John chapter 4, starting at verse 43. 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. 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. 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. As we come to look at this text, I want you to understand the context in which it falls. John's Gospel has different sections in it, and this passage that we've just read is the end of one of those sections. It's called the Cana cycle, this section. That's what some people call it. And it's because it's bookended by two events that occur in Cana. You might have picked up in the reading that we just had that John wants you to note that Jesus is back in Cana, and he wants you to note that this is the place where Jesus had turned water into wine. He's wanting you to understand the context and the structure of what he's seeking to teach us. Back in chapter 2 of John, this Cana cycle section begins, where Jesus appears in, in Cana. He's celebrating a wedding, and He performs a miracle, makes the water turn into wine. And this miracle is called a sign. And then Jesus goes into the temple in Jerusalem, and He cleanses the temple. And the Jews ask Him there again, using the same word, "What sign do you give us because you do these things?" And so the point is, the Cana cycle starts with signs. Two signs, kind of coupled together, but John really thinks of them as as one main sign, the water turning into wine. And what happens when Jesus performs this sign in Cana of Galilee is his disciples believe. If you have chapter two open, just a couple of pages back in your Bible, you'll see that in verse 11 of chapter two, "This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him." In fact, the sign that that Jesus does, cleansing the temple, also results in a similar thing, although it occurs a little later on. If you see there in verse 22, Jesus cleanses the temple and people don't quite understand what's going on. But John records for us that "when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken." You see Jesus does these signs and as a result, people believe. And then in between the signs at Cana and in the Jerusalem, and the sign that we're about to read about, or or look at together, the sign of of this nobleman's son being restored to life as he's on the brink of death, there are two interactions that Jesus has. He interacts with Nicodemus first in chapter 3, a religious ruler, and then He interacts with the Samaritan adulteress in chapter 4. And in both situations, in both interactions, Jesus is emphasizing the necessity of believing in Him. Nicodemus is told in John chapter 3 verse 15, Jesus says to him, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life." You see that same emphasis? And in Jesus's interactions with the Samaritan woman, which we looked at last week, you might remember that in verse 39, his interactions with her result in many Samaritans of the town believing in Him because of the woman's testimony. And so we have, if you, if you can picture the structure, you've got signs on either end. The first one resulting in different types of, or in his disciples believing. You have Nicodemus, a religious ruler, and the emphasis of Jesus being, "You must believe in Me and receive new life." And with the Samaritan woman, which results in a whole town believing in Jesus. And right in the middle of these two sections, which if if you're following, it's a it's a chiastic structure, right? Two signs on either end, two interactions, and then right in the middle, you expect to see something relevant. Right in the middle, if you see at the end of chapter 3 verse 22 to 36, you'll see a section about John the Baptist speaking about how Jesus is the important one, the bridegroom, the one whom people must believe in, who must, people must follow. And listen to how John the Baptist puts it in verse 33 to 36 of that section. Speaking about Jesus, he says, "Whoever receives His testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For He whom God has sent utters the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." And I want you to notice in in those verses that John is focusing in and getting us to think about how we must believe in the words of Jesus. He says, talks about the testimony of Jesus, and and how Jesus is uttering the words of God, and that we must believe His testimony. Right, believe the words of Jesus. In verse 36, he says that we must believe in Jesus Himself, not just His words, but in Him as a person. And then in verse 36, he also connects this to obeying Jesus. In the negative, he says, "Do not, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life." So there's this this combination, this package of what John is seeking us to do with Jesus. Believe Him, believe in Him as a person, entrust ourselves to Him, believe His words, and obey Him. And it is these actions that result in eternal life. That's that's the whole point of this section. And so as we come to the last section of the Cana cycle, John is building up on this argument, on this picture. And he's going to show us now what it means to believe in Jesus, to believe in His words, and to obey Him so that we might have eternal life. He's going to give us a a vivid picture of what the Christian life is all about. So today really is a very practical lesson for us. What does it mean to live the Christian life? What does it mean to entrust ourselves to Jesus, to believe His words and to obey Him? What does that look like? Well, let's look at our passage and find out. Here, we start off with a nobleman in verse 46. In Capernaum, there's an official whose son was ill. Now, Capernaum's like 20-odd miles from Cana. And so this nobleman has heard about the things that Jesus has done in Cana probably, and he's heard about the things that Jesus has done in Jerusalem, and he's heard that Jesus has come back to Galilee specifically to the village of Cana. And he's 20 miles away, and he thinks to himself, "I've got a sick son who's dying. I know what I need to do. I need to go and see this Jesus and I need to bring him back and have him heal my son." And the way that this man is presented to us is a picture of a man in desperate need. You might you can get the feel of it in the English, but in the Greek, it comes across as well with more potency. But when he comes down to Jesus in in Galilee in verse 47, and asks Him to come and heal his son, he's begging. He's repeatedly begging and desperate for Jesus to heal his son. And then we have Jesus do something that feels very odd. You know, what what would you do if you had a noble, a a rich man, a nobleman, come and ask you, "Come down and heal my son"? Would you give him a straight answer? Perhaps, either yes or no might be helpful. No, Jesus doesn't do that. He says, "Unless you," and He's speaking in the plural, "unless you guys see signs and wonders, you will not believe." What kind of answer is that? What is Jesus doing there? Well, I think he's starting to draw us out into understanding what it means to follow him properly. Because what we see as we've read through the Cana cycle is that there is a type of belief that is not going to result in eternal life. You see it back at the end of chapter two. After Jesus's first two signs, turning water into wine and the cleansing of the temple, you'll see in verse 23 and 25 these words: "Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in His name." Hey, that's a good thing. Many believed in His name, "when they saw the signs that He was doing. 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." And I think what's happening there, and we we see this by the end of the gospels, don't we? That despite, throughout the, despite the fact that throughout the gospels we have thousands of people believing in Jesus when they see the signs, what do we find at the end of the gospels? We find Jesus alone in a garden with 11 men and then abandoned completely. And we see at the beginning of the book of Acts that sure, we can grant that the disciples were scared, they ran away, they were still faithful-ish to Jesus, they still had a genuine belief in Him. And so at the book, in the book of Acts, at the beginning of the church, we see maybe 120 people. These were like the faithful few that even after Jesus had died, even after they'd all run away from Him, they were still hopeful, they were still gathering together after He's raised from the dead. Where were the 5,000 who had seemed to want to crown Him king as He fed the 5,000 on on the the shore of Galilee? Where were these people who were in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, who'd seen Him cleanse the temple and had believed in Him? Where were they? Nowhere to be seen. Why? Because they had a belief that was not going to save them. They thought Jesus is a great man. They thought Jesus is a great prophet. They thought Jesus had great powers. They thought all these different things about Jesus to the point where they could say they believed in His name. But it was too connected to these signs and wonders. It seems, if I'm reading this correctly, that there's this desire in us to to have Jesus prove Himself before we entrust ourselves to Him that Jesus is not a fan of. That's why he's kind of saying here in in this passage in in John 4, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." He's testing the water. He's testing this man. What are you going to do, nobleman? Are you going to be like those who saw the signs and believed, who are going to abandon me one day? I'm not going to entrust myself to them. Or are you going to be different to them? Let's see what happens next. The man is is undeterred by this kind of rebuffing, strange comment from Jesus, and he just continues to beg. "Sir, come down before my child dies." And notice this man is not asking Jesus just to heal his son, he's, he's worked out himself how Jesus is going to do this. "Jesus, the way I need you to do this is I need you to come with me to my son and heal him." Jesus then says, "Go. Your son will live." Go. Your son will live. What's this man going to do? Has he seen any signs and wonders? Has he seen Jesus do anything? No. All he has had from Jesus is His word. "Go, your son will live." And a command, right? "Go." It's a command. "Be gone from here. Your son will live." And John records for us a remarkable thing in this nobleman. He says, "The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way." That's incredible. You know, Jesus has has pointed out, "Guys, I I think you're too tied to these signs and wonders things. You want to see proof before you'll entrust yourself to me." And then he tests this nobleman, and he gives him his word and only his word, and tells him, "Go on your way. Trust me. Trust my word. Obey me." And the man does. I'm I'm wondering what's going through this guy's head. He's got a 20-mile trek back to his his home. Is he walking along? Is it, are there any doubts running through his head? Or is he just absolutely certain? I think, I think what we see in this passage is that there's an element of faith going on here, but I think we could allow that there's more to be had down the track. Because what happens next is as he's heading back to his town, one of his servants comes to him and says, "Master, your son's been made well." And he says, "Well, when was he made well?" "Well, yesterday at the seventh hour," which is amazing. He's been overnight. What a what a, I wonder what kind of night he had. He's been overnight, heading over back home, and he realizes it was at the exact time that Jesus said, "Your son will live," that his son recovered from his illness. And then John records for us, look there in verse 53, at the end of that verse, "he himself believed, and all his household." But didn't he just already believe? Why are we being told again that he believed? I think this is like a rubber stamping, a confirmation, a more solid emphasis on his belief. Because in reality, this man actually believed in Jesus all the way at the start of his story. Why would he have come to Jesus unless he had a little bit of faith in the first place? He knew that Jesus was the man who could fulfill his need. He knew that Jesus was a man who could recover his son from the brink of death. And so he comes to Jesus. That's an act of faith, of of faith with no sign, no wonder to to drive it. He's simply going to Jesus with nothing in his hands and no proof that Jesus has given. And then he has another level of faith where he actually leaves Jesus, trusting His word. And then we have an even more solid faith when he sees Jesus come through, when he sees Jesus fulfill what He said He would do. This I want to argue is the example we are given of faith. This is the sort of faith that Jesus calls us to. It's a faith that comes to Him, that believes His word, acts on the basis of His word, and then receives the promise. You follow that? Jesus calls us to a faith that comes to Him, hears His word and believes it, acts on the basis of His word and His word alone, and then receives the promise. What do we usually want? We usually want to receive the promise, then come to Jesus, then believe His word, then act, right? But that's not the way that this is structured, and I think that the framing of this entire section of John's gospel is pushing us to the point where we should recognize that this is the sort of faith Jesus wants to see. Now it's not that Jesus refuses to ever give signs. He's given several signs already throughout the book of John, and He will even condescend to one of His disciples, Thomas, later on in John's gospel, in chapter 20. When Thomas says, "I will not believe unless I can touch the wounds in the savior's, in in Jesus's hands and put my hand into His side," Jesus turns up to him and says, "Here, do it. Believe on the basis of this proof." But then Jesus says to him, "Have you believed because you've seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Can you hear the emphasis again? You you might lead a life where Jesus does prove Himself to you in order to arouse faith in your heart. That's entirely possible. It's not promised though. It's not what Jesus calls you to, though. If that is your experience, it's Jesus condescending to give you something that He never promises to give. What He does promise is to fulfill His word. What He does promise is to satisfy those who believe and act on the basis of His word and His word alone. The question for us today is, do we live like that? Do we know what it is to believe in Jesus like this man did? And I want you to see yourself at any point in this story. Perhaps you're in the early stages of faith where you just understand that you have a need, and you've heard about this Jesus guy and you think maybe he can fulfill what I need. You know, I'm I'm full of guilt, I'm full of shame. I need someone to to give me cleansing and forgiveness. I've heard about this Jesus guy, maybe, maybe he can. And so you've come along to church to find out, can Jesus do this? Or maybe you've you've been like the the writer of Ecclesiastes and you've sought after all the pleasures of this world and you've tried to satisfy the longings of your soul, and you've found emptiness and dryness and it all crumbling to dust in your hands. And you hear about this Jesus guy and you think, "Hey, maybe He is the answer. Maybe He's what my soul is built for." And so you've come along to church to find out. Well, that's right at the beginning of this story. That's what this man was like. And it's a good step. And then you might be thinking, "Well, what comes next?" Well, what comes next is desperation. What comes next is actually asking. What comes next is approaching Jesus and saying, "Jesus, can you forgive me? Jesus, can you satisfy my soul?" And then perhaps you're a another stage, maybe you're at a stage where you have now heard His answer. And what's His answer? His answer is, "Read my word. Hear my word. Listen to my promises. Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. All who come to me, I will save and I will by no means cast them out. Anyone who confesses their sin and calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Come to me, and I will give you living water, and it will well up inside of you and become a spring of living water to eternal life." And you could go on and on and on with the promises and the words of Jesus Christ. Maybe that's where you're at. And you, you know, when when I was growing up in a Christian home, I got to the point where I understood all of this. I understood exactly my need. I understood my, I I'd called on Jesus. I understood His word. I knew he said, "If you trust me, I will save you." And then I felt like, "Now I want to feel saved. Now I want to receive the promise." And I never did. Because of this very fact, because the belief that Jesus desires us to have and requires of us is a belief that acts on the basis of His word, not on the basis of us receiving the fulfillment of His word that we that we're so desiring to have. And so I realized, "I actually just need to trust Him. I need to follow Him. I need to live in the light of what His word says and know that I am forgiven because I've placed my trust in Him, not because I've felt different." And then, some time later, I received some of that experience of knowing what it is to be saved. But that was the order. I'm not saying that's always the order, I'm saying that's the order you can expect. I'm saying that's the order, the paradigmatic order if you like, the natural order that Jesus requires of His people. Sense your need, call on Him, hear His word, obey on the basis of His word and His word alone, and then receive the promise. Now this this behavior of Jesus might seem odd. This this requirement, this desire of Jesus to have this kind of faith might seem strange to you. You know, just wants you to take him at His word with no tangible proof in your life. But it's not unreasonable at all when you understand who Jesus is. You know, if you read the gospels, you'll find that Jesus is trustworthy. That that's one of the main themes that that the gospels want you to understand. That this Jesus who speaks things, speaks promises, and then requires action on the basis of His word before you receive fulfillment, is the sort of man who delivers on his promises. Here in our story, we see it. The nobleman takes Jesus at His word, leaves Jesus, heads home, and finds that his son is made well. As Jesus is delivering on his promises, and you'll find that time and time and time again all through the gospels, and the reality is that you'll find that all through the life of Christians. If you're a believer here today, have you seen that in your life? Think back on on the times when you've felt like it's darkness around you, you can't quite see the way and you've read Jesus's words, you've cried out to Him, and He said, "This," in His word, and you've gone, "Okay, I've got to act on the basis of His word, even though my circumstances feel no different." And has He pulled through? I'm seeing a lot of nods. That's right. That's what the the hymn writer knew to be true. We sang it earlier, "‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus." And the verse goes, "Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I've proved Him o'er and o'er." It's speaking about this. We know from our own experience if you're a believer, what it means to trust Jesus and His word and find Him to be proven true. But the other reason this is not an unreasonable request from Jesus is that His words really do give life. He really does speak words of life. John, as he writes his gospel, wants people to believe two things. He wants them to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that is God taken on flesh, become a man, and he wants them to believe that Jesus's words are true. His words are not empty words, and His power is not an empty power. That's the point, I think. That Jesus is God incarnate, that He has all the power within Him and all the authority within Him of God Himself, of the creator of heaven and earth. That His words quite literally spoke this creation into being. And so when He speaks to us, He speaks words that are true. He speaks words that have power, and He speaks words that align with the reality of the world that He's made. We might come back to that in a moment. But his disciples understood this, as we'll see later when we get to John 6, and Jesus has all these people leave Him and He says to His disciples, "Are you going to leave me too?" And Peter understands precisely this issue. He says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God." You see those two things there? You are God incarnate. You are the Holy One of God, and your words are words that are life-giving words. Now, this this whole concept is quite literally the Christian life. It's one way you could boil down the Christian life. There's many different ways you could boil down the Christian life, but this is one of them. Believing in God, in God's words, and acting on the basis of those words. This is what salvation requires. If you are here today and you're not a believer in Jesus, if you're not a Christian, this is what it means to be a Christian. This is how you become a Christian. You sense your need, and if you are not in Jesus, if you are not living in faith by faith in Him, you have a great need. You are a sinner condemned under judgment, righteously so. And you will face that judgment when Jesus comes again. But Jesus says, "Come to me." He says, "Come to me and ask. Beg if you need, become desperate to receive what I can give you: forgiveness. Free and full forgiveness. Payment for your debt." As we've seen in the supper, He took it upon Himself, the guilt that we carry, the wrath that we deserve, when His body was broken and His blood was shed as He bore the awful weight of sin. And then He says, "Believe on my name and you will be saved. Believe in my sacrifice and you will be saved. Entrust yourself to me and you will be saved." And then He says, "Live. Live in the light of what I have declared to you in my word." Again, there's no promise that this changes immediately your experience or your feelings. Christianity is fundamentally about trusting God's word, believing it. Although He does promise an experience, it's just not then. He does promise that when He forgives you and cleanses you, He will bring you into fellowship and communion with Himself and with His father. That He will give you this eternal life that we've spoken of over previous weeks. But you will enter into that one day. And actually, all of us here who are believers are living in in this state of suspense where we know in the core of our being that we have been saved from death, and we yet we know that we're going to die. Isn't that a strange thing? Why, why why do we live like that? Because we live on the basis of His word, trusting that He will bring about the ultimate fulfillment of that down the track when He returns at the resurrection. And yes, we might have small experiences of it here in this life, even glorious experiences, but we will never experience the fullness of it until He brings that about when He returns. And so this is the path of sanctification as well. This is what it means to walk as a Christian as well. It's not just how you become a Christian, this is what it means to live as a Christian. You could think about this in terms of trials or you could think about it in terms of temptations. Let's just think in terms of temptations this morning. The words of Jesus are life-giving words. They're words, as I mentioned, that come from the creator of this world, that come from all of His power and His might, but also words that are in line with the way that this world actually works. What sin seeks to tell us is that what we feel is the way this world works. Okay? When we when we face temptation, we want to lie or we want to get angry unreasonably with people, or we want to follow after our lusts or our greed, what our heart is telling us is, "If I do this, I will have life, or I will be satisfied, or I will find joy. If I unleash my anger on my family because I'm tired and they're being annoying, that will bring me joy, that will bring me satisfaction." That's what sin is telling us. We usually don't stop to think about that, we just act on the basis of our feeling, but that is actually what it's saying. Jesus's words say, "If you hate a man in his heart, you have murdered him and you are liable to judgment." And so he's saying, "Deny yourself, deny your feelings in that moment, and live purely on the basis of what my word says, which is that life means to deny your anger and to love even when you're faced with something that may appear unlovely. And we are called then to obey, to live in the light of that word." It sounds really simple, but I think it's quite a helpful framework to think through in terms of temptation. Next time you're tempted, just stop and think, "Now, Jesus's words are life. The desires of my heart, if they're sinful, are death. Even though everything in me says go this way, Jesus says go that way, and I'm going to trust Him." And what you will find is that even though denying yourself in that moment feels like dying, actually, it's the pathway to life. Actually, it's the pathway to joy. It's the pathway to peace. Have you experienced that, Christians? If you're anything like me, you're probably thinking far too often, far too frequent, infrequently I should say. I need to experience it more. Too often, I'm listening to my heart, listening to my own sinful desires, and thinking that, "Yep, I'll go and get life down there." But no, that's not how it works. You know, when God commands people to do something, He's not commanding something that will hurt them. He's commanding something that will benefit them. He's commanding something that's in line with how he's made us and how he's made the world. The point is God's commands are life. They they are good for us. That's why when when Moses gives the law at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy chapter 32, he says this, "Take to heart all the words by which I'm warning you today that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law, for it is no empty word for you, but your very life. And by this word, you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess." Moses says that about what Paul calls the ministry of condemnation, the law in the Old Testament. And so how much more is this law life to us when it's transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ? When you don't just have commands that are life that we struggle and fail to meet, but you have alongside it mercy and love and forgiveness that cleanses from all unrighteousness at the same time. The challenge for us this morning is this: do you believe that the words of God and the words of Jesus Christ are something that is worth building your life on? Are something that you can build your life on, or something that you should build your life on? Can you take Jesus at his word? Not just when it's easy, not just when it's obvious as to its benefits for you, but even when you can't see the fulfillment of his promised yet. This is the continual and one of the most crucial questions of the Christian life. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, O for grace to trust Him more. I'll leave you with this this quote from a pastor named Alexander Maclaren, which captures something of what we've been speaking of. He says, "The way to increase faith is to exercise faith. And the true parent of perfect faith is the experience of the blessings that come from the crudest, rudest, narrowest, blindest, feeblest faith that a man can exercise. Trust Him as you can. Do not be afraid of inadequate conceptions or of a feeble grasp. Trust Him as you can, and He will give you so much more than you expected that you will trust Him more." I think that's what we see in the nobleman, and I pray that's what we'll see in ourselves. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we...