John – God Speaks!
Was this man a Jew or a Gentile? We don’t know. We don’t know his exact position in the government. He may have been a member of Herod’s court, but whatever his national or social standing, he was clearly at his wit’s end and desperately needed the help of the Savior. He desperately asks ”please come now” to Capernaum to heal his son.John 4:48 was not a rebuke of this nobleman. Rather, it was our Lord’s lament at the spiritual condition of the people in general, both in Judea and Galilee. “Seeing is believing” has always been the “pragmatic” philosophy of the lost world, even the religious world. The nobleman believed that Jesus could heal his son, but he made two mistakes in his thinking: that Jesus had to go to Capernaum to save his boy, and that if the boy died meanwhile, it was too late.
We must admire this man’s faith. Jesus simply said, “Go back home. Your son will live” (John 4:50). And the man believed Jesus and started to return home! Both the Samaritan woman and this anonymous nobleman must have pleased the heart of Jesus as they believed the Word and acted on it.
When Jesus acts in our lives, are we as quick to respond in faith?
John 4, New Living Translation
Jesus Heals an Official’s Son
43 At the end of the two days, Jesus went on to Galilee. 44 He himself had said that a prophet is not honored in his own hometown. 45 Yet the Galileans welcomed him, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen everything he did there.
46 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. 47 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.48 Jesus asked, “Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?”
49 The official pleaded, “Lord, please come now before my little boy dies.”50 Then Jesus told him, “Go back home. Your son will live!” And the man believed what Jesus said and started home.
51 While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. 52 He asked them when the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at one o’clock his fever suddenly disappeared!” 53 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. 54 This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee after coming from Judea.
WHAT DO WE LEARN?The boy was healed the instant Jesus spoke those words, so the man’s servants started out to find him so they could share the good news.
When the father and the servants met, their report confirmed his faith. Note that the father thought the healing would be gradual (“began to improve”), but the servants reported a complete, instant recovery.
This man began with CRISIS faith. He was about to lose his son and he had no other recourse but the Lord Jesus Christ. Many people came to Jesus with their crises, and He did not turn them away. The nobleman’s crisis faith became CONFIDENT faith: he believed the Word and had peace in his heart. His confident faith became CONFIRMED faith. Indeed, the boy had been completely healed! And the healing took place at the very time when Jesus spoke the Word. It was this fact that made a believer out of the nobleman and his household. He believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and he shared this faith with his family. He had CONTAGIOUS faith and shared his experience with others.
HOLY PAUSEAt what stage is our faith?
Jesus showed His power over space. He was not limited simply because He was in Cana and the sick boy was in Capernaum. The fact that the father believed the Word and did not know the results until the next day is evidence that he had confident faith. He trusted the word that Jesus spoke, and so should we.
Dear Heavenly Father,
You spoke the world into existence. You created all that is in the world. Therefore, You have power over all. You show Your glory in Your story of Life each time we read it and take it in to be part of our being. You are God and we are not. My faith is built on You and Your power.
In Jesus Name, Amen. I believe.
Today is Sunday, our day to gather with many people and worship God together. It is the day to help others “come and see” what the Lord has done, is doing and will do in the lives of those who believe Him. It is a day to open the Word and see what God has to say to each one of us who are listening for a word from Him. It is a day to help people find and follow Jesus, too.
15 “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”
27 Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?” 28 The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?” 30 So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
THINK ABOUT IT…
20-23 “But you haven’t seen the half of it yet, for in the same way that the Father raises the dead and creates life, so does the Son. The Son gives life to anyone he chooses. Neither he nor the Father shuts anyone out. The Father handed all authority to judge over to the Son so that the Son will be honored equally with the Father. Anyone who dishonors the Son, dishonors the Father, for it was the Father’s decision to put the Son in the place of honor.
“When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.”
EVERYTHING is in Jesus’ hands. The mission to save the world is in Jesus’ hands. The characteristics of behaviors that please God are displayed perfectly in the life of His Son, Jesus. The ability to take a group of young fishermen, tax collectors and others and teach them to tell God’s story of redemption was all in Jesus’ hands. All power and authority is given to Jesus from God the Father. And what does Jesus do first? He gets alone often, as a habit, to pray, asking the Father for what to say and do.
27 John replied, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven. 28 You yourselves know how plainly I told you, ‘I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way for him.’ 29 It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the bridegroom’s friend is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows. Therefore, I am filled with joy at his success. 30 He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
As the song goes, we “can only imagine” the place where God and His Son lives. We can only imagine what happens hour to hour, minute to minute where there is no time to manage, no tears from frustration, no pain in any way. We can only imagine the incredible, relentless, unconditional, unimaginable amount of love between The Three-in-One, God, Jesus, His Son, and His Holy Spirit and his created.
In the beginning the Word already existed.
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
HOLY PAUSE
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge. 
Jesus is The Word. We refer back to the beginning of John’s gospel. The Word became flesh, fulfilling all the prophecies that the Scriptures had taught God’s people because the prophecies were about Him! The disciples could SEE it. The religious elite did not. Both were God’s own. Those who should have known best were blind to Who Jesus was. Jesus–The Word made flesh, speaking for God, who was God in the flesh fulfilled all that was said…from the beginning.
13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money. 15 Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. 16 Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”
18 But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.”
20 “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” 21 But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said.
The temple was an important element of the Jewish faith, for in it God was supposed to dwell. All of the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Jewish religion centered in the temple. When Jesus suggested that their precious building would be destroyed, their angry reaction was predictable. After all, if His body is the temple, then the Jewish temple would be needed no more. 
John – God Speaks!
The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”
5 But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Mary’s words to the servants reveal that she was willing to let her Son do whatever He pleased, and that she trusted Him to do what was right. It would be wise for all of us to obey what she said! It is worth noting that it was Jesus, not Mary, who took command and solved the problem; and that Mary pointed, not to herself, but to Jesus. 
John – God Speaks!
“Disciple” means “one who learns”. Over the next three years Jesus would mentor, train, correct, and challenge as He taught these men as they walk along the road to seek and to save lost people. Jesus will teach these disciples that HE is the only Way, He is the only Truth to Real Eternal Life with God. The salvation work of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, will be multiplied in their lives as they become witnesses of The Truth.
35 The following day John was again standing with two of his disciples. 36 As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” 37 When John’s two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus.
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come, follow me.” 44 Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown.
“We have found the Messiah!” was the witness Andrew gave to Simon. Messiah is a Hebrew word that means “anointed,” and the Greek equivalent is “Christ.” To the Jews, it was the same as “Son of God”. 
At the close of that fourth day, Jesus had six believing men who were His disciples. They did not immediately “forsake all and follow him”; that was to come later. But they had trusted Him and experienced His power. In the three years that lay ahead, they would grow in their faith, learn more about Jesus, and one day take His place on the earth so that the Word might be carried to all mankind. 
HOLY PAUSE…
In deliberate parallel to the opening words of Genesis, John presents God as speaking salvation into existence. This time God’s word takes on human form and enters history in the person of Jesus. Jesus speaks the word and it happens: forgiveness and judgement, healing and illumination, mercy and grace, joy and love, freedom and resurrection. EVERYTHING broken and fallen, sinful and diseased, called into salvation by God’s spoken word.
For, somewhere along the line things went wrong (Genesis tells that story, too) and are in desperate need of fixing. The fixing is all accomplished by speaking–God speaking salvation into being in the person of Jesus. Jesus, in this account not only speaks the word of God; He IS the Word of God.
1 In the beginning the Word already existed.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
As we begin our walk through John I pray we will see Jesus for Who He is–The Word made flesh who miraculously “moved into the neighborhood” of God’s created humans He was sent to seek out and to save. Jesus laid down His glory and entered earth as a defenseless baby under the care of God’s chosen, Mary and Joseph. 
Yes, Jesus, The Word, existed in the beginning with God. The Word gives Life to everything that was created. The Word is the Light that shines in the dark and this Light, Jesus, cannot be extinguished. 
