39. A Desperate Dad: Jesus and John's Gospel Part 8

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[00:00:23] G'day and welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids. Dave here. If the school bully

[00:00:30] walked up to you tomorrow and said, Hey you, I'm going to make you your favourite dinner

[00:00:35] tonight. Would you believe them? I'm guessing probably not. What about if a complete stranger

[00:00:42] walked up to you and said the same thing? Would you believe them? You'd probably be like,

[00:00:47] Who are you creepy person? Get away from me! What about if your parent or carer said they're

[00:00:53] going to make your favourite dinner? Would you believe them? That's probably more likely,

[00:00:58] isn't it?

[00:00:59] On Stories of a Faithful God for Kids, I like to talk about how Jesus is faithful. I'm pretty

[00:01:06] much a super fan. If Jesus is faithful, that means he can be trusted right? You can have

[00:01:13] faith in him because he's faithful. You can believe him. The problem is, we can find

[00:01:20] it hard to believe him. Sometimes, we want him to prove himself over and over and over

[00:01:27] again. We can be like, Come on Jesus, I want to see a miracle! Then I'll believe in you.

[00:01:35] John's Gospel is written for people like you and me. People who don't get to see Jesus

[00:01:41] walking around, doing his miracles, saying all his great words. It's written so that

[00:01:47] we don't need to see those things. It's written so that we can believe. Get ready

[00:01:53] for our next episode of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

[00:02:25] At the end of our last episode, Jesus was in Samaria and a whole bunch of people had

[00:02:32] just started believing in Jesus. They hadn't seen any miracles, they'd just heard Jesus'

[00:02:38] words. But that was enough. They knew he could be trusted, so they believed in him.

[00:02:45] Remember, Samaria is in between Judea in the south around the city of Jerusalem and Galilee

[00:02:51] is in the north around the sea of Galilee. Jesus was in Samaria because he was travelling

[00:02:57] back home from Jerusalem to Galilee. Galilee is the area where Jesus grew up in the

[00:03:04] town of Nazareth. He's a local. People have known him since he was a kid. And

[00:03:10] because they've known him since he was a kid, they just thought of him as that guy down the road.

[00:03:16] Nothing particularly special. In fact, in John 4 verse 44 we're told Jesus had said before

[00:03:24] that a prophet is not respected in his own country. So it's a little strange then

[00:03:30] when he gets back to Galilee and he gets a sort of hero's welcome. They're really excited

[00:03:36] to see him. What's going on? Well, Jesus had been in Jerusalem for the Passover festival,

[00:03:43] and while he was there he'd done lots of miracles. Heaps of people from Galilee had been there

[00:03:49] for Passover as well, and they'd seen what he'd done. All of a sudden they all wanted to be

[00:03:56] his friend. Isn't that interesting? They haven't respected him before they saw the miracles.

[00:04:04] Now they all want to be around him. How different is that to the Samaritans?

[00:04:10] They didn't get to see any miracles. They'd just listened to Jesus' words, and that had been enough.

[00:04:17] A bunch of times in John we see that people who just get excited about miracles,

[00:04:22] their belief in Jesus doesn't tend to last very long.

[00:04:27] Anyway, Jesus goes to the town of Cana. That's the town where he turned the water into wine.

[00:04:34] While he's there, a man in another town hears about Jesus. This is what we learn about him in

[00:04:40] verse 46. One of the king's important officers lived in the city of Capernaum. This man's son

[00:04:48] was sick. The man heard that Jesus had come from Judea and was now in Galilee. He went to

[00:04:54] Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum and heal his son. His son was almost dead.

[00:05:04] Whoa. This dad must be so desperate. Remember in those days they didn't have any hospitals.

[00:05:13] They had a few doctors who were pretty good at dealing with things like bleeding and broken arms,

[00:05:18] but they didn't have a clue about things like viruses.

[00:05:22] This dad, his son's almost dead. He's walked all the way from Capernaum to Cana to get Jesus.

[00:05:31] He hasn't sent a servant even though he could've. He's come himself to beg Jesus for help.

[00:05:38] And Jesus is really compassionate and kind and loving isn't he?

[00:05:42] When he opens his mouth to speak to the man though he sounds really

[00:05:46] frustrated?

[00:05:50] Frustrated? Why would Jesus be frustrated? That seems really weird. Here's what he says in verse 48.

[00:05:57] He says, You people must see signs and miracles before you will believe in me.

[00:06:04] Do you hear what he's trying to say? He wants people to believe in him. He wants

[00:06:09] people to trust him and he doesn't want people to have to keep seeing miracles over and over

[00:06:15] again just to do that. The people around him, the Galileans, their belief is only based on

[00:06:23] seeing the next miracle and the next one and the next one. But the dad still wants his son

[00:06:30] to be healed. He begs Jesus in verse 49, Sir come before my child dies. And so Jesus doesn't go with

[00:06:40] the dad. Don't panic. Jesus is still going to help. He just isn't going to help in a way that

[00:06:48] gives the crowd the miracle show that they want. Instead he looks at the dad and he says in verse 50,

[00:06:56] Go, your son will live. That's it. No show, nothing spectacular. He's asking this man

[00:07:07] to believe him, to walk back home trusting that Jesus has fixed his son,

[00:07:15] believing that Jesus doesn't need to go with him. And you know what? The man does believe Jesus.

[00:07:24] He stops begging. He turns around and starts walking back home to Capernaum. Whoa.

[00:07:33] That is what real belief looks like. Every single step, walking away from Cana,

[00:07:42] away from Jesus towards home, trusting that his son will live. He's still walking the next day.

[00:07:54] As he's going along, he sees two of his servants coming towards him. They've got

[00:08:06] your son is well. So good. But the dad wants to know more. He wants to work out exactly what happened.

[00:08:15] And so he asks the servants, what time did my son begin to get well? They reply,

[00:08:21] it was about one o'clock yesterday when the fever left him.

[00:08:25] One o'clock yesterday? One o'clock yesterday? Those words are like music to the man's ears

[00:08:31] because he knows something, something really important, something really exciting. He knows

[00:08:38] that one o'clock yesterday was exactly when Jesus had looked him in the eye and said,

[00:08:44] your son will live. There is no doubt in his mind. He was right to believe. Jesus is faithful.

[00:08:54] Jesus words can be trusted. He didn't need Jesus to come with him. He didn't need Jesus

[00:09:00] to show him the miracle. Jesus can do anything he wants. The man believes Jesus. Not just him though,

[00:09:10] everyone who lives in his house trusts Jesus. And you know what? You can too.

[00:09:18] We live almost 2000 years after all this happened. Sometimes it can feel like,

[00:09:25] oh I wish I was back there. I wish I could see the miracles. It would be so much easier to believe

[00:09:31] if I could just see Jesus doing that stuff. But let me ask you, how many miracles would be enough

[00:09:38] for you to believe in Jesus? One, five, a hundred? Jesus didn't do miracles just to put on a show,

[00:09:47] like he might go to a movie to be entertained. He did them as signs to point people to who he is.

[00:09:54] To show people that we can trust him. And he's already done enough to show that. Now he says,

[00:10:03] trust me. Believe me. Believe my words. Just like the Samaritans did in the last episode.

[00:10:11] Just like the dad today. Sure it would be fun to see a miracle. But we don't need it to

[00:10:18] believe Jesus. We already know that he's completely, utterly faithful. We can trust him. We can believe him.

[00:10:29] And besides, do you know that seeing Jesus do a miracle actually doesn't necessarily make people

[00:10:37] believe in Jesus? Jesus is about to go to Jerusalem again and do a miracle. And it's actually going

[00:10:43] to make people really angry. But that's a story for next time. Don't forget to send me any questions

[00:10:51] or comments at faithfulgod.net. Keep trusting Jesus. Bye for now.

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