rebuked that our heart is not really all there yet. But this particular narrative is encouraging us that if we hear of his wonders, if our faith is little, ask. Ask the Lord for help. You might be thinking, "Well, I'm just asking for this temporary thing that you would heal my child." We know that a child is going to eventually die. We know they're not going to live forever in this life and just ignore that. Maybe we get overly hyper-theological. Sometimes we can get Satan's temptation to say, "Well, this is so mundane and so insignificant. You don't need to be praying about these particular things." No, ask. If you hear the wonders of the Lord, ask. Yes, no, that there in John 2, it says now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing, but Jesus on his part did not entrust themselves to them because he knew all the people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. He may work with us patiently, but he still did the work before them. There is a grace of God in responding to our pleading prayers in the midst of unbelief. It's good to acknowledge that. Like the one who prays, "Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief. I'm putting this petition before you. It is a need. Lord, heal my child." I don't understand it all. Just like the thief went across, surely did not understand the fullness of what he was saying when he said, "Remember me," when you enter into your kingdom. But that was enough in light of his acknowledgment of his own sin with the rebuke of the other criminal. He repented, and then he believed in the kingdom of God in a very childlike, a very small way. And you hear the wonders ask. Secondly, when you hear a command act, in verse 49 it says, "The official said to him, 'Sir, come down before my child dies.'" Can you imagine the situation? There's Jesus. He starts rebuking the man, rebuking everybody by saying, "You people always have to have signs of wonders. You're not going to believe." And then the official is just like, "Sir, please come with me." And you know, my son, and Jesus said to him, "Go, your son will live." And then the miracle happens right here. You might be saying, "Yeah, the miracle happened. We know that the son was healed." No, no, no, don't stop there. Look at the next sentence of that verse in verse 50. "The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way." Keep in mind what the man was asking. The official was asking. He comes to Jesus and he's like, "Come with me. Come down to my son. Come down and heal him." And he wants, he's like, "I'm not going to let you go. This is, if there's any hope, there's a possibility that you can heal my son. I need you to do what I'm asking you to do. You need to go. You need to do this thing for my son." And Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't go with him. He sends him off without giving him exactly. He doesn't go with him. He just says, "Go. Your son will live." And something happened to that man's heart because he believed Jesus' word. Jesus left him with just his word. There's a grace of not getting it our way. This is a grace to us, brothers and sisters, that Jesus didn't go with him. He said, "Go. Your son will be healed." And he just leaves him with the word because Jesus has left us with his word. There's so many times that I have prayed to God, "God, do this for my family. Do this for me. Do this for the church and do it just like this." And he's like, "No, but I've left you my word that I will fulfill the very promises that I have said I would set up and I am set up to do." We have to walk back to the situation without having it exactly like we were like, "Wouldn't it be very comforting for the man's hand?" Jesus just comes with me, "Hey, Rabbi, this guy is going..." This is Jesus. You heard about him? He's been doing all these signs and wonders. He's coming to see my son. Isn't that a wonderful thing? So we're missing some things that are kind of obvious in the text. He's walking back along. The only thing he has is the word of Jesus that it will happen. And that's where we are. And we are being reminded here that we can have the same certainty of this man. Not like I did with going back to the Samsung fixture and thinking, "I don't know. I don't do this. It's probably not going to work, but I'll do it anyway." I had a little bit of faith in me. I didn't just say, "Forget this." You know, he told me to do this. I had a little bit, but I didn't have it like this man. This man is going back empty-handed, and all he has is the word of God to sustain him till he gets to that point where he sees the very word fulfilled, which is the third point. See the word fulfilled, and then acknowledge. This is where the season of Thanksgiving is so imperative for us. We have to stop and open our eyes. We have to go climb up on some mountaintops and get out of the valley for a second to see what God is doing, because God has been fulfilling his word ever since he's given us word. There's so much evidence out there of God fulfilling his word. In your own specific life and in the church's life, in the history of mankind, it is so important for us to see. It wasn't just left there. Look at what happens here. It says that he was going down in verse 51. His servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. Imagine that moment. Imagine the gap between walking and not having Jesus only being left with his word, believing his word, but I don't know where he was at it. It just says he believed him, and I try to think about where I'm at. You know, you're like, "I believe you Jesus kind of mostly, sometimes, hopefully enough, but to hear as they interacted with him that your son's recovering." And then he took it to the next level. He asked, he says, "What hour did he begin to get better?" And he said, "About one o'clock, one o'clock in the afternoon, and I'll promise I will be done preaching by then." About one o'clock, this happened, and he's like, "The word is powerful. The proclamation healed my son." The word of Jesus did it. He proclaimed it, he did it, and he put in my heart to believe it, and to trust it. That's the greatest miracle here, knowing the condition of our hearts and what we see throughout the scriptures, seeing the whole reason why we need the new covenant, the fulfilled covenant, really the answer. We saw this in the scriptures that we were reading, how it was incomplete and insufficient. We needed Jesus' because we couldn't get it into our hearts without the work of Jesus Christ. That's the miracle. We know that this is just a sign pointing to the greater reality that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that his power is resurrected. That's even a word. It changes and transforms. And then we have here that this, and I don't want y'all to miss this here, it says, "The Father knew the hours when Jesus said to him, or some will live, and he and himself believed in all his household." Now, I know we just had a baptism debate, and I don't want to get into whether or not infants should be baptized or not in the whole argument about what we see in the New Testament about households, but what we can see, and one of the things, regardless of where you come down on that, that in the Old Testament, that God is constantly promising that he's going to save the households of his people. He says it over and over again, the Austrians, the households in Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in Exodus, he's constantly talking about that when he comes to fulfillment, he's going to be saving the households of his people. So, regardless of how you interpret that to have any kind of understanding of baptism upon your children, one thing I do want to with certainty, here in verse 7 and 53 of this chapter, is that God is fulfilling those promises. Those very things, those very words that he was saying he was going to do, it's not just a detail of information, as we see constantly throughout the book of Acts, specifically, this is even preceding what goes on in Acts, that there's all of these household salvation. So, whether it was done by people who understood the proclamation of the Word and came to a personal saving faith of Jesus or not, it doesn't matter. He's saving households and fulfilling his promises. He is keeping his Word. And so, we should be encouraged and assured that this is sufficient, that we can hold on to his words in the midst of the greatest trials in the darkest and deepest valleys, we can trust him. He will fulfill the Word, change our hearts. We can come to him with confused hearts. Ask him. Here is his wonders, whatever you can see of him that is true, that can be enough to ask him for help. If you understand the commands from his Word to you, you may not have it perfectly put together, but act on his Word. And brothers and sisters, when you see the Word fulfilled, which is a glorious thing, acknowledge him. Thank him. Make it a discipline, a practice, a celebration to thank him. And it says that this was the second sign that Jesus did. We had come from Judea to Galilee. And then just a quick little preview of the next. And after this, there was a feast. He keeps putting these feasts, feasts, thanksgiving feasts, for what God has done before his people. He points to the true sustenance of what gives us life, which is his son. He tells us in that feast that there had to be sacrificed for sin, which highlights there needs to be repentance. There needs to be acknowledgement that we are sinners in need of a Savior, not just sick people who need healing. We need transformation in Jesus Christ. But he puts before us as an assurance and encouragement to each and one of his people. Celebrate with thanksgiving. People don't like to use this word in the Protestant Church because it sounds too Roman Catholic, but Eucharist, thanksgiving. This is a thanksgiving feast. We come to this table postured toward God with the gospel of repentance and faith, but we are postured in thanksgiving and celebration. And that should be assuring and encouraging to us. Let us go into prayer.