What Will It Take To Bring You To Jesus Series

A Study of the Book of John

“That You May Believe”

Sermon # 13

“What Will It Take to Bring You To Jesus?”

John 4:46-4:54

This morning I have constructed a visual model of our lives on this table. The tower on the table (tower made out of dominoes) is a model of your life. On the bottom level are the foundational elements of your life; your parents, your home life, your child rearing. The next level is your wife/husband, your children and your job. The next level is all the additional “things” that make your life what it is. And then one day God removes one of the props and what happens, boom your life is toppled. Why!? Why would God allow this to happen? Is God cruel or just uncaring to allow that to happen? Well it depends. It depends on why God has you here on this Earth in the first place. If God’s purpose to give you a comfortable existence while you’re here on this earth then perhaps it is cruel to allow those kinds of things to happen. However, if God has a grander purpose, if God’s purpose is to make sure that we spend eternity with Him, if God’s purpose is to progressive mold us into the image of His son, then no God is not cruel to do whatever is necessary to bring us to Jesus. So the question this morning is, “What Will It Take To Bring You To Jesus?”

We have spent the last three weeks in our study of John examining the woman of Samaria that Jesus met at the well in Sychar. We saw as the Lord reached out to her with a love that was great enough to reach over all the barriers in her life and lead her to faith in Him as her personal Savior. We looked at what He taught her about worship and we saw how the encounter motivated her to share her experience with others in her circle of influence, the result was that hundreds of Samaritans came to know Jesus as their personal savior.

Now it is time to move on, Jesus now travels back to Galilee where he meets a man whose son is ill. Let’s pick up with the story in John 4 and verse forty six, “So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. (47) When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. (48)Then Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe." (49) The nobleman said to Him, "Sir, come down before my child dies!" (50) Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your son lives." So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. (51) And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, "Your son lives!" (52) Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." (53) So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives." And he himself believed, and his whole household. (54) This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.”

When John says that this is the “second miracle (sign)” (v. 54) he means that it was the second miracle that Jesus did in the Galilee area. The first miracle was associated with a wedding and is a time of festivity and joy, the second miracle is associated with sickness and is a time of anxiety and sorrow. In comparing the two occasions we have to see that life has as much of one as it does the other and that Jesus is needed in both circumstances.

When Jesus turned the water into wine it was a miracle of time, he simply did in a moment what He usually does in a growing season. The healing of the nobleman’s son was a miracle of space; Jesus healed the boy from twenty miles away.

To have our needs met we must take certain steps that are outlined in this story.

First, Desperation Makes Us Willing To Take Our Needs To Jesus (4:47-48)

“When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.”

What do people ordinarily do when difficulties come in their lives? Do people even believer’s start by running to God? No! People trust in all kinds of things rather than God. They will talk to their friends. They will listen to Dr. Phil. They will read a self-help book. If we don’t find the answers we seek, and when we get desperate enough, then prayer; desperate prayers soon follow. Desperation turns the heart toward God. If our need is great enough we will cling to God like a drowning man clings to a rope.