After two days of successful ministry among the Samaritans, Jesus completes his journey from Judea and enters into Galilee (John 4:43–46; cf. John 4:1–3). Jesus leaves the Samaritans and comes to his own people, but in tragic contrast to the readiness of the Samaritans to believe, Jesus’ own people do not receive him (cf. John 1:11). He comes as a prophet without honor in his home country (John 4:44), and that lack of honor immediately becomes apparent when a royal official asks Jesus to come with him from Cana to Capernaum to heal his sick child. Jesus probes the inadequacy of this father’s faith in ways that challenge not only the man, but us as well.

What exactly has Jesus come to do, and how does his mission inform the ways in which he will interact with those who do not come to him with the right kind of faith? Furthermore, for those of us living today, how should we wrestle with our own faith to believe in Jesus from afar, with nothing more than his word and his Holy Spirit? What does this story tell us about the word of Jesus in the midst of our own trials and sorrows? In this story, we discover a surprising truth: Jesus meets our deepest needs, even when he doesn’t grant our most fervent prayers.

Please open your Bibles with me to John 4:43-54.

43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.
46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
John 4:43-54, ESV

This is the word of the Lord. I've mentioned this in the past, but one of the sins that I always have to keep aware of besetting sin that affects a lot of areas of my life is a desire to be a people pleaser. The problem with people pleasing is that it warps your conception of what is good and right and what you ought to do by defining it exclusively on along the lines of, does this make other people happy? It's really a pretty simple test in that regard. Does this make people happy? Yes, it's good. No, well, then it's probably not good.

Now, in a lot of cases, this can sometimes be a fairly accurate guide for your behavior. You know, if I'm being a jerk to someone and I see that I'm not making them happy, that's a very clear indication that I need to repent and apologize and ask for forgiveness. Sometimes it's not that simple.

For example, in my parenting, you know, there are times when I can fairly clearly see whether I'm being a good father, but by how well I'm interacting with my children. It's fairly easy for me to just sort of go off and be in my own world and be emotionally distant from my children and one of the ways I know I'm being a good father is if I'm engaging with them and playing with them. I have young children, so wrestling with them and trying to get them to giggle and play and have a good time.

But what makes it hard, what makes it so difficult are those times where being a father means that I cannot do that. The game has to stop. So for example, we're unloading the van and my two year old son Zachariah decides what a wonderful time for a game of chase, I'm going to run into the street or into the parking lot. That's a time where I can't pretend that this is a fun game that we can all play and we can laugh and have a good time. I have to change my demeanor. My voice has to become loud and sharp and harsh. I have to cause the fun and the enjoyment and the innocence and the joy of my son to drain from his face to see very clearly something is dangerous here. Dad is telling me in harsh, strong, painful language I need to stop and cannot keep going. I hate that because it makes my son not happy. As a people pleaser that rips me up inside, but if I don't do that, I'm not a good father. I fail at the task that I am trying to do.

In this story, in verse 48, we read one of seemingly the cruelest things that Jesus says in his lifetime. A man's child is sick at the point of death. And Jesus does not spring up. Get into action mode, please, this man, by going and healing the Sun. He rebukes him for his lack of faith. He tells them your faith isn't good enough. Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe. That's harsh. How does this picture here fit, comport with, work with our understanding of Jesus as love in the flesh? God is love, and yet Jesus tells this man whose son is dying, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

The surprise that we find in this passage is that Jesus, in fact, meets our deepest needs, even when he does not grant us our most fervent prayers. This is a complicated idea, so we're going to break this down as we go through this passage by tackling three questions.
1. What is our deepest need?
2. Why doesn't Jesus grant our most fervent prayer?
3. If Jesus doesn't grant our most fervent prayers, then how on earth can we trust him to actually meet our deepest needs? Kind of goes back and forth.

Well, let's start with this first question. What is our deepest need? John starts to address this issue in John 4:43-45. He talks about the reality of the kind of faith that is happening in Galilee. Galilee is sort of at the northern part of where the Israelites are living. In the south is Judea and the northern part is Galilee and Jesus has been traveling from Judea up to Galilee with that stop in the middle in Samaria, where he met this woman at the well. Well he stayed with the Samaritans two days, they believed in him that came to him, they talked with him, they heard him, they believed his word. Well, after these two days we read Jesus, then continued his journey to go to Galilee.

In verse forty-four, it's a little confusing because we read that Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown or his home country, you might translate that word. Galilee is Jesus's home country. He's from Galilee, so we might expect verse 44 to say in spite of the fact, or even though Jesus had testified that a prophet has no honor in his hometown, he's going to Galilee. That's not what John says, John says for or because, after the two days he departed for Galilee because Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his hometown.

What's going on there? Well, what Jesus is talking about when he says that a prophet has no honor in his hometown is a fairly easy thing to understand. I was an interim pastor at a church a few years ago in Lincoln. After my time as an interim pastor came to an end, when they hired a permanent pastor of a guy who actually grew up in that church. I mean, he's a wonderful man, but one of the challenges that he has to face is he is now preaching to and ministering to people who literally changed his diapers, who watched him throw a tantrum when he was two years old, who saw all of the mistakes that he was making as he was growing up, and now they're supposed to listen to him. It's far easier to come in off the street and have people have no idea who you are or the things in your background for them to listen to you.

Well, Jesus knows this, but he still wants to go to Galilee. Why? Well, it's actually because he expects to receive no honor there. If you remember the beginning of this chapter in verses one through three, Jesus learned there that the Pharisees were hearing that Jesus was making in baptizing more disciples than John. He's being honored in Judea because he didn't grow up in Judea. He's not a Judean. He's this exotic prophet from Galilee, and people are coming to him and flocking to him, and he's starting to gather a following.

And so in verse three, we read that Jesus left Judea and departed again for Galilee. Why his hour hadn't come. The time is coming when he is going to have to engage with the Pharisees, and eventually they are going to arrest him and condemn him to die on the cross, but that time has not come. So to avoid all of this happening prematurely, Jesus gets out of town and hides in plain sight in Galilee, where he will not be honored.

That makes these first three verses of our passage, so 43 through 45 confusing again, is we're going to read so in verse 45. So, or therefore or according to his expectations, just as he knew would happen when he came to Galilee, the Galileans and welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast for they too had gone to the feast. They welcome him, but Jesus was expecting no honor.

Well, in fact, Jesus was not honored by the Galileans. They welcomed him because he performed all of these signs. He was a wonder worker. He was flashy. He was exciting. He could do miracles. He could pull a rabbit out of his hat or he could meet your needs. Do you want a meal? Bam, Jesus could snap his fingers and he could feed you bread. Do you want someone healed as we're going to see in this passage? That's the kind of stuff that this guy does. He's useful. Who wouldn't want that kind of a person in your area?

That doesn't mean they honored him as a prophet. A prophet has no honor in his hometown. Now, prophets were supposed to perform signs and wonders to authenticate that they had authority to speak a word that you ought to listen to. Their signs and wonders we're not ends in themselves; the point of the signs was for you to listen to their word. The Samaritans did that. They believed the word that Jesus spoke, verse forty-one. The Galileans, Jesus's own, do not.

What John is setting up here is the backdrop to the story. What's happening in this area is that people don't believe Jesus. They don't look to Jesus as the Christ and the son of God. They don't trust him. They see him as useful, as powerful, as entertaining, as exciting as exotic, but they don't trust him as prophet. They don't listen to him; they have no intention of listening to him. Jesus is sort of saying here as he's coming into Galilee, the whole reason he's coming into Galilee is that he expects this and understands that their faith is inadequate. They have inadequate faith. It's false faith, it's not true genuine fading faith. They are looking to Jesus for what he can do for them and not to Jesus as the Son of God who has come into this world for us and for our salvation.

Our deepest need, what John wants us to know at the end of this passage is to believe in and trust in Jesus. Not as his fellow Jews had done, but as the Samaritans, those dirty Samaritans had done.

Now we want to be careful. Sometimes Satan gets on this topic in our hearts, and he starts telling us, look at the way you haven't loved Jesus in that way. Look at the area of your life where you've struggled to trust Jesus over here. Look at the time where you actually desired something more than you desire Jesus over there. Look at all of these ways your faith isn't perfect.

Now that's a different thing, that's incomplete faith. It's true faith. it's genuine, its saving faith, but it isn't fully formed in us. In fact, it will never be fully formed in us this side of glory. All of us are going to deal with these things that keep tripping us up, that keep stumbling us, that keep causing us to keep us from believing in Jesus and trusting him to do all that he commands us to do.

That's not what's happening with these Galileans. It isn't when they're confronted with this that they repent and say, Jesus, I'm sorry they have this inadequate faith, not an incomplete faith, but an inadequate faith that constantly has a bag packed ready to go. If Jesus doesn't do what they want him to do and we will see this happening, especially in John chapter six, they're out of there.

Our deepest need though, as weak, as faltering, as stumbling and bumbling as we happen to be in this, we need the kind of faith that looks to Jesus. We're going to go off, but when that happens, we need to repent and come back looking to Jesus as the Christ and that's not what's happening here, even though that is their deepest need.

Well, that sets up the story then. If this is their deepest need, the place this is going to come into conflict, the place where this the rubber is really going to hit the road is with this story of this royal official in Capernaum. A man who has a sick dying son. So when he hears that Jesus has come into the area, he says, fantastic, that healer is here.

Now, we don't know exactly where his faith is, but we're clearly supposed to understand that he's someone in Galilee and has heard the stories of all the people who went to Jerusalem at the feast and saw the signs that Jesus had performed. So he comes to Jesus and says, OK, here's what I need you to do. Come down with me to Capernaum to heal my son. His understanding of Jesus was that this is one more miracle worker. This is one more wonder worker. This is one more worker of signs and wonders and the only way for this person to come and fix my son is for him to actually be bodily present there. It was unheard of to imagine that such a person could heal from a distance.

More than that, this man asks Jesus to come with him because, well, you know, if the incantation doesn't work the first time, or maybe Jesus doesn't wave his hands in the right way, if it doesn't work at first, he can make sure with Jesus there that he can get the job done, that he can see the job through. If Jesus doesn't come with him, he has no way of knowing whether, in fact, the job is done.

So he comes to Jesus, and he brings this fervent, urgent prayer from the place of his deepest brokenness and need. He presents this to Jesus and says, Come down with me, heal my son, please. This is where Jesus rebukes him. This is Jesus, the one that we read doesn't break a bruised reed, this is Jesus who doesn't quench a smoldering wick, and he rebukes this man in his pain for a lack of faith. What's going on here?

Jesus doesn't grant the most fervent prayer of this man. But why? Because he recognizes that there's something bigger at stake, there's something more important.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, the sixth book to be published, which, by the way, is the correct order, they're published out of order right now, which is a tragedy, but the sixth book that tells the story of the creation of Narnia, The Magician's Nephew, the story when Aslan sings all of Narnia into existence. There's a boy named Digory there. The first scene we see of Digory when the book opens up is of him weeping because his mother is dying. Digory in this new world, brand new fresh Narnia has given a mission by Aslan, go across this new world, go to the garden where you will find inside the garden a tree, pluck an apple from that tree and bring it back to me, Aslan says. Digory does this with his friend Polly, they go across Narnia, they find this apple and they pluck it.

Before they can do that, they meet the woman who becomes the white witch in the story later on. She tempts Digory and Polly saying if you eat this, you will become immortal like me. She's already done it. The juice of the apple is streaming down her face like blood, it says. Then when they resist this temptation, she tries again, looking at Digory and saying your mother is dying, what child wouldn't do anything to save his dying mother? Take this apple, go back to your mother and she will live forever.

Well, with Polly's help Digory gets out of the situation. They go to Aslan The Lion, the Great Lion who is symbolizes Christ. Digory tells Aslan, what has happened and Aslan says, understand then that it would have healed her. You could have healed your mother, but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness.

You see, there are ways that we can get exactly what we want, but it heals our wound lightly. My daughter is a sweet, tender age where she imagines that a Band-Aid can heal any malady under the sun. So any time she has any kind of hurt or sickness or anything, she just wants a Band-Aid, that can fix it all. Well, if my daughter has a serious illness and I give her a Band-Aid instead of taking her to a doctor, I'm criminally negligent as a parent. I don't give her what she needs, even if I answer her actual request. Daddy, give me a Band-Aid.

That's what's happening here. It's not that Jesus doesn't love this man; it's not that Jesus doesn't love the son of this man. It's that Jesus recognizes that if he just snaps his fingers or goes down with him and heals the child, the day will come when both this son and his father will look back on that moment and say it would have been better if the boy had simply died at that moment. We have a tough time believing that. We see our needs, our immediate circumstances, and all encompassing, all consuming, if only this could happen, if only this would stop happening, then everything would be better. Jesus, though, looks at our lives and recognize that there's something bigger at stake. You have deeper needs than the fervent, urgent prayers you were bringing to Jesus.

Think about this man. He now has a choice. We know what his deepest need is, Johns told us that, he needs to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We know why Jesus isn't healing the son, why he isn't granting this fervent prayer request. It's because there's something deeper at stake, it's the faith of the man. Now the man has a choice, will he believe Jesus? Or will he say, forget you, I'm out of here. I'm going to go to the next wonder worker. I'm going to go to the next healer. I'm going to find somebody down the road who will do for me what I am asking you to do and you have not done yet.

In other words. He has to first wrestle with one question: the character of Jesus. Is Jesus good? This brings us to the next set of questions, the next big question we have to answer, if Jesus doesn't grant our most fervent requests, how can we trust him to meet our deepest needs?

Look at what the man says in response to Jesus in verse 49, "Sir, come down before my child dies." He doubles down on Jesus. I mean, he could have gone to another healer, he could have tried something different. Somehow, we're not really told the details, He recognizes that Jesus is the only one who can grant him what he means, and so he doubles down on Jesus. I don't know why you're putting me through this. I don't know the answer of what you're trying to accomplish. I don't know where this is going, how this is going to end, but I know that you are the only one who can answer this question. Sir, please come down before my child dies. Jesus says to the man, go, your son will live.

Now, this is a fascinating statement. Notice that Jesus doesn't answer, doesn't grant this man's prayer request. Remember, the man wanted him to come down with him. I want to see this happen again. If you're incantation goes wrong the first time you wonder worker, I want to make sure that you can try a different approach and make it happen. Jesus simply heals the boy from afar. It was unheard of, says the word, and the man is left with another question. First, can he trust the character of Jesus? Second, can he trust the power of Jesus? Is Jesus capable of doing this? The big question is, can he believe the word of Jesus? Jesus says this to him, can he trust him for this?

That's our question too. If Jesus doesn't grant what we ask. You know, sometimes we offer these plans, these proposals to God and we say, I've got it all figured out, God, you don't even have to worry about that. I've got this 10 step plan that if you do all of it, my life will be much better. So here, just go ahead, sign off on it and we'll get this thing moving. God sees the deeper issues in us and rather than just signing off rubber stamping our 10 point plans. God does the hard work of asking us to believe his word; that he is good, that he loves us, and that what he is doing will turn out for our good.

In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan continues. After saying that if Digory had stolen the apple, the day would have come when both he and his mother would have looked back and said it would have been better for his mother to die in that state. Then he says that is what would have happened child with a stolen apple. It is not what will happen now. What I give you now will bring joy. It will not in your world give endless life, but it will heal. Go pluck her an apple from the tree.

This doesn't mean that Jesus, once we sort of sort through, this will then give us exactly what we ask for. Sometimes Jesus doesn't give us ever what we ask for. So long as it's delayed, so long as we have to wait, so long as we are left in this point of anxiety, wondering what's going to happen next, Jesus continues to bring us back to this question. Number one is Jesus good? Number two, can Jesus do more than I can think or imagine in this situation?

I don't know why you're here today. As a pastor, I pray that God would bring lots of people to come and hear the word of the Lord and come to know Jesus. I have no idea what brought you in the door this morning. Maybe, you're looking for something and you know exactly what you need. Yet Jesus, in his word, is confronting you. Do you trust me? Do you believe that I'm good? Do you believe that I can do all that I've spoken that I will do?

Certainly, you may falter in your trust, certainly you may stumble in your trust, but do you repent from that? Do you come back? Or are you ready to go and to find another thing that can actually grant you what it is you're looking for? The man here, we read in verse 50, believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. There was no way if he went back to his home, the long, many miles that he had to walk home, there was no way for him to get on a cell phone and call someone in the area and ask Jesus to come back if in fact his son was not healed. All he has is the word of the Lord promising that Jesus will do what he has promised to do, and that's all he has, and it's enough.

When he gets home and realizes that Jesus has indeed done as he has spoken, when in fact it was the seventh hour when he was talking with Jesus when the fever left the boy. We read that he believed and all his household. It wasn't that their faith was withheld until they could see the boy live, but that was a confirmation of all that Jesus had spoken to him.

The greatest need that you and I have, whatever shakes out in our circumstances. Whatever place that Jesus asks us to walk through, the greatest need that we have is to trust him. To recognize that where he is taking us is not into a place that is for our harm but is ultimately for our good. That's the question that we're confronted with. Do you trust the goodness of Jesus and do you trust the power of Jesus, even when you have to go weeks, months, years, decades without receiving what it is that you pray for?

Jesus has come into this world, not for our condemnation, but to offer us life in himself, that he gives us as a gift through faith. But the only way for us to get this gift sometimes is for Jesus to do some really deep work in our hearts sometimes requires incredible pain. I don't ever want to make light of what anyone is going through. From this story and from everything else in the entire testimony of the scriptures, the word that Jesus promises is that he hears you, he sees you, he knows where you are, he hasn't forgotten you, and he's promised to be faithful. Whether or not that gives you what you want, he will be faithful and he will be good. Do you trust him?

Pray with me. Father, we ask for that trust. It's a grace. We need your Spirit to do work in our lives to remove stones and thorns and thistles in the soil of our hearts so that the seed of Jesus's word can settle in and grow up and can bear fruit of our trust, of our faith in Jesus, who is good and who can do far more abundantly than we can think or imagine. Father, I pray specifically for those who are in very difficult circumstances. You know who they are better than I do. You know their prayers. You have heard them and you are not ignoring them. God, I pray, would you comfort them in your word and by your Spirit? To believe, to trust once again that you are good and that you are powerful. God, we pray this in the name of your Son and for his glory. In Jesus name. Amen.