Picture # 5: Growth in Jesus as we trust the Promises found in His Word.
Jesus heals the Official’s Son: John 4:43-54
This is the second miracle Jesus performed in His public ministry!
John alone records this miracle.
I know what it’s like to wait desperately while a loved one’s life is in jeopardy.
Several years ago Wanda and I had a cousin who was riding a 4 wheeler, and he pulled out into a paved road head-on into the way of a pickup truck.
He was rushed to Medical University Hospital in Charleston, SC, placed on life support, and hung by a thread for his life for several days.
Ryan didn’t survive his accident, and sadly we buried him at the young age of 11.
The royal official from King Herod’s court in our text had a son whose life was hanging by a thread.
Jesus is his only hope and he rushed the 20 miles from Capernaum where he lives, to Cana of Galilee, where he has heard that Jesus, a miracle worker, can be found.
That’s approximately an 8 hour journey.
Jesus is becoming very popular and He’s attracting a following since He performed His first miracle that turned the water into wine.
Jesus Himself says that it’s hard to gain acceptance and recognition in one’s own home town, but if you make a hit somewhere else and then come back home, people see you in an entirely different light.
Luke said in the 4th chapter of his Gospel, verses 28, 29, & 30 that “all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard…” Jesus identify Himself as the Messiah.
Jesus had been teaching in the synagogue in His home town of Nazareth, and when He identified Himself as the Messiah, “…they got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him down the cliff, but He walked right through the crowd and went on His way.”
That’s symbolic of the fact that Jesus separated His ministry from the ministry of organized religion at the very beginning, for He was not bound by organized religion, since His obedience was in perfect allegiance and harmony with the Father.
Now they welcomed Him because they had seen His first miracle, or at least heard about how He had turned water into wine.
Here, back in Cana, a royal official hears that Jesus is once again at Cana.
The official’s son is at the point of death, and his father is desperate, as anyone would be who would be in his predicament.
So, Jesus says to him, “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,…you will never believe” (verse 48).
What is a sign?
Remember, that a sign is not the actual place, but the sign points to the actual place.
All the miracles Jesus performed pointed to Him that we might believe in Him (John 20:31).
“You people” in verse 48 is plural, so we see that Jesus is speaking to a larger audience; perhaps He’s speaking to the entire world and to us who are living today.
Perhaps we really want to see miracles, exciting signs, and supernatural events, before we are prepared to believe who Jesus is.
Tens of thousands of people hunt the meetings of faith healers because they want to see these people achieve the transformation of healing a cripple or open the eyes of the blind.
Many people hunt out these religious racketeers and are willing to give millions of dollars to them to see them perform.
But this father is too desperate to discuss anything like that with Jesus.
The official says to Jesus, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.”
For, at first he believed that Jesus must come with him to his hometown to perform a miracle for his little boy.
We can see the agony in his words as he pleads with Jesus.
He has a certain kind of faith, a belief that Jesus is some type of miracle worker, but his faith is a low level faith at this point in our picture.
Now, see what Jesus tells him, “You may go. Your son will live”(verse 50).
What the Greek says is, “Your son is living; he lives.”
Jesus gave this desperate father an opportunity to believe at a higher level of faith; no longer believing on what Jesus could do, in performing miracles, but now he could believe on who Jesus was.
According to John, the official took Jesus at His Word and went his way.
When he took Jesus at His Word, he wasn’t even in a hurry to get back home, for the Bible says it was the next day before he made his way back to Capernaum (verse 52).
Oh, I want to ask you, "Have you taken Jesus at His Word?"
If you have, you will obey His Word.
“Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path”(Psalm 119:105).
Have you ever come to Jesus with a request, perhaps out of desperation, like this man?
Have you had a need that was burning in your heart, and you had no answer to that desperate need?
We all do this, don’t we?
“The man took Jesus at His Word…”, and the Word is Life!
The first miracle of Jesus changing the water into wine “revealed His glory”, and this miracle of personal salvation causes us to place our faith in Christ(John 2:11).
Then, what comes naturally is this second miracle that God works in our lives when we trust God enough that we are willing to take Him at His Word.
While the official was still on his way back to his home town of Capernaum, his servants met him with the news that his little boy was living.
He asked them about the exact time of day when his little boy got better, and they told him that “the fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.”
The official had taken Jesus at His word at exactly the 7th hour the previous day when Jesus told him “You may go, your son lives.”
There’s the # 7 again.
Folks, it’s a perfect number, a number of completion.
When God created the world and said "it was very good", He rested in His completion on the seventh day.
Read Hebrews 12:1-2.
Jesus is the Originator and the Completer of our faith.
God often brings adversity into our lives, adversity beyond our ability to handle, so that we must come to Him as our only hope, so that we must trust in Him and Him alone.
If you can identify with this, it may be the gracious hand of God, compelling you to come to Him in faith and take Him completely at His Word.
For, we are the little boy, the official’s son, whom Jesus heals.
Before we knew Him, we were in desperate need of His healing, like the little boy, the son of the official.
When we come to Jesus by faith, believing, trusting, leaning, and yielding to Him, it’s always the 7th hour in our lives, an hour of completion in our hearts and souls.
When it comes to maturing in your Christian faith, just take Jesus at His Word.
I pray that this candid snapshot # 5 has encouraged you in your faith and has spoken to your situation today, so that you have renewed trust and a renewed sense that you know what you’re doing in your life, strengthened by your faith in the process.
Rev. Jimmy Davis
Bayview Baptist Church
5300 Two Notch Road
Columbia, SC 29204
Telephone: 803-754-8690
Email: BayviewBaptist@aol.com
