Lessons in Suffering, Trust & Faith - Louise Gibbon

[Music] Good evening everybody. I am Louise if I haven't met you yet and it's my great joy to be opening up God's word with us tonight. Thank you to the elders for this opportunity to come and do that and maybe just to take a moment to locate us where we are in our preaching journey. So we've just finished a five week series called God in the Digital Life. This was one of those series that was both helpful and deeply challenging and we really would encourage you if you missed out on any of those sessions to go back and listen. They were all excellent and so you can get those off our website or on the streaming platforms. We really encourage you to catch up if you missed out on any of those. Tonight what we're going to be doing is heading back into our backbone book for the year which is the Gospel of John and as we've been going through the Gospel of John we four chapters in. We've been exploring what does it mean to behold Jesus to see Him for who He truly is and then to believe in Him. And so these two words have become clear, behold and believe. And so what we've seen so far is we saw Jesus revealed as the eternal word made into the living word. Jesus in the flesh we watched Him turn what into wine. We've watched Him care at the temple. We've listened in on our conversation that He had with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a leader, is a leader in the religious elite group and as we listened in we heard Jesus say some weird things like you need to be born again in the spirit to come into the kingdom. Then we kind of followed Him then through Samaria He sat down at a well and had a conversation with a woman that no respectable Jewish teacher should have been speaking to. Yet by the end of that encounter an entire Samaritan village has come to know Jesus as the savior of the world. That's where we left it. Now we come to what is called the second sign of Jesus. Throughout the book of John he's going to be exploring seven of these miraculous signs. And he writes near the end of the letter he says, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name." Now both these first two signs happen in Canaan in Galilee. The first one when he turned water into wine was at this highlight moment, this wedding. The second today that we come to is a moment that is a terrible tragedy, an ill child who is facing an imminent death. And we see that Jesus is real in both those moments, the high and the low. And tonight what we're going to see is yes there's this invitation to come and to behold and to believe, but firstly there is the invitation to come, to come to Jesus and to see what he has to offer. We're going to watch him interact with this man and in this place of suffering, in this place of desperation, we're going to see Jesus offer hope, hope which Hebrews tells us is an anchor for the soul. It firms us, it secures us. So we're going to take a moment to just pause and pray and then Jason's going to come up and read the scripture reading to us. So let's just pray together. Yalda, we want to thank you that whenever we open up your word, it is a gift to us and we want to be those who humble ourselves under your word. Tonight we hangry to hear from you. We hangry to let this word shape us through your spirit. We want to learn, we want to lean in. And so we want to ask Lord if you would speak to us tonight and we would be attentive to what you are saying, what you're invading us into. We would notice what your invitation to us is tonight. We want to be those who are freshly expectant. Thank you for the gift of your word. Amen. Thank you Jason. John chapter 4, if you've got your barbels here, verse 43. Good evening church. Today's reading comes from John chapter 4 verses 43 to 54 and I'll be reading from the English standard version. After the two days he departed for Gatileep, for Jesus himself had testified that the prophet has no honor in his own hometown. So when he came to Galilee, the Galilee and welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast. So he came again to Canaan Galilee where he had made the water wine and at the cappernum there was an official whose son was ill. 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. So Jesus said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." The official said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies." Jesus said to him, "Go, your son will live." The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servant met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better and they said to him, "Yes, today, at the seventh hour the fever left him. The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, your son will live. He himself believed and all his household." This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee. This is the word of the Lord. Okay, so as we dive into this passage tonight, we're going to focus on what we can learn under three parts. We're going to look at lessons in suffering, lessons in trust and lessons in faith. And up front I do want to just say that the work of Charles Simeon and Tim Keller has been hugely helpful to me as I've shaped some of these thoughts and so I want to give some credit there where it's due. Let's start with lessons in suffering. So at the heart of this encounter is this man and he's described as a nobleman, an official. We think it's likely that he was working in Herod's court and he's a man of high standing. He has influence. He has stature in the community. What is more important in this moment is not that he is coming as an official but that he is coming as a father who is desperate and he comes with that urgency and that passion because his son is ill and is at the point of death. And he's traveled about 32 kilometers to get to Jesus from Capunum to Cana. That's like us grain from here to Samasadwast. It's a significant difference at distance. And he's coming to Jesus not in his role as an official but in his role as a father and it's highlighted in the language. He starts by talking about my child and then he moves on to say my son and in the original language that would have been a term of endearment, a term of affection, my son, we would say my boykey. That's how we would put it. And this father is showing us something of the first lesson of suffering. That suffering is universal and it's inevitable. Suffering is universal and inevitable. So if we look at this man, he's a man of status, he has access to power. He's probably a man who usually makes things happen and gets things done. But he is experiencing what is being called the levelling effect of affliction. That in this moment all that power and that status is irrelevant. Because suffering strips away those things which would normally differentiate us, our status or our wealth or our education, actually in this moment that is all stripped away. Suffering is an equalizer. It removes any masks that we wear and it confronts us with the brutal truth. And that truth is you are not in control and you cannot fix this no matter who you are. Suffering is all around us. Even in the weeks that I've been preparing this message, I've been freshly reminded about suffering. As Oli and Meg shared this heart-wrenching story of a young family where the mom died in child birth and this young father, these three young boys just left, reeling with this unexpected tragedy that happened. A number of people in this community just having received cancer diagnoses and the treatment journeys that go with that, mourning with friends at the death of their marriage. That's been hard. I've heard of a business closing and people being in financial insecurity and all the anxiety that comes with that. People wrestling with mental health issues or depression, sitting with people and sitting in that space of unanswered pray, the thing you desperate for and nothing is happening. And even last week reflecting with Sunay, many of you know Sunay, she leads worship here. Last week was a milestone for her. She marked 21 years in her wheelchair, which is the equal to the number of years that she lived not in a wheelchair. And just as I sat with that, "You're 21 years, Lord, that's long. We've been trusted." for your healing. We've been trusting for that to change. So, suffering isn't something that's out there. We know it's right here and it's among us now. And when we go through suffering, what happens is that it shows us it reveals what we truly believe. It reveals what we truly believe, not what we say we believe, but what we actually believe, what we actually going to hold onto when everything else is stripped away. Because in a space of suffering, that is when our self-reliance is challenged. So, the scripture speaks to this. Romans 5 says, "We know suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character and character hope." In one peter, he writes this, "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth-thing gold, which perishes, even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. And Paul is reminding us in these words of the power of the furnace, that the furnace is the place where gold is made pure and beautiful and strong. And he's reminding us that suffering is a place of a furnace for us. It's the place where our faith is tested. It's a place where our self-reliance and our need to control suddenly comes undone. And it can be the place that shows us what is in us. And the place where our faith can grow beautiful and pure and strong, just like gold. So the question is not where though we will suffer, the question is when we suffer, what will we do and who will we hold onto? And this man models it so beautifully, because the lesson is when you suffer, go to Jesus. When you suffer, go to Jesus. And so that's what he does. And if you think about it, he's left his son and he does not know if these are the last moments of his son's life, but he chooses to leave his son and to travel this distance because he doesn't have the answers and he believes that Jesus does. When we suffer, go to Jesus. Before we move on from this point, maybe just an application, because I'm aware that for some people in the room, you don't even have to imagine what it would be like to be this father, because you are right in a similar situation where you are also desperately hoping. And you're desperately trusting that God would intervene and speak and heal and move whether it's for yourself or for someone close to you, someone that you love. And if that is you, then just encourage you to keep leaning and to see what God would want to say to you tonight and how you would want to comfort you, what hope he would want to speak to you. Or maybe you hear tonight and you would identify more with the official because he's someone on the outside of the circle of faith. He is a Gentile. He's not part of this Jewish thing happening over here. And yet even he knows to come to Jesus. And that's a beautiful invitation to us, that no matter if you would consider yourself on the outside of the circle, the invitation is still come to Jesus. And so tonight, as you're listening, and maybe you've been hesitant and you've put yourself on the outside, the invitation is come to Jesus and think about, well, what is holding me back? What would it look like for me to come to Jesus with this suffering? Let's move on to lessons in trust. Now, when I read this passage initially, I did find Jesus' response quite surprising. It says, "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." So this man is modeling when you're in need, when you have a desperate situation, come to Jesus. And then he asks something completely natural. This is what we'd expect him to say. He says, "Can you come? Can you heal my son?" And then Jesus has this really odd reply. He says, "A nasty see signs and wonders you will not believe." And it might feel like he's pushing the man away or putting him off. What is going on here? Now already, Jesus has only been in this public ministry for a short time, but already he has encountered those people who are interested in him only because of the miracles he does. And they first want to see a sign and a wonder and then they will believe. And he pushes back against that. And remember, his push back to this man is always going to be motivated by love. And he is concerned about more than just this immediate need, this immediate problem. He is concerned about revealing himself more fully to this man. So this man knows something about Jesus. He knows enough to know to come to Jesus, but he doesn't yet understand fully who Jesus is. So he's coming to Jesus because he's looking for a miracle. He's coming to the miracle worker. But Jesus wants to show that he is the Messiah. He is even more than what this man is looking for. And also Jesus has in mind that he doesn't want to just physically heal the son. He wants to spiritually heal the whole family. His motive is love. So the official says to him, "So come down before my child dies." Again, this seems like a perfectly natural request. "Come with me Jesus." In other situations, that's what he does. When Jarius comes to him and says, "My daughter sick, Jesus goes with Jarius and heals her." When he hears the news of Lazarus' death, Jesus goes to Mary and Martha to be with them and be comfort and be a presence. So it seems like a bit of an ordinary, a natural request considering the circumstances. But Jesus doesn't do that. He says, "Go, your son will live." And this interaction shows us this first lesson of trust. Because Jesus doesn't do what this Father expects. He doesn't do it exactly like this Father would like him to or wants him to. Jesus answers on his own terms and trusts surrenders to his answer. Trust surrenders to his answer. Trust means letting Jesus answer on his own terms because Jesus knows best because he's God. I love the way that Charles Simion in Assumin on this passage put it. He said it like this. Let us then commit ourselves to him saying, "When now wilt and what that wilt and as that wilt." Now it's this beautiful old fashioned English capturing this threefold surrender that he's talking about. He's going, "We are surrendering the wind because God's timing is very often different to ours." And we surrendering the what? That his answer may not look like what we expected. Have you ever had that when you answered a praying you like, "Oh, I know how God's going to answer this." I'm going to predict it. And then he answers and you go like, "Whoa, that is not what I expected because we also need a surrender, the how. His methods will not be what we expect." We surrender the when, the what, the how. We surrender in our timetable and our preferred outcome and our expectations. That is what trust looks like. Now personally this is hard for me. Okay, I'm an enneagram number one. I don't know if there are any other enneagrams fans out there. One's like to be in control. They like to plan and organize. They like to know the outcome in advance. That's not how God works. Because so often I'm wrestling and I'm going, "Oh, Lord, can you just answer like this? This is how I think it should work." And he doesn't answer like that. The timing one is a big one for me. I'm in a season where God's told me to wait. So I've been waiting and then I go, "Now? Like surely now, now's long enough." And he goes, "No, just keep waiting, keep waiting because his timing is not my own." That's my wrestle. I don't know what your wrestle is. Maybe you can identify with that. But in that wrestle, God is teaching me something about surrender, about surrendering to who he is, to the way he wants to work, to his timing. And in that he's growing me, he's challenging me, he's maturing me. I hope. Right, let's go back to our story. So what we see, if you think about miracles, think about the old testament. So in the old testament, the normal experience was that the prophet would come and be physically present and active for the miracles to happen. So let's take one example. The prophet Elijah, he's probably one of the most well-known prophets of the Old Testament. In 1 Kings 17, there's the story of a widow who has a son who dies. And so she calls for Elijah. And Elijah comes to her house and he picks up the dead body, he takes it upstairs, he puts it on the bed, he lies in the body, he does all these weird things, he calls out to God. And the sun comes back to life, it's amazing miracle. But Elijah's there, he's physical, he's hands on, he's present. That's how miracles happen until Jesus. Because in this encounter, it's strikingly different. Jesus doesn't go anyway. Jesus heals this boy from a distance simply by speaking a word. He speaks and we're told later that the boy is healed. So Jesus is showing that he's not just a prophet. He's not like any of the other prophets. He is God Himself, not just the miracle worker, the Messiah. And that's the beauty of this moment, is that it's showing us that Jesus does heal, and Jesus can heal, and He does intervene, and He does it just with a word, because it is the word of the word, and He's able to break through. And so we see this royal official who came, wanting a sign, wanting a wonder, Jesus gave one thing, His word, and we see this man believe the word of God. It says, Jesus said to him, "Go, your Son will live, the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him," and He went on His way. And so that's the second lesson that trust believes God's word. Trust believes God's word is true. And maybe for some of us, that's a challenge. Do I believe God's word, or am I a bit like the Galileans going, "I'm going to just hold out for a sign, Lord. Won't you give me a sign, and then I'll believe? Give me a sign, and then I'll obey, or then I'll follow you. But actually, trust believes God's word." This is the interesting thing about John's Gospel. So in the whole book, 21 chapters, he focuses on seven signs, seven signs in 21 chapters, and yet half of the Gospel, thousands of words, is Jesus speaking. And John is showing us something in that, that yes, the signs point to Jesus, but Jesus' words reveal who He is, and He same pay attention to those words, believe those words, trust those words. Let's follow this man on his journey of trust. As he was growing down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering, so he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, "Yes, today, at the seventh hour, the fever left him." So just note that, yesterday, at the seventh hour, that means that the official took his time to get back home. In fear, he had run to Jesus. Now in faith, he walks home slowly. It's a beautiful expression of trust. Spirit and puts it like this. He went his way leisurely and calmly, confident in the truth of what Jesus had said to him. And the question he asks is loaded with significance. It says, "He asked them the hour when he began to get better, because he's not just confirming something about his son and his son's recovering. He's confirming something about this son, because he says, "He knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him "your son will live, and he believed." It's a confirmation from him. He comes to the conclusion, Jesus is to be believed. Jesus is who he says he is. And then we aren't told the specifics, but we are told his whole household, his whole family, comes to the same conclusion. And so here we see it behold and believe it's happening again. Let's now move on to the third part. What is this encounter of trust teachers about faith? And maybe just to say faith and trust, those words are a little bit interchangeable. And maybe those two sections could have been together. Let me give a definition that might be helpful on how I've seen the difference in them. So trust is when I choose to depend on someone, to rely on someone because of who they are. So I trust God or I trust Jesus. I choose to depend on Him. I'm going to take Jesus at His word. That's my attitude of trust. But trust can deepen into faith. Faith is more of an orientation of our life, a setleness. So it involves trust, but it's something a bit more. Because it involves our mind, it involves what we believe, but it also then involves how we act, and what we choose to do based on that belief. And in that it involves our heart because something settles in us. So over time, through trial, through testing, I'm going to trust Jesus. And over time I've come to know Him to be faithful and true. And my faith deepens. And my knowledge of Him grows. So faith is this deepening. So using that as a reference, the first lesson in faith is that it starts in the mind. It starts with what we believe to be true. Faith isn't just this blind, mindless thing. Oh, I'm going to have faith. No, it starts with what we think about. And Paul refers to this in 2 Corinthians 5, 7. He says, "We walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by faith by what we know to be true, not just by what we see or feel or experience." And so that's what's happening with this Father. He has this belief that Jesus is going to help Him, and He acts on that belief. He travels to go and see Him. Faith moves Him based on what He believes. Faith starts in our minds with what we think. And so that makes us go, well, what are we thinking about? What are we believing to be true? And Romans 12 cuts straight to the point. It says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." So that connects directly to what we've been exploring in our digital life series, because part of that series was saying, well, what are we filling our minds with? What are we thinking about? What are we watching? What are we reading? How are we spending our time? What are we giving our attention to? Let's be more thoughtful about that. And so this process of being on a digital fast, we've got one week to go. Are you still with us? One week to go. It's been about disentangling some of those unhelpful, maybe slightly addictive habits and patterns, and making us think more intentionally, how am I going to spend this time? What am I going to read? What am I going to engage with? What am I going to give my attention to? Because it shapes what I think and what I believe to be true. Dallas Willard puts it powerfully. He says, "The ultimate freedom we have is the power to select what we allow our minds to dwell on. What we place our minds on brings that reality into our lives. If we place our minds on God, the reality of God comes into our lives. Trust, faith, it all starts here in our mind. Let me share a simple example from my own devotional journey over the last few weeks. So there's a phrase that's just coming up again and again and again. "God's unfailing love." And so I did have a chuckle because in my Psalm this morning, there it was. "For his unfailing love for us is powerful. And I've heard it and I've read it. My unfailing love for you will not be shaken. The Lord leads with unfailing love." And so over and over again, I've just heard this phrase, "unfailing love." So now I fix my mind on that. Let me believe that to be true. That this is who God is. This is a part of His nature. He's unfailing love. There is a love in Him. It cannot be other than that unfailing love. And that has been the lens through which I've looked as I've prayed into some of these situations. As I've prayed for this young family who've lost their mom. What does it look like to pray with the belief that God's unfailing love is there? As I've prayed for siné yet again. What does it look like to pray through that lens of unfailing love? And it doesn't mean I always understand it. It doesn't mean I can even always see it. We live in this already notiate reality. But I'm going to believe it to be true. And it's going to shape how I think about God and how I pray about these situations. Because the joy of genuine faith is that it's not based on us. Our faith is not based on what we, the faith we have, if I can put it like this, our faith rests not on me, but on Christ. The object of my faith is what is important, not the quality or strength of my faith. So let me make this real with what I'm calling a tale of two chairs. The first chair, you're going to picture with me in your mind. It's a dentist's chair. So at the beginning of last year, I had extreme toothache. And I was in incredible pain. Maybe you can relate. But the tricky thing was I wasn't in Cape Town. And I was out of town. And so I just had to manage this pain. And then as I came back into Cape Town, I got an appointment with my dentist. And I went into his rooms and I sat in the chair. And I just remember feeling relief because I knew he is going to figure this out. And he is going to fix this. And sure enough, he diagnosed an abscess. He gave me a numbing injection. And the tears just rolled on my cheeks as I thought, "Hah, relief." My faith was in the object. of my faith and he is just a human dentist, okay? But I had such faith and belief in him and his skill and his ability. He is the best dentist in K-Tom. Okay. The second chair is this red chair. So here is a chair, okay. And the tale of this chair is that it's here. So I've asked my amazing son to come and sit in the chair. Okay, do you watch Ryan sit in the chair with confidence, with ease. His faith is in this chair to hold him, okay? It is not about how strong Ryan's faith is. He's not like, "Oh, I believe that this chair is going to hold me. I trust this chair." And he sits down. No, it's all about the chair and how well made this chair is. Because he could have all the faith in the world. And if this chair was badly made, it would collapse. You feel safe, boy? Okay, or if you go, "It is all about the chair. I want you to remember Ryan in that chair. That is the object lesson. It is about the object of my faith, not the quality of my faith. And that should just allow us to, "Hush, exhale." Because there is huge relief in that. It is not about how well I believe, how often I pray, how fervently I pray, or my faith has got to be strong enough. My faith has got to be deep enough and then God is going to work. No, it is all about God. And I think some of us tonight might be feeling you may have felt that in order for God to work, in order for God to hear you, in order for God to move, you need to grit. And you need to make it happen and you need to pray more and you need to have more faith. No, it is all about him. The object of your faith. You will not make it happen, trust in the chair. Trust in God, he is utterly reliable. He is utterly faithful. He is the God of unfairly in love. Put your faith in the object of your faith. Don't put it in yourself, because we know our faith goes up and down. Today I feel full of faith because my prayer was answered and I feel close to God and loved. And tomorrow my prayer didn't get answered and I feel slightly shameful or sinful or disconnected to God. Faith drops, our faith goes up and down. God is consistent and strong and reliable. And finally, faith loves Christ for who he is and not what he gives. And I think this final marker is a marker of a very mature and very deep faith. I'm not sure I'm there yet. My faith in God has grown to the point where it's not about seeking him for things, it's about seeking him and just being content. Then I'm not focusing on what he gives, but I'm focusing on who he is. He is not just the root to the reward, he is the reward. That is a marker of deep faith where we love Jesus for who he is, not for what he can give us. Where we see that he is not just a performer of wonders and signs, he is the wonder in himself and we worship and love him and trust him deeply because of that. My prayer is that our faith would grow, our faith would grow and deepen into this place where we love Christ not for, we love him just for who he is, not for what he gives us. So these are some lessons in suffering, lessons in trust, lessons in faith. As we close, I want to invite us to step back from the detail of the story and ask, well, what bigger story is this pointing to? Because one of the things that John does in his narrative is he's not just recording stories to record history. He is actually carefully and skillfully painting a portrait of Jesus and pointing towards something, pointing towards the cross, pointing towards the resurrection. So in this story, the gospel arc is beautiful because we see a father who comes in desperation, pleading for the life of his son and in that story, John shifts the language, he arrives as an official, then he emphasizes that he's a father. He emphasizes the relationship with the son because underneath this story, he wants us to hear the echo of another story, of another father and another son and another brush with death that would lead to life. And just as this son is saved from death on the third day, so that son would be saved from death, not just saved from death, but would actually defeat death and would be fully triumphant over death. And then we also see this wider arc that John's been built in first, we met Nicodemus, right in the heart of the religious elite and he came to Jesus. And then we saw this Samaritan woman. She was a social art class. She'd been dismissed by her community, she comes to Jesus and finally we see this official. He's a gentle, he has a man of stature and importance and he comes to Jesus. And so we see this beautiful arc that Jesus and his message is for everybody, not just the religious elite, but also the powerless, disrespected woman as well as the powerful, respected man. People of them are invited to meet with Jesus and as they come to Jesus they find their lives completely transformed. And that's the gospel arc. Human desperation meets divine grace and results in transformed life. It's absolutely beautiful. But we also can't leave the story without being honest because this is a story of hope. Jesus speaks, the sun is healed, he's rescued from death, it's amazing. But we know that that is not always the case. And some of you are sitting here with that reality. The sun dies, the diagnosis doesn't change. You're still sitting in the suffering, despite asking for healing. God feels silent, you've prayed and prayed and prayed. And as you've listened it might seem like the story is a bit cruel rather than comforting. But this is where the gospel arc can hold us. Because John is not ultimately telling us a story about a father and a six son. He is telling us a story about the father and this son. And this father would willingly lay down his son's life and sacrifice and give his son. And this son would willingly lay down his life and pay the cost so that the ultimate answer is that death would be defeated forever. And so this son, his life is spared just for a season. But because of what Jesus did on the cross and because he defeated death, it means that death is defeated forever. Not just life for a season, but eternal life. And Jesus said that he said, "I'm the resurrection of the life whoever believes in me, though he die yet shall he live, whoever believes will not perish but have eternal life." And that is a beautiful reminder to us that we have a Savior who endured suffering, who understands suffering, and who promises that one day he's going to wipe away every tear from every eye and there's going to be no more death. No more mourning, no more crying, no more pain because of what he did on the cross.