00;00;42;08 - 00;00;52;27
Brenton
Welcome back to further. I am Brenton Grimm. Another kind of unique week here. We had three people preaching, so, Jeremiah, welcome.

00;00;52;29 - 00;00;54;13
Jeremiah
Hey.

00;00;54;16 - 00;00;55;21
Brenton
Nate. Todd, welcome.

00;00;55;24 - 00;00;56;17
Nate
Hello, everyone.

00;00;56;23 - 00;00;59;28
Brenton
And Casey Reed, first time here. Yeah. How are you doing?

00;01;00;03 - 00;01;00;24
Kacey
Good.

00;01;00;27 - 00;01;20;02
Brenton
Good. So I I'm actually going to start with you. Since this is your first week on here, I'm curious if you can just kind of introduce yourself and then talk briefly about your ministry here at Harmony. I know you did kind of open on Sunday talking about, you know, the state of, student ministry here. But give us an idea what you do.

00;01;20;05 - 00;01;46;10
Kacey
Yeah. Yeah. No. Thank you. Yep. Just names Casey Reed and the assistant pastor of Student ministries. Here, mainly at the Danville campus. So, just get to ministered to middle school and, and high school students on a weekly basis. But then also provide some oversight to the ministry as a whole. And, yeah.

00;01;46;10 - 00;01;48;00
Kacey
So that's basically it.

00;01;48;03 - 00;01;52;24
Brenton
And how's it going? Are you optimistic about our future?

00;01;52;27 - 00;01;53;29
Kacey
Absolutely.

00;01;54;02 - 00;01;54;11
Brenton
Good.

00;01;54;18 - 00;01;55;02
Kacey
Yes.

00;01;55;05 - 00;01;57;25
Brenton
Glad to hear that.

00;01;57;28 - 00;02;17;26
Kacey
No, I think it's great. And, just have really seen a lot of consistency across the three campuses of students coming in. Not just in numbers, but students that make the ministry at a regular rhythm in their life, which has been awesome.

00;02;17;27 - 00;02;44;25
Brenton
So it's good. I'm glad to hear it. All right. So let's let's get into the content here. So I, I always think it's interesting when we have three different pastors preaching the same text and kind of the, the differences. That you guys end up with. I'd like to just kind of start by asking each one of you what was the most significant thing that you took away from your your study last week?

00;02;44;25 - 00;02;49;15
Brenton
And I'll just open it up to all three of you.

00;02;49;17 - 00;03;13;06
Jeremiah
When I was, when I was going through this passage, and just thinking about just the role of faith, and the faith in this official, I, I was just struck by, just the parallel to the the faith in the life of the believer. And just seeing the same, path and seeing the same path in, in my own life.

00;03;13;08 - 00;03;37;27
Jeremiah
And, it was very much so just an encouragement. As well as just the reminder of, like, what am I placing my, my, my faith in, and not in works, not in facts of Jesus, but in the person, who, the the the real person, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again and is coming back one day.

00;03;37;29 - 00;03;40;15
Brenton
Yeah. It's good.

00;03;40;17 - 00;04;11;12
Nate
Yeah. What I really loved here was how this man, this official, he goes to Jesus for the healing of his son. And then that occurs that happens. But the emphasis at the end of the text is on the fact that he believed in his whole family. Believed. And so it's just a good reminder that our circumstances and the things that we think that we need most out of life, aren't near as important as having that internal, eternal security with Christ and, that personal relationship with him.

00;04;11;12 - 00;04;24;01
Nate
And so I think that that was just huge. We didn't see at the end of the passage all he went home and they all celebrated because the, you know, the boy was healthy. We see the fact that they all believed. And so that that's the emphasis here. And that's something that just really stuck out to me.

00;04;24;07 - 00;04;33;15
Brenton
Yeah. Kind of see a consistent, action step between this story and the the ones that have come before this. Right. That's good. Thanks, Nate. Casey, what about you?

00;04;33;17 - 00;05;03;24
Kacey
Yeah, I think, just as we thought about people being around Jesus and just, something kept popping out to me is is the hardness of of our hearts at times. And how people could be around Jesus and even see his signs and wonders, but not put their faith in him. And, just that passage of Jeremiah 17 nine that it says that the heart is, deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

00;05;03;26 - 00;05;21;26
Kacey
Who can understand it? And, so I just always amazes me how hard our hearts is, how hard our hearts are and, and, how how we just need to desperately put our trust in Jesus and and, Yeah.

00;05;21;29 - 00;05;42;06
Brenton
Cool. All right. Jeremiah, I have one, specifically for you. So you brought up the idea of seeing is believing, right? It's a it's a common thing that we say and, you made the point that with Christianity, it's it's really more accurate to say that believing is seeing. You kind of reverse that. Can you kind of explain what you what you meant by that?

00;05;42;08 - 00;06;02;23
Jeremiah
Yeah. Great question. So I started off my sermon. The, the the phrase seeing is believing is one that I heard in, the movie The Polar Express. And just following that, that boy's journey. And it wasn't until he saw, that until he saw Santa that he. Sorry.

00;06;02;24 - 00;06;03;23
Brenton
A slip slip there.

00;06;03;28 - 00;06;28;22
Jeremiah
Little slip there until he saw Santa there. He was like, I believe, I believe, I believe. And so like seeing is believing. Like he needed the facts to be able to to see that. And he needed to see with his own eyes, to be able to believe it. Whereas, we as believers, we're, we're called to, to believe in the, and the unseen.

00;06;28;25 - 00;06;56;00
Jeremiah
I love this at the end of John. In in chapter 20, verse 29. Jesus said to to Thomas, he says, have you believed because you have seen. And Jesus says, blessed are you. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. Just the reminder that, it's it's not in the the scene. But that doesn't make it any less true.

00;06;56;02 - 00;07;18;13
Jeremiah
Because of, just because of the God's word. Because of. I love how John like the the gospel account of John, really just points to this whole idea that we can truly believe this. Even now, even though we've not seen with our eyes, we can we can truly see this. We we can truly believe it.

00;07;18;16 - 00;07;20;06
Jeremiah
Even today.

00;07;20;08 - 00;07;45;09
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. We obviously live in a culture that requires proof for belief and and, you know, fair enough. I mean, that's that's kind of the scientific method, right? And, and we're surrounded by, the, the need for evidence. But but we also do see Jesus here in verse 48 rebuking this man because of this expectation. Right. So how can we.

00;07;45;09 - 00;07;54;27
Brenton
And this is for all of you guys, how can we more quickly accept and trust? Jesus promised us.

00;07;54;29 - 00;08;21;27
Jeremiah
I use the phrase faith. Faith, strengthens faith. And, so one one of the things is, is actually taking the steps in faith and seeing how God works through those, and he blesses that. When we when we step out in obedience and we step out in faith, and we and then we, we see, the moments where he's at work, it strengthens our faith.

00;08;21;29 - 00;08;44;23
Jeremiah
And so, like, I would say starting by reading God's word and, and, and understanding why, why we can actually, at first place put our faith and, and we can trust Jesus at his word, trust God at his word. And then we take that step of obedience, much like the the official, he surrendered his own idea.

00;08;44;25 - 00;08;54;22
Jeremiah
For for Jesus, which was so much better. And so, yeah, taking him at his word, and and letting our faith strengthen our faith.

00;08;54;25 - 00;08;55;23
Kacey
Yeah.

00;08;55;26 - 00;09;26;15
Nate
Yeah. You you touched on it there, Jeremiah. But faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. And just just remembering all throughout Scripture how God has been faithful to his people, how he's been gracious, merciful, loving, compassionate father. And, just seeing that over and over and reminding ourselves of those truths. But then helping each other as a body to identify that in our own lives as well, of like even when we can't see it, we have brothers and sisters to help point us to the faithfulness of God.

00;09;26;15 - 00;09;36;26
Nate
And so that's very important. So being in God's word, being in good community, those are ways that we can just be reminded of, of God's faithfulness.

00;09;36;28 - 00;10;01;09
Kacey
Yeah. That's that's exactly what I was thinking with community kept popping into my mind that rubbing shoulders with other believers that especially believers that are farther down the road than you are in their lives and, we just see things that they have gone through or ways that their faith has been strengthened. And it really strengthened, strengthens your faith as well.

00;10;01;11 - 00;10;02;05
Kacey
Yeah. So.

00;10;02;08 - 00;10;26;19
Brenton
Yeah. Casey, you would you kind of brought up, you know, these, these past events in our lives that we can look back to. And I think it's both right. We we look to Jesus faithfulness in the past as as proof of his faithfulness in the future. But also there is, a side of this that is, you know, just faith in who he is and who he said he is and who we've accepted him to be.

00;10;26;20 - 00;10;49;24
Brenton
And so, yeah, I think I think there's room for both there. But if we're not taking him at his word then that, and expecting evidence from him, then I think we're kind of putting him on trial a little bit, so it's good. A common thread in all of your messages was the difference between believing about Jesus and believing in Jesus.

00;10;49;27 - 00;10;53;18
Brenton
Nate, can you give a quick explanation of the difference?

00;10;53;21 - 00;11;15;21
Nate
Yeah. So, there's two things that really come to mind here. The first thing being is just because, you know, you know about somebody doesn't mean you know them. And so, like, I know about, you know, the greatest basketball player of all time, which is obviously Michael Jordan. Amen. I know, I know about him. But that doesn't mean we we talk on the phone and go out for supper and have a personal relationship.

00;11;15;21 - 00;11;31;08
Nate
And so just because you know about somebody, just because you can give all the stats and you can affirm, you know, the truth, that he is the greatest of all time. Just because you can do those things does not mean that you have a personal relationship with him. And so I think the same applies to Jesus. But what does that actually mean?

00;11;31;11 - 00;12;01;04
Nate
You know, believing in Jesus. And so I go to Romans six, and I think that, you know, Romans six eight says, now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also live with him. And so just identifying in his death and, you know, understanding and affirming that he did that for you personally and that you are a sinner who needs to repent, who needs to put their faith in Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ did that for you.

00;12;01;07 - 00;12;18;04
Nate
And so making it personal, not just that he died like I could talk about on Sunday, not just that he died for the sins of the world, but he died for your sins personally. And so identifying with his death, saying, you know, he did that for me. And since he did that for me, I can be raised to new life spiritually.

00;12;18;09 - 00;12;33;28
Nate
And I have been if my faith is in him. And then one day, I will have a new glorified body and I'll be I'll be with him forever. So it's it's knowing him at a personal level level, but also identifying with the fact of what he did for you.

00;12;34;04 - 00;12;35;26
Kacey


00;12;35;28 - 00;12;36;16
Jeremiah
Yeah.

00;12;36;19 - 00;12;57;04
Brenton
Yeah. And again it's both right. We, we want to have knowledge of, of Jesus and we want to have a personal relationship with him too. So it's not, it's not necessarily one or the other. I, I'm curious though how you guys would answer this. What how does this present itself in Christianity today?

00;12;57;06 - 00;13;31;23
Jeremiah
I think, you've got people that say that they're, a Christian. They believe all the facts about him. But one of the things that you see in this, passage is that his, the officials faith led him to action. And, and I think, it's not about doing something, but it's it's about the fact that, like, at the heart of it, what was the reason why he was doing it?

00;13;31;25 - 00;13;55;01
Jeremiah
He he believed, and so he went, and so, it it's not just about the, like the the mental assent. It's not about just the the words. I, I believe in Jesus, but, like, what? What does that actually cause you to do? What does that actually cause you to, How does that cause you to change how you think?

00;13;55;01 - 00;14;10;09
Jeremiah
How does that actually change your life to to what Nate was talking about? Like, to identify with Jesus in his in, in his death and resurrection. How how does that cause you to to act in light of that?

00;14;10;11 - 00;14;11;07
Brenton
Yeah.

00;14;11;09 - 00;14;36;10
Kacey
Yeah. Just seeing how, you know, faith produces action I think is kind of what a lot of what we're saying and just thinking of Jesus's words and Matthew seven, verses 16 and 17, you know, you will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

00;14;36;10 - 00;14;47;16
Kacey
And so, it's that faith that produces action, faith that produces evidence of of that taking root.

00;14;47;18 - 00;15;19;16
Brenton
Yeah, yeah. I think maybe something that we see today, too, and I think, I think we see it in this, this man here in the passage of kind of a transactional relationship. Right. So you do this for me. I'll do this for you. And I think there is, you know, some of that with, with, maybe I'll just call it nominal Christianity, where, you know, we we need something our son is sick or something, and it's like, you take care of this, I will follow you or I'll.

00;15;19;16 - 00;15;25;08
Brenton
Or I'll do this to, you know, give up on my money. And it kind of seems like that's where he was coming from, a little bit at the beginning of that.

00;15;25;14 - 00;15;26;23
Kacey


00;15;26;25 - 00;15;41;27
Brenton
Do you think that that that's a common thing here. And I'm also curious, you know, how would you how do you speak to someone that's that's in that position that, that, is, is maybe believing about Jesus, maybe hoping that he is who he says.

00;15;42;00 - 00;15;42;14
Jeremiah
We can see.

00;15;42;14 - 00;15;43;16
Brenton
That. Not necessarily.

00;15;43;20 - 00;16;09;27
Jeremiah
What brought him there was the exact same thing. What brought him to Jesus was the exact same thing that brought everybody to Jesus was the miracles. They welcomed him. In other words, they were like were so excited to see. Now, now, can't you, like, do these things? And, and, that that should be an encouragement, to us that like, hey, like what brought me to Jesus.

00;16;09;27 - 00;16;39;16
Jeremiah
Maybe that. But, like, we can see that something turns within him. And and, we one of the encouragements that that, I think, this man provides is like, he surrenders his idea. And so, like, talking through that with, with, with a, a nominal believer, like, what does it actually look like for you to surrender?

00;16;39;18 - 00;17;04;10
Jeremiah
Your thought of what is what is best? Because in his mind, he thought that that was best. He thought like, Jesus, you got to come with me to go down to Capernaum, to go heal my son. But he obviously surrenders that idea. For Jesus's best idea of go, your son will live. And so and then he and he surrenders, and he goes, and he does.

00;17;04;10 - 00;17;16;04
Jeremiah
And so like it's probably asking that question. Or does it actually mean for you to surrender your, your preconceived idea of, of Jesus for what he has for your life?

00;17;16;06 - 00;17;33;08
Nate
Yeah, that's really good. I, I'm reminded of Romans ten nine, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. I, I think I try to explain that to people and really think about what does that mean, that Jesus is your Lord and that you're talking about that surrender?

00;17;33;08 - 00;17;54;15
Nate
It's it's well, I believe that he died for my sins. That's the that's the really good part. But sometimes it doesn't feel really good to have Jesus be your Lord. And what I mean by that is it's it's surrendering your will for his will. And sometimes we're not always going to feel like that's the best thing, but we know that that's what's best for us.

00;17;54;15 - 00;18;16;20
Nate
And I quoted Romans 828 and, you know, all things work together for good. While that good is not getting what we want, that good is being made more and more to the image of Christ. And so surrendering to him, surrendering to him, being the Lord of your life is really what's best, no matter how that makes us feel.

00;18;16;22 - 00;18;44;19
Kacey
Yeah. I think it's interesting, too, how you know, Jesus, you know, makes this statement of you will not believe unless you see signs and wonders. And even though the man had already asked once if, if he would come and heal his son. And I like it that that didn't scare him away, that that Jesus kind of probing and digging in his heart, he still he still remained there.

00;18;44;22 - 00;19;00;09
Kacey
And he asked again. And I think that just, you know, shows that his faith was being cultivated and he, he remained even in the midst of being questioned, which I think is good. Yeah.

00;19;00;11 - 00;19;20;29
Brenton
Yeah. All right. I want to wrap up with, with this question. I'm hoping that you guys can all summarize your applications from, from this message. So if I just asked you to give me a quick summary of what what, we should be walking away with here. What what would you say?

00;19;21;02 - 00;19;46;13
Nate
So I had to to have two points in my message. And it was that Jesus gives life. And so, that can be that can be explained in several different ways. But, quick application point of that was that, you know, just like Nicodemus, he was relying on religion. Samaritan woman. She was relying on relationships. And, you know, the official he was, you know, he had power, he had success.

00;19;46;13 - 00;20;11;10
Nate
But all those things don't give life. What really gives life is that surrendered life to Christ. You know, John 1010, the thief comes to kill still and destroy. But I've come that may have and may have life and have it abundantly. You know, our life is found in Christ, not just eternal spiritual life, but this this constant day to day life to where he's the one that's the life giver, and he's the one that our joy can be found in.

00;20;11;12 - 00;20;27;19
Nate
And then the second point I had was just believe in Jesus. And so whether that's the first time you need to believe in him or continue it over and over again, that, you know, believe in him, that even if our will is not done, his will is better. So,

00;20;27;21 - 00;20;31;25
Kacey
Yeah. I went with like three hours.

00;20;32;01 - 00;20;34;05
Brenton
Okay. So Chris would be proud.

00;20;34;10 - 00;20;53;23
Kacey
There we go. Right. But I had repent. Put your faith in Jesus alone, and then remember what God has done, and then retell your story and cause the gospel to spread through it. So there you go. Three hours.

00;20;53;24 - 00;20;54;26
Brenton
Three hours.

00;20;54;28 - 00;20;56;03
Kacey
Okay.

00;20;56;05 - 00;21;17;01
Jeremiah
And mine, with the. To me, it was a case study on faith. And so, we we learned a lot about faith in this. And one of the, the key things there is, faith, the timeline of faith is that, the result is immediate. But the reward takes time. The result. And this miracle was immediate.

00;21;17;05 - 00;21;42;12
Jeremiah
But the reward, it took time for that, for the official. And that's the same with us. The the result for our salvation specifically is is immediate. But the reward, it takes time. And so, just like the, the, official like we, we need to we need to surrender, our idea of what's best for, for Jesus, which is what he has to say.

00;21;42;12 - 00;22;07;14
Jeremiah
Which is better. And we can trust in him simply because, like, I love, Romans 832 that that talks about he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? I've just been resonating on that. And just like that reminds us that, like the the result is immediate because of what Jesus Christ has done.

00;22;07;17 - 00;22;23;04
Jeremiah
But the reward, it's taking time, but it will come, it will come. And so we we we, we take steps in surrendering our life for for what God has, which is so much better with what Jesus has, which is so much better.

00;22;23;06 - 00;22;51;19
Brenton
Good. All right. Well, thanks a lot, guys, for your, work this week and, doing all the prep to preach. Anyone listening here, if you haven't heard all of these sermons, I, I would encourage you to go and check them out. They're all available on the website. If you do have any questions about this, this passage or what we're going to be talking about coming up, feel free to send them in, ask it further podcast.com, and we will talk to you next week.

00;22;51;19 - 00;22;52;22
Brenton
Thanks, guys.

00;22;52;24 - 00;22;53;24
Jeremiah
Thanks, Brittany. Thank you.