(038) The Gospel of John X: Desiring God, not Gifts
The Gospel of John X:
Desiring God, not Gifts
John 4:43-54
July 13, 2008
Prep:
· Grief observed, Nowen, Newbigin
· Sermons: Apologetics, leftovers
Opening: Join us next Sunday, time of community.
Prayer
· Walkers and Stones: New marriages
· Raymond: Health
· Camping trip: Happy work of building community, that it be a benefit even to those unable to attend.
God the vending machine
Q Have you even bargained with God?
Earliest time I remember was when we got in a car accident on our way to inner tubing at Hurricane Ridge.
· Talking to my mom, she says that God protected us, but all I cared about missing the sledding.
Q How often do we come to God as a vending machine?
Q Are we more interested in him or what he gives us?
Mixed motives
In today’s passage we’ll meet a man like us. He’s desperate for a miracle, and he is a mixture of good motives and bad. He comes to God for the wrong reasons, yet demonstrates genuine faith.
· He will be an example of both of what to do and not to do.
John 4:43 - 54 43 ¶ After the two days [in Samaria] he left for Galilee. 44 (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) 45 When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, for they also had been there.
“No honor” foreshadows Jesus’ difficult relationship with his own people. Even though they initially “welcomed” him, it was for the wrong reasons, and thing would turn sour.
· Like the seed on shallow soil, their welcome was short lived.
46 ¶ Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.
· Capernaum was about a day’s walk away.
· This story is similar to another with a Roman centurion.
47 When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. 48 “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
On the surface, this seems pretty harsh. The guy just wants this son healed. We would do anything to see our children healed. But notice he’s only interested in his son’s health, not Jesus.
· Royal official means he work for King Herod, a godless man.
He has no interest in Jesus as the Messiah, only as a miracle worker. Likewise, the crowd just wants to see a cool show.
· Jesus addressing their motives: They didn’t want God, they wanted a magic genie.
Faithful Samaritans
This stands in stark contrast to the Samaritans from last week, who welcomed him for his own sake, as savior.
John 4:42 42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Q How many miracles convinced them Jesus was savior?
One. Once they understood that he was a prophet, they gladly followed him. They were outcasts and stood in clear knowledge of their desperate need for a savior.
Q How many miracles would have it taken for his own people?
· It never would have been enough – they had already seen some.
It’s easy to think if God just did some great show, people would flock, but miracles themselves cannot change a hardened heart.
· Killing Lazarus and Peter’ passage (healed physically, only).
Miracles can be dismissed as coincidence, accepted without any life change, or otherwise ignored. If we don’t want God to exist, nothing can convince us otherwise.
Desiring God
That’s not to say we don’t desire and earnestly pray for God’s supernatural hand. It is not wrong to bring all of our needs and concerns to him, in fact he desires it and even commands it:
Philippians 4:6 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
But our first desire must be him. The whole purpose for prayer is to draw us closer to him, to make us desire him more, to trust him more, and need him more, and see his glory more.
· No one wants to be wanted only for what they give.
· You hear frustration in Jesus voice: “I am here to offer you eternal life and myself, but all you want is a magic show.”
We will always have mixed motives, just like a kid tearing through a birthday card from grandma looking for money.
But hopefully, on some level, our prayers will be more fueled by a desire for God than for what he gives us, to see his glory more than his gifts.
Ä Sooner or later, we’ll be tested when God disappoints us.
Shadowlands/A Grief Observed
I am reluctant to speak of this, because I have not suffered truly deep pain, but I know that many fathers have prayed with all the earnestness of this official, but their children died.
· When we are disappointed by God, we are forced to ask, “Do I only believe in God when I see miracles?”
This week we watched “Shadowlands,” and we see C. S. Lewis struggle with God’s goodness in light of his wife’s death. In his book “A Grief Observed” he accuses God of being a sadist.
· The struggle came down to trusting God’s motives even if the pain did not make sense.
Oswald Chambers: “Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.”
Ä So our “royal official” is a poor example of seeking Jesus for his own sake, but even still there is something admirable.
49 The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word [lit. believe his word] and departed.
So even though he was looking to God for what he could get, I admire his persistence and faith.
Persistence: I think that while Jesus was rebuking the crowd, he was also testing this man. Several times in the Bible we see him initially saying no, then yielding.
Faith: But even better than that, he believed and obeyed. This was a true test of faith.
· Long distance miracles were rare, even by great OT prophets.
This is where our guy is different than the crowd: They need to see miracles to believe, he only needed to hear Jesus word. He obeyed without seeing.
· Faith is believing God and acting upon it, even if you can’t see it.
Reformers definition of Faith: It needs knowledge, acceptance, and trust (living as if it were true).
· Faith it like crossing a rope bridge across a deep canyon.
Ä In this we should emulate this man: Trusting Jesus until his faith was made sight.
51 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. 52 When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.” 53 Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and all his household believed. 54 This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.
The story has a happy ending, but we have no assurance that it will always be so. But that is because our definition of happy ending is different than God’s.
We want comfort, ease, and blessing, God wants faithful people who trust him and love him. God does not want us happy, he wants us holy.
· Accordingly, if our faith in God is based on what he will do for us, it will fail.
Ultimately, it will come down to two things: Do we want God more than the gifts he gives and do we trust him to do what is best?
· If we desire him above all else, we find that his desire will always be to take care of us as a good father.
Prayer:
Help us see you as the highest prize worth having, your glory more worthwhile than everything else.
· I feel as if I am only just beginning to want you, help that abound more and more in each of us.