Surely With a Miracle They’ll BelieveJohn 4:43-54

We pick up in John chapter 4 this morning, verse 43… John 4:43. Follow along with me as I read.

43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 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.

46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 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. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 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.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

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One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament is the story about the time when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. We taught the story recently in the Junior High class and titled it, “The Day God was Defeated (?)” The story takes place in I Samuel 4.

The chapter begins with the Israelites ready to battle their perennial enemies the Philistines near Aphek. Within a couple of verses of the beginning of the chapter, the Philistines have defeated the Israelites in battle and the bodies of 4000 Israelites litter the battlefield.

The elders of Israel gather together and they ask a great question, “Why has Yahweh defeated us before the Philistines?” It’s an insightful question and it reflects a knowledge of the blessings and curses that God stitched into the covenant He made with them. One of the curses promised in Deuteronomy 28—But if you will not obey the voice of Yahweh your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you—and one of those curses that was promised if the people didn’t obey the voice of Yahweh was that Yahweh would cause them to be defeated before their enemies.1 So they ask a great question, “Why has

1 Deuteronomy 28:25

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Yahweh defeated us before the Philistines?” The problem is they don’t listen for God’s answer. Instead they say to each other, “Let’s get the Ark that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” So the people went to Shiloh where the Ark was and they brought it to the battlefield. As soon as the Ark entered the Israelite camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. The Philistines camped across the way heard the uproar and got word that a god had come into the camp (of course this was their confused perspective.) Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before! They were terrified but they mustered up their courage to fight anyway.

The battle was joined again and Israel was defeated again. Thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell and the Ark of God was captured.

One author suggested that the Israelites had a rabbit foot faith. “Hey guys we’re in trouble, rub the rabbit foot for good luck…get the Ark it’ll help us!”

Sometimes you and I relate to God that way don’t we? “I better have my devotions, not to spend some time with the God I delight in but so that things will go better in my life…Maybe if I check a few boxes it’ll be better for me.”

That same author said that the Israelites in that story in I Samuel 4 had moved in their relationship with God from “Thou art worthy” to “Thou art useful”. 2 Think about that—from Thou are worthy to Thou Art Useful.

I remember after 911, that some bumper stickers began to show up everywhere saying, “God bless America!” Everybody—religious people, unreligious people, probably even some atheists— were putting them on their cars. It felt like—and I didn’t have the words for it then—it felt like we needed protecting and it was time to pull out our ‘Thou are useful’ God for protection. It doesn’t matter that we honor him. It doesn’t matter that we change our sinful ways. Pull him out for protection! He’s useful!

I have a close friend, a friend of 30 years or more, who may be losing his hearing from a rare auto-immune disease. I just heard about it three weeks ago and immediately began to pray daily for him. I’d text him, “God heal David!”… I took the role of the importunate widow in Luke 18 who just kept bothering the judge until he gave her the verdict she wanted. Heal David, God! Heal David, God! I’m here again, God, Heal David! And then late last week I realized that I had moved from a “Thou art worthy” confession of God to a “Thou are useful” confession of God. Every one of my prayers for David dealt with God as if he was more useful than worthy no matter the outcome. And I was bothered by that. I told him and he texted back, and agreed we want to stay away from seeing God as a vending machine—going up to him with our dollar, making our choice, “I’ll take that one” and then pushing the button waiting to get what we wanted. To relate to God that way is not to honor him. We honor God when we hear his word, believe it and do it.

Now the idea of a “Thou art useful” faith (relating to God because of what he can do for me, believing in him solely because of the works that he does) is a rather common thread in the book of John. And it’s clearly a predominant thread in our passage this morning. Before we look at our passage in detail and explore this thread, I’d like to show you how the thread shows up in the rest of the book of John.

2 Davis, D. R. (2000). 1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart (p. 55). Scotland: Christian Focus Publications.

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We saw it first at the end of John 2

Look at verses 23-25, John 2:23-25…. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. (Notice the order here…Jesus did some signs and many believed in his name. And if we stopped here we would rejoice that believers were popping up everywhere. Jesus is doing signs, people are believing, praise the Lord! Isn’t that what we hope would happen? But look what comes next… But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

I take it that John is telling us that there is a faith that is not genuine faith3 …that some belief is not saving belief.4 These people believed when they saw the signs, but Jesus wasn’t pleased with their ‘miracle believing’5 belief. In fact it seems that he recoiled from it—“I won’t entrust myself to you!” Their belief was deficient. Jesus knew what was in man. He knew that circuses can attract a crowd but that doesn’t mean that everyone under the big top believes. In fact some are there solely because “Thou art useful.” And Jesus will have nothing to do with a ‘Thou art useful’ faith.

“How trustworthy is a faith in Jesus that depends on Jesus being obviously miraculous? Would such miracle faith be able to sustain his Cross and its very unmiraculous shame”?6

Now this idea is present in our passage in John 4 big time but let’s bypass it and highlight the idea in a few more passage in John.

Turn to John 6. In verses 1-15, Jesus feeds the 5000. Evening comes, verse 16, and his disciples got in a boat and began to cross the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum. When they had rowed about three or four miles, Jesus came walking on the water. Well the crowd who had eaten of the loaves and fishes was left behind. And they themselves, verse 24 tells us, got into boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus.

We pick up in verse 25---25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

Jesus is clearly perturbed right? He’s basically saying, “I don’t like the faith I see in you” You guys are seeking me not because you saw signs that pointed to my preciousness, signs that pointed you to my uniqueness, signs that pointed to my divine nature and identity as the true Messiah….no you’re seeking me because you ate your fill of the loaves. You see Jesus knew what was in man. You’re seeking me for the physical and material benefit I can give you. You’re not seeking me because I’m worthy…you’re seeking me because I’m useful.

3 Justin Langley sermon, John 24 A phrase borrowed from John Piper, “He Knew What Was in Man,” sermon preached January 11, 2009, at Bethlehem Baptist Church5 Bruner, page 2876 Bruner, page 287

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Well…Turn to John 12, verse 37…. 37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, …again John seems to be pointing out the limitations of a belief that is entirely sign driven. It is true that signs are given so that we will see God for who He is, but what happens is that the signs are given and those who see them don’t move beyond the sign as something wonderful and powerful and maybe useful… and they don’t move beyond the sign to the God to whom the sign points because they can’t… Look at verse 38… 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”

They could not believe because God had blinded their eyes and hearts. All of this reminded me of that familiar story in the book of Luke about the Rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus would languish at the rich man’s gate begging for food. Well the Rich man died and went to Hades and the poor man died and went to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man cried out to Abraham for mercy. And Abraham said it couldn’t be done. The rich man then cried out and begged Abraham to send someone to his brother’s house because he had brothers. Abraham replied that his brother Moses and the prophets. The rich man suggested that if someone went to them from the dead, then they would listen. Abraham replied, “If they don’t hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

Something miraculous won’t make a difference if someone won’t (or can’t) listen to the word.

Now this idea of not needing signs to believe seems to climax in chapter 20 in the famous doubting Thomas story….John 20 verse 24…. John 20, verse 24….

24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came on Resurrection Sunday night. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” (Again note the order, “I’ve got to see it before I believe”)

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Our longsuffering, long-fused Savior…. Put your finger here…. See my wounds…. and believe…. 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” …. Blessed are those who can believe without seeing…

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Well let’s go back to John 4. Verses 43-45 provide a transition—some call them a ‘saddle’ –from the story of “The Woman at the Well” which we covered last week and our story this week, “The Healing of the Official’s Son”.

Look at verse 43…43 After the two days he departed for Galilee… Now last week we learned, in verses 1-3 of chapter 4, that Jesus chose to get out of Jerusalem because his ministry was beginning to be noticed by the Jewish religious leaders. So he left Judea in the south and departed for Galilee in the north. His trip took him through Samaria. And, if you remember, he had an excessively fruitful ministry there in Samaria and verse 40 says he stayed in Samaria two days. So as we pick up in verse 43 today the two days are up and he continued his journey north to Galilee. Verse 44 For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.

Now what does John have in mind with that line? You and I are familiar with the general ‘proverb’ that “a prophet has no honor in his own hometown”. In the other gospels it’s always used to describe what Jesus encountered when he went back to Nazareth (Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24), the town in Galilee that he lived some thirty years before he began his ministry. (Remember he was born in Bethlehem of Judea but lived almost all of this life up to age 30 or so in Nazareth of Galilee).

So here’s this proverb in verse 44 that’s almost always used to describe Nazareth (and Jesus’ experience in Nazareth) but Nazareth isn’t even mentioned in the passage; Nazareth is nowhere on the radar screen. What does John have in mind here then when he uses it? I think we get a clue when see we see how the NASB, NIV, and KJV, quote the proverb ….For Jesus °Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own °country….Notice that… not hometown…but country

Here’s the point. Jesus has been in Samaria (where he has been greatly honored and we’ll talk about that in a minute) and now he’s headed for his own country, his own homeland—he’s headed for Jewish soil. “Jesus’s own country, then, would be Galilee and Judea, Jewish turf, as opposed to Samaria, from which he has just come.”7 And as he’s headed for Jewish soil, his own country, this proverb, in verse 44, causes us to expect that Jesus will not be honored in his own homeland

But that’s what makes verse 45 kind of interesting…. 45 So when he came to Galilee…so he’s in his homeland where a prophet is not honored… the Galileans welcomed him,…whoa that’s weird…. having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. 7 Carson, page 235-236

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Wait a minute. It doesn’t seem to fit does it? He’s leaving Samaria and headed for his homeland, he’s headed for Jewish soil where we expect a homeland prophet won’t be honored and then we see that he’s welcomed. What’s going on here? Here’s the point. I wonder if there’s a difference between welcoming Jesus and honoring him? I think there is. Look again at verse 45. Why did the Galileans welcome Jesus? They’d seen what he had done. They’d seen him do signs. Hey, here comes the sign man! Here comes the thaumaturge! (New word—magician, miracle worker). Welcome! Welcome to Galilee! Is that honoring Jesus? In a sense aren’t they saying, “Oh it’s the useful one, welcome”… “Thou art useful…welcome!”

You see the Galileans gladly welcomed the ‘sign-performer’, the ‘miracle worker’ but it wasn’t anything close to the honor that Jesus had received back in Samaria.

How had the Samaritans honored Jesus? Yes. Let me show you that. Look back at verse 39…John 4:39….

39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” Don’t miss that. The Samaritans believed in him. Why? Was it because he did signs? Was it because he met their physical needs? No. They believed in him because of the message about him. He didn’t do any signs among the Samaritans. They believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.

40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed …why did they believe? Was it because of signs? No it was because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

We honor Jesus when we believe in his word and do it. We honor Jesus when we value Him for who He is. We honor Jesus when we look to him and say, “Thou art worthy” and not “Thou art useful”

So you see Jesus wasn’t really honored in his country, he wasn’t really honored on Jewish soil. And that idea shows up in the interaction that Jesus has with the Official in Galilee.

Look at verse 46 46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine.

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Some see what they call an “inclusio” here. Jesus did a sign in Cana in John chapter 2 and now he comes back to Cana for another sign…8

And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. Let’s find Cana and Capernaum on a map.

Jesus was in Cana and the official whose son was ill lived 20 miles away down on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee at Capernaum.

The word official, there in vs 46, probably referred to someone officially attached to the service of a king. Most bible students think that the king that the official was attached to was probably Herod Antipas, the Herod that later put John the Baptist to death. {Herod Antipas was really not a king but he was popularly considered one (Mark 6:14)}9

Was this official Jewish or Gentile? We don’t know. If he was a Gentile, then this story marks a progression—a progression from Jew, to Samaritan, to Gentile (Nicodemus to the Samaritan woman to this Gentile official) which matches the progression in Acts—you shall be my

8 Burge, G. M. (2000). John (p. 151). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.9 Carson, page 238

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witnesses in… Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. But Don Carson says ‘there is no evidence that this official was a Gentile.’10 He may have been a secularized Jew. Again we don’t know.

We do know he was probably a man of power. He was a man of prestige. He was a man of prominence. He was a man of influence. And he was a man who normally was in complete control.11 But not now, verse 47… 47 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.

This official--driven by grief, driven by desperation, perhaps even driven by a spark of faith-- had heard that Jesus was in Cana some 20 miles away and he set out to find him because his son was at the point of death. He didn’t send a messenger. There are certain assignments you don’t give to a servant and this was one. We can imagine this father’s heart was breaking. What is a father feeling when his son is close to death and there’s nothing he can do. Listen to another father as he tells of the feeling he had when he heard the doctor’s diagnosis that his 16 year old son had a cancerous tumor and he had only two months to live: “In that moment my well-constructed world began to splinter into a myriad of pieces, like a pane of glass, shattered by a pebble, the fractures fanning out from the hole. I felt an overwhelming sense of unreality. I felt as if a flood had cascaded from a broken damn and swept me into its flow.”12

So this heartbroken official trudged the twenty miles from Capernaum up to Cana—don’t you know he ran as much of it as he could?—he found Jesus, and he asked him, the verb could be translated ‘begged him’13… “Come to Capernaum and heal my son who is about to die”…. “Please come with me to Capernaum! my son, he’s dying”… “Please come with me”… “Please come!”

48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

Jesus’s response—and what I am about to say reeks with understatement— Jesus’ response doesn’t win any awards for sensitivity does it?

But there’s an interesting thing about Jesus’ response. The ‘yous’ are plural. The yous are plural. “Unless you all, you Galileans see signs and wonders you all will not believe.”

10 Carson, page 23811 Sermon preached by Gary Enrig, “When there’s Nowhere Else to Go”, Gospelcoalition.com12 From Sermon preached by Gary Enrig, “When there’s Nowhere Else to Go”, Gospelcoalition.com13 Newman, B.M., & Nida, E.A. (1993). A handbook on the gospel of John (pp. 133-141)

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Isn’t this the thread we talked about at the beginning of the message—needing to see signs and wonders in order to believe? Doesn’t it correlate with what we said about verse 44 where Jesus in a sense critiqued the Galileans because he knew he would find no honor in his own country? Doesn’t it correlate with what we said about verse 45, where the Galileans were quick to welcome Jesus the ‘miracle worker’ because they had seen what he did in Jerusalem but in a sense they were slow to honor him? {For we don’t honor Jesus when we demand signs and wonders before we believe. We honor him when we hear his word and believe it and do it.}

We have to believe that Jesus’ response had the best interest of the official in mind. I guess we could summarize it like this… I love you too much to only heal your son.

Jesus’ response to this official reminds me of the response he made to the Syrophoenician woman over in Mark 7. The woman was a Gentile and she approached Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter—she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Jesus’ response? “Let the children be fed first (in other words the Jews are my priority now) for it’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (the Gentiles were called dogs by Jews).If we had been standing there in the audience I think we would have quickly looked down, thinking to ourselves, “Jesus aren’t you being a little insensitive?” But he wasn’t being insensitive! He was testing the woman’s faith. And wow did she pass the test! Without skipping a beat she answered: “Yes Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!” Wow! What a great answer! And Jesus said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter”

So in our story, our desperate father begs Jesus to come heal his son. Jesus replies, “Unless you all see signs and wonders you all will not believe”… It’s a message to the Galileans (and to us!)--Jesus isn’t impressed with a ‘signs and wonders’ faith.

Notice, ‘Jesus doesn’t charge the father of the sick child with wanting to see a miracle to legitimize his ministry. His complaint is, rather, that all that moved the man to come to Jesus was Jesus’ miracles: “If I did not perform miracles, you would have no interest in me”, you would not “believe” in me.”14

So even as he’s broadcasting a message to all Galileans, I think Jesus is also testing the official. Will the official persist even having been rebuked (or challenged?) You see Jesus really wants more than to give the son back to the father; he wants to give himself to the father.15

14 Ridderboss, page 17515Ridderboss, page 176; cf 6:27-29

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Verse 49, The official said to him, Sir come down …the begging is over… before my child dies. And notice the ‘son’ has become a ‘child’, a little boy…the word used being a Greek term of endearment. 16

“He urges himself upon Jesus all the more intensely just as Jesus seems to withdraw himself from him.” One scholar suggests that this official is the picture of one who entered the kingdom violently (Luke 16:16; Matt. 11:12)17

“The official does not deny Jesus’ accusation; he simply asks a second time. And this asking, all by itself, is all that Jesus apparently wants—and happily it is what now Jesus gets from the man: not a demand for Jesus’ help, not a proof of merit, but just the original simple—but persistent—asking: ‘Sir please come down before my little boy dies’”18

50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.”…. literally Go, your son is living!

No miracle. No sign. Jesus just asks the official to take the boldest step imaginable. He asks the official to take him at his word. Jesus says, “I know what’s happening twenty miles from here….Your son lives!” “Will you believe my word before you see any verification that what I’m saying is true?”

I think I would have kept bargaining: “You’ve gotta come down to Capernaum. And if you can’t I’ll bring my son here”

But the man didn’t bargain. He believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.

{How do I know I’m going to heaven?How do I know my sins are forgiven?How do I know I’m a child of God? Aren’t we like that official just believing the word that Jesus spoke to us.}

“By reporting this story, John the evangelist is ‘asking’ his readers: May we comparatively ‘hang in there’ with our own simple asking, and asking again if necessary, sustaining the Lord’s

16 Burge, G. M. (2000). John (p. 158). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

17 Ridderboss, page 17618 Bruner, page 289

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seeming frowns and our crisis, and so experience the miracle of trust and perhaps even of healing.”19

The outcome of the story confirms both Jesus’ word and the father’s faith.

51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 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.” ….Yesterday at 1:00pm the fever left him. 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.”

So it seems that the official had started for Cana from Capernaum early in the morning one day, he met with Jesus and Jesus spoke the words “Your son lives” around 1:00pm. And then the official began his trip home to Capernaum, spending the night out on the road so to speak, so that the next day as he continued his journey he intersected his servants.

And he himself believed, and all his household. Notice the story says he believed twice, verse 50 and then here in verse 53. I think the book of John is helping us see that our faith ebbs and flows--that it’s a living thing.

54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

And we take verse 54 to mean this was now the second sign in Galilee. ________________

Some lessons as we close…

1. Jesus wants to be more than our ‘miracle worker’. We honor him when we come to him with “Thou art Worthy” rather than “Thou art Useful” We honor him when we trust him in the midst of storms. We could even say that Jesus recoils from those who only want a miracle but who don’t want Him.

2. A ‘signs and wonders’ faith has the innate danger of being a ‘sunshine’ faith—faith that believes when the going is good but faith that is gone when the going gets tough.20

3. Signs and wonders and miracles don’t guarantee belief.

19 Bruner, page 29020 Bruner, page 289

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During my first semester in seminary a professor told me a remarkable story from his early years as a pastor. A young woman had become critically ill and her prognosis was grim; she would likely die within the year. Her family had a nominal “Easter and Christmas Eve” commitment to the church, so the discussions in the hospital between this young pastor and this family always plowed new ground. The woman challenged him: If Jesus healed in the Bible, he should be able to heal me today. If not, what use was he? So she prayed. The pastor prayed. The whole family prayed—and pleaded and begged and bargained. If God would only show mercy, the family urged, they would completely recommit themselves and come to church every Sunday. This earnest young pastor prayed with all his heart. He refused to join the ranks of those who said, “If it is thy will.” It was God’s will that she be healed, he concluded.

Then to his amazement, God healed her—completely. And with the physicians shaking their heads, she was sent home from the hospital. Next Sunday, the entire family was there in the front pew, dressed and sparkling. The young woman gave her testimony, praising God for his goodness. The following Sunday, the family was there again. In four weeks, it was only the woman and her husband. And after that, attendance was sporadic until they dropped into their previous pattern. Before long, the woman rationalized the entire incident. She had experienced the most dramatic sign God could give her: healing, bathed in prayer and surrounded by the church. But after only two months, its power dimmed to nothing.21

Let us pray.

21 Burge, G. M. (2000). John (pp. 166–167). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

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