All right, well, we started last week.
Russ began a new sermon series in the Gospel of John, looking particularly at the miracles of Jesus.
And he did a great job kind of introducing this topic of miracles and a lot of the ways that we as modern 21st century Americans can can stumble on the reality of miracles, their prevalence in the scriptures, and maybe their lack of prevalence in our own lives.
So I encourage you to go back and listen to that if you weren't here last week.
But really, what the miracles were meant to do then as they are now are to point us and lead us to Christ.
And that's my hope for us this morning.
As I was studying our passage this morning that Sam read for us in John chapter 4, I couldn't help but think of a recent podcast.
It's made the rounds, it's been pretty famous.
Maybe you've heard of it a bunch.
It's called The Rise and Hill, Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
It's about the ministry of a particular pastor out on the West Coast.
It chronicles his meteoric rise to celebrity and power, the growth of his church into a megachurch, and then his astonishing fall from grace.
It's a pretty powerful and challenging podcast to listen to.
But you'll notice that it's called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
That was the name of the church and the ministry that this pastor started.
It was not called the rise and fall of this particular pastor's name because it's really about problems that the editor or the guy who put the podcast together, the problems he saw in evangelicalism as a whole, and not simply the large ego of a particular pastor.
And again, as I read our passage this morning, I thought a synopsis of this whole podcast could come from verse 48 of our passage.
That the American evangelical church, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
We're so drawn to celebrity, to movements, to power, to signs and wonders, things that draw us, that help us to believe maybe this gospel is actually true.
But as we listen to that podcast and we see all the pitfalls that that kind of faith can lead us to, we realize that we need something deeper.
We need something more than just signs of power and growth and spectacle.
Unless we here at Redeemer are tempted to scoff at the people who go to megachurches and feel like they were perhaps duped by particular pastors, those who worship their pastors, rest assured that there is nothing in those people's hearts that is not also present in our own.
Mine, yours, every one of us in this room.
There is no temptation that is not common to all people.
Amen?
Amen.
We're getting off to a great start this morning.
Well, that's the bad news.
That's the bad news.
And I bring it up because the good news of this passage is here to address that very temptation in all of us, that draw to power, to spectacle, to signs and wonders.
This passage, John, the author of the gospel and Jesus himself, want us to follow the signs, not for the sake of the signs, but to where the signs are pointing us.
And that's what I hope that we'll see this morning.
So let's jump in to John chapter 4 together.
First, Jesus moves toward the broken and the sinful.
Let's look again at verses 43 through 45.
After two days he departed from Galilee for Jesus himself, 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.
This is actually a little bit of a confusing set of verses.
It feels like it contradicts itself.
But what John is saying is Jesus intentionally moved north after, if you just look above in chapter 4, it's the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman.
So he had moved from Jerusalem in the south.
He'd been moving up through Samaria, and now he is moved, continuing to move north to Galilee, the area where he was born, Nazareth, and his home where he now resided, Capernaum.
He actually goes to Cana.
But he's moving there intentionally, but John inserts this statement that we have heard from Jesus in the past, which is that a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown.
And you know, that's kind of a truism.
You can go and you can make your way in the world, you go home, and you're just, you know, you're still the son, the brother, uh, the little kid that grew up in that place.
And Jesus experienced the same thing.
And yet, knowing that, Jesus went there intentionally.
We see, though, that the Galileans uh welcome him with open arms.
They're excited, but were told why, because they had been in Jerusalem for the annual feast.
They had seen the signs that Jesus had performed, and so they were excited.
This this hometown boy had become a celebrity.
He had done these incredible signs and wonders in front of everyone at the temple, in front of all the leaders and powerful people.
And they thought uh he made them look good, but perhaps they could benefit from his power and his possibilities, as we'll see later in our passage.
But this despite all of this, Jesus moved in their direction.
And just that movement was an exercise of grace and mercy.
So that brings us to our second point here.
Jesus cares enough to confront those that he loves.
So Jesus arrives in Cana.
If you were here with us last week, this is the passage we looked at where Jesus performed his first sign, his first miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, where he turned water into wine.
Jesus is back in that same place.
And there's a particular royal official, someone who was in the higher ups of the Jewish uh aristocracy, a powerful man.
He resided in Capernaum and he heard that Jesus was back in the region, and so he took the two-day journey, walking journey to Cana, because his son was on death's door.
He was incredibly sick.
Now, he may have come to Jesus with misunderstanding, as we'll see, but he came for this one particular important purpose to find help for his child.
And for any of us who have children, we can relate to this man's motivations.
Now, me, I would have probably given in to this guy's request, right?
He's a powerful uh Jewish official.
He's walked days to see Jesus, and he asks for the healing of his child, right?
What's not to like?
Heal him, Jesus.
Our heart goes out to this man.
But Jesus' response seems dismissive, if not rude, right?
He says, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.
Now, what's interesting about this, and if you you have a Bible open, you may see a footnote for the you, uh, these you's are plural.
So though he is speaking to this Jewish official, he's actually making a broader statement to all of Israel.
That unless the people of God see signs and wonders, something miraculous, they will have no faith.
Um Jesus loves this man and his family enough to confront the real problem.
Now, the theologian Tom Wright, he gives a great illustration to show what's going on in our passage.
Imagine you live in a small but beautiful town, uh, beautiful architecture, historic landmarks and places, maybe not unlike Marietta.
Uh, but the traffic has gotten so bad that the town has installed beautiful signs on street corners showing the way to help move traffic along.
But the signs are so beautiful that people actually stop their cars and they get out and they're examining the signs.
And so traffic, rather than getting better, it gets worse.
And that's exactly what's happening in Jesus' situation here.
Jesus has been performing these miracles, these signs and wonders in order to point people to who he is and why he came, but people are fixated on the signs themselves.
All right, the feeding of the 5,000, those people were so amazed that they could, this whole group could be fed with just a few loaves of fish, uh, bread and a few fish that they follow him around.
And Jesus confronts them and he says, You're not here for me, you're here because you had your fill.
These signs and wonders were so miraculous and beautiful that they were actually getting in the way.
They were causing bigger problems than what they were intended for.
They were meant, again, to point people to Jesus, to show him who he is and why he was there.
But instead of coming to Jesus because of the signs, they were going to Jesus for the signs and for more signs.
But here's the point.
Come to the signs all you want, but they can't ultimately help you.
Right?
You can eat a miraculous meal today.
Your son can be miraculously healed tomorrow, but he will still die in his sins.
And Jesus knows that if we get caught up in the signs and in the small miracles that we ask for, we miss the whole reason of his coming and the bigger point of who he is.
Just as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in the story preceding ours, he said, referring to the well, she asked for a drink of water.
Jesus said, All who drink from this well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again.
You see, if Jesus had simply answered this man's request and healed his son immediately, he would have returned home without the greater and more important gift.
He would have simply come for the sign and missed the one to whom the sign pointed.
And the same is true for us, beloved.
Jesus is willing to confront.
He's willing to say no.
He's willing to say not yet to our prayers and our requests.
Because he loves us enough to desire the deeper things of life and eternal life for you and for me.
He knows that unless we come and see him for who he is, the very Son of God, then anything he gives us will not satisfy.
Nothing else will satisfy.
So that leads us to our third point.
Jesus wants us to know him for who he is.
Jesus rebuffs the man, right, with this what seemingly rude response.
What will the man do?
Well, for the love of his son and his deeper desire for his healing, he persists.
He says, Sir, or actually in the Greek it's the word Lord, which was a common use of word of respect.
Lord, come before my child dies, he says.
You see, the man is now ready to receive from Jesus on Jesus' terms rather than seeking to receive from Jesus on his own terms.
Jesus has pushed back.
And now the man in humility returns and metaphorically kneels before the Lord of life.
And it's in this moment that Jesus responds seemingly very quickly.
He changes what he says.
He says to the man, Go, your son will live.
Or more literally, he says, Go, your son lives.
And here's where we see the change.
In verse 50, it says, The man believed the word Jesus spoke to him, and he went on his way.
Notice that the man came to Jesus a two-day journey and begged him to come with him.
Come with me, come and lay hands on my son, miracle worker, heal him so that he won't die.
And yet, here at this moment, he believes the word that Jesus speaks.
And he returns home alone.
And yet full of faith.
Not in the miracle, but in the man, the person, the son of God, Jesus himself.
You know, it it may seem like a small difference, but it makes all the difference in the world.
He may have come to Jesus because of the miracles that he'd heard, but now he leaves Jesus, seeing him for who he is, the very Messiah, the Son of God who has the power to heal from days away with only a word.
Just as an aside, have you ever thought about that?
We're so used to these uh incredible movies and stories, you know, Marvel, superheroes.
What does it actually mean?
What does it tell us about Jesus?
That he can say, Go, your son will live.
And in that very moment, miles away, his son is healed.
It speaks of incredible power, incredible authority.
No wonder people begin to worship and call him the Son of God.
It echoes what how John opened this same gospel in chapter one.
He said, In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God.
In him was life.
And the life was the light of men.
Finally, this official, this father, this man looked past the signs and saw the one to whom all the signs pointed, the Lord of life, and he believed.
That brings us to our fourth point, which is really long and wordy.
Jesus wants us all to follow the signs and believe his word that tells us who he is, what he has done for us, because he loves us.
Or the shortened version, Jesus wants us to come to him for who he is.
Beloved, this is what Jesus wants for us.
In the midst of our anxieties, in the midst of our confusions, in the midst of our askings, our needings, he wants us to go to him in prayer.
But not simply for what he can give us or what he has done in the past.
He wants us to come because of who we know, who he is.
So here's a question.
What sign or lack of a sign is getting in your way of getting to Jesus this morning?
What is Jesus doing or not doing in your life that is causing you to doubt his goodness and love?
I believe Jesus wants to speak to you in that place today.
For months and even years, I prayed that God would do a particular miracle in my life.
And as I prayed over and over, day after day, the strangest thing happened.
I was experiencing, on the one hand, true and excruciating suffering.
And on the other hand, I was experiencing the presence and the love of God like I never had before.
It was actually pretty confusing.
He wasn't giving me the thing I was asking for, but he was unusually present with me during that time.
And then at some point, he did answer my prayer.
And he said, No.
Again, I was confused.
I wondered what I had done wrong.
I had trouble praying and reading the scriptures for a while.
Over time, I began to see that as I had been praying and asking of the Lord, he had been at work in me.
And rather than giving me the thing that I prayed for, every day, he was giving me himself.
And in giving me himself, I was beginning to change.
I was beginning to see myself differently, I was beginning to see him differently, I was beginning to see my circumstances differently.
And I think I began to receive him in a way that I would not have been able to if he had simply answered and given me my initial request.
Notice one more thing in our passage.
By addressing this official's heart and drawing him to himself and faith in his word, when this official returned home, he became a channel for faith in the life of his family.
Right?
They would have simply experienced the miracle while he was away.
I'm sure the child's mother was right there at his side.
There were servants and perhaps siblings around.
And they saw the sickness go away.
But it was in his returning that he was able to tell them about the one he had met, the one who had said the word, that the healing had happened at the very moment of their conversation.
You see, rather than just experience the miracle, his family too was able to come and to know and come to know the one to whom the sign appointed, the very Son of God, who can do so much more than simply heal an illness.
He can heal us from our sin and give us eternal life.
Allow us to become adopted sons and daughters of God and enter into God's eternal embrace.
And beloved, the same is true for us.
As we grow in faith and love for our Savior, we become channels through which others can come and enjoy this relationship with the Lord.
But as we know, the official is not the hero of the story, and we are not heroes of our own story.
As we close, I ask you to consider Jesus and what this miracle, what this sign has to teach us about who we are, about who he is, how he moves toward the broken and the sinful, that he is willing to confront and disappoint us in order to draw us deeper into relationship with who he truly is.
That we can see how powerful his word is, that he is the Lord of life and death.
There is nothing that he cannot do, and that we are his beloved, even as we love him.
What a savior.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Our Father and our God, we rejoice in Jesus.
Lord, the one who with a word can heal.
With a word, he makes the mountains into plains and he fills in the valleys of our lives.
Lord, we love you and we are so thankful for you.
Lord, we pray, give us more of yourself.
Where we are running after the signs and not the one to whom the signs point.
Lord, show us so that we might rejoice all the more in the lover of our souls.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.