SEVEN Series: Faith is...

A short, engaging podcast that accompanies our sermon series, offering additional insights, practical application, and behind-the-scenes conversations to help you go deeper into God's Word throughout the week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The Lord is willing to go to the lost, the hurt, the broken, the people that seem farthest from him and invites us to do the same. Yep. Then not just that, but he demonstrates a lifestyle that is set apart from the rest of the world. Like we get the opportunity to minister to people who who are the furthest from Jesus, who are the most politically distant from us, who are the most culturally distant from us, who smell different than us, who look different than us, all the things because we've been given a task to go and demonstrate being the hands and feet of Jesus for the lost, the hurting, and the broken. Hi Caden. How are you doing, buddy? Jake, so well, bro. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Good, good. Good. Well, hey, today we're talking about John chapter four, uh, starting in verse 43, kind of all the way to the end here. We're looking at Jesus' second sign that he does in here. Second mirror. So give us a little bit of a breakdown about what's going on here in this passage.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Yeah, I I uh there's a couple things that really stick out to me in this. I love one, his ministry is full-time. It's public now, it's being demonstrated, it's on display. People are seeing it, people are catching it. In fact, we actually even see that in this passage. It talks about the people as he's traveling through Galilee. People had come to, or he had he had come to Cana, where he turned water into wine. There was a government official, but when they had heard the news, uh, they came to beg Jesus, like this news about who Jesus is and who he is, what he's doing, the miracles, the signs and wonders that are being performed. People are catching wind of it. It's going really public. Yeah. This is like the the early embers of what will soon become a forest fire of his life and ministry that just is on fire, burning, going crazy, catching wind everywhere. And so, yeah, so much to unpack from this. But I think that's the first thing we should catch and take note of is just reality that like Jesus is full-time now. He's he's waiting 30 years up until this point. His ministry publicly will only last three years. Uh, it is wild to know what all happens in those three years. But yeah, he's wasting no time. No, nothing is is uh slipping by and and everybody's catching kind of the full scope of of who this guy is now that he's claiming to be the son of man. And uh that's uh a big deal, especially in Jewish culture. Oh, yeah, that's punishable by death, yep. Um, if not found to be true. So making some wild claims he hasn't claimed to be the son of man yet up until now, but he has claimed living water, and so there's some he doesn't use the direct language. Yeah, actually, we don't see that really anywhere, but we see a lot of implications and and words that he uses that imply he claims to be the son of man. And so just before this miracle, he he the conversation he has with the woman in the well, he says, Hey, you've come for for water. I'm here to give you living water, and that is a direct parallel to his claim to be the son of man. Yep. And uh some wild things are happening, some dangers about to come. We know in just a few years he's about to die, uh, a criminal death, a sinner's death. And uh yeah, a lot to unpack from this. Right. So we could go a million directions. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah. So so tell us exactly what happens in the story. What happened what is the miracle that he performs here?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah, so it's a it's a healing miracle, and it's one that we see really consistently throughout his life and ministry. Um, there's there's a couple details in this that are so beautiful for me to see. I think if you look, this this official son or official comes to Jesus begging for healing for his son. And as this man is on his way back home, some of his servants, verse 51, met him, and the news that his son was alive and well, he asked them when the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, yesterday afternoon at one o'clock, his fever suddenly disappeared. Then the father realized that was the very time Jesus had told him, Your son will live. Yeah, the detail, even in the Lord saying, Your son is healed, and not just like go home and watch this healing progression happen, but the very moment he spoke it. I mean, we could get into some deep etymology of that word and the study of the greater theology of the Lord's ability to speak and it be. Yeah, um, how vast is that? That's how it came into existence. Oh my gosh, man. Yeah, but I I think the beauty in the fact that he was so involved in the details, and for the for the father to ask, had this inkling in his heart that like maybe he is as powerful as he says he is. Yeah. There's this it uh this this desire to know, to learn. Like, wait, wait, when did Jesus when did Jesus heal him?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Right. No way. What I think of is beautiful about what you're saying here though, too, is is is thinking about the context of this passage. So it's uh right in verse 46 of what we're reading today, it says that he came again to Cana in Galilee, which is where he performed his first miracle. So he performs the miracle at the wedding, leaves, goes to Samaria, which you know no Jew's gonna go there, yeah, you know, uh including this official. I mean, so this official would have been either like a Roman official, yeah, or it would have been a a it's not really spelled out super well here. Um, but the word used could could uh in in the Greek could refer to a Roman official or could uh ref refer to a Jewish official that's underneath King Herod. Yeah, it starts with a B. I don't know how to pronounce it. Yeah, I don't know. Um so like Jesus leaves going where he probably knows he's not gonna run into anybody that would have witnessed the miracle at Cana. Yeah, comes back to Cana and is immediately addressed by one of the officials. Yeah, so he basically leaves this fire. You know, he's like, What do you mean the carpenter's son turned all the all the water at this wedding into wine? Yeah, what are you talking about? And Herod, you know, it's like the the the Jewish rulers, the political rulers of the time were already freaked out by him enough to try to kill every Jewish child, you know, when he was born around that time. And so he's coming back. And again, this is what I love what you're saying. He is living out who he said he's going to be. Yeah, he comes back and he performs a miracle to an official. Yeah. That sure he's got a sent that a son that's sick, yeah. But he also there's tension in the tension, dude. Like he could have this official could have been testing him from a from a governmental perspective of like the the Herodian leadership hears that this guy did this and they that they've been afraid of a new Jewish king being the Messiah coming. Oh my gosh. Like this is evident. Pressure here on Jesus is insane. Jesus basically comes in and he he does this thing and not being afraid of the potential political outcomes or even like putting himself in danger. Because again, he comes back to Cana where he did this first miracle, yeah, and this official approaches him, and who knows what he's gonna be asked by this official. Probably would have known he was an official, but he does the right thing anyway. He displays that he is God and he heals this man's son, inevitably leading to this father believing. Yeah, so kind of unpack for us for a second, maybe some practical outcomes we can take as we close out today.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Absolutely. I I think maybe there's there's three, or maybe two. One, just the simple reminder that the Lord does care about the little details. I think we're told oftentimes, you know, as a kid growing up, don't pray to ask God for things all the time because he doesn't care anymore. Like I would always ask God for a new bike. Did God actually care? Actually, yeah, like the Lord does. The Lord does care about the little things. And so I think there's an invitation for us as a church to just start partnering with the Lord more in that. What does that look like? Pray, pray. And and and and pray. I loved it this way. I was reading a book recently, and the book talked about pray as you can, not as you can't. Sometimes we have this standard of prayer in our mind, which says, I have to hit my hands and knees, I have to pray, I have to cry, and it has to be an hour and a half long in this one specific verse. And it's like, sure, what if you can't do that? Like is that a problem? Not at all. Pray as you can. So what does that look like? Well, if you're a new believer, maybe praying as you can right now looks like 30 seconds on the drive to work. There's permission for that. And the Lord works in that. Like this is this beautiful world called sanctification and refining. He's gonna make us more like him, but it's a process of just showing up. And over time, you're gonna begin to pray in ways that you couldn't two or three years ago, maybe longer. Maybe you have boldness to pray for somebody who doesn't know Jesus. And so I think about that. Pray as you can, not as you can't. The Lord cares about the little details. This was shared. Yeah. It's like the image and illustration of being invited to a birthday party when I was growing up. It's like the difference between, hey, you can come if you want versus hey, Jake, I want you to be at my birthday party. Like the Lord shouldn't be the afterthought. Oh, you can come if you want. It's like, God, be a part of my day. I was just discipling a student the other day, and we literally set a daily reminder, eight o'clock every morning. And on this, on this memo, it says, invite Jesus into my day. Super simple. But like this, this actual Lord, I invite you to be a part of my life because you care about the little details. Yeah. And that's evidence. And Jesus healing this official son at the very time he says he was going to. Yeah. He cares about the little details. Yep. Then I think the second you reference the political tension, the cultural tension between this religious leader, or not religious leader, but this official and Jesus, and how that that would have been a tension at the time, whether under Jewish reign or or Roman reign, whatever. Um the Lord is willing to go to the lost, the hurting, the broken, the people that seem farthest from him and invites us to do the same. Yep. Then not just that, but he demonstrates a lifestyle that is set apart from the rest of the world. Like we get the opportunity to minister to people who are the furthest from Jesus, who are the most politically distant from us, who are the most culturally distant from us, who smell different than us, who look different than us, all the things uh because we've been given a task to go and demonstrate being the hands and feet of Jesus to the lost, the hurting, and the broken. Jesus says the world will know your mind based on how you love others. Yeah. And so I think that's an invitation is for us to actually be who we say we are as followers of Jesus, right? Yeah. The world is looking for every reason to watch us fail. Let's give them every reason, like this official, to see us demonstrating the hands and feet of Jesus and say, I can't help but not believe I have to believe in this thing. Yeah, I have to believe in this thing because Jake is a believer who is believable. Jake is a Christian who is Christ-like. Yeah. And just that type of lifestyle, I can't even imagine what that's gonna do for the immediate, our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. What does that mean in Mansfield, right? Ontario, in Lexington, in Richland County, in the counties beyond, that because of our faith as Christians lived out for the least of these, we're gonna watch God do immeasurably more than you could ask or I could think or we could imagine. Right. And we're gonna see revival in ways that we never thought possible.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Amen. Amen. But if Jesus can give up his glory to come to show us how much he loved us to die, how much he loves us to die for us so that we can be with him forever. If Jesus can say to this official who potentially presents danger to him, you know, because of what he did before he left, your son is healed, go, you know. Regardless of the circumstances that could have put him in, he still did it. Yeah, you know, and the circumstances that did put him in, he still did it. We're called to do the same thing. 100% regardless of the circumstances where we are potentially going to be put in because of us sharing the gospel with people, we're still called to do it. And he's gonna give us everything we need and lead us and protect us and guide us and take care of us.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

100%. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Thank you so much, Caden. Yeah, I appreciate your time today, man.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Always cool.