Welcome to the defender bible study. A weekly encouragement to equip the body of Christ through the study of scripture and prayer to manifest the gospel to orphans and vulnerable children around the world. This podcast is a ministry of Lifeline Children Services where we believe that defending the fatherless begins by being rooted in God's word.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Defender Bible Study. This is Rick Morton, and we are, this week, going to pick up and continue our study in the book of John. We're in John chapter 4. We're gonna be at the end of the chapter, beginning in verse 43.

We'll go from verse 43 all the way through the end of the chapter. I know we've spent several weeks, we've kinda taken a little bit of a hiatus, thanks for bearing with us. This was a great opportunity to be able to do a special Bible study with our staff, just talking a little bit about who we aspire to be as a ministry and how that's grounded in the scriptures, and so we did a little bit of housekeeping and, some things that I that I think are, really, really important for us and our future. And so I would ask you as friends of Lifeline that are listening to this podcast, please pray for us. I know you do, but pray for us specifically as we, just seek to walk out the Lord's will in, fulfilling the mission that God has given us to to equip the body of Christ, to manifest the gospel, to vulnerable children and to those who who are pouring into the lives of vulnerable children.

So as we turn our attention to back to John, we're gonna today look at beginning in verse 43, I'm gonna read the passage, I don't normally do that, but I think this is there's so many kinda key things in in this passage. I just wanna make sure that we're all on the same page. So, it says, after 2 days now remember the context is that that Jesus had been in Samaria, and, of course, we know that Jesus was compelled to go to Samaria and and so, like, the Holy Spirit, you know, like, God God's Spirit impressed upon Jesus that he needed to leave where he was, leave the people that he had grown up around and the people that were his people and go to Samaria where there was ethnic tension between the Jews and the Samaritans and we see this incredible season of ministry that Jesus had, which we'll talk about in just a second. It was remarkable what happened in Samaria. And so, verse 43, it says, after 2 days, he departed for Galilee, so Jesus is going back home.

Verse 44, for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his hometown. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans 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 Cana in Galilee where he'd made the water wine. And at Capernaum, where there was an official son who was ill, When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to see him and asked him to come down and to 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, come down before my child dies. Jesus said to him, go, your son will live. The man believed the word that Jesus had spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going 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, yesterday at 7th hour. The fever left him.

The father knew that this was the hour when Jesus had had said to him, go, your son will live. And he himself believed in all his household. This was the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee. Okay. So a couple of things to note here and this actually really dovetails into some things that we've been talking about together as a team here at Lifeline and about what we aspire to be, who we aspire to be as we as we serve the Lord in the area of positioning the church and encouraging the church to to care for vulnerable children, which is something that that God's called us to do, something that is that's central to the work that Christ has given us, the mission that Christ has given us into the world.

So Jesus was in this season in Samaria, which was 2 days. If you look at the at, like, all the incredible things that happened in Samaria, Jesus was only there 2 days. And so in that passage, if you go back just to review, Jesus feels compelled, you know, senses the leadership of the Holy Spirit to leave where he is, to go to Samaria, no self respecting Jew would ever go to Samaria, they wouldn't even go through Samaria on their route, they would actually go far out of the way not to even set foot on Samaritan soil. Jesus instead was led of the Holy Spirit to go right into the middle of Samaria and he goes to the the well, Jacob's well, he talks to a woman who no one else would talk to, who is completely an outcast, we don't have to rehearse or rehash that conversation, but suffice it to say, she comes to saving faith in Christ. She comes to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and she places her faith and trust in him, primarily because of the way that Jesus approached her personally.

He didn't approach her as her sin, he approached her as a person created in his image who was living apart from the salvation that God provides, and so he saw her and he met her and he confronted her with her sin and and she repented. And then she went into town and she did what people who've been made over by Jesus do, she told other people about what Jesus had done. And so she ran into town and she started telling people, I this man is something else, and he told me everything that I've ever done, and what we don't see the scripture say explicitly, but what what the implication is is that he told me everything that I ever done, but then he saw me. He saw me as a person. He saw me as somebody valuable created in the image of God, and and he showed me that to have faith and trust in him is bigger than all the things that I've done and I can I can find release and relief from the penalty of the sin that I've committed?

And so what happens? Well, we see verse 42, go back one verse, the summation of everything in Samaria for these 2 days is in that verse, it says, talking about the people of, Samaria in the town, it says, they said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. So Jesus is in this incredible season where he's gone to Samaria, he's encountered the most unlikely person, he's shared himself with her, she's turned away from her sin and she's turned to him in faith, she's told other people in the town, apparently lots of people, and they've turned, first based on her word, but then they've heard Jesus for themselves, and they believed and they acknowledge that Jesus is the savior and they're and they're following him with their lives. Now, I don't know about y'all, but, like, my temptation is in ministry that I would wanna stay in a place like that. If the conditions were great and people were coming to God, I would be tempted to see that as a sign that that's where God wants me and I would probably not be looking for the Holy Spirit to tell me to go somewhere else.

As a matter of fact, I I can say boldly that that probably the temptation would be that I would be trying to tell the Holy Spirit that this is a good place to be and that we needed to ride this out until there wasn't fruit, but that's not what Jesus did. Jesus, on the other hand, left that incredible circumstance and he went back to a place where he knew they weren't gonna honor him. He went back to a place where he knew they weren't gonna believe and he was gonna face opposition, and he went back to ultimately the people that were gonna kill him. And he did it willingly. Why did he do it?

He did it because it was part of the mission. And I think that's the thing that that we see here, he did it not because not because it was easy, he did it not because his ministry wasn't bearing fruit in the place where he was. As a matter of fact, he turned away from and left from something that was, like, miraculous, like, lives were being changed and people were following him and he left that because it was God's plan and God's mission that he would ultimately go to the cross and he would ultimately get out of the grave and then he would defeat death and he would defeat hell and he would defeat sin and then he ultimately would show his sovereignty and he would reign as lord. And so we see this contrast that Jesus leaves and he goes to back to a people and what he finds in Galilee for verses 43 through 45 is that the Galileans were, like, they were glad to see him, they welcomed him. They welcomed him welcomed him because of all the miracles that he'd done in Jerusalem and they, like, they wanted some of that.

They thought it was a really great show for cheap and it was an opportunity for them to better their lives and and for for them to enjoy right now, like, what they thought was what they deserved from God, which is an easier life and ultimately a kingdom where they could rule themselves. And so they were hopeful that that's what Jesus was gonna bring to them. But what what John is careful to tell us is not that they welcomed him, they wanted what he could do in miracles, but they didn't believe in him, they didn't believe on him, they didn't believe like the Samaritans were believing, They weren't putting their faith and trust in him. They weren't they weren't acknowledging him as the savior of the world. They just saw him as a guy who could do something for him right now.

How true is that of of some of the places that you and I may be called into? And I think we've been talking about, as a ministry wanting to make sure that we're functioning in a way that we see ourselves as a heroic organization, not because we believe that we're the heroes, not because we believe Life Line together collectively are the heroes, but because we ultimately believe Jesus is the hero, that Jesus is the hero of the story, but we need to as his ambassadors, we need to act heroically and to act heroically means that we have a mission and that we're gonna we're gonna sell out to accomplish the mission. And our mission is to equip the body of Christ, to equip churches, to equip the families in those churches in places where believers are collected together in a local church, around the word of God, in ways that they're trying to grow deeper in knowledge and understanding of Jesus and in places where they're trying to take the gospel of Christ and to take it to their neighbors and around the world, in those kind of settings, Lifeline is investing and we, like, we want to we wanna build capacity, we want to we wanna help in any way that we can so that the church will be in a position to manifest the gospel to vulnerable children as James 127 and a lot of other places in scripture call us out to do as the people of God.

And the way we do that is by helping the church to build capacity within themselves to do that work and and to pour into others, birth parents, CPS workers, all kinds of people for them to be able to bring the gospel to bear in in those people's lives and to be able to to equip them so that, ultimately, we can reach the goal of seeing vulnerable children have their lives stabilized, yes. Find safety and security in this world, yes. But more importantly and more significantly, that they can find safety and security for eternity in Christ, they can know and follow Jesus, and that when we know that we've accomplished our mission is when all those all those vulnerable children, all those orphans that are out there that God's called us to care for, when they're following Jesus and when they're making disciples themselves, the whole task will be done. So Jesus, in this passage, he leaves this place of fruitful ministry in Samaria and he goes to a place where he knows the sledding is gonna be tough because it's God God's plan for him to go and he leaves the many and he goes in this moment for the one and the one is this official.

So it says this there's this Roman official that comes to him that says, sir, you gotta come with me because my child is gonna die. I wanna break this down really quickly. So this official wasn't just anybody, he was not just a he wasn't this wasn't just like a rank and file Roman soldier, this is somebody that served the leader, served the king. So this is Herod Antipas, it was somebody that was that was, like, in his in his inner circle. This is a guy that had at his disposal all the resources and all the power of the Roman government, yet he came to Jesus, he came seeking what Jesus could do because he'd seen what Jesus had done in Jerusalem.

But he comes to Jesus in a completely different way. So he comes and he says he says, Jesus, I need you to come with me because my son is dying. And so his hope was that Jesus was gonna come lay hands on his son, pray over him, tell him to get up and walk, and that his son was gonna be healed. And Jesus says, he says, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. Jesus wasn't just talking to the official, by the way, he was talking to everybody that was around.

So in a public setting, Jesus is basically saying, look, what all of you wanna see is is you wanna see signs and wonders, and unless unless you see things that look like big miracle, like big magic tricks, big, you know, big productions, big unless, like, unless you have an experience, you're not gonna believe. And what Jesus is really saying is, look, these miracles are not gonna cause you to believe, but really that's all you want. Then he turns to the official because the official turns back to him and basically says, Jesus, I don't just want I don't just want the miracle because because you're the guy that can do it. I want you. It says that Jesus turned around him and he said, your son will live.

Go. Go. Your son will live. Now, this official could have at that point said, I'm gonna take you by force, I'm gonna take you at the point of the sword and I'm gonna make you go to see my son, and I'm gonna make you do something. But he didn't, Jesus told him to go and he believed him, he believed the Word of the Lord, he believed what that Jesus is the savior, he believed he believed in the same way that the people in Samaria were believing.

And so the official leaves and he starts on his way home and he encounters some people on his way home, and so he these servants that he meets, he basically asked for word of his son and they tell him, your son your son's well. And the guy says, well, when did that happen? They said, it happened at the 7th hour and immediately his mind is drawn back to you. That was the exact moment when Jesus told him to go, that his son would be healed. And so, ultimately, Jesus did what he did because this man believed that Jesus is who he said he is, he believed that he was the savior of the world, and so he trusted him, and so when Jesus said go, he didn't argue with him, he didn't he didn't tell Jesus to do, you know, what he'd done before, he didn't, he was pleading to Jesus because he knew Jesus had power, but he believed who Jesus was, they believed that's why he had power.

Unlike the crowd who just thought Jesus was powerful, but they didn't believe that he really is who he says he is. And so the short rest of the story is is that the son got better, the official shared this with his family, his whole family repented and believed, his whole family followed Jesus, they were all baptized, and ultimately his family was converted. Now, you know, one of the things we know is that 3, you know, some 300 years later, the Roman Empire became a Christian Empire. Caesar converted to Christ. The empire was radically changed, and so perhaps the seeds for that conversion of the emperor and the empire, perhaps it happened in this very moment by the obedience of Jesus to leave the easy thing and to leave the people that were believing and where the ministry was easy and good and to go back to a place where he knew largely he was gonna be rejected because there was one person there who was not going to reject him and there was one family there that was not going to reject him and it was important for him to do that.

Why was it important for him to do that? We don't know, except that it was the mission of God for him to do it. And so as a ministry at Lifeline, we wanna be those kind of people, we wanna live in the image and the example of Jesus that we we don't wanna just go to places that make sense, that that seem like they're the right thing to do, we don't wanna go to places where we just get to exercise power and where we get to we get to do things that are impressive. We don't wanna go to places where we see results and we we see numbers and we see tangible things happen. We wanna go and we wanna invest in places where we can see people come to Jesus, where we can do the work of caring for orphan and vulnerable children in ways that are leading people to follow Jesus, but more than that, what we wanna do is we wanna we wanna do those things in a way that's obedient to being God wants us to be when he wants us to be there.

And so as a ministry, we're dedicated to staying on our face before God and pursuing that God leads us to the places that he would have us to go. We wanna be sensitive to the Holy Spirit because, ultimately, that's what heroic ministry organizations do. They acknowledge that Jesus is the hero and we wanna follow him to accomplish the mission, the great commission, the great commandment, the mission that he's called us to do. And that's who we wanna be at Lifeline and I think that's probably who you wanna be as well because you're listening to this podcast and you have a heart that's aligned to ours. And so I just wanna remind you today, you may be in a place where where ministry is not really very pleasurable.

You may be in a place where ministry is really hard. You may be an adoptive parent or a foster parent today who has a child that is that's hard and maybe a child that's not responding to many of the things or some of the things that you're trying to do and they may not be responding to you and they may not be responding to the gospel. But the thing you need to look back at is God called us to this, right? Like, we can look back to a point in time where we knew undeniably that God had called us to adoption, God had called us to foster care. Why?

Because it was his plan, it was his destiny, it was his it was his thing. God called us as a church to minister into the foster care system, into a system that's broken to affect it, not to clean up the system and make it better, but ultimately to affect the system by infusing the gospel in it, bringing the gospel to bear in the lives of the people that are in the system. Maybe, you know, judges and CPS workers and people are making it hard on you. Maybe you're you're finding it difficult. Maybe you're not seeing results.

Maybe maybe things are tough, but the question you have to ask yourself is, did God call us to do this work and did he call us to do this thing? If he did, then we wanna be heroic, we wanna stay at the work no matter what the the tangible result in the moment. Because, ultimately, God is glorified when his people act heroically by being completely singularly focused on the mission that he's given us, and that we're we're not going to think about ourselves, but we're gonna lean in and we're gonna follow and go those places where where where Jesus has called us to go. And the thing is, y'all, we have the Holy Spirit. Right?

Jesus said that he was gonna send the spirit, and the spirit was gonna live in us, and the spirit was gonna live with us, and he does, that he's he was gonna prompt us, that he was gonna convict us, that he was gonna do all of these things, all the things that the Spirit does in order to help us to be able to discern the will of God. He's gonna give us his word where where most of his will is revealed and his will is not like, it's not hidden, it's right there in the word. He was gonna give us he's given us all that, and he's promised that, ultimately, that that we will do things that are greater than the things that he did on earth. Why? Because we're we're empowered by his Spirit and we're led to go to the places that are cut out for us in his mission.

So I hope this story today has been an encouragement to you. If it's a if it's a hard season of ministry that it's been an encouragement that following Jesus like, we don't have to see the results that maybe, you know, you'd put in an annual report or that you'd be excited to, you know, tell people about. Sometimes the results don't of obedience don't look like, you know, the tangible results that we seek after, but we model our savior and we we singularly are focused on being obedient to be into the place that god's called us to be and to be faithful. And that god measures success based on faithfulness to the ministry and the mission that he's given us to do in his name to bring the gospel into the places that he's called us to go, singularly focused. That's what we wanna be as a ministry, that's what we wanna be as a people of God, that's what we wanna be as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ as we as we continue to live in this world.

So hope this has been an encouragement to you today that as we see Jesus live out this this example and and and a really incredible story that talks about how how Jesus did that himself and how he modeled it for us. Hope you have a great week, may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord keep you as we come back next week to continue our study in the book of John as we pick up in John 5.

Thanks again for joining us for the defender bible study. If you enjoy making this podcast a part of your weekly routine, we'd love for you to take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the defender bible study to make it easier for more people to find. For more resources and information on how you and your church can partner with Lifeline, please visit us at lifelinechild.org. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter by searching for Lifeline Child.

You can email us directly at info at lifeline child dot org. We look forward to seeing you again next week for the defender bible study.