According to the Scriptures

Damian Kyle: Pastor Damian Kyle says if you're requiring an unending flow of miracles from God before you believe, you'll be sadly disappointed.

A faith based supremely upon miracles is dramatically inferior to a faith that is based upon God's word and his promises. And this nobleman, he is stuck on "seeing is believing." In other words, "I must have some miracle of my choosing from you, Jesus, in this situation, or else I'm going to be done with you and you'll never hear from me again" faith being offered to God. And that is why Jesus dealt with him in the way that he does here.

Guest (Male): If God would only do this or that, or perform some sort of miracle to prove his existence, then, well then I'd believe, right? You haven't said that yourself, I'm sure you've probably heard it a time or two from unbelieving friends.

As we'll learn today on According to the Scriptures, a miracle-based faith both displeases and dishonors God. A much better route to take is a faith that's based in God's word and his promises. Pastor Damian Kyle will explain as he has another look at the healing of the nobleman's son in John chapter four.

Damian Kyle: You notice in verse 48 that when Jesus addresses the man, that he addresses this larger crowd, the Jewish crowd. And Jesus is rebuking what he's rebuking is really encapsulated in two words in the verse. And you notice the two words, it's the word "see." Do you see it there? And "believe" in the verse. What the Jews wanted and what this man wanted when he came to Jesus here for this healing of his son, he wanted, and they wanted by and large, a faith based upon seeing. But that's no faith at all.

As Paul wrote in Second Corinthians chapter five, verse seven, "For we walk by faith, not by sight." And so they wanted a faith in him that was and is based upon this unending stream of miracles from him in which he is forced to prove himself to them over and over and over and over again, and to which no matter how many miracles he did for them, they did not allow the implications of the miracles to cause them to recognize him as unique in human history as their promised Messiah and to trust in him as their Messiah. So they were content to pigeonhole him as merely a miracle worker.

And clearly, Jesus was already in the first year of his ministry, he is already tired of this. Clearly, this was not the kind of relationship with humanity that he had come into the world to establish. And the idea is, is your faith so small that except you see some miracle you cannot believe? Are miracles the greatest foundation for faith that you can conceive of? And it was characteristic of the Jews in general to demand miracles as a basis for their faith in Jesus as Messiah. And yet no matter how many miracles he gave them, still it did not produce by and large, certainly not in the religious establishment, a faith in him as Messiah.

John chapter two, verse 18, "So the Jews, that is the religious leaders, answered and said to him, 'What sign do you show us since you do these things?'" John chapter six, verse 30, the Jewish religious leaders challenged him, "Therefore they said to him, 'What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do?'" Then into John chapter 12, verse 37, "But although he had done many signs before them, they did not believe in him."

John 15:24, Jesus said, "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did," he was in a league of his own, what are the implications of that? "If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would have no sin, but now they have seen and also hated both me and the Father." Matthew chapter 16, verse one, "Then the Pharisees and the Sadducees came testing him, asking that he would show them a sign from heaven." And by that time, Jesus had had enough and he declared in Matthew 16:4, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet."

And then after three and a half years of unbelief in the face of an incredible onslaught of nonstop miracles and the supernatural from his life, he hung on the cross before them and they asked him again for one more sign that they might believe in him. Matthew 27:42, "He saved others, himself he cannot save. If he's the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross and we will believe in him."

And so obviously, an unending flow of miracles from God is not a solid foundation for coming to faith in Jesus for salvation, nor in sustaining a life of faith in him after we've become Christians. Remember that Jesus had just come from Samaria at the time of these events with the nobleman recorded earlier in chapter four, where virtually an entire group of people, an entire city of the Samaritans had come to faith in him. And they had come to faith in him not based upon his miracles, but based upon his word, based upon his teaching.

And so the woman comes into the city, the woman of Sychar, and she says, "Come meet a man who told me all things about myself." And they came out to see him. And then as a result of his coming to them and teaching them, we're told that many more believed because of his own word. And then they said to the woman, "Now we believe not because of what he said to you, not because of the miracle of revelation that he gave to you about your own life, for we have heard for ourselves in terms of his word and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world." So they believed without a miracle, though they were scorned by the Jews, scorned certainly by the Jewish religious establishment. In these Samaritans, Jesus found a people who needed no miracle.

Their conception of the Messiah was not that he would come supremely as a miracle worker, but one who would come in the words of the Samaritan woman as one who tells us all things. What they wanted supremely in the Messiah, as wonderful as miracles are, what they wanted supremely from the Messiah was truth, not miracles. And their faith was a superior faith, a faith based upon God's words, not based upon some endless and steady supply of miracles that God would have to supply for some kind of a weak faith that constantly needed to be encouraged by an endless flow of miracles.

And this demand toward God that he be constantly doing some miracle to keep me believing in him, or spiritually if he doesn't do them, I'm going to take my ball and go home, it continues to this day. Examples of it can be, "God, if you do such and such, I will believe in you and I will live for you for the rest of my life." They want a foundation for their faith based upon some miracle of their choosing. Or, "God, if you don't do such and such for me, then I won't turn to you and live for you." Or then the classic, "If God is real, then let him strike me with a bolt of lightning right here."

And as I stand listening to that, my quiet prayer is, "Lord, that would be so awesome. He even asked for it." And yet the Lord doesn't do it. And he's never done it. As many people as have said that to God in so many words, he's never done it. As if that's an evidence of his existence, some miracle that I come up with, as if he's a dog and pony show and I'm the ringmaster.

The problem with this kind of so-called faith is, first, a faith based supremely upon miracles is dramatically inferior to a faith that is based upon God's word and his promises. And this nobleman, he is stuck on "seeing is believing." In other words, "I must have some miracle of my choosing from you, Jesus, in this situation, or else I'm going to be done with you and you'll never hear from me again" faith being offered to God. And that is why Jesus dealt with him in the way that he does here. Jesus wants to heal the boy. He's going to heal the boy.

So Jesus wanted to heal the boy and he wanted to nurture the faith of this father. But he did not want his faith to be built upon miracles supremely, but upon his word. And so you notice what Jesus did. If Jesus had healed the son by walking with the father the 20 miles back to his house there in Capernaum, then this would have only reinforced in the nobleman this weak, miracle-based faith, comparatively speaking. And so instead, what does Jesus do? Jesus gave him a promise. He gave him his word. And then he forced the man to move his faith away from Jesus' presence, away from some miracle, and instead place his faith entirely upon the word of God.

And the only way this man was going to see the miracle was by putting his faith in Jesus' word first. And so Jesus reverses everything on him. Faith in God's word would not follow the miracle. The miracle would follow faith in God's word. And in doing this, Jesus is gently, but very firmly and wonderfully forcing him to build his faith supremely upon the words of Christ, upon the word of God, and not miracles. And it worked. Jesus did perform the miracle.

But I want you to notice in verse 53 that the man's faith did not end up being based upon the miracle of his son's healing, but based upon the miracle of God's faithfulness to his word. And you notice there in that verse 53, "So the father knew that it was the same hour which Jesus said to him." And you circle that "said." He built his faith in Christ and the belief that came to him and his family was founded upon Jesus' faithfulness to his word and his faith no longer in the miracle, but in the one who spoke the miracle.

And it's funny how easily we can, even as Christians, but especially if we're not Christians, how easily we can come to think that there couldn't be any better basis for our faith or our trust in God than some unending stream of miracles of my choosing and demanding that he would supply to my life. But it isn't true, and God knows it isn't true.

You remember Jesus' account of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke chapter 16, where Lazarus is a very poor man, he sat beneath the table of the rich man throughout his life. They both die, they go down into Hades. The rich man ends up on the hot side of hell, and Lazarus ends up in, by virtue of his faith in God despite his poverty and condition, in Abraham's bosom. And then as the rich man is in this environment, he calls out to Abraham on the other side of the divide between the two compartments and he says, "I beg you therefore, Father, that you would send this Lazarus to my father's house. I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment." Do a miracle for the sake of their faith of sending Lazarus back from the dead in order to warn them.

And Abraham said, "They have Moses and the prophets, the word. Let them hear them." And he said, "No, Father Abraham, if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent." And Abraham said to him, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead." And it's true. During his public ministry, Jesus gave people three and a half years of so many miracles that John declared that if all of the miracles, all of his teaching, all of the things that he did were recorded, the books couldn't even contain them if they were written in them. The books couldn't even be contained within the world. And the greatest resurrection, the greatest miracle that God has given to us, the greatest miracle of Jesus at all, was his own resurrection from the dead.

And even his own resurrection from the dead did not produce faith in the overwhelming majority of people. And the Apostle Peter, who was present at this scene with this nobleman, this encounter, he understood what Jesus was saying completely in terms of his own faith and how God had worked his faith. Jesus had produced it within him as an apostle. Later in his second epistle, he would put it this way: He said, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables. We're not telling you stories when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father glory and honor when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, 'This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.'"

And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him on the holy mount. He's talking about his presence at the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus is in conversation with Moses and with Elijah, and where the Father then enters into that conversation in a rebuke of Peter, interestingly enough. And Peter says, "Don't misunderstand, my faith in Jesus as the Messiah has nothing to do with his miracles. My faith is not built on the fact that I was one of the few that stood on that mountaintop and saw the glory of that miracle as he was transfigured into his eternal glory before our eyes."

He said, "I'll tell you what our faith is built upon, what my faith is built upon." He said, "We have also the more sure word of prophecy, the word of God. And therefore, you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shines in a dark place to that word until the day dawn and the day star rise in your hearts." Translation: "I walked with Jesus all three and a half years of his public ministry. I saw all of it, I heard all of it, but my faith in him as Messiah and Savior is built upon not a miracle, the more sure word of prophecy, upon the word of God and the prophetic description of Messiah in the Old Testament, this prophetic portrait painted by the Old Testament prophets by the Holy Spirit, the description of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament, so that when he came we would recognize him for who he is." A prophetic description that Jesus fulfilled to perfection, which he then calls, Peter does, on us to make the foundation of our faith in Christ for salvation. And so faith in Jesus for salvation is not a blind faith. It's based upon the surest thing in all of the world, and that is the very word of God and the prophetic portrait of Messiah who was to come.

Guest (Male): So a miracle-based faith clearly displeases the Lord, but it also dishonors him, as we'll hear in a moment. Pastor Damian Kyle will talk about that in a minute as According to the Scriptures continues. For resource requests, like today's message on CD, give us a call at 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530.

Pastor Damian Kyle's studies can also be heard online at accordingtothescriptures.com or oneplace.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a church app where you can listen to Damian. Simply search for Calvary Chapel Modesto in the App Store or Google Play. If you'd like to partner with us through a financial gift, you can do that through our website at accordingtothescriptures.com. And thank you very much. And let me also give you our mailing address: According to the Scriptures, 4300 American Avenue, that's here in Modesto, California. The zip code is 95356. Well, as promised, here's Pastor Damian with the rest of our message.

Damian Kyle: A second problem with this miracle-based faith in Jesus is not only that it displeases him, but that it dishonors him. And you notice that when this father came to Jesus, he not only wanted a miracle, but he wanted a miracle of his own choosing. And you notice that the problem with that is that it is to have a relationship with God exactly backwards. It makes him the servant and me the master, rather than the other way around. It puts him in the place of obeying our every whim instead of us being in the place of obeying him. And it puts us in the place of dictating to him instead of the other way around. And it is based upon the foolish notion that we are wiser than God in a situation instead of the other way around.

I do not want to lead in my relationship with God. I already led in my life. That's why I became a Christian. I didn't get a master and a Lord because now I want to pull him around by the reins behind me. No, there's no place of rest in a relationship with God based upon these kind of things because it's all backwards. We are endeavoring to do in a relationship with God what only God is uniquely qualified to do, and that is to be God.

Guest (Male): We'll continue to explore the seven miracles of Jesus in John's gospel next time on According to the Scriptures. Pastor Damian Kyle will dive into the healing of the man at the pool in John chapter five. This program is listener-supported and brought to you by Calvary Chapel Modesto.