- Some of the most remarkable
people that I've ever met and actually some of the
most remarkable people that you have ever
met, that we've all met are people that we
can describe this way, they're the belief
in spite of people, have you ever met a
belief in spite of person? That they're going through
difficult circumstances financially or with their
health or with their family, or they're going
through a divorce or they're just going
through difficult stuff. And yet their confidence in
God is just like unshakable, they still have joy, they still
have peace it defies logic. They have that
peace that surpasses as Paul said, all
human comprehension. That means it doesn't
even make sense sometimes you wonder if they're
in denial but they're not, they just trust God and
their story is inspiring and sometimes it's disturbing. In fact for some of you the
reason that you're Christians or the reason that
you're even curious in becoming a
Christian or the reason that you showed up
at church today, is because you know one
of these kinds of people and you think to yourself, and you wouldn't
say this out loud but I'll just say it for
you, you think to yourself, you know what I don't have that and I would like to have that, and even if there's
nothing to it I would like to have that
because it's a lot better than the life I'm living
because I don't have any peace, I don't have much confidence. The future scares me to death,
death scares me to death and these people just, I mean in spite of
these incredible
difficult circumstances they're just fine and I wanna
know that I would be fine if I were facing circumstances
like they're facing. Because when you meet people
going through difficult times we all internalize it, we all say I wonder
how I would respond if I was going through that. And when you meet one of
these folks it's like wow! There's a gentleman you
may have heard his name, his name's Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Collins met
one of those people when he was in med school
doing rounds at a hospital in North Carolina. You may have heard his
name because he served as the director of the
Human Genome Project. Now I know you all know this but I'm gonna catch
you up real quick on what genome is okay just for, I know you know, but anyway. The genome is an organisms
complete set of DNA. Any organism, every
organism has a genome and the genome is the complete
set of an organism's DNA including all of their genes. And so Dr. Collins was
given the assignment to put together a team to
map the entire human genome 3.1 billion letters, inside of every single one
of your cells check that out, and and so this was a
remarkable accomplishment because it helps us
in terms of predicting what diseases would do, predicting how diseases impact
families, family systems I mean it's remarkable,
obviously a very,
very bright guy. But when he was 27 years old
he's working at a hospital in North Carolina, doing
rounds as a student you know where they walk in
ask you the same question day after day
after day after day and then they write stuff down
and scribble and they leave. Okay, so this is his
internship kind of thing he's doing rounds and because, partly because he
was in North Carolina he kept bumping into Christians. People who were dying,
had terminal diseases that could be somewhat treated
but that couldn't be cured and he keeps talking
to these people and so many of them are
talking about their faith, and they're going to heaven, and they're gonna be
reunited with loved ones. And he grew up in a home
where both of his parents are pretty much agnostic and this was so
unnerving to him. In fact, in his book
he wrote a book called The Language of God
which I highly recommend I read it about four years
ago, three years ago. The Language of God. He says this in
the book, he said, this is his response
to to all these people. "If faith was a
psychological crutch "it must be a very powerful one. "If it was nothing more "than a veneer of
cultural tradition." Let me translate this for you, in other words is
this is just something people in the south do, if this is just what
uneducated people do, if this is what mountain folk
do to just get through life. If this was just
something that had to do with cultural tradition then,
and this is what bothered him, this is a good question. Then, why he said, "Why were these people not
shaking their fist at God? "And demanding their
friends and families "stop all this
talk this nonsense "about a loving and benevolent
supernatural power?" I mean they're dying and God's
not answering their prayer and yet they still have faith, this was just so
unnerving to him. Then one afternoon
he walks into a room where there was a woman dying of I think it was
congenital heart disease. And there was just
no hope no cure, and she had talked to him before and mentioned her
faith in heaven and
all that kind of stuff but on this particular day, as they're chatting
back and forth and he's asking her the
questions she says to him, she says, "Doctor I've
told you what I believe "doctor what do you believe?" And this question ended
up changing his life, he says in the book he said, I just turned red I kind
of stammered uh -uh-uh well, I'm not really sure. And then, and this
is his word not mine he said faced, and this
this may be your word you just haven't
embraced it yet. He said faced with
my willful blindness, willful blindness,
that is I haven't seen but I'm not really looking. I don't know but I haven't
really asked the question. There may be something more
but I've never explored it. He said, "Faced with my willful
blindness and my arrogance "I began a journey." And he decided to see
what could be seen and to try to discover
what could be discovered. And in the end he discovered that there was something
to the claims of Christ. In fact the claims of Jesus
is found in the Gospels were so compelling,
he became a Christian. And he continued
to follow his faith and follow Jesus
throughout his entire life, up and to the point where, I mean throughout
his life even now. Even through this whole journey of basically mapping
the human genome. In other words there
was more evidence that he thought there was, but he never knew there was
evidence until he looked. Now here's the cool thing,
Jesus predicted this, and John helped, Jesus
predicted it and John helped. Jesus said I'm gonna give you
enough evidence to believe and John said you know what, I want people to know what I
know, to hear what I've heard, to see what I've seen so that they can
believe like I believe. Because at the end of the
day we said this last week, that Christianity at
the end of the day, Christianity is not
about just believing, it's not just
believe, just believe, just believe and believe. Just have faith and faith. And it's not about taking
it by faith whatever it is. John and Peter and James and
Bartholomew and all the rest they did not follow
Jesus because of faith. And he would caution you
and he would caution me and he would caution all of us against just following
Jesus because of faith, we don't follow
because of faith. They followed because of
what they actually saw and they followed because
of what they actually heard. And he encourages the
readers of his account of the life of Jesus
in the same way. He said I want you to believe and I want you to place
your faith in Jesus because of what I've seen
and what I have heard. Here's how he says
it in his gospel, he says that which
was from the beginning and the beginning isn't Genesis, the beginning is this
adventure of Jesus showing up on planet Earth and making
these outrageous claims and then substantiating them by doing these
outrageous things. He says that which
was from the beginning because he was there in
the beginning, John was. Which we have heard. In other words I'm not
gonna tell you something somebody told me, I heard this. Which we have seen. These are things that
we, Peter and the gang, we saw these with our own eyes. Which we have looked at, and
which our hands have touched. This was his way of saying
after the resurrection, okay we weren't seeing things, this wasn't a mirage,
this wasn't a ghost, this wasn't a wishful thinking
that turned into something we thought we saw. This is what we're
letting you know about, this is what we proclaim
concerning the word of life, the life appeared. And I think this was
John's way of saying, "Look I'm a simple man,
my father was a fisherman, "I was a fisherman and
then Jesus came along "and then turned
everything upside down. "So don't ask me any difficult
questions all I know is this "as a Jewish boy I had
always believed in God "I'd always worship Yahweh. "And I'm just telling you
that invisible mysterious "don't ask me a lot
of questions God "came to earth in the form
of a person and I met him. "He was my rabbi, my friend,
he's my Savior, he's Jesus. "That life appeared and we have
seen it and testified to it "and we proclaimed to you
what we have seen and heard." He said, "I'm just
telling you what I saw, "telling you what I heard." He outlives all of his friends
he's the last man standing probably he's the last
of Jesus apostles. And he's encouraged apparently
by a group of people to document his
account, his life, his story the life of Jesus. I think he was too
old to see very well I doubt very seriously
he wrote this, he probably didn't know Greek. It comes to us in
the Greek language which means he probably,
in fact all likelihood he dictated his story. Somebody basically interviewed
the story out of him and it comes to us as
the Gospel of John. But here's the most
important thing perhaps. John is not content to
just tell us what happened, John has an agenda. John wants something
to happen to you, and John wants something
to happen to us that happened to him
based on his interaction with the Son of God. He spells it out
for us at the end, he gives us his
purpose statement. In other words he says,
here's why I wrote this or dictated this, it wasn't
just so you would know what happened, I have an
agenda and here's my agenda. Jesus performed
many other signs, he did a whole lot of
others, and a lot of things in the presence of his disciples which are not
recorded in this book. And this doesn't
refer to the Bible this refers to this document, this first century document
we call the Gospel of John. John would in another
place say I'm telling you that Jesus did so many things,
and said so many things there's no way to cram
all that into one document but these things the
ones I've included, but these are written that you, these aren't written just
so that you would know, these are written so
that you would believe. I've done my best he
says to lay this out so that your experience
with what I write would mirror my experience
with this living Lord. I've written these things
that you would believe that Jesus is the Messiah,
the one that the Jewish people or many of the Jewish people
had waited on for so long. That he's the son of God, for those of you
who would say that, those of you who
believe in the gods or believe there's one God
that he's the son of God. And that by believing you might have life in his name. And throughout the gospel he
refers to this as eternal life and he's clear eternal
life is not something that starts when you die eternal life is
living this life, knowing there's something
beyond this life. Because John knows,
and many of you know and many of us know,
when you live this life with the assumption there's
something beyond this life you live this life a
very different way. So, John lays out the
sequence of events that brought him into fellowship and into followship with Jesus, and he's hoping that
these conversations and these events, these signs, would do the very
same thing for you. So, he organizes
his whole gospel around these seven signs
or these seven events that were signs that pointed
to the identity of Jesus. And his hope is that
what happened to him, what happened to
his readers as well. So today we're looking
at the second sign and if you have an English Bible there may be a header in
your Bible that basically describes this event we're
gonna look at today this way. The healing of
the nobleman's son the healing of the nobleman son. Okay, is there any
questions so far? Is everybody kind of
caught it with me? Okay, so here we go. So we're picking out from
where we left off last week so here's what happened,
Jesus goes to the wedding it's amazing, his
mom says fix it, he's like I didn't
come to save weddings I came to save the world. She chuckles walks off,
he saves the wedding. You were here last week
or if you missed that go back and watch. Then after this Jesus and
he's way up north in Galilee, because the nation of
Israel is like this way. He's way up here in Galilee,
he heads down to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. And you should know this
if you read the Gospels. Whenever Jesus goes to
Jerusalem, he's in danger. Every time he goes to
Jerusalem there's trouble that's why sometimes he
stays a little while, heads back north a little
bit safer for him in Galilee. So those who follow him every
time they go to Jerusalem they kind of hold
their breath like, is this how's this gonna go? Are we gonna make it out alive? Because Jesus would just
say the strangest things and just stir up trouble, and sure enough he gets
to Jerusalem for Passover, he goes to the temple and he
is so offended by what he sees. And this is that famous
incident where he goes in and he drives out
the moneychangers because they're charging
too much interest. He takes all the people
who are selling pigeons and cattle and lambs and
sheep, that are defective and people are
bringing these things that just don't
meet the standard that the Old Testament said
that Israelites are to meet when they come to worship God. He drives them all
out, causes a big scene all the people
with him are like, 'Oh and we knew, we should
have stayed in Galilee!" And then the leaders of
the temple asked Jesus a very important question, they don't say what in the
world do you think you're doing? They ask a better question. They say, "Who do
you think you are?" And then he answers. And John tells us while we
were there in Jerusalem, I'll never forget it. While we were there many people saw the signs he was performing
and what did they do? They believed in his name,
because this is the formula. Seeing is believing. While he's there has that famous
conversation with Nicodemus where he says Nicodemus
you must be born again, Nicodemus is like what
are you talking about? Jesus is like what
am I talking about? You're a leader, you're
supposed to know these things. And his head's spinning, and then they head
back to Galilee. But they go through Samaria, and he meets a
woman at the well, we know she has a name we'll
find out in heaven I guess. But what we know is her name
is the woman at the well, and Jesus has a
conversation with the woman it's so unusual. He's by himself with a
woman talking to a woman, she's like you're a Jew,
talking to me a Samaritan woman. And Jesus says, you come
to this well every day trying to get water, but
I wanna give you something that will never run out. And he uses this analogy,
and then she believes and she goes to Sychar,
her little village there and Jesus goes in. And there's a little
foreshadowing that happens that people in Sychar, this
town the Samaritan town where the Samaritan woman is
from, they believe in Jesus based on the testimony
of the woman. Because that's what
the future looks like. Then he makes his
way back to Galilee and that's where
our story picks up. Here's what John
says happened next. Once more he visited
Cana in Galilee and everybody who had read
the document so far is like, oh yeah that sounds familiar, John says it should
sound familiar. "Where he had turned
the water into wine. "And there was a certain royal
official whose son lay sick." Now the first sign
was a joyful occasion, the second sign is a
heartbreaking occasion. And this is so interesting to me and maybe this isn't
a big deal to you, Jesus wades in to both. He gets involved
in a celebration and he gets involved
in someone's sickness. Now there are two
really important details I need to point out before we
get too far into this story. First of all Capernaum, this royal official
lived in Capernaum and his son lay
sick in Capernaum and Capernaum is about an
eight hour walk from Cana where Jesus currently is. Or if you had a
horse or a chariot maybe two to three hours. The second important detail
is that he's a royal official which meant he was probably
a Jewish aristocrat. He's wealthy, he did not
walk seven or eight hours this was probably a
three-hour chariot ride or a three hour, on horseback depending on how many people
were traveling with him. And because he was an aristocrat that meant he was
probably a Sadducee and there were two important
groups in Jerusalem, Judea at this time. The Pharisees that we hear a
lot about and the Sadducees, the Pharisees were
very religious. The Pharisees kept
the law meticulously, the Pharisees believed
that God was involved in the details of life. The Pharisees for the
most part believed there would be a
resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees were
more intellectual, they were more deterministic. They weren't sure
there was an afterlife, we are here for
the pleasure of God and everything is determined. Your health is determined,
how many kids you have. If you have kids
if you get married, how much money you have. Where you fall in society, where
you rank among your friends all of it's determined
it's already set. You don't really
ask God for anything because what's gonna happen
is just going to happen. Fate dictates everything. But today, all of that
gets brushed aside because on this
particular occasion, he is a desperate father. Isn't it interesting that
all of our intellect, and all of our pride,
and all of our certainty oftentimes gets pushed
to the periphery when someone we
love is suffering. And on this day he is a
father whose scared to death that his son is about to die. When this man heard
that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from
Judea, he went to him. Two and a half hours, three
hours by horseback, by chariot certainly he didn't walk. He went to him and
he begged Jesus to come back to his
hometown and heal his son because his son
was close to death. He didn't send servants. Now I have a theory, I'm
just making this part up so don't take this
too seriously. I think here's what happened. When he heard, they'd
heard about Jesus, they'd never met Jesus. There's all these
stories about Jesus and when his wife heard that
Jesus was coming back north to the area of Galilee, she said to her
husband you go get him and you bring him here. (congregation laughing) And her husband probably
said but our son is dying when I get back our
son may be dead. And she says, you go down
there and you get that fellow and you bring him here. And so this husband, this
man had to make the decision, "Do I leave my dying son,
knowing I may not see him again? "Should I just send a servant? "And besides these
are just rumors! "These are just stories
people are telling "about this supposed
miracle worker "who's from around
here somewhere. "Other people say
he's from Bethlehem, "we're not really sure
where this guy is from." And the verb tense here says
that he was pleading with Jesus over and over and over. Forget dignity, forget
his position in society, forget his theology,
forget the worldview. "My son is dying and
if you can help me "what will it take to get
you to my son's bedside?" Some of you been there right? Some of you the first
prayers you ever prayed were prayers of desperation. And maybe your prayer
went something like this, and I'm not being
facetious you just said no, you said to whom it may concern. I don't know if
anybody's out there. But if anybody's out there, I
need help and I need help now. What Jesus says next
seems so insensitive but it's only because of
the English translation. Jesus says something where he's
actually not just addressing the nobleman, he's addressing
everyone who's listening because he has an
entourage of people. And by this time in Jesus
ministry wherever he goes there's a crowd, there's
always a crowd with Jesus. And so Jesus says basically
what he knew to be true, and he again he's
addressing the crowd not just the nobleman. He says, "Unless you people
see signs and wonders "you will not believe." Unless you actually see
something you won't believe and this sounds like an
indictment but it's not, he's basically
saying what's true. I mean why should they
take Jesus seriously he's making some
outrageous claims and it only gets
worse as time goes by. So why should they
take him seriously? And Jesus is stating, there's
no way you're gonna believe me there's no way you're
going to accept me unless I do something
that convinces you because seeing is believing. I'm not expecting anyone
to simply have faith, and faith or faith
and a preacher that knows how to
razzle-dazzle people with their words
and their stories. And so Jesus decides it seems to give them something
to talk about. If we're gonna do a wonder,
let's make it so wonderful that people talk about it. This is amazing, for 2,000 years. Of course the nobleman,
he's like whatever. Okay he leans in, he says sir. "Sir come down before
my child dies." Sir, Lord I know in
society I am Way above you in this moment I'm beneath you. I know that most
people are appalled even my close friends and the
people that travel with me they're embarrassed, by
how small I've become that I'm begging that
I'm placing myself under your authority,
would you please, please, please do me a favor. He's so desperate. But the interesting thing
when you read this on your own he's so confident. He's so confident. "If I can just get this
rabbi to my son's bedside "my son will be fine." Why is he so confident? Why did he make this trip? Why did he risk walking away as his son was dying
and leaving his wife and family to take
care of his dying son? And it's simple. Rumors, rumors of
the Son of Man. Stories of a savior, holiness with human hands. And in his mind he
has two options. Jesus comes with
me or he doesn't. Jesus comes with me and
perhaps my son is healed if all these rumors are true,
or Jesus refuses to come and my son will die. But Jesus smiles, because
there's a third option. And Jesus asked him to do, what Jesus has been asking
people to do ever since. Jesus asked this
nobleman to trust him based on the testimony
of other people. He asked him to
entrust his son to him based on the stories
told about him. And Jesus turns to the
nobleman and he says, "Go." Go, in fact the Greek
text if you teased it out, it carries this idea go
on about your business, "Just go on "and don't hurry, and
there's no need to worry, "just go, "I'm not coming "but you have nothing
to worry about." Go, he said your son will live. (laughing) Come on dad's can
you imagine this? Wait, wait, wait, you want
me to go home without you? If I go home without you there may be two
deaths in our family. (congregation laughing) You want me to just
wait, wait, wait. I had two categories you come with me my son lives, you don't come with
me my son dies, you're saying you're not coming
with me and my son lives. He glances at his bodyguards
I think and thinks, maybe I take him by force right? I mean my son's life is at risk. And you just want me to
do a little shopping, buy some flowers for the missus. Maybe wait until the
heat of the day passes and then just kind of meander
on back home without you? And this is where we
all live right here, this is where we live. This is why this is so brilliant these aren't random
acts of kindness this is Jesus painting a
picture and laying a path. Again, that men and women will
be walking in for 2000 years it's the path that many
of you have walked, are walking or perhaps
will walk in the future. This story is a lifetime
reduced to a day. This is your lifetime and my
lifetime reduced to a day. We are asked to take
Jesus at his word based on the word
of other people. We're asked to entrust
our lives to Jesus and our health to Jesus,
and our futures to Jesus and our finances to Jesus. And our children,
our healthy children and our sick children to Jesus based on the words of
people who knew him and who had seen him. That we are to go about our days with our unanswered prayers, confident there's
something to this man that he is in fact
who he claimed and demonstrated that he was. That he is in fact
who he claimed to be. And as I said earlier, we've all seen people
do that haven't we? Who just carry
unanswered prayer. Burdens that won't go away, sicknesses that won't be healed, financial situations
that won't turn around, husbands who won't come home,
kids who won't come home, parents who act like children. We've seen people carry
this and there's just joy and there's just peace
and there's confidence and it's intimidating. And it's an inspiring, and
that's why Francis Collins came to faith and it may be
why you came to faith as well. And you know what this means
for some of the rest of you maybe most of you, for those
of you who are following Jesus and there's that nagging
unanswered prayer there's that thing
that God won't do. And yet you continue to serve
and you continue to give and you continue to listen and
you continue to be faithful. And every single night
you feel like your prayers are repeated over
and over and over and every once in a while
you're tempted to wonder where is God but
you remain faithful. And do you know
who's watching you? No. And do you know
what God is doing in the lives of
people around you because of your faithfulness? No. And do you know who is a
day or a month or a year or five years away from
placing their faith in Jesus because of you? No. This is our lives
condensed to a day. So the nobleman,
can you imagine? He's stunned, it's like either you're
coming with me or you're not and Jesus is like no you're
going home without me, but don't worry and don't hurry. And the nobleman just
stares his entourage waits. He's diminished himself in the
eyes of the public by begging he's not getting
what he came for, he's not getting
who he came for. And he exhales and he
makes his decision, a decision that people have
been making for 2,000 years. This is not an exaggeration, it's a decision that changes
the trajectory of a life and perhaps could change
the trajectory of your life. He decided to believe Jesus and to live as if what
Jesus said was true even though there
was no evidence yet. The text continues he says this, the man believed the
word Jesus spoke to him. And then here's the
most important part. And then he behaved as if what
Jesus said could be trusted, and he departed for home. Imagine this, he walked away from the only person
who could save his son. He walked away from the only
person that could heal his son because he decided to trust him. To use a phrase
that maybe you heard if you grew up in church, or
you've heard Christians use if you didn't grow up in church. He walked home by
faith and not by sight. Can you imagine? Some of you can, you've been walking this
way for years right? Again, it's a lifetime
condensed to a day. While he was still
on his way home wondering what he was gonna
face when he got home, his servants from home
met him with the news that the boy was still alive but they didn't come half away, they didn't come for
an walk for hours and just give him an update, the son was better. And when he inquired,
when the nobleman inquired of his servants who
had walked halfway or ridden halfway to
find him when he inquired as to the time when
his son got better they said to him yesterday
at 1:00 in the afternoon the fever left him. And a chill runs down his spine and tears fill his eyes, right? And he looks back at Cana and the father realized
the text tells us, the father realized
it was the exact time at which Jesus said to him,
"Go I'm not coming with you "but don't hurry and don't
worry your son will live." And he kicks his horse, or
he tells his chariot driver drive and he leaves his
entourage in the dust and he heads for home
as fast as he can because now he's in a hurry. And there's his wife, and she says something
miraculous has happened but she notices he
doesn't look surprised. And then she looks
around and she asks where's the rabbi? And he tells his wife the story. And so as a result, he and
his whole household believed. Of course they did,
because seeing is believing even when you have to
wait to see, right? Seeing is believing
because he believed before he saw based on the
testimony of other people and he found out those
testimonies were true the rumors were true,
rumors of the Son of Man. Stories of a savior,
holiness with human hands. And this was the second
sign Jesus performed after coming from
Judea to Galilee. Just go back to that
phrase, walking by faith if you grew up like me in church
you heard this all the time but here's what
they didn't tell us. Walking by faith is
not walking by hope. And walking by faith is not
walking by wishful thinking here's what it means
to walk by faith, we just saw it demonstrated. Walking by faith is living
every single day of your life as if Jesus is who
Jesus claimed to be. Walking by faith is living
every single day of your life as if what Jesus said is true. It's walking and living
every single day of your life as if God really is
your heavenly Father because Jesus said
when you pray, you address him as your father. Whenever you're
confused about God think perfect Heavenly Father. Whenever things don't seem to go the way you think they
should go, just remember perfect Heavenly Father. When you can't make
sense of the scripture just remember, perfect
Heavenly Father. To walk by faith,
to live by faith is to live as if your
sin really is forgiven that God is not gonna
hold it against you that you don't
have to confess it over and over and over and over. That you don't have
to pay God back because God isn't
looking to be paid back because that's what Jesus taught and that's what
Jesus Illustrated and that was the
significance of his death that happens at the end
of the Gospel of John. For some of you this
is the hardest part is to live as if you really
are loved unconditionally, not because of anything you did. And it's to live and this is the thing
that changes everything, this is what changed the world. What changed the world, the reason Christianity
changed the world was not because everybody
got their prayers answered. The reason Christianity
shaped Western culture is not because everybody
got what they wanted and what they asked for. What shaped Western culture was at the end of
this very gospel, Jesus says to his
guys okay guys, I'm leaving but here's the deal. Peter's like can I go? No, okay here's the deal listen. Peter you can't go, you're
not even gonna wanna go just listen, guys
I'm gonna leave, and I'm gonna come back
and I'm gonna leave again, but here's what I want
you to hear from me. By this all people will know that I'm who I claim to be
and that you're my follower. By how you treat one another, and the worst things are for you the brighter your
lights going to shine. So I'm sorry but I'm
not always gonna say yes and your good Heavenly
Father won't always say yes but follow me and
love as I have loved. You are now ambassadors of
the unique brand of love. It's the as I have
loved you brand. My friends, this is
what changed the world, this is what changes marriages. This is what changes the city, this is what changes a culture. To walk by faith is to
live with the confidence that God is who he claimed to be as revealed to us by the son. Because one day they're gonna
get so frustrated with Jesus Philip's gonna say,
"Okay, okay, okay, look, "you're going way over my
head, just show us the Father." And Jesus will say,
"If you've seen me, "you've seen the father. "If you wanna know
what God is like, "pay attention to
what I'm like." And for those of you who've
been Christians a long time do you know what it
means to walk by faith? You've been doing it. Do you know what it means the
implications of staggering? In fact, this is what is most
inspiring for many of us. To walk by faith is to
live with the confidence that your faith
and your sacrifice and your commitment
and your generosity are not in vain, because
they are anchored to something real
and someone real. It's living and walking by
faith that causes someone like a Francis Collins
to pay attention to pause and to wonder. It's your walking by faith, living as if God is
who God claims to be and who Jesus said he is. It's your life
and your lifestyle that causes people to
pause and to wonder and it has been this way since the very, very beginning. At the end of John's account, we'll get to this later
but just a little heads up. At the end of John's account
Jesus has been crucified he's risen from the dead and
they're gathered with him and he's saying some
kind of final things. And Jesus knows that the reason
they have come back to faith is because they saw him die, they looked into an empty tomb and now they're having
a conversation right? You would believe right? And Jesus also
knows that these men are gonna document
these experiences and that generation after
generation after generation are gonna recognize
what they recognized not because we saw it, but
because of their testimony. And Jesus makes the
statement. this is so amazing. He makes a statement to
them that's really for you and really for me, he says this, he says to the guys, he says
because you have seen me, now that I'm alive
from the dead. Because you've seen
me you have believed because come on,
seeing is believing, how could you not believe? You saw me dead
and now I'm alive. You believe because
of what you've seen. And then he says something
to you, to you, to you and to your children
and my children. He says but blessed,
most blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Blessed are those who in
the future will believe based on to his disciples,
your testimonies, because of what you have
seen and what you have heard ain't that amazing? John would remind us,
Okay I'm not special I'm just a bystander. But I thought it was
important for me to document what I heard and
document what I saw so that you could embrace
Jesus the way I did not because you saw what I
saw or heard what I heard but because I'm telling you
what I saw and what I heard. But I'm not just telling you
what I saw and what I heard so you know what I
saw and what I heard. This isn't about just
knowing what happened it's bigger than that. These things are written, the reason I chose these
particular incidents, the reason I chose these
particular conversations these things are written
that you may believe. I don't want you to
just know something I want you to do something. I want you to respond
the way I responded when I saw what I saw
and I heard what I heard. These are written
that you may believe that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing you
may have life in his name. And my hope is that through
this journey together that perhaps you by
hearing and seeing through the eyes and
the ears of John, that you too would believe
if you haven't already and that you too would
have life and his name. And if you're tempted to think, because we're all
tempted to think, "Yeah but see Andy "if I experienced something
like the nobleman that day "of course I would believe." Here's what I would say to you, pick up the Gospel of
John and just read it. Not as the Bible, but
the account of an old man who saw and who heard and perhaps in
reading for yourself something will happen
that no one can explain. And I'll close with this. For instance, Collins in his
book, it's either his book or the interview I listened to several interviews
that he's done. He made this
statement somewhere. He said it's not enough
to read the notes, literally he said
it's not enough to read the notes on the page at some point you have
to hear the music. And my hope and my prayer
is that as you listen, and that perhaps as you read that you would hear the music
and that you would believe and that you would
have eternal life.
