John 4:46-54 – How to Grow Your Faith
We are continuing our series on The Life of Jesus, looking at snapshots of what He did and what He said at different points of His 3 year ministry. Today we are in John 4:46-54 (p.753). Today we are looking at the question, how do you grow your faith? Let’s read.
Maybe you’ve heard the story of the farmer who purchased an old, run-down, abandoned farm with plans to turn it into a thriving enterprise. The fields were grown over with weeds, the farmhouse was falling apart, and the fences were broken down. During his first day of work, the town preacher stops by to bless the man’s work, saying, "May you and God work together to make this the farm of your dreams!"
A few months later, the preacher stopped by again to call on the farmer. Lo and behold, it was a completely different place. The farm house was completely rebuilt and in excellent condition, there was plenty of cattle and other livestock happily munching on feed in well-fenced pens, and the fields were filled with crops planted in neat rows. "Amazing!" the preacher said. "Look what God and you have accomplished together!"
"Yes, reverend," said the farmer, "but remember what the farm was like when God was working it alone!"
That is what growth is like. God could grow your faith without any help from you at all, but He chooses not to. God works with people and in people to take them to higher levels. That’s what he did for this fella in our story today. Let’s look at the story a little more closely.
Jesus had been gaining a reputation for being a bit of a miracle worker. Although the text calls this His 2nd miracle, it’s only the 2nd one that the writer John has described. So Jesus returned to His home province of Galilee, to the town of Cana, where He had done His 1st miracle of changing water into wine for a wedding banquet.
News of His arrival reached the town of Capernaum, some 20 miles away. There in Capernaum was a nobleman, a royal official, a servant of King Herod. This man’s son was dying, and needed a healing. His son’s life was hanging by a thread, and the man knew that Jesus was his only hope. He rushed the 20 miles from Capernaum to Cana. By the time he found Jesus, he didn’t know whether his son was still alive, or whether he had died during his nearly eight-hour journey to find Jesus. But when he found Jesus, he had only one thing on his mind – getting Jesus to come to Capernaum with him as quickly as possible, in the hope that there was still time to save his child’s life.
I’d like to point out that if you want to grow your faith, it has to be on purpose. Growing your faith isn’t really an accidental thing. The man deliberately looked for Jesus, and he was desperate. It was a choice he made to go find the Lord, and it’s the same for us. We don’t really stumble into obedience. We don’t fall into faith. They are on purpose, just like they were for the nobleman.
So what was Jesus’ response to the man’s begging for Jesus to go to Capernaum? Jesus commented on people’s desire to have things glitzy and glamorous. Jesus said, "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe." Jesus wasn’t so much rebuking the man but all people who want to see things before they believe. They want God to prove Himself. They say, “God, if you’re real, show yourself to me. Prove it!” Jesus didn’t act on those requests then, and neither does He today.
But the man wasn’t looking for a sign. He wasn’t asking Jesus to show him His credentials. He didn’t care for the glitz and glamour. All he wanted was for his son to be healed. That’s all that mattered to him. He said, "Sir, come down before my child dies."
Ambrose Bierce once said that to pray was “to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy." That’s what the nobleman did.
And Jesus responded to that. He wasn’t going to show off His power like fireworks. He wasn’t out to impress the crowds. He wasn’t trying to display all that He could do. What Jesus did was change this man’s life, and all those in the household with him. Jesus said to the man, "You may go. Your son will live."
And the man went. V50 says, “The man took Jesus at his word.” The man had a certain amount of faith in Jesus at this point, obviously. He believed Jesus, even though Jesus didn’t actually do anything obvious yet. Well, what kind of faith is that? Probably he trusted Jesus, not knowing exactly what He meant. He understood Jesus to say that his son had not yet died, and that he would not die either. The man’s faith, whatever amount he had, prompted him to action.
Now, notice this: The man wanted Jesus to do something. The man wanted Jesus to come to his home. Well, Jesus said no to that request. Jesus did not do what the man wanted. You have to know: Jesus does not feel obligated to do what you ask, no matter what it may be.
In fact, not only did Jesus not go to the man’s home, but he told him to go without him. I wonder if the man felt his heart cave in inside his chest. Whoomp. “I came all this way to find Jesus, and now He’s not even coming back with me.”
So Jesus told him to go back without Him, but Jesus said the boy would be alright. He would live. Please pay attention to this: The man had to leave in faith, and so do you. Jesus is not a slave to your prayers, but pray anyway. Jesus will not always do what you want, but you need to obey Him anyway. Jesus will not always display the fireworks, but you need to do what He says anyway.
Well, it was likely a few agonizing hours for the man, having left Cana but not knowing what he would find when he got home. I think sometimes that’s like life on earth. We believe, but we aren’t sure what’s going to happen. We keep moving forward and pressing on, but we’re not sure what the outcome may be. It’s like the line in the song, “Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight…” Lord, help me to believe until I can finally see what’s going on.
Then the man found his servants. They reported the good news to him, about the son recovering. And it turned out to be the exact time that Jesus told him that his son would be OK. What an amazing coincidence, huh? You know, I’ve got a hunch that a lot of things that look like coincidences have a lot more to them than what we can see. Someone said, “Answered prayer is a coincidence where God prefers to remain anonymous.” And someone else said, “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t pray, they don’t.”
So the man back in v50 “took Jesus at His word.” But in v53 the man and everybody in his household “believed.” It’s not so much that the words are different, but the man would have been. If he had faith to leave, before he even saw a miracle, how much more faith do you think he had afterwards? I think it’s safe to say that the father’s faith in v53 before the miracle was bigger than it was in v50 after he saw the miracle.
So here we see the man. He came to Jesus with a desperate request. He wanted Jesus to do something specific for Him. Jesus declined on that but told the man to obey Him anyway. The man took Jesus at His word and things turned out wonderfully. The man’s faith grew in the process.
But obviously He had to obey Jesus in the 1st place. It may have turned out very differently if he had pouted that Jesus wasn’t gonna do what he wanted. It might have turned out differently if the man had gone to complain to those around him, “Well, I’ve come all this way, and I think I deserve this.” It might have turned out very differently if the man had simply not taken Jesus at His word, and obeyed even when it looked discouraging.
Oswald Chambers said that the root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good. If the man had figured that Jesus was just being mean, then he would not have obeyed, and his faith likely would not have grown in the process. Listen: if you want to grow in your faith, if you want to be stronger, if you want more and more of life to make sense, then you have to obey when Jesus tells you to do something, no matter what it is.
You see, as believers, we must obey. That’s part of this life that we are here to get help with. It’s understanding who the Boss is.
I read a story of when Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts, and he was running hard for a second term in office. One day, after a busy morning chasing votes, and no lunch, he arrived at a church barbecue. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished.
As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.
“Excuse me,” Governor Herter said, “do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”
“Sorry,” the woman told him. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”
“But I’m starved,” the governor said.
“Sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one to a customer.”
Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that this time he would throw a little weight around. “Do you know who I am?” he said. “I am the governor of this state.”
“Do you know who I am?” the woman said. “I’m the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister.”
Listen: no matter who you are, and what you’ve done, and what you’ve accomplished, and how smart you are, and how talented you are, you still need to understand who’s in charge of the chicken. As believers, we need to accept that we have a Boss we need to obey. Even when the commands seem odd or far-fetched, or even when they are what we don’t want to hear. If you want to grow your faith, you need to do what God tells you to. You need to take Him at His word and act on those commands, even if He doesn’t seem to be doing what you asked of Him.
Dr. B. J. Miller once said, “It is a great deal easier to do that which God gives us to do, no matter how hard it is, than to face the responsibilities of not doing it.” I encourage you today to act on what you already know to be right, and allow God to grow you.
