Signs of Life

John 4.43-54

Jesus has moved from the harvest in Samaria in to Galilee. The Galileans are ecstatic about Him coming to town because they knew about the show He might put on. John tells us that they had been in Jerusalem, so they saw the episode at the temple and many of the probably hung around to be witness of what John says in 2.23, as Jesus remained in Jerusalem during the Passover and many observed the signs He was doing. Now, this same man was coming to their region. You know how today (or in years gone by) there is always a big deal over the hooplah of the circus? People get excited to see the show. Or think of your favorite band. Perhaps, since we are in an election year, your presidential candidate of choice is coming to town. There is much excitement because of the show this person is expected to put on for the watching audience. The Galileans were excited about Jesus merely because they had seen what He could do.

It is in this atmosphere that Jesus encounters a weak faith. This is meant to be a statement on two fronts. The first front is the aforementioned crowd who were excited that the giver of signs and wonders had come into town (John makes note of the water and wine transformation in Cana of Galilee, which these same people would have observed). The second comes in the form of a royal official who happens to be a hurting father. He approaches Jesus with a request to come heal his son. The word John uses here can be translated "beg" or "implore", but it carries the weight of a repeated petition for Jesus to come. Much like blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10, he refused to be turned away and kept coming at Jesus with his request. So Jesus responds. Not in a kind, warm and fuzzy response that modern Christians would expect from this all loving Jesus. It is a stern response that is directed to the man, but addresses the crowd. Jesus says, "Really? Are you (plural) not going to believe in me unless I perform for you?" (Yes, that is my paraphrase). Imagine the frustration on the part of Christ here. It drips from His response. He is not a circus act. He is not merely a miracle worker or a healer. He is the Son of God and these people just wouldn't believe Him unless he pulled another rabbit out of His hat. This is a weak faith. It is a faith that is wrapped up in the physical, sight driven, empiricism that detracts from the reality of who Jesus Christ is.

But the father did not give up so easily. Neither did Jesus. Rather than leaving this man and his generation in a weak faith-by-sight-only existence, He tests the faith of this man and the grows it. It comes in an odd way, but when you think about your life and the way that God has moved, it never happens in the expected, predictable way. It is always slightly odd, is not not? Remember God's ways are not our ways and neither are His thoughts our thoughts (Is. 55.8-9). The man approaches Jesus and pulls rank. Remember, he is a Roman official and in the law of the day, Roman officials could force the Jews to carry their pack a mile. He could have arrested Jesus for failure to yield to his office. There were a number of ways that this desperate man could have gone about getting what he wanted, so he started with a command. He literally commands Jesus in verse 49 to come with him. It has gone past a request to a strong imperative, which is what you use when you want to pull rank or exercise authority. Talk about a weak faith! This man has the audacity to attempt commanding the Son of God to do what he wishes. But, don't we do that? Don't we give our ultimatums to God all the time demanding that He prove this or that, provide in our work, family, marriage, etc.? Isn't that the way you and I approach the throne of grace all the time?

Instead of heeding the command, Jesus responds with a command of His own. Since He is the Son of God, He is the one in position to actually give commands. Embedded within His command, Jesus is also giving this man a test of faith. He says, "Go, your son lives." The command is easy to pull out of the statement. Go. You told me to come, but I am telling you to go. The test is in the statement "your son lives." Jesus does not say that your son will live. He uses a present tense verb, that he is living. The word for "live" used here does not mean mere biological existence, rather it refers to the fullest existence of life. In other words, Jesus says, "Go, because your son is not going to experience a life less full than I have made it." Here is the test: does the man stay and demand more from Christ, or does he go believing in the word Christ has spoken? If he stays, he fails because he does not believe that Christ is capable of doing what He says, so even if Jesus goes to Capernaum with him, would He really be able to heal the son? However, if he goes, he must leave empty handed. He must leave with nothing but a word from Christ. Is that enough? That is a pretty good question for us to consider today. Is a word from Christ about what He will do and can do enough?

But the faith of this man grows. John carefully records for us that the man believed the word that Christ had spoken and went on his way...empty handed. He had to choose to believe that he received what it was he had requested even though he had no physical evidence to prove it. As he is going home, he meets some of his slaves as they are coming towards him. Stop. Your child is in the hospital and it doesn't look good. Every time you see a doctor or a nurse walking your direction, you get the lump in your throat or the pain in your gut or your heart drops. That's likely what this guy has going on as he sees his slaves. If they are coming to meet him, it could be bad news. He is still in the test. He is still walking home with no physical evidence that he received fulfillment of the request he made to Jesus. But they have good news. The son is living! Now, watch the growth progression here. The man walked away from Jesus with nothing but belief in His word. The slaves then confirm that the son is alive and the man's belief in Jesus is growing. So he asks a simple question, "When did he get better?" In a fit of great anticipation he hears exactly what he already believed to be true. Yesterday at 1 pm the fever left and that was precisely when Jesus spoke the truth to him about his son. His belief in Christ had been tested and then grown.

But, Jesus is not done with this man yet. He rewards his faith. Verse 53 is very careful to point out two things here. First, the man himself believed. We gloss over the depth of this little word because it looks to us like he completed something. English is so often a poor rendering of the ideas which are conveyed in Greek. The word John uses here is the same word he used in v. 50 when the man believed Christ and walked away to go home. It is an aorist tense verb which means that no attention is paid to a time feature, but sees the act as a whole. Such as saying, "we built a house." Built speaks of the completed action, not the time involved in the action. Another feature of the aorist is that it can denote an action started in the past that continues on into the future. This is what we encounter with this man. He began to belief in Christ at the moment Christ gave His word concerning the son and his belief grew and continued. Belief was not a one time event for this man, but it became an ongoing action. Second, we see the greater reward because John tells us that it was not just the man who believed, but his whole house as well. They had all been impacted by who Jesus was and what Jesus did and to that, they surrendered to Him in belief.

What do we do with this? Do we just run to Jesus when our kids are sick? Do we eliminate the miracles and signs and only cling to what Jesus said? These are two detrimental extremes of response to this story. In one, Jesus becomes for us a genie in a bottle. Surely, we should carry our cares and concerns to Him and submit them to His lordship. That is a healthy expression of trust in His provision, but it also relies on His lordship and not just His ability to perform. In the other, we eliminate the God element of who Jesus was. We become like the many deists who formed America and remove the supernatural from Scripture and leave it all on the physical and biological level. Don't be Thomas Jefferson and pick and choose which parts of Scripture you will or will not believe. It is all God's Word, so we must wrestle with all of it...even the parts that are hard to understand. Here are a couple of things I think we need to take away from this passage of Scripture

1. Faith moves us past signs to the Savior. The problems the Galileans had was very similar to what you and I face...we want a sign. Jesus did not provide these signs to the Galileans or those in Jerusalem because He wanted them to get caught up in what He could do. They were given to show who He was. Too often we get bogged down looking for a sign. Remember Gideon? He did the same thing. In Judges 6 we find him being called of God to be the one through whom God would deliver Israel. But he wanted a sign. He asked God to let a fleece cloth be soaked with dew the next morning while the ground around it remained dry. So, God did it. Then he asked God to give him one more sign and this time let the ground be wet but the fleece dry. And it happened. Gideon was looking for a sign, not the promise that God had given him. Whether it is overcoming a sin issue, a call of God to step up in the church, personal finances, or relationships, we all ask God for a greater sign than what we already have  pointing us to a greater faith in Him. Faith is not about the sign. Faith in a sign leaves us looking for the next sign and then the next. It is the same as trying to find happiness in a person or a team or a job. Something will come along that seems to offer a greater happiness, leaving us frustrated and angry when it lets us down. God does give us signs, but they are not meant to be an end. They are meant as a means to the end of a greater faith in Him through Christ Jesus.

2. Faith is a sign of life when belief is an ongoing action. Remember our discussion about the word believed earlier? This is how faith moves past signs to the Savior. It is an ongoing action that is rooted in who Jesus is. We cannot rely on yesterday's faith to get us through today. How do we avoid this? We take intentional steps towards it. Three verses in this text of Scripture point us to an understanding of what faith/belief is and should look like. First, Belief is an intentional response to who Jesus Christ is. We see this in His confrontation of the Galileans in v. 48. They wanted signs, but he offered so much more. They could stop at the level of the sign and continue to look for another, or they could intentionally look through the sign to the Savior, to who Jesus Christ is. The choice was theirs and the same choice is ours. Do we look at Jesus for who He is?

Second, belief is an intentional response to what Jesus Christ said. This is exactly where Jesus confronts, tests, and grows the faith of the royal official. What did Jesus say? "Your son lives." What did the royal official do? He believed what Jesus said. What has Jesus said to you? Your sins are forgiven at the cross; I have paid your salvation so you do not have to be a slave to that sin any more; I am enough; I will not leave you or forsake you. Jesus had the authority to make these statements and many more because He is the Son of God and He now sits as the King of Kings. But, we must make an intentional effort to believing what He has said. Let me be clear: this is not a mystical experience to which you are one day awakened. It comes through the Spirit of God at work in you as you seek Him out. If you are relying on Sunday morning church service or an Adrian Rogers or David Jeremiah daily radio broadcast to be all the engagement with God's Word you have, you have missed it. You have purposely malnourished your spiritual existence and have ignored what it is that Jesus Christ has said. How can you make an intentional response to what Jesus said if you do not take time to look at His Word and study it?

Third, the ongoing action of belief will spread to others. We see this in the effect that the royal official's belief had on his family. We are not told that his family immediately got saved, but it does say that they all came to belief. It could have been that day or it could have been over the next month or even year. The fact remains that this man fell into a perpetual state of belief in Jesus, not in healing. That belief had direct effects on his own family. Men, you want to make a difference in your kids or your wife? Become a man of faith and see what it is that God does in you and through you. You will see signs of life you have never seen in your own walk with God and in the way that your wife and children respond to you and to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Don't rely on one action from the past to carry you. Faith is an ongoing state. Saved once and for all yes, but living in light of that for all time is required.

-- The original message derived from the pulpit of the Hopewell Baptist Church in Anderson, SC. Our morning worship service is at 11 AM every Sunday. Please visit us at www.hbc1803.org for more details.

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