What Will It Take For Belief?

It’s about who you know

Throughout our journey in this life, we cross paths with others who have extraordinary opportunities. It helps me too often think of life as a journey, walking on a particular path, that winds up, down, and all around throughout the course of our lives. Then our path widens as others join us for a season and then our paths diverge.

Family:

My parents and their experience at Club 33: Club 33 is a secret five-star restaurant that the regular public cannot access. There are only two ways to get into Club 33: being an exclusive member, or being invited by one. Membership costs up to $100,000 annually, with a reported $12,500 to $30,000 in additional annual fees.

School: I’ve gotten to know some people while we were in our formative years and now they are chart topping artists, television personalities, reality show contestants, and the like.

There is temptation to name drop and build up my own reputation because of who I know, who I’ve been in relationship with, and somehow that gives me more importance or value. “Oooohhh… he knows so and so”

This morning as we look at our text (John 4:43-46), Jesus desires us to enter relationship for who He is, not merely for what He can do. He brings the Kingdom of God with Him (healing, wholeness, peace, joy, love), but the desire is that we would love and know Him for who He is, not just what He can do.

If you have your Bibles, or on your devices, would you turn to John 4:43, and if you are able, please stand as I read God’s word this morning.... Let’s pray… You may be seated.

Samaria

In chapter 4 we find the conversation of Jesus and this woman at Jacob’s well in Samaria, at Sychar. Jesus invited her to drink deeply from the water that resides in Him alone.

To stop going to those places that don’t satisfy (J**ny’s example)

To go to the one that does satisfy and that from Him we find light and understanding

To go to the one that knows us and loves us deeply (often knowledge separates us from others)

That the work of God is plentiful and the harvest is all around us

Many “believed” because of what He was speaking to them (we saw this idea played out between John & Nicodemus)

There is a declarative statement “we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” (vs 42)

John the apostle sets us up for what is about to happen next. He gives us a clue as we look at John 4:43-45 “After the two days he departed 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.”

At first blush, John’s commentary in vs.44 can seem contradictory to vs.45. What John is establishing is that the welcome is based on what Jesus can do, not what we just saw in Samaria, where they believed His words.

Now there was something that happened in Jerusalem at one of the feasts that we are not told about in John’s gospel. It’s not relevant to the story only in that the “miracle worker” is back in town (from the people’s perspective). Jesus is rightly concerned that that the welcome in Galilee is superficial.

Don’t we see this in our culture today? People are lauded and applauded to the degree they meet a need. That is superficial. That is the lie of celebrity and fame. We see this in sports teams. An athlete benefits the team, the team props up the athlete and celebrates them, as soon as they are hurt, old (no longer performing), or a liability, they cut ties and “wish them the best”.

Maybe you have experienced that at work. Maybe you experienced that with friends, or those who you thought were friends. Worse, yet, when family or those who know you intimately.

Isn’t it a source of joy to know that God loves you and desires you… and you can add nothing to Him. He is holy and self-sufficient… we can not hold Him up or bring Him down… and unlike any other fabrication of man, God stands and says, “I love you… and I will show you I love you by sending my Son whom will cleanse you of sin that we might have relationship. If you follow me, giving me your allegiance, then you will have life and life abundantly. You were created for Me.”

Cana

It is thought that a Roman official is in Capernaum and his son fell ill. So he heard that Jesus was near by and sought Him out. We see the interaction between Jesus and the man… it does seem as though that Jesus is speaking more than to this man but to the group at large who were no doubt around them.

John 4:47-54 “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. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 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.” 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. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.”

John the disciple tells us this is the second sign… let me remind us of the purpose he’s telling us as we will read later John 20:30-31 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

As we think about these signs that John is cluing us into… we saw the first one in chapter 2 of turning the water to wine… people begin to get fixated on the signs rather than the object the signs are pointing to.

NT Wright (author, theologian, priest); “It’s almost as though, while we’re running the treasure hunt, we discover that several of the competitors have become more interested in the clues for their own sake than in following them and discovering the treasure. After all, the clues have been written in clever little rhymes; some of the participants seem to be keen on poems, so they are reading them to each other in appreciation, forgetting that the point of them is to lead them towards the actual goal.

Or, to change the picture, imagine a town planner designing a new set of road signs to get people round the streets in the quickest and easiest fashion. The town is old, famous and beautiful, and nothing but very fine and well-designed signs will do for such a setting. But when the signs are put up, you discover that everyone is stopping and getting out of their cars to stand and admire the signs. Instead of the traffic flowing smoothly by, it’s getting clogged up worse than before.

Let’s put it yet another way, this time in terms of the big picture which John is showing us. The Word has become flesh. But supposing people admire the flesh so much that they forget about the Word?”1

1 Wright, T. (2004). John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 (pp. 51–52). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

This still happens today. We’re often missing it.

Jonathan Martin (pastor, theologian, fierce lover of Jesus) wrote this:

"The average Christian in the world right now is an African or Latin American female in her early 20’s. She doesn’t read our blogs and she doesn’t read Christianity Today. She doesn’t know or care who I am and she never will. The names Piper, Driscoll, Chan, Bell, Stanley, Warren (MacArthur)—mean nothing to her. Like most Pentecostal women coming into the kingdom around the world, words like “complementarian” and “egalitarian” are not in her vocabulary, nor Calvinism and Arminianism.

Unlike some of my brothers would lead you believe (where their lunch table is the only one that cares about Scripture and THE GOSPEL while anybody who believes differently from them in these tired conversations are flaming liberals), she takes the authority of the Bible very seriously. But more importantly, she believes in the power of the Bible in ways that are incomprehensible even for our most rabid “conservatives.”

The western filter and language that frames these issues will not be determinative for her, unlucky as she is not to read our blogs. She may well end up leading a church one day where she preaches Jesus like a woman on fire and lays hands on the sick and watches God heal them, though this will surprise those Reformed colleagues who are sure all female church leaders have been trained by godless-Unitarian-lesbian-leftist-radical feminist-seminarians (she didn’t have access to seminary at all–unfortunately she has read the Acts of the Apostles). Who knew?”

The world has moved on, God has moved on, and we didn’t even notice." - Jonathan Martin

(Think through more) There is a church tendency that is fighting over the secondary issues (focused on the signs) while there is a world to be loved and told about Jesus. We’re collectively missing Jesus. Churches are growing as they are engaging in the culture war (right now its the vaccine, vaccine mandates… before it was election, freedom, and America’s greatness… before that it was the rights of LGBTQ+… on and on… as if somehow we can control culture… the church on record tends to be 4-5yrs behind). I have a theory… it is simplistic (and therefore might be dismissed), but if we love those around us, share the hope of the love that we have encountered ourselves, invite others into that, that action is what changes a culture and a people.

People are leaving one church to go to another that fits their notion of the church vs. the world. The churches are growing the leaders are going… “Wow, God is blessing” but its not new growth, its transfer growth of disgruntled people. We’re missing Jesus.

Kitsap

How will we respond. We are no longer at the epicenter of the movement of the church. There is a continual clamoring for Christendom, which means that the political power should enforce our understanding of morality and power. I hope you will join the TED Talk this afternoon where Pastor Josh leads us through church history and shows us how this never works or happens. Not until Jesus rules and reigns will we see the complete fulfillment of it.

The power we often seek is corrupted and much like those who don’t know Jesus… listen to what Jesus told His followers, Matthew 20:20-28 “Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

I haven’t fully worked this out yet, but there is difference in how power is used. Jesus wielded power to influence and lead people to see what life was intended to be like (in relationship with God). Often times when we wield power it is to control behavior. Behavior is a window into the heart but it is not the heart itself. Insecurities come out when we have power. The more insecure we are, the more heavy handed, controlling, manipulative, the leader.

Our influence, power, areas of responsibility as a follower of Jesus is intended to serve and lay our lives down in service to the King of Kings. Not the kings of this planet, not the rulers, or those who seek power for their own interest.

The distinction between believing because we’ve seen something and believing on the the strength of Jesus’ words is a pressing question that is weaved through out the gospel. Culminating in Jesus’ words to Thomas after the resurrection, John 20:29 “Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.””

Our invitation is not to give our lives to an abstract idea, nebulous feeling, or spiritual experience. We are invited to believe in the Word of God, the Word become Flesh. “Genuine faith is always seeking the Word hidden in the flesh, not using the Word simply as a way of getting at the flesh.” -NT Wright

When the world is embraced by God in his love, this happens so that we who live in the present world, dark and corrupt as it now is, may learn to love in return the God who has loved us.

Let the clues lead you to the treasure. Let the signs lead you out of the traffic jam. Let the flesh lead you to the Word. Hear, and believe.

Wright, T. (2004). John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 (p. 54). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Gospel presentation

End of Service

Would you stand with me.

If you would like prayer this morning, there will be those here to pray for and with you.

Come, if God is moving in your heart and you want to surrender your life to Him maybe in areas that you haven’t yet.