Believing is Seeing

Announcement Info

(R-Kids below Logo)

Thanks for joining us at R-Church Online! Here’s all the info and links you need for an on-ramp to what was announced. 

#1. TESTIFY!
We want to hear what God’s doing in your life. Send us a video or shoot us an email and let us know! If you would like to keep it between us simply jot down that it’s private, if not there’s a good chance it’ll end up in our next service.  

 To send us a video–> Video Link  OR email us –> info@r-church.org 

#2. National day of prayer is this Thursday, May 7th. If you would like to join us you can “Zoom” in or, if you don’t have Zoom, you can call in. Here’s the info… 

• Topic: National Day of Prayer
  Time: May 7, 2020 06:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
• Join Zoom Meeting
  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7283950267, Meeting ID: 728 395 0267
  Or call in at +16699009128, and then enter this code –> 7283950267#

#3. Catch up on the Gospel of John. Click HERE to listen in.

#4. Giving–> Click HERE to give online or you can send a check to…

• Restoration Church 
• 595 N. Fairview Ave.
• Goleta, Ca. 93117 

#5. Any other questions, including how to connect with one of our Community Groups that meet throughout the week, send us an email at info@r-church.org 

Hey Restoration family!

During this time of separation, we still are able to access good teachings online through the makers of our Sunday school curriculum.

Please don’t let this chance to worship with your kiddos pass by and take advantage of teaching moments we call “God sightings”. As we spend our days more indoors with our kids, we can show our kids how God shows himself in everyday ways. Be creative, get messy, no one’s looking! I encourage you to connect with your kids in such a time as this.

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:5–7

Check out week 7, “Jesus’ power brings hope”,  HERE. 

Sermon Notes

Intro

• People say seeing is believing. 
  • Thomas, a close disciple of Jesus 

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” John 20:24–25

• The Gospel of John allows space for growing faith. The point of his book is to encourage us to true biblical faith. From seeing is believing to believing is seeing.
•  In a little bit we are going to read our text so if you want to turn there, it’s John 4:43-54, page 889 in our pew bibles if you have one, if you need a bible, email us at R-Church.org, send us your address and we’ll get one to you. 
  • Review
  • Address guests
    • Took a break to do a topical series called “NOT Canceled” during the Covid craziness.
  • Normal mode of doing things is to walk ch by ch, vs by vs. through books of the Bible and so here we are. 
  • The author is one of Jesus’ closest disciples, John and he tells us the reason he wrote this account of Jesus. 

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. John 20:30–31

• Sounds simple enough… 
• #1. Who is Jesus? 
  • The example of a Pastor named Bobby
    • So we grow in the knowledge of who Jesus is and you’re going to see examples of people following him, but because they don’t really know who he is, they bail. So it’s teaching us, if we really want to follow Jesus, this is who he is. 
• #2. What does it mean to believe? You can believe in something, but not trust it, you can believe and trust in something, but not give you life to it. 
  • Chair “example”. 
• #3. Life. As we grow in our knowledge of the biblical Jesus, grow in the understanding of biblical faith, what does life l look like. 

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. John 20:30–31

The title of our series is “Believing life” 

• Our text this morning. John 4:43. 
  • Audio of “Believing LIfe”. The link to the first sermon is posted in the notes on the website. 
• Stand for the reading of God’s word, you are invited to do so. If you are wondering why, it’s out of respect for God’s Word. After I read, I’m going to say “This is the Word of the Lord”, and if you’d like to respond, we say “Thanks be to God.”
  • Read text. 
    • This is the Word of the Lord, Thanks be to God. Pray
• Jesus just came from Samaria where he met a women at a well where he overcomes gender, racial, political and religious inequality and basically the whole town believes and revival breaks out! 
  • But, as with life, our story is not all rainbows and skittles. 
• vs. 43-45  is a confusing text at first glance. 
  • Galilee is a region, much like how we would say Santa Barbara county, that includes Goleta, Lopoc, and Santa Maria (Show map)
    • Bottom of map #16 is where Jesus and his boys are coming from Upper Left, #4. Cana, where they are at / Upper middle, Capernaum #8 (official) 
    • 
• Notice in the region of Galilee you have Nazareth, where Jesus is from, and towns like Chorizin and Bathsaida which in Matthew 11 Jesus basically says, Dude, if I went to Sodom and did the miracles I did in your town, they have turned and believed. More tolerable in the day of Judgment for Sodom than for you… That’s not a good time.  
  • This is why the statement in vs. 44. But yet in contrast it says the Galileans welcomed him. Why these 2 contrasting statements? 
    • Because they welcomed him as a miracle worker, but not as the Messiah. They may have believed, may have trusted he could politically save their nation from Roman oppression, but they definitely were not giving their lives to him. Instead they were waiting for him to perform some other miracle, or say something controversial, or win another debate with the religious leaders. 
• “They were following Jesus as if he were a religious sideshow. ‘Hurry, hurry, don’t miss the latest miracle! Get your popcorn here. Crowd in, folks, so you can see the new miracle.” Hughes, Kent. Preaching the Word. 
• Their following of Jesus was “seeing is believing” 
  • Official who’s son was dying. 
• Read vs. 46-47
  • He was rich, affluent, lived on the coast in a really nice house, had servants… but his money couldn’t save his son. 
• “Money can buy a king sized bed, but it can’t buy sleep! Money can but a great house, but it cannot buy a home! … And as our text suggests, money cannot buy life and health. Wealth cannot buy the life of a loved one.”  Hughes, Kent. Preaching the Word.   
  • Put yourself in this mans shoes. Nothing worked, the best doctors couldn’t make him better. Imagine it. “I got one shot, this is my last hope.” He didn’t send his servants, he got on his horse and went himself. 
    • As a father, I can relate. 
• Read vs. 47 the word “ask” doesn’t do justice to our scene. It’s “ask continually”, this affluent man is begging a Jewish peasant to save his son. The spectators eating popcorn to see what he would do… and Jesus, being the surgical with his words levels everyone, including the official. 
• Read vs. 48, Unless you see, you will not believe. 
  • Sounds harsh at first, until you take note that the “you” is plural. 
  • “Unless y’all see, you won’t believe.” The chewing of the popcorn stops…  silence falls on the crowd. Corporate heart surgery just went down. 
    • Who are you in this story? Is your following of Jesus still “seeing is believing”; If Jesus does this, then I will fully give my life to him?
• Read vs. 49, more silence, the plea of a desperate father takes center stage. He doesn’t give him a miracle to see, he gives him a word to believe. 
• Read vs. 50, These 5 words changed his life. 
  • Imagine the eye contact. 
    • Smile on his face. From desperation to peace, from needing a to see a miracle to believe to believing 5 words of Jesus, then obeying his word… Hope. He believed in that moment, I will see my son again. 
• This mans faith was moving from seeing is Read vs. 51-52
  • Don’t miss this. The seventh hour was most likely 1pm. The trip from Cana to Capernaum was about 4-5 hours on horse. He could have been home that night to see if it was true. Is this not the calmness of soul that growing faith produces? 
  • The great hymn, Trust and Obey
    • What He says we will do, where He sends we will go;
    • Never fear, only trust and obey.
    • Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
    • To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
• Read Vs. 53. 5 words changed his, and his families lives forever. He believed his word, he did what he said, and he saw the grace of God. 
  • vs. 54, John wraps this section up by basically asking, “OK, what have we learned so far?” What was the first miracle? Cana. Same town we are in now. Come around full circle, ok…. 
• -Turned water into wine
•  John 2:11, his disciples believed in him
• -Flipped tables over at the temple, Jews ask for a sign to establish authority for doing what he did, and later his disciples remembered  
• John 2:22,  believed the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken
• -Met by night with a Pharisee named Nicodemus, teaches about the kingdom of God & biblical faith and says the famous 
• John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 
• -John the Baptist points away from himself and points to Jesus 
• John 3:36, Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life,
• -Women at the well, that through her witness the whole town says, John 4:42, “we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” 
• And now we are back in Cana, as the great story teller, The Apostle John, is now asking, “What have you learned?” 
• What do you notice about this man Jesus? Are you willing to give you life to him? Are you still living seeing is believing or are you starting to understand that when you believe his word and do what it says you begin to see the wonderful works of God?  
• That believing is seeing. 
• As we walk through the Gospel of John, may we grow in our knowledge of who Jesus is, our faith as we give our lives to him, so that we live by faith as followers of Jesus! 
• PRAY, Take corporate communion.