Walking With Questions (John 4:43-54)
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jeremy_1_05-05-2025_124646: [00:00:00] How easy is it for you to trust? Now, you can think about this in a number of ways. How easy is it for you to trust other people? Maybe you've had bad experiences with people and you would say, no, I'm really guarded and this isn't something I do well. Or maybe you've had great experiences and trust comes naturally to you.
Or how about how much do you trust yourself? Now, that might seem weird, but do you believe in yourself to do certain things? Like One of the limitations I have of myself is I don't always trust when I do certain things such as repair work on my vehicles. I once replaced the brakes on my full runner, and I remember being paranoid that I didn't do it right, that somehow something was gonna happen.
I did not have enough trust. In my own abilities to do that. Or every time I assemble a piece of furniture and I have a bunch of leftover pieces and bolts, I often think, did I miss something? Did [00:01:00] I assemble it right? Those are trust issues and we're gonna see that people have always had trust issues and we have them with God as well.
And today we're gonna look at a story as we finish up John chapter four, where Jesus is going to ask someone. To trust him, and you may see that this would be hard for you, and this is a challenge for the person in the story as well. in the story today, Jesus is back in Cana. This is the site of the very first miracle that we saw Jesus do, turning the water into the wine, and that miracle was all about abundance.
That was all about 900 bottles of wine that Jesus made at this party. Just abundance. But today's story is about urgency. So the first miracle is abundance. This miracle that John's gonna bring now is about urgency. How we approach God when something is urgent in our lives.
We're gonna read [00:02:00] John chapter four, beginning in verse 43. It says at the end of the two days, Jesus went on to Galilee. He himself had said that a prophet is not honored in his own hometown yet the Galileans welcomed him for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen everything that he did there.
As he traveled through Galilee, he came to Cana where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick, and when he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son who was about to die.
And Jesus asked, will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders, the official pleaded, Lord, please come now before my little [00:03:00] boy dies. And then Jesus told him, go back home. Your son will live. And the man believed what Jesus said and started back home. Now we might read this story and wonder why didn't Jesus just go with him?
Like, why is Jesus making this distinction of, Hey, you just need to believe that I can do this. Why doesn't he just go to his house? What you may not realize, unless you know, geography we're working with here is that this official has just come from a 20 mile uphill trek from Capernaum.
to Cana, this is not a casual walk. This is not a, Hey, I just hopped over to see you. This is a desperation walk where your world is falling apart, and you hear that it's possible, not likely, but possible that this guy that's 20 miles away might be able to do [00:04:00] something for your son. And so in an act of desperation.
This man does whatever he can to get to Jesus. So it would not be just a quick thing for Jesus to pop over. Jesus is realizing what this man has done just to get to him. But I think this is a beautiful picture of faith. It's not faith as wishful thinking. It's not faith as a certainty in the outcome, but faith as trust in a person.
And this is the kind of faith Jesus is inviting us into even today. Now I've mentioned before, but I'm one of those people who have lots of questions. I have lots of doubts on any given day. There's a number of things about Christianity that likely don't make sense to me, and I wrestle with that and I struggle with that, but I have to choose faith, not in the ideals, not in the creeds, not even in [00:05:00] verses I choose faith in a person, in the person of Jesus.
And that's what we're seeing in this story. As well. And so this man takes Jesus at his word and he begins the long walk home. Now, I don't know if he had a donkey or some transportation or if he was just doing this by foot, but he's gotta now go back 20 miles before he even knows whether or not what Jesus said is gonna be true.
Whether or not this whole conversation. Worked. Now that might be the most relatable part of this entire story. You know, we can pray, we can reach out to God, and then we may not feel anything. We may not sense any reaction. We may not get the answer that we're hoping for, and then we walk home and then we go back to life.
Then we go back to whatever it is we were going through, wondering. If [00:06:00] that answer is coming or not, wondering if the healing, if the response is coming or not, lemme pick it up in verse 51. While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well, he asked them when the boy had begun to get better and they replied yesterday afternoon at one o'clock, his fever suddenly disappeared.
I. Then the father realized that that was the very time Jesus had told him, your son will live, and he and his entire household believed in Jesus. This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee. After coming from Judea, the boy was healed at the exact moment that Jesus had said, your son will live.
Isn't that how it often works? Right? The, the miracle has [00:07:00] already happened. We just haven't seen the results yet, and so we're left with trust. I think faith often looks like walking home with questions. How long did it take this man to walk back home? To get back home? However he got there. How long did it take him until he met with the group telling him his son had been healed?
See, faith looks like walking home with questions. It looks like trusting Jesus at his word, even when we might feel like we're in the dark, even when we might feel like this. Doesn't all make sense. Brian McLaren has said true faith. Doesn't wait for certainty. It acts in trust, which is good for people like me.
And if you can relate, because I don't have certainty often when it comes to my journey with Jesus. So if I had to wait before I [00:08:00] felt certain about everything, it would be very hard for me to act. But as McLaren says, that's not what faith is about. It's about acknowledging we don't need certainty. We may never get certainty.
But we can choose to act and trust. So I wanna ask you today, what is the situation in your life right now that feels unresolved, that feels uncertain, and yet you're still taking steps forward? Where are you walking with your questions and how can Jesus make you there? Maybe you're praying for healing and there's something in your life or someone close to you and you are just.
Crying out to God very much like this man in the story. Maybe it's a question that is just haunting you, plaguing you, and you haven't got an answer to that question yet. Maybe you have some unresolved worry or fear and you just keep wrestling with it. Asking Jesus to meet you there [00:09:00] asking Jesus to help.
Sometimes the miracle happens while you're walking home. While you're walking with your questions, so may we embrace that part of the journey and realize that we may never get the certainty that we're looking for,
we always have the chance to choose to trust Jesus. A close of something that Pete Enns has written, faith. Is not the absence of doubt, it is the presence of trust, which means we can bring our doubts, we can bring our lack of certainty, we can bring the questions we have while we walk home, and in all of that experience, we can choose to trust in the person of Jesus.
I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
