Everyone Needs a Faith-Lift! - Part A

When those words hit my ears, my first inclination was, Dear Lord. It is the inclination of every person who's a believer. In fact, I would add to that, I know people who aren't believers, who won't talk to God, who never pray, but in a trial they will.

Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. In order to get to the Grail and save the life of his father, Indiana Jones needed to make a leap of faith. That was quite a challenge for the famed archaeologist, who despite his many adventures, wasn't exactly one to believe in that type of mumbo jumbo. Yet somehow he found the faith necessary to cross an impossible chasm and save the day.

That scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade isn't a bad illustration for many of us as Christians. There will be a moment when we'll have to decide what we really believe, and those are the moments that Skip Heitzig says we could use a little faith lift in. But first, let's find out more about this month's Connect with Skip resource offer. Skip often has the privilege of hosting guest speakers, guests like Franklin Graham and Lee Strobel, who've become great friends to pastor Skip Heitzig in this Bible teaching ministry.

Here's another, our friend Levi Lusko. What's life with Jesus like? It's life, not without storms, but going through storms with an anchor, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil. An anchor for the soul.

What a wonderful thing. Skip and Friends is a CD or digital package of messages from five friends, plus five special teachings by Skip. It is yours as our thank you gift for your gift of $50 or more to help connect others to the hope and truth found only in God's word.

With your gift of $50 or more, we'll send you the Skip and Friends collection of 10 messages on CD or give you digital access. For example, here's our friend Eric Metaxas. The evidence for God is astonishing. The evidence from science has piled up so dramatically that I'm here to tell you it's absolutely no contest. Science points to the existence of God utterly dramatically in a way that it is as open and shut as any open and shut question ever could be. And we're talking about science.

Get your copy of Skip and Friends when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Today we'll explore verses 43 through 54 of John chapter four. So as you turn there in your Bible, Skip Heizig begins by telling us about a job that requires a lot of faith. I've been told by those who have done it that to climb a telephone pole professionally requires a lot of faith because they give you special equipment and you have to learn to trust that equipment. A special harness is employed, special shoes with spikes to grab the surface of the pole are also used, and they tell you that you have to learn to trust the equipment and to lean back, lean back into the harness, which is so completely counter-intuitive. We at 40 feet in the air would never think that we would do this, lean back.

It makes more sense to us to grab what is closest to us what we can see, but that would be the worst thing you could do. It typically takes only one splintery slide down a telephone pole before the climber really gets it, and that person will slip and that person will soon learn to lay back, lean back, and to trust the equipment. We come to John chapter four. The end of it is a story about faith, trust, about a man who has a sick son asks Jesus to heal his son.

The Lord will do that. All the while, Jesus is sort of pushing the man backward into the harness to trust him. Now, as it's hard for a telephone pole climber to lay back, I've discovered it's difficult for us to learn to trust the Lord with our lives. It's not what we normally do.

We usually say, I'll fix this or I'll find somebody who can fix it. I heard about a man at the Grand Canyon. He was too close to the rim, and he fell in, and he grabbed a branch toward the top, and he's dangling now hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. And so he cries out to God. And what's interesting is that God spoke to him and said, I'm here.

You can trust me. Just let go. The man after a tense pause cocked his head back and said, is there anybody else up there?

It's just not typical. It doesn't make sense. And we're going to read some things that don't make sense to us. In John chapter 4, in the 43rd verse to the end of the chapter, we read this. Now after two days, he departed from there and went to Galilee, for Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also had gone to the feast.

And so Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and implored him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe. The nobleman said to him, sir, come down before my child dies. Jesus said to him, go your way, your son lives. So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, your son lives. And then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And he said, they said to him, yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him. And so the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, your son lives. And he himself believed in his whole household.

This, again, is the second sign Jesus did when he had come out of Judea into Galilee. The text tells us that the man was a nobleman. What does that mean? What is a nobleman? Literally, it's someone who belongs to a king, a king. He worked for a king. He was in the royal court of a king.

So here's the big question. What king was around Galilee? What king was around Galilee at this time? Well, the only king that it could be referring to, or this man could be attached to, would be a guy by the name of Herod Antipas. I don't know if you've heard that name, but I know you've heard about Herod the Great. Herod the Great was the guy who killed all the babies in Bethlehem.

He has died by now, but his son, one of them named Antipas, is king over a northern region called Galilee. That is the idea of a nobleman. He belonged to the king. He worked for royalty.

He was a court representative. And what we see happening here, and we'll go back over it, is there are stages of belief that this man has. He comes with one stage, but he leaves with an entirely different level of faith in Christ. And what I want to do in working through the passage is give you three statements of truth, three truth statements that talk about how God develops faith in us.

Number one is something we all know. Life can be hard. It drives us to Christ. It drives us to Christ. This man would not have come to Christ at all unless his son was sick. That's why he came. He goes 20 miles. It's 20 miles from Capernaum to Cana of Galilee where Jesus is.

This guy is desperate. His son, it says, is on his deathbed. Now I want you to sort of get the story here. The man, the nobleman, wasn't from Capernaum.

There were no noblemen living in Capernaum 2,000 years ago. This man's home was probably Tiberius, because that's where Herod Antipas had his headquarters. So I'll help you get the picture. If my hand were the Sea of Galilee, Tiberius would be right on the knuckle of the thumb, the lower knuckle. It's on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum is on the northwestern shore. It's about a 13-mile lake. So the man put his son probably in a boat and went all the way across to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

Why? Because the Bible says Jesus had his headquarters at Capernaum. So he takes him to Capernaum. Gets to Capernaum. There's no Jesus.

He's not there. They say, oh, he's gone to Cana of Galilee 20 miles from Capernaum. Well, by this time, the nobleman's son is so sick he can't travel.

So he leaves his son with his servants at Capernaum. And he gets on a horse and goes 20 miles to Cana, finds Jesus, and begs Jesus to heal his son by coming with him. Every parent here who has ever seen a son or daughter suffer gets this man's plight, right? If you've ever had a child suffer, you've looked at that child, and you've said, gladly, I would trade places with my baby. I would take this pain so that he or she could be healed.

That's sort of the predicament that this guy is in. By the way, it doesn't matter how old your son or daughter is. As a parent, my son broke his leg three, four weeks ago. He was skateboarding right out here. He's 25 years old. He's married. He has a baby on the way, and he's skateboarding.

Now, I can't talk. I was skateboarding with him when it happened. But he broke his leg, and just the pain that was on his face when he was on the pavement, and then that night in the emergency room, and then two surgeries that followed. It was anguishing because I felt so helpless, and I was. And so was this man helpless in seeing his child suffer.

Question. How many here, how many of you have been driven to God in your trial because you had nowhere else to go? Really, that's all?

Well, just wait then. Your life will get you there eventually. What's the first thing you do when you are in a painful situation of trial? As a Christian, you pray.

The first word's out of your mouth. Lord, dear God. When my wife went into surgery this past year for the mass that they removed, I'll never forget the doctor when he came out of surgery, took off his surgical mask, looked me in the eyes, and said it was malignant. When those words hit my ears, my first inclination was dear Lord. It is the inclination of every person who's a believer. In fact, I would add to that, I know people who aren't believers, who won't talk to God, who never pray, but in a trial they will. You remember the book of Jonah? It's a fascinating story. Jonah flees from God, he's out in a boat, a storm happens. It says, and all of the mariners aboard the ship got so scared each one, get this, each one prayed to his own God. It was their first instinct in a storm, pray to whatever God you believe in. What's interesting about the story is the only person in it who's not praying is, yeah, Jonah, the prophet of God, he's sleeping at the bottom of the boat, they finally wake him up, dude, we're all praying, we're going to die, you need to pray to your God.

You know what he says? Throw me overboard. I'm not going to pray, I don't want to talk to God about this, throw me overboard. They throw him overboard, he still doesn't pray. Now eventually he will pray when he's swallowed up by what I believe was a catadon macrocephalus, the scientific term for a giant mysticetes sperm whale. And when Jonah was down in the mouth, quite literally, eventually he said, dear God, and he started praying. And he was at the end of his rope, he turns to God. We see so many people come to faith in Christ during difficult seasons.

A divorce, a death in a family, lingering disease, economic fallout, relational breakup. We see so many people come to faith in Christ. Why is that?

It's simple. Life can be hard. It drives us to Jesus Christ like nothing else can. You know, David experienced his own trials. Listen to what he wrote in Psalm 119. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word.

Did you get that? Before I was afflicted, I went astray. I kind of did my own thing. God isn't like in my radar screen. Then I got afflicted and now I keep your word. Pain has a way of doing that.

So here's my question. If your hard, dark, painful circumstance that you're facing, perhaps even today, if it drives you closer and closer to Jesus, is it really bad? Can we call those things bad? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen to God's people? I heard one great theologian say, well, when I meet a good person, I'll let you know why that is. But if it drives us to the Lord, then it could be considered good. In fact, I have met people who never talk to God, except when they're suffering. God didn't hear from them. So I can just sort of picture God up in heaven. They're praying and God saying, oh, it's really good to hear from you again. I haven't heard from you since the last trial you were in. Now, that's not to say that you're going through a trial because God wants to hear from you more often or that if you're really close to God, you won't go through it.

That's not it at all. But with some folks, they just need something to get their attention. One of my favorite illustrations is about a farmer who didn't really spend much time thinking about God or spiritual matters. People invited him to church. He didn't care.

He never went. He had three sons, Jim, John, and Sam. Sam was the youngest boy. Sam one day got bitten by a rattlesnake. They brought in the doctors. The doctors tried everything they could. Didn't look very good.

Situation looked pretty grim. Finally, they were at the end of their rope and they called in a pastor. The pastor appraised the situation and prayed a very unique prayer.

Let me read it to you. Oh, wise and righteous father, the pastor said, praying over the boy, we thank thee that in thy wisdom thou didst send this rattlesnake to bite Sam. He's never been inside the church and it's doubtful that he has in all of this time ever prayed or acknowledged thy existence. Now we trust that this experience will be a valuable lesson to him and will lead to his genuine repentance. And now, oh father, wilt thou send another rattlesnake to bite Jim and another to bite John and another really big one to bite the old man. For years, we have done everything we know to get them to turn to thee, but all in vain. It seems therefore that what all of our combined efforts could not do, this rattlesnake has done. We thus conclude that the only thing that will do this family any real good is a rattlesnake.

So, Lord, send us bigger and better rattlesnakes. Amen. That's quite a prayer, isn't it? Somebody once said, prayer is the gymnasium of the soul.

So when was the last time you were at the gym and had a really good workout? I read a Newsweek magazine some time ago that revealed that Americans pray, in fact, according to the article, don't know how true it is exactly, 78% of Americans pray once a week. That's a chunk. Same article said 57% of Americans pray once a week.

That's a chunk. Same article said 57% claim they pray every day. There's one little section of the article I want to read. Quote, some of these prayers are born in extremis, that is, in extreme situations.

There are few atheists in cancer awards or in unemployment lines. Close quote. Why is that?

It's simple. Life can be hard. It drives us to Christ. Here's the second statement of truth based on this passage. Not only life can be hard, it drives us to Christ. Christ can be surprising.

He wants us to grow. When this man finally comes to Jesus, Jesus says something to him that this man did not expect to hear ever from the lips of Jesus. Even though he didn't know Jesus all that well, this would be surprising for anyone. Look at verse 48.

The man says, my son's at the point of death. Jesus said to him, unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe. Now, you know, one of the problems with reading the Bible for many years is that we sort of become numb to its impact. I'd like to nominate this verse as one of the most surprising things Jesus ever said to a person. This is surprising. He did not expect to hear that. He certainly did not want to hear that. In fact, this man might have thought, my son is dying and he said this to me. This Jesus guy is rude. When I read this passage this week, I paused because it stuck out at me. And then I started thinking, you know, there's a lot of things Jesus said that were surprising. The way he handled people isn't like we would like to think of gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Look upon this little child. He's just like blows doors on all that. He says some pretty surprising things because he's working with people.

I'll give you a sample. There was a Canaanite woman that came to Jesus. Her daughter was demon possessed.

Again, very difficult situation. You'd think that Jesus would immediately respond in favor to this woman. And he does answer her prayer, but not at first.

The woman comes imploring Jesus to heal her daughter. Here's what Jesus said. It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs. Hello. What's up with that statement?

That's a surprise, right? There's another statement of Jesus when he was in the synagogue one day and there's a man with a withered arm. He's probably at his side, maybe scrunched up. He was unable to move it. Jesus goes to the man with the withered arm and says, hey, you stretch out your arm. Stretch out your arm? He can't do that. That's like impossible. Now, if I were in this synagogue and I overheard this conversation, if I didn't know who Jesus was, I think I'd step in and defend the poor man.

I'd say, excuse me, who do you think you are? This guy can't stretch forth his arm. You kids don't make fun of him. But we discovered that whenever Jesus gives a command, even though it's impossible, he'll give the person the power to do what he commanded. We discovered that later, but not at first. Or how about the man in John chapter five?

He had a lingering 38-year disease. He's at the pool of Bethesda, along with a lot of other sick people who want to get well. That's why they're there.

Jesus goes up to this man and says, hey, do you want to be made well? Duh. Duh.

Who doesn't in that place? It's a surprising thing. Or how about to Peter, when Peter said that you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And he got the answer right. And Peter's a friend of Jesus and a follower of Jesus. But then Peter says, we're not going to let you go to Jerusalem because we don't want you to get hurt.

And Jesus turns to his friend and says, get behind me, Satan. You are not thinking like God, but you are thinking like man. All very surprising things.

Here's what I want to point out. If you're a child of God, he will always answer your prayers. Always. But not like you would expect. He might just surprise you in his answer. It might not always be what you want to hear. Well, we're all bound to encounter more than a few surprises here and there in our lives.

And some of them may prove to be rather challenging. But when those moments come, we don't have to make a blind leap of faith. Rather, we can sit back on our trust in a living God and step out in confident faith, knowing that he's watching out for us and ready to help us every step we take.

And that's going to wrap things up for today. But before we go, here's a unique opportunity to grow in your knowledge of the Lord. If you're ready to study God's word beyond going to church and personal Bible study, you're ready for Calvary College. Take your learning and your life's purpose to the next level with an education in biblical studies.

Registration for the 2023 spring term starts October 3rd. Classes happen on site at Calvary Church Albuquerque and online. Classes like Spiritual Foundations, Personal Evangelism, Theology II and Church History II. Plus, book specific courses like Daniel, Romans, Acts, 1 Corinthians and Revelation. Calvary College partners with Veritas International University and Calvary Chapel University so you can earn an accredited undergraduate or graduate degree or simply increase your knowledge of God and his word. Your application for the 2023 spring term is available now and classes start January 9th. Apply today at calvarychurchcollege.com. That's calvarychurchcollege.com. We'll continue to get some encouragement and a faith lift next time as we resume our study in the book of John. So I hope you can join us right here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.