John 4:43-54 - The Real Deal

Main Idea: Your belief in Jesus ought to meaningfully affect your whole life.

A SUPERFICIAL BELIEF IN JESUS IS USELESS (vs. 43-45)

• A belief in a God you don’t obey is pointless.

• You can believe in the truth of God without submitting to it.

A SERIOUS BELIEF IN JESUS IS RELENTLESS (vs. 46-50)

• Serious belief in Christ motivates you to persistent action.

• Serious belief in Christ continues regardless of His answers.

• Serious belief in Christ acts based on God’s Word.

A SPREADING BELIEF IN JESUS IS DOUBTLESS (vs. 51-54)

• God’s working in your life is meant to influence your circles.

• God’s working in your life ought to bring others to know Him.

• God intentionally blesses you so that you can testify about Him.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Been going through the series, John's writing. This is several decades after Jesus has died.

This is actually several, and Rose again, this is also several decades after many of John's family members, friends and fellow apostles have passed off the scene. This is now about anywhere from 70 to 90 year old apostle.

That is, he's writing to these communities of Jesus believers all across the Roman Empire. He wants them to know some things that they might not have known otherwise.

He wants to clue them in on some behind the scenes moments with Jesus that some of the other gospel writers hadn't included in their retelling of the gospels. These were some bonus things.

And John tells us the reason that he wrote his gospel was so that we would believe in Jesus, that he is the son of God, and that we would have faith in his name. John's whole goal in his gospel is I want you to know who Jesus is. He's God.

And I want you to know that that's not just some thing, some fact that you know. This is something you are actively involved in. It changes everything about you.

Now I do say we're going through John 1 through 4. We are coming back to John's gospel in just a few months. Our next series that we're going to be going through over the next six weeks is Thriving in Exile from Daniel 1 through 6.

So as we approach another presidential election, another election year, all of us give a collective groan inside.

No matter what side of the aisle you're on, I very much doubt that you just relish every time when we have to say, okay, here's our new leaders. Daniel lived in a culture where he did not select his leader.

There was a king, Nebuchadnezzar, that had come through, had destroyed Israel, destroyed God's temple, had taken people captive. Daniel was one of these captives in a foreign land. He's exiled, if you will, from Israel.

But what we're gonna learn through Daniel 1 through 6 is how do we live in a society that is not yet God's ideal? It's not God's kingdom. It's not perfect yet.

How do we interact with people? How do we interact with our leaders, fellow citizens? What do we do?

And so that's what this series is gonna be going over for the next six weeks. So that's what's coming up today. We're learning about the real deal.

As we round out John 1 through 4, we're gonna see just from these nine or so verses, what the real deal is in life. I have an image here, and this isn't the exact image that I was going for, but it was close enough.

I don't know if many of you have seen this particular type of game that people have played maybe on videos, and you have some straws that will go up from the various cans and bottled items, and they go up through the top.

So the person that's trying to guess, they don't know which can is which, or they don't know which restaurant each of the specific drinks are from. And so they'll try them out, and they'll try and guess, okay, which one is real?

And so there are some people that have spent maybe much like myself, way too much money on the various like diet Coke, Coke Zero, Coke Cherry Zero, Coke Vanilla Cherry Zero.

And so they'll test it out, and they're trying to figure out, okay, what's the real deal? Which one of these is the one that I'm actually looking for?

My dad tells the story when him and my mom were first kind of getting together, was it that first family activity, or was it the first Thanksgiving? Yeah, the first Thanksgiving.

If you know my dad, my dad is an absolute Oreos fan, not orioles fan, Oreos fan. And she had made, it was Oreo pudding, right? And there was a generic store brand Oreo that she had put within this Oreo pudding.

And it almost broke up their relationship, but thankfully 28 years later, you guys are still going strong. So he knew the real deal, and he knew what wasn't the real deal.

And today, Jesus is interacting with two different types of people in the passage. One type of person is excited about Jesus and thinks that Jesus does some great things.

But the other type of person has a genuine belief in Jesus that motivates him to deliberate action. Today, our call from God's word is to be that second type of person. That is, your belief in Jesus ought to meaningfully affect your whole life.

Let's pray and get in the message. Dear Lord, we thank you that you are real, that what you have given to us in scripture and in Jesus and in our salvation and these aren't just stories, they aren't just fairy tales. This is reality.

Lord, as our creator, we want to follow you. We want to know you experientially and we want to make a difference in more lives than just our own. So God, today, as we look at fake faith and real faith, would you help us to have the real deal?

Lord, may our belief in Jesus motivate us, change us, may it make us not the same as we came in today. Lord, we love you. We pray all of this in your name.

Amen. First, from verses 43 through 45, we can see today that a superficial belief in Jesus is useless. Verse 43 says, after two days, he left there for Galilee.

So Jesus is coming from Samaria, where we've seen over the past couple of sermons that Jesus has sparked a huge revival, that starting with one woman who had had five husbands and was now living with a person that was not her husband, Jesus tells her

everything about her life. She is amazed. She realizes who this Jesus is. And so she goes into town.

She tells everyone. She brings them all out.

They hear from Jesus over the course of two days, and then they tell the woman, we no longer believe because of what you said, because we've heard for ourselves, and we know that this is the savior of the world.

So Jesus is coming like off of this great, miraculous, amazing revival that's taken place. And now he's going up to Galilee. Verse 44, Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.

When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, because they'd seen everything he did in Jerusalem during the festival, for they had also gone to the festival.

So this is going back to what we saw at Passover back in the last half of John chapter two, where Jesus enters.

He sees that people are utilizing the court of the Gentiles, the place where everyone, regardless of your background, could come in, could hear the worship of God, and people had turned that place into a stable where they were selling animals to

people so that they could sacrifice them. They were charging exorbitant exchange rates because they wouldn't let people buy the sacrificial animals with the money that they had. And so Jesus overturns the tables.

He drives out the animals, and he lets them know that God's house is to be a place of prayer. It is not to be a marketplace. It's not a money-making opportunity.

So Jesus had done all of that at Passover, and now coming back into his hometown kind of area, his home state, if you will, the people go, oh, cool, we saw what you did at the temple. That was awesome.

You know, we have to go a couple of days journey down there every time, and they always take advantage of us. So, you know, great job, Jesus. And they welcome him because they'd gone to the festival.

But I want us to see first today that a belief in a god you don't obey is pointless. Look again at verses 44 and 45. I want you to notice something with me.

Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. Reading that verse, would you expect the next couple of words to say, and the Galileans welcomed him because they'd seen what he'd done at the festival?

No, those seem to be put in juxtaposition.

As we look at the last part of the chapter though, as we see the individual that has the real deal faith in Jesus, we're going to see that there's a difference in someone that welcomes Jesus and someone that actually believes in Jesus.

Someone that notices what Jesus does versus acts those that act on what Jesus does. Jesus here was welcomed but not honored. He was seen but not believed in.

He was known but not worshiped. You can look at Mark chapter 6 and see this at other times in Jesus' ministry where it says that in Nazareth, in his own hometown, he could not do many miracles because the people did not believe in him.

God joins with us that as we have faith, that God then works through our faith. God doesn't work our unbelief. He doesn't force us to experience the results of faith when we don't have faith.

He joins with us in that. And for these people, they knew a lot about Jesus. They'd interacted with him, but it didn't result in belief and it didn't result in them obeying him.

James chapter 2 and verse 18 says this, you believe that God is one? You believe in Jesus? You believe there's one God?

Great. The demons also believe and they shudder. Even for the devils, a belief in the God of scripture results in some sort of action.

Why believe in a God that you're not going to obey? It's pointless. And secondly, we can see that you can believe in the truth of God without submitting to it.

So you can believe that the Bible is true, but that doesn't mean that you have submitted to it. It doesn't mean that you are following it.

You can look at the life of Judas iscariot, one of the 12 apostles who was traveling with Jesus and the others over the course of this three, three and a half year ministry.

That as he's walking with them, he's hearing all of the preaching that they're hearing. He's having the same conversations with Jesus that Peter and John are having. He is going out and doing miracles as we would read about in Luke chapter 10.

All of these amazing things are getting done. But at the end of Jesus' life, you have Judas being the one that's betraying him. What's the difference?

He knew the truth. It wasn't that he just didn't realize everything that Jesus was or seen all the miracles that Jesus did or heard the sermons that Jesus preached. It didn't result in obedience.

Today, see, many of you know that you go here regularly to Tabernacle or to another church. Are you obeying, submitting to God, to his reign and rule in your life? Is he really your Lord?

Or do you claim a Jesus that you don't follow? You can look even at Matthew 25, where Jesus talks about at the end of time, you have those that enter into kind of that final judgment room.

And as they interact with Jesus, they say, hey, Jesus, didn't we like, didn't we preach in your name? Didn't we cast out many demons? Didn't we clothe many boar?

And he says, depart from me, you wicked. I never knew you. A relationship with Jesus is what you need in your life.

You do not need more religion. You do not need more holy actions. You don't need more charity, not at your core.

What you need is a relationship with Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus, he is the creator. He is God.

He made this world and everything in it. He made it very good by his own testimony. He created mankind.

And all of us, Scripture says, like sheep have gone astray. We all went the wrong way. In Jesus, in God's path is life, is abundance, is eternity and a future and a hope and heaven.

In our own path, the path outside of God, there is only destruction waiting for us.

But God loved us so much that while we were way off the path, while we were enemies of God, where we hated his way and we didn't want to follow him, Christ died for us. It's what we celebrate every year on Easter.

It's frankly what we celebrate every week here as Christians, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He was buried and he rose again three days later from the dead, proving his authority, his lordship, his kingship over everything in this world.

Can I tell you today? Can I ask you today? Have you submitted to Jesus?

Have you repented of your sin? Have you said, God, I am sorry for my sin. I believe that Jesus died for me.

He was buried and he rose again. And I'm asking Jesus to be my savior and my lord. So ever been a point in your life where you've done that?

Maybe you've grown up in church, but you have never called on Jesus to save you from sin, to put you into God's family. Today can be the day that that happens for you. If you are a believer, are you submitting right now to what your God calls you to?

It can be so easy, as with these Galileans, to know Jesus, to know his name, to know his actions, to know some of the things from the Bible. And yet in our day to day life, we pretend like he doesn't exist. We don't follow him.

We don't talk about him. He's our best kept secret. Are we submitting, obeying, believing God?

Okay, I need Robert and I need Ashlyn. Run, run, run, guys. Oh, nope, okay, nevermind.

If you can't run, then don't run. Everyone, just give a slow clap. Alright, just stand next to the stools, okay.

I'm going to have Robert, you sit on the stool. Okay. Both of these kids might say that they believe that the stools can hold them up.

They both might believe that it's not going to shatter, you know, solid, solid wood, you know, doesn't knock over even when I kick it. Both of them can say that they believe that the stool will hold them up.

But if you were looking at them, which person actually believes that the stool can hold them up? It's Robert. Which one right now in your life are you?

When it comes to what God's word says, are you one that's saying, hey, I'm with Jesus. I'm all in. I'm obeying.

I'm following. I'm trusting. No matter what.

Or are you saying, yeah, I believe in Jesus. I'm not really doing any of the Jesus stuff. I'm not really talking about Jesus.

But yeah, I totally believe in him. The one that's going to be believed is the person that's actually placed their faith. The one that's actually acting based on belief.

Thank you guys for coming up. It's good to go. Secondly today, not only is a superficial belief in Jesus pointless, but a serious belief in Jesus is relentless.

We can see this in verses 46-50. Verse 46, he went again to Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum.

The archeology for the specific location of Cana is a little bit in doubt. It's somewhere between nine and 20 miles away from Capernaum.

So this was either a very good day's journey or two day's journey for this particular official that his son was ill at Capernaum. I want us to see first, serious belief in Christ motivates you to persistent action.

From verse 47, when this man, a royal official, had heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son since he was about to die. This royal official, he genuinely believed in Jesus.

Like, you know, back in this time, maybe you've got a chariot or like a horse or something. Nine miles is nothing for us today. I don't even know if it's nine miles to like Parkville.

It's very close to us. It's nothing. For this man, every step of the journey that he was taking, either over the course of like one long day or two long days, every step was a statement of belief in Jesus.

That he said, I've tried everything else that I can. I've tried the doctors. I've tried, you know, going to the priest there in Capernaum.

Nothing's happening. If my son is going to live, it's going to have to come through Jesus. And so he goes for these nine to 20 miles, and he comes and he pleads with Jesus to come down and to heal the son.

So he's asking Jesus now to make this same trek that he himself had walked. Can you imagine the desperation of a parent with a sick and dying child trying to beg Jesus to come?

Well, certainly as we think about, okay, how might Jesus have interacted with this question, with this statement? We would think, oh yes, absolutely, I'll come down right with you. But that's not Jesus' response.

We'll get to what his response was in one second. I do want to ask you, this belief in Jesus motivated, this royal official to persistent action, that he had to stick with it.

And then once he actually got into Jesus' presence, it doesn't say that he pled with him to come down and heal the son. It's pleaded, it's over and over and over again that he's saying, Jesus, please come and heal my son.

Can I ask you, what habits do you have in your life today as a result of faith in Jesus Christ? What habits do you have as a result of your faith in Jesus?

Not what just like religious habits do you have of maybe praying before a meal or something, or not what things do you stay away from or not vote for. What actions does your faith in Jesus spur you to?

Do you have a habit of evangelism that is spurred because you genuinely believe that Jesus saves? Do you have a habit of studying God's word because you believe what God says?

Do you have a habit of loving others in real, tangible, or verbal or written ways because of your faith in Christ? Do you gather with God's people because of your love for Jesus?

Is it time that you let your belief in Jesus spur you to a new action, a new step that you've never taken before or have been too scared to take? A real faith in Jesus, the real deal, motivates us.

It changes us that our whole life would be shaped by this reality of the Son of God who loved us and came for us, who died for us, who rose again, who gave us our spiritual family and who gave us a whole new life and purpose.

So, man is begging, he's pleading with Jesus to come down. We'd think Jesus would be just right on top of it. But I want us to see secondly here that serious belief in Christ continues regardless of his answers.

We can see this in verses 48 and 49. Jesus told him, unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

If I'm asking for Jesus to save Bee, because he's got Ebola or something, and Jesus goes, hey, unless you see miracles, you guys like just don't get it. You don't believe in God other than when God's like getting you out of jams.

If I'm the dad hearing that response from Jesus, you know, I might be booking it out. I'd be like, okay, well, obviously, this isn't working out. I gotta find some other thing.

But verse 49, sir, the official said to him, come down before my boy dies. Jesus' statement in verse 48, you people will not believe unless you see signs and wonders. That statement is true of most of the people that he interacts with in the gospels.

He here isn't speaking directly to the official. So this you in verse 48, unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe. In early modern English, it's ye, ye will not believe if you speak current Southern English.

Y'all, y'all will not believe until y'all see signs and wonders. But to the Jewish people at large is what he's saying this. They want big dramatic miracles for Jesus to prove that he's worthy to be listened to.

If you do a big enough thing for me, then I'll believe in you. Then I'll follow you. Then I'll trust you.

But Jesus wants people that actually believe in and worship him for what God's word says. Not just for what great things can you add on to my life, but for who you are, God, I believe in and trust and follow you.

In verse 49, we can see that the man is not deterred by Jesus' seeming callousness to his son's horrible circumstances. He believes that Jesus can truly heal him. And it doesn't matter to him about who Jesus is to the other onlookers.

He believes in him as healer and savior. If I'm told, hey, you know, unless you see a miracle of me healing B, then I'm not going to... Lost my place there real quick.

If he says, I'm not healing B because all you guys want are miracles, I'm walking out. But that's not what this man did. He said, regardless of the answer, I know who my God is.

I know who Jesus is regardless of whether or not he does what I want when I want it. He's my God regardless of his answer. This is Job in all of his trials where he says, even though God slays me, even though he kills me, yet I will trust in him.

This is the three Hebrew children in the furnace that they are saying, we believe that our God can save us and can deliver us from Nebuchadnezzar. But even if he doesn't, we will not bow to these false gods. We worship the one true God.

For you today, do you give up on God when he's not flashy enough? When he doesn't give you the answer that you wanted? When you thought a particular action would prove his existence and he didn't acquiesce to your demands?

Do you need a bombastic, exciting Jesus to serve? Do you need a tame, tranquil, unassuming Jesus to worship?

He will never fit your mold of what your ideal deity would do or say, but he is worth our following because he is goodness and love and justice and perfection incarnate.

Will you worship and follow God regardless of what he answers your requests with? But then lastly here, serious belief in Christ acts based on God's word. Verse number 50.

Go, Jesus told him, your son will live. The man believed what Jesus said to him and departed. The man could now be headed nine to 20 miles back home with zero reason to believe his son would get better other than that God said it.

What does it take for you to listen to God today? Do you believe and follow it because he said it? Do you need some other motivations for you?

Is God's word enough for you? Do you have that real deal faith that says, Jesus said it, I believe it, I'm acting on it?

If you're looking for something outside of God's perfect communication to mankind, there's nothing spectacular enough to keep you worshiping it.

If you're here for spectacles, for East Baltimore's best music, for the greatest food, for the most amazing kids or youth games, you will keep searching church after church, after group, after group, because what makes a church valuable is not its

programs or its flashiness, it's God's word. For those of you here today that have never turned to Christ as savior, will you listen to God's word and accept Jesus today?

Don't wait till you're 40 or till you have kids or wait for that deathbed confession at the last second.

If you genuinely believe that Jesus is who he said he is and that he did what God's word says, then the only intelligent thing for you to do is to obey God's word, to turn to Jesus, repent in faith and call on him as your savior and as your Lord.

For the Christian here today, are you making your decisions based on your feelings, based on traditions, based on what your friends say, or are you basing your life on the word of God?

This man heard the voice of Jesus and it prompted him to 20 miles of action. God has things that he's communicating to you maybe today, maybe this week. Will you obey and follow him based on his word?

How can you tell what you're basing your life on? What you really believe in with your actions? Well, lastly today, a spreading belief in Jesus is doubtless.

It's absolutely clear when the real deal is there because it spreads out to everyone else around you. First, God's working in your life is meant to influence your circles.

Verse 51, while he, the royal official, was still going down, his servants met him saying that his boy was alive. He asked them at what time he got better. Yesterday at one in the afternoon, the fever left him, they answered.

The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, your son will live. God's working is meant to influence your circles. Do your coworkers know that you're a Christian?

Do your friends know where you are at right now? Do your kids believe that you believe this stuff that you're hearing today? Matthew chapter 5 says you are the light of the world.

A city situated on a hill can't be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstamp, and it gives light for all who are in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. God's working isn't meant to stay with you. It's meant to influence your circles.

Secondly, God's working in your life ought to bring others to know him. You can see this in verse 53. The Father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, your son will live, so he himself believed along with his whole household.

Your purpose, if you're a believer on planet earth, is to know Jesus and to make him known to others. If he's working in and on you, you should share that incredible privilege with those around you.

We can see this exemplified in the life of Paul in Acts 16. Paul and Silas had been imprisoned for preaching the gospel. They'd been put into stocks in the uttermost prison.

God had brought an earthquake. Their stocks, their bonds had come off. The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

He escorted them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him, along with everyone in his house.

He took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. Right away, he and all his family were baptized. He brought them into his house, set a meal before them, and rejoiced because he had come to believe in God with his entire household.

One of the ways that we can see how real our Christianity or belief in Jesus is to us, is are we sharing it with others? Are we bringing others along in our journey?

That may not always mean that you are just like seeing person after person saved, and you've got a jailer going, what must I do to be saved for you?

And then you go and preach the gospel to his whole house, and everybody gets baptized, and it's all wonderful. It might not happen that way, but is there any fruit from your life? Are you having gospel conversations with people?

You're not responsible for whether or not people accept Jesus, but we are responsible for whether or not we're sharing Jesus. So looking at the real deal of your faith, are you encouraging others to know him?

And then lastly today, God intentionally blesses you so that you can testify about him. Verse number 54. Now this was also the second sign Jesus performed after he came from Judea to Galilee.

As with the servants at the wedding in Cana, only a small amount of people knew what Jesus had done. So in the miracle of turning the water into wine, Mary, Jesus, the disciples, and the servants were the only ones that knew what Jesus had done.

And that's called the first sign that Jesus did. It's the first indicator of who Jesus is. And here it says this was the second indicator of who Jesus was.

But if only the royal official, the son, the servants in that household, if only they knew, then how was that much of an indication to Israel or to God's people that this was the Messiah?

The answer is because it wasn't supposed to stay with that royal official or with his family. It was meant to grow and grow. What do you have that you enjoy today?

What moments in your life do you look back on and realize that God was with you? Or God was protecting you? Or God was providing for you?

Testify about it. Tell someone else about what God has done for you. We can see this in Acts 4, where John, a couple of decades before he wrote this gospel, he had gotten arrested with Peter.

The Sanhedrin called for Peter and John and ordered them not to speak or teach it all in the name of Jesus. Peter and John answered them, whether it's right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide.

For we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. Do you have that kind of, I can't stop speaking about all that he's done for me? Do you have that kind of mindset?

Or do you have a mindset that says, I can't start speaking of all that he's done for me? God blesses you. He gives you your daily breath, your food, your shelter, your family, your opportunities, your jobs, your health.

He gives you all of it so that you can testify about him. Are you doing that? Today, as we look at these two types of people, the Galileans, they knew what he'd done, but from Jesus' testimony, they didn't honor him by actually believing in him.

There's nothing that says that the Galileans believed what Jesus had said, and it motivated them to action. They'd just seen things that he'd done, so they welcomed him.

But there's nothing that says they believed in him, or that they called him the savior, as even the hated Samaritans had said about Jesus.

But for this royal official, regardless of what Jesus' answers were, regardless of the amount of work that it took for him to get to Jesus, or get back from Jesus to his hometown, he believed. And he believed what Jesus said. He believed God's word.

And it motivated him to action. Does your belief in Jesus meaningfully affect your whole life? Do you have a superficial belief in Jesus today that doesn't affect any of your day-to-day decisions?

Do you have a serious belief in Jesus today that affects your whole life? And is your belief in Jesus so genuine and vibrant that it's spreading to those around you? How do we do this?

Do we just like manufacture the will and the know-how? Absolutely not. Realizing that Jesus has paid it all, that Jesus accomplished the work, we simply act in gratitude, like this official does, that we hear from the Word of God.

And it's obvious as we interact then with the servants, as we're coming back and we say, hey, that was the time when Jesus said it. Jesus was faithful to His Word.

I believe it's the woman from Samaria that goes back to the town of Sychar and says, come see a man who told me everything that I ever did. It's Philip going back to Nathaniel and saying, hey, we have found the Messiah.

Could this be the savior of the world? The real deal spreads to others. It affects your whole life.

You can never be the same once you have had a genuine encounter with the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Today, tomorrow, how will your belief in Jesus affect your life?