Belief through the Word; John 4:27-54

There are many degrees of faith.  Often, Jesus rebuked people for not having enough faith, or too small of faith.  So as believers, it is important for us to consider our faith and examine it in light of what the word of God says.

There are a lot of ideas out there which seek to say what constitutes faith, but the best definition of faith is found in the scriptures themselves.  Several places in the scriptures speak of faith, but Hebrews 11:1 says it very succinctly; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith then is believing in what is unseen, but hoped for.

Many professing Christians however, if questioned, base their faith not necessarily on the unseen, but on a tangible or physical experience that they had sometime in the past.  Perhaps they were going through some sort of crisis and they prayed to God for help, and He seemed to bring about deliverance in some miraculous way.  And so they believed in God and now consider themselves to be people of faith.  They believe in the existence of God because of something that  happened which established their belief.

That may be well and good up to a point, but I would suggest that sort of faith which is founded on an experience is a lower tier type of faith.  I believe God does sometimes work in visible ways in order to bring about the beginnings of faith.  So that may serve as a starting point in our faith, but I think that is not the kind of faith that satisfies God.  I think that God desires us to grow in faith so that we believe what God says without having to rely on substantiating evidence.

A good verse which speaks of that kind of faith is found in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  This is the standard for faith in the scriptures.  God speaks, and we believe it, and trust it, and then act in obedience to it.  So then our actions prove our faith, and not waiting for God to prove our faith before we act.  That is the example throughout the scriptures, from Abraham through Moses, and on into the New Testament. God spoke, they believed and then acted in faith.  So faith that pleases God is that which trusts in God’s word and acts upon it.

Today in our exposition of this text we are going to see four examples of faith.  Two that were pleasing to the Lord and two that were not.  The Samaritan woman exemplifies that sort of faith that was pleasing to God.  You will remember she had a conversation with Jesus by the well, and though they started off by talking about Jesus being thirsty and wanting a drink of water, He skillfully led the conversation around to spiritual things.  And in the process, He brought her under conviction of her sin.  She responded by trying to talk about religion and the difference between the way the Samaritans and the Jews worship God.  But Jesus continued to press her towards the goal of accepting the truth of God.  And then Jesus said one of the most forthright claims to His divinity to ever come from HIs own mouth, He said in response to her statement about the Messiah, “I who speak to you am He.”

Now at that point is where she believed in the word of Christ and she was saved. She doesn’t have some out of body experience, she doesn’t walk down the aisle or repeat a sinner’s prayer, she isn’t even baptized at that point.  But the fact that she is saved by faith in Christ is evidenced by the fact that she leaves her water pot and goes back into town, telling everyone about Jesus.

There are a number of things that can be learned from this text.  But the main point which is brought out in this passage is that saving faith is believing in the word of God and then acting upon it. The Samaritan woman believes in the word of Christ, His declaration that He was the Messiah promised in scripture.  And she obviously believes Him and so begins to share her new found faith.

Now much has been made by commentators about the way she phrases the question found in vs.29 as if she expected a negative response.  But I don’t think that’s really born out by her actions.  I’ve looked at all the major translations of this phrase, and I think it is best understood as follows, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; is this not the Christ?” Now that statement still lends itself to some ambiguity.  But I don’t think she is really being ambivalent at all.  I think it’s evident she believes that Jesus is the Christ.  And obviously that is not all that she said, as evidenced by the men of the cities answer to her in vs.42: “and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.’” Obviously she told them much more about Christ than that simple statement because what she had said was enough to make them believe in Him.  At least enough to be a starting point in their faith.

And there is another important aspect to her testimony.  She says “Come and see…”  Not go, but come.  She is inviting them to come with her to see Jesus.  She left her water pot by the well with Jesus because she was coming back.  And she was coming back with her townspeople.  That’s evidence that she was rejoicing in the news about the Messiah.  And she knew that her people would rejoice as well.  In spite of the flaws in their theology they knew that the Messiah was the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  He was the Savior of the world, and so it was only reasonable that she would share it and rejoice in it.

What a contrast to most Christians view of sharing their faith.  I don’t know if it is a product of the PC culture, or just a reticence on our part to give testimony to our faith, but how many of us fall far short of the example given by this Samaritan woman.  She boldly goes into town and begins to broadcast the fact that Jesus was outside of town at the well.  And she invites them to come with her and listen to Him.

Our lack of willingness to witness makes me wonder if we really believe what we say we believe.  Do we really believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life?  Do we really believe that our friends and loved ones who are without the Lord will end up being cast into outer darkness for eternity?  Do we really believe that there is coming a day when everyone will be judged by what they did concerning Jesus?  I’m afraid we must not really believe what we say.

You know, back to the Samaritan woman’s statement, I think there is not a hint of unbelief there at all, but rather a hint of a challenge.   She is suggesting that they need to decide for themselves based upon her testimony.  I know that some of you may feel intimidated about sharing your faith.  The culture is not very tolerant towards real Christianity it seems.  And maybe you feel intimidated because of that, or because you don’t think you know enough to be able to answer people’s objections or questions.  But I would encourage you to consider this woman’s example as evidence that you don’t have to have all the answers to point people to Jesus Christ.  If you don’t feel adequate to explain everything, then simply invite them to “come and see.”  To come to church and hear the word of God for themselves.

I will also suggest to you what else made her testimony effective.  And that is the transformation that she obviously exhibited.  There is no more effective testimony to the saving grace of God than a transformed life.  We don’t have a description here in the passage that articulates her transformation.  But we do have the evidence.  When she began spreading the word about Christ through the town, all the townspeople started coming out to see Jesus.  Something about this woman was different than before she went to the well.  It must have been very obvious.  And so people wanted to see this Jesus, if He made such an impact on this woman.  It’s evident from the text that she was a woman with a sordid past.  It must have been well known to everyone in a small town. But after being with Jesus, there must have been a noticeable change is this woman’s demeanor.  I believe she was rejoicing, for one thing.  And people took notice of that and wanted to examine it further.

I remember when I got right with the Lord in California after years of living in sin and rebellion against God.  And the next night I stopped by work after the shift was over and all my coworkers were sitting in the lounge.  And when they saw me they thought I was drunk.  I wasn’t staggering around or acting boisterous or anything.  But I must have had a different demeanor than what I normally had. Maybe I seemed happy.  And so they noticed it, and it gave me a chance to share with them about my faith.  It wasn’t too long after that my friend who worked with me gave his life to the Lord as well, and he cited the change that he saw in me as a reason for his faith.

So the first example of people believing the word of God then is that of the Samaritan woman.  She believed, and was saved.  Consequently, she immediately began to confess Jesus as Lord in her community.  And people believed in Christ due to her testimony.  Vs. 39 says,  “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’”  God wants to use our testimony to bring people to Christ.  That is our mission; to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel, starting in our homes, then our neighborhoods, then our communities, and then to the ends of the world.  This woman may not have been the best role model before she was saved, but she is a great example of the transforming power of faith after she is saved.

There is a second example of faith that is given in this text as well.  It’s sort of understated, we need to read between the lines so to speak.  But it’s not such an exemplary example of faith.  It’s a lower tier faith.  And that is the faith of the disciples of all people. They have faith, but at this point it’s a superficial faith that eclipses the spiritual and focuses on the physical.  Even to the point of neglecting their commission.

The Samaritans were considered outcasts, half breeds who the Jews would disdain to even speak to.  And yet their response to Jesus is that of coming out from the city in droves to hear Him.  In fact, some commentators have suggested that when Jesus told the disciples that the fields were white unto harvest, He was referencing the white robed Samaritan’s coming out of the village and walking across the fields the half mile or so to the well.

Jesus uses that illustration as an inducement to the disciples to be about the Father’s business.  It’s ironic that all of the disciples had just been in the village buying food. And yet in spite of the fact that 12 Jewish men descended on this little village in Samaria, when Jews would go miles out of their way to avoid Samaria, yet not one Samaritan was presented with the news that the Messiah was sitting just outside the town by the well.  The disciples were just too focused on buying food. They were hungry.  They were in a hurry.  They didn’t like those people anyway.  So they missed an opportunity.  And in reality, they missed the purpose of their discipleship. They missed the purpose of their faith.

The disciples came back from their mission with the food and saw Him talking to the woman.  They were surprised by that, but didn’t want to ask Him why He was talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan.  So they just kind of ignored it, and when she left they offered Him the food that they brought.  But Jesus isn’t thinking about food at that point.  He says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  And their answer is to ask did someone bring Him food while we were gone?

You know, the disciple’s cluelessness would be funny if they were not so indicative of the way we are oblivious to the opportunities that God puts in our path to be about the kingdom of God. I’m afraid too many times that we are just thinking of the physical, rather than the spiritual.  Our concerns are our appetites, our work, our little routines or duties that we do each day.  Instead of looking for opportunities to witness for Christ.

Jesus said to the disciples in vs.35 "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, 'One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

Now there is a whole sermon in that which I don’t have time to delve into today, but suffice it to say that Jesus is saying that half of the work has already been done, all you have to do is reap the benefits of what other’s have done. Now that’s pretty amazing isn’t it?  That should encourage you to witness to people that God puts in your path.  He is saying, I have already begun a work in those people’s hearts, they have already had the sowing of the word into their hearts.  Now if you will just be willing to act in faith and speak to them, you will reap what other’s have sown.

But as I said, many Samaritans believed in Him, simply by the word which He was preaching.  He did not do any signs or wonders or miracles in Samaria.  But then it says that He went into Galilee, which was His own country.  And the people were coming out to Him, but not because they had accepted Him formerly when He was among them, but because they heard of the miraculous works that He did when He was in Jerusalem.  So Jesus quotes what was probably a well known proverb; “that a prophet has no honor in his own country.”

I will attest to the truth of that.  I’ve lived in this area 16 years, not all of which I was a pastor.  And the result of that proves another true proverb which is; “familiarity breeds contempt”.  In other words, it is much easier to go someplace where you are not known and be received with a certain respect than it is to grow up around people who think they know you.  I think that’s part of the reason why our summer services on the beach are well received by out of town people, but the locals rarely come.

So anyway, the Galileans are coming out to see Jesus, but they are not necessarily believing in Him the way the Samaritans did.  They don’t believe Him for His word, but for His miracles.  So Jesus rebukes them when He responds to the nobleman’s request by saying, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” I don’t think Jesus was necessarily rebuking the nobleman, but He was rebuking the Galileans who obviously were gathering together hoping to see a miracle.  Perhaps they would believe in Him if they saw some astonishing miracle, but not because of His word.

So the third group, the Galileans, receive a rebuke because they did not have the faith in HIs word, even though many of the Samaritans who were hated by the Jews believed in Him simply from His word.  They were more noble than the nobleman and the rest of the Galileans.  And I’m afraid that most Christians today fall into that category of the Galileans.  We go from church to church, from concert to movies, to revivals, to conferences, all in the hopes of finding some new experience which is going to galvanize our infantile faith into something substantial.  But in fact faith comes by hearing the word of God, not by signs and wonders or music or concerts or movies or conferences.

And that leads us to the fourth group which is illustrated in the nobleman. He is from Capernaum, which is about 25 miles from Cana, where Jesus was at that point.  Cana, you will remember, was the site of the first miracle Jesus did in His ministry, in which He turned the water into wine at the marriage feast.  Now Jesus has returned to Cana, and this nobleman, probably of Herod’s court, has heard that Jesus has returned from Judea.  So he made a 25 mile trip from Capernaum in order to come to Jesus and implore Him to come home with Him and heal His son. In fact, his son was at the point of death.

I can commiserate with this nobleman.  When calamity strikes your child, there is nothing you wouldn’t consider doing to save them.  I would suggest that this example is given to us here for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is to provide a contrast between the apathy of the disciples who felt no pity on the Samaritans, and the anguish of this father for his dying son.  Would to God we felt the anguish over our brothers and sisters and loved ones impending death the way that this man felt over his son.  It’s just that we cannot see the cancer of sin which is leading our loved ones to a certain spiritual death, but we can see the physical suffering from sickness that leads to physical death.

So this man travels 25 miles in hopes of seeing Christ and getting Him to come home with Him to heal his son.  And certainly, the Galileans who have gathered there are watching to see what Jesus will do.  Perhaps many of them would follow Him to Capernaum if it meant they could see a miracle.  I’m not surprised that so many Christians will pay all sorts of money and travel great distances to see some supposed faith healer.  It was common then, it’s common today.  I had a business partner once who stole money from our business to fly to have a private meeting with Benny Hinn. It only cost him $10,000 to get a private audience and his blessing.  Didn’t do us any favors though.  Our business went bust in 3 months because of that kind of foolishness.

But Jesus is not going to go to Capernaum.  Not because He doesn’t commiserate with the nobleman, or because He isn’t compassionate. It’s noteworthy that no one ever comes to Jesus for help and leaves without Jesus helping them.   Jesus said in John 6:37  "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

But Jesus doesn’t go to Capernaum with the nobleman because He wants to teach an important lesson.  And that is the lesson that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  He wants this nobleman to believe in His word.  Jesus is going to heal the boy.  But for 24 hours this man is not going to know that for sure.  He is going to have to take Jesus at His word. So Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.”

Now the rest of that verse is amazingly understated. It says, “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.”  Let me tell you why it is understated. It’s understated not just because it took a lot of faith to believe Jesus could heal with a word from 25 miles away. But it is also understated because it doesn’t just mean that the boy was healed, but it also means that the nobleman was saved.  Jesus didn’t go with him because He wasn’t compassionate, but He didn’t go because He was compassionate.  Jesus wanted to give more than just the physical healing, He wanted to give spiritual healing as well.

I have told you many times before that every miracle in the gospel is a spiritual parable which illustrates a spiritual principle.  And this one even more so.  Because as a result of this man’s faith, he was saved, his son was saved and healed, and his entire household was saved.

Vs.51-53 “As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living.  So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives’; and he himself believed and his whole household.”

There are so many applications that we could take from this illustration.  But let me just try to leave you with a couple.  One, our faith is not founded on experience, but on the promises of God.  That is what we are talking about when we talk about the word of God.  We are talking about God’s revelation of Himself, what He has to say about Himself, and His plan and purpose for the world.  And He gives that to us in the form of promises.  He gives us His word, His promises, by which we may believe.  And when we believe in Him as He has revealed Himself through His word, He credits that to us as righteousness.

Three times in the New Testament, in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23, it says “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  This is how we are saved, by grace through faith in the word of God, made flesh, and written down for us.

Another application we can take from these verses is that when we are saved by faith, God can use our faith to save our families.  We saw that with the Samaritan woman.  I believe she started witnessing to all her former husbands.  That was probably half the town.  But the whole village responded as a result of this woman’s faith.  And of course this nobleman’s faith resulted in his whole household coming to the Lord.  And we see other examples of that in scripture.  I think of the centurion who called Peter to come and preach the gospel, and the whole house was saved.  I think of the jailer who was saved when Paul and Silas presented themselves after the earthquake, and his whole house was saved.  

The point being that you can have a confidence that when you believe in the word of God resulting in your salvation and you share that with your family, then they can be saved through your testimony.  I’m not going to say it is guaranteed.  That is not taught in this text.  But I do think it’s a principle that we can use to reach our families and that God will bless when we act upon it.

Well, let me close by encouraging you today to make sure that your faith is grounded in the word of God.  If God said it, then trust Him and obey.  God may give you an experience, He may give you a miracle, but more importantly He has given you His word.  And that is the greater miracle, which produces a greater faith, and a greater work in you.  Because God’s word is sufficient for every circumstance, for every day.  We don’t need to wait for a sign, when we have the word made more sure, the written word of God, tested and proven for thousands of years.  And that is what John calls this miracle - a sign.  It points to something greater, and that is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. That was the purpose of the miracles Jesus did. They point to Him.

And then finally, don’t keep your faith to yourself.  God didn’t give your salvation to you so that you can say, “us four and no more.”  God gave you your salvation so that you might be an ambassador of the gospel.  He has given you the good news to share with those that He has already started a work in their hearts.  There is no greater work on earth than leading someone to Christ.  As Jesus said in vs.36, there is reward in heaven for those that reap souls; “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal, that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.”  We were saved that we might bear fruit for eternal life.  I hope that you will focus on the will of God and accomplish His work in the time we have here on earth.

Jesus said in John 15:16  "You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”  Let’s pray.