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Best Year Ever | Part 1 · Rewind

Rock Point Church

62 min

Pastor Bill Bush · Jan 7, 2019 · 4 min read · 62 min listen

The big idea

God wants to move us from a desperate faith, which is focused on the "what" we need Him to do, to a deliberate faith, which trusts the "who" He is and acts on His word even before we see the outcome.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7New Year's resolutions are usually acts of desperate faith, not deliberate faith.
Point 2 of 7The book of John is written to prove Jesus is the great I AM, God Himself, not just a good teacher.

Point 3 of 7The official begged Jesus to come heal his dying son — a desperate faith fixated on the 'what,' not the 'who.'
Point 4 of 7Jesus' question exposes a faith built only on signs and wonders.
Point 5 of 7The Newark airport story illustrates trusting the 'who' when the 'what' falls apart.
Point 6 of 7Jesus commanded the man to go home before seeing any proof, and the man believed and started.
Point 7 of 7The son was healed at the exact moment Jesus spoke, and the man's whole household came to believe in Jesus as Lord.
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

John 4:43
John 4:46
John 4:48
John 6
John 4:51
John 4:53

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Bill Bush · Jan 7, 2019 · 62 min watch · 2 min read

Best Year Ever | Part 1

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

John 4:43
John 4:46
John 4:48
John 6
John 4:51
John 4:53

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

God wants to move us from a desperate faith, which is focused on the "what" we need Him to do, to a deliberate faith, which trusts the "who" He is and acts on His word even before we see the outcome.

The hope Pastor Bill offers is that any desperate cry to God can become the starting point for something stronger. Instead of chasing New Year's resolutions built on desperate faith, the invitation is to trust who Jesus is, believe what He says, and start moving in that direction before we see the result.

Key points

1
1New Year's resolutions are usually acts of desperate faith, not deliberate faith.
Pastor Bill pokes fun at his own broken resolution and notes that resolutions about health, money, or a bucket list are really confessions of what we failed to do all year. He says a desperate act of faith in a calendar change rarely works; only a deliberate plan with real steps does, and he applies that same idea to our walk with God.
2
2The book of John is written to prove Jesus is the great I AM, God Himself, not just a good teacher.
Pastor Bill explains John was the last living disciple, writing to correct the idea that Jesus was merely a prophet. He ties Jesus' seven 'I am' statements back to God's name revealed to Moses at the burning bush, and says the seven signs in John exist to reveal who Jesus is, not just to fix problems.
3
3The official begged Jesus to come heal his dying son — a desperate faith fixated on the 'what,' not the 'who.'
Working through John 4:43-54, Pastor Bill shows the government official traveling to find Jesus and pleading for Him to come to Capernaum. He points out the man had a plan and wanted Jesus to simply provide the power to accomplish it, which is the shape of a desperate prayer.
4
4Jesus' question exposes a faith built only on signs and wonders.
When Jesus asks, 'Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?' Pastor Bill says Jesus is speaking through this man to the whole crowd of Galileans who only followed Him for what He could do. He warns that a faith always looking for a sign will always be left wondering when the sign doesn't come the way we want.
5
5The Newark airport story illustrates trusting the 'who' when the 'what' falls apart.
Pastor Bill tells the extended story of his church's Israel trip stranded by a storm in Newark, where desperate prayers for the flight to work out failed again and again. It was only when missions director Monica stepped in and people trusted her rather than their own plan that everyone eventually made it, illustrating that the 'what' worked out once they focused on the 'who.'
6
6Jesus commanded the man to go home before seeing any proof, and the man believed and started.
Pastor Bill highlights that Jesus' command 'go home, your son will live' defied the culture's belief that healers had to be physically present. The official had to turn away from everything that made sense to him and head home without Jesus, which Pastor Bill defines as the heart of deliberate faith: believe and start.
7
7The son was healed at the exact moment Jesus spoke, and the man's whole household came to believe in Jesus as Lord.
Pastor Bill walks through verses 51-53, noting the fever broke at the precise hour Jesus spoke, proving only God could heal from a distance. He points out this moved beyond a temporary healing to thirty to seventy people in the man's household finding eternal life through belief in Jesus.

Application

Pastor Bill frames the whole charge as moving from a desperate faith to a deliberate faith: believe Jesus and start.

Name your desperate faith moment
Ask where you are pleading with God about a specific plan and consider whether you are more focused on the outcome you want than on trusting who He is.
Believe Jesus and start
When Jesus tells you to move in a direction that doesn't make sense yet, obey and start moving before you see the result, the way the official headed home without proof his son was healed.
Apply it to marriage and money
If your marriage or finances feel stuck, do what Jesus actually says to do (sacrificial love, generosity) rather than waiting for God to change your circumstances first.
Get baptized as an act of deliberate faith
If you've trusted Jesus but never been baptized, step into the tent set up outside this week and do it as a public, deliberate declaration, not something to wait on until you feel mature enough.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“So we're gonna look at some of these encounters that Jesus has. And what I wanna do in John chapter four, the first encounter is the one I wanna skip over. It's much more well known”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“And then in verse 46, as he traveled to Galilee, he came to Cana where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick”
From the transcript
“Jesus in verse 48 asked, will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders”
From the transcript
“That's what happens in John chapter six. When they realize you're not gonna get all the signs and wonders you wanted. I'm not gonna get rid of Rome”
From the transcript
“And in verse 51, it says, while the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well”
From the transcript
“Verse 53, then the father realized that was the very time Jesus had told him, your son will live”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

There is something deeply honest about the royal official in this story. He was powerful by any human measure — connected to Herod's court, accustomed to getting things done. But when his son was dying, none of that mattered. He traveled roughly 20 miles on foot to find Jesus and essentially said, 'Come down before my child dies.' No pretense. Just raw need. The sermon made a point worth sitting with: desperate faith is a valid starting point. Jesus did not turn this man away or shame him for showing up with an agenda. The desperation itself brought him to the right Person. That matters. If you are in a season where your prayers feel more like bargaining than believing, that is not disqualifying — it is a beginning. But a starting point is not a destination. The official came with a plan: Jesus needed to travel to Capernaum and lay hands on his son. He had the what mapped out, and he needed Jesus to execute it. Most of us know exactly what that feels like. We have a specific outcome in mind, and we keep pressing God toward it, wondering why He seems slow to cooperate. Today is simply an invitation to notice: Where are you showing up to Jesus with a plan already written? That awareness is the first honest step.

For reflection

What specific outcome have you been asking God to deliver — and how tightly are you holding the method as well as the result?

Pray

Pray for honest awareness of where your prayers have become instructions to God rather than trust in Him.

Day 2

Jesus' response to the official might feel jarring at first: 'Will you never believe in Me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?' It sounds almost cold given the urgency of a dying child. But the sermon helped unpack what Jesus was actually doing — He was diagnosing a deeper problem than a sick boy. Sign-dependent faith, as the pastor described it, is faith that keeps a condition attached: 'I will believe if You do this.' On the surface that seems reasonable. We are wired to trust what we can verify. But Jesus saw where that road leads. A faith that only holds when circumstances confirm it will eventually meet a circumstance it cannot survive. It is not a firm foundation; it is a sliding scale. What Jesus was doing was not scolding the official — He was inviting him into something sturdier. Because the man He was standing in front of was not a miracle-dispensing machine. He was, as the sermon put it, the great I Am, Lord God Almighty. And the goal of every miracle John records is to reveal that identity, not just to fix a problem. This is worth turning over today: Is your confidence in Jesus tied to a recent answered prayer? That is understandable — but it may be worth asking what your faith rests on when the answer hasn't come yet.

For reflection

Can you think of a time when an unanswered prayer shook your faith — and what does that reveal about what your faith was actually resting on?

Pray

Pray for a faith that is rooted in who Jesus is, not only in what He has recently done for you.

Day 3

Related passage

The sermon made a point that is easy to pass over: John wrote his gospel with a specific purpose. He selected seven signs — not randomly, not just as compelling stories — but as evidence pointing to one conclusion: that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing in Him you may have life in His name. That framing changes how we read the royal official's story. The healing of his son is not primarily a template for how to get God to fix our emergencies. It is one carefully chosen exhibit in John's case that Jesus is who He claimed to be. Every miracle is a revelation of His identity before it is a demonstration of His power. This matters practically. When we come to the Gospels looking only for principles to apply or outcomes to claim, we can miss the main point — the Person. John was not writing a self-help resource. He was making a case for a Person, and he wanted the reader to walk away with a settled conviction about who Jesus is. If your Bible reading has started to feel dry or mechanical, this might be why. Sometimes we are so focused on extracting something useful that we stop actually encountering Jesus. Today, try reading slowly with a single question: What does this show me about who He is?

For reflection

When you read the Gospels, are you primarily looking for instructions, or are you looking for Jesus Himself?

Pray

Pray for fresh eyes to see Jesus — not just His actions — in the Scriptures you read this week.

Day 4

This single verse is where everything turns. Jesus says, 'Go back home. Your son will live.' And then John records seven words that carry the whole weight of what the sermon called deliberate faith: 'The man believed what Jesus said and started home.' He believed. And then he moved. Those two things belong together and cannot be separated. Belief that produces no movement is not yet the faith Jesus was calling him toward. Movement without genuine belief is just willpower. But when the official took Jesus at His word — without a sign, without confirmation, without Jesus walking beside him — and turned toward home, something had genuinely shifted. The sermon defined deliberate faith exactly this way: believing what Jesus says, and then actually starting in the direction He commands, even when it contradicts every human instinct. For this man, every instinct probably screamed to keep pressing Jesus, to negotiate, to make sure. Instead he turned around and walked 20 miles home trusting a sentence. This is the practical challenge of the whole passage. You may already know the direction Jesus has been pointing you. The gap is usually not information — it is the moment of actually standing up and starting to move. What would it look like today to take even one step in the direction He has already shown you?

For reflection

Is there a direction Jesus has already made clear to you that you have been hesitating to move in — and what is the first concrete step that would look like?

Pray

Pray for the specific courage to take the next step in an area where you already know what Jesus is asking.

Day 5

The official is walking home. He does not know yet what he will find. And then his servants meet him on the road with news: the boy is alive. He asks when the fever broke — and the hour matches exactly the moment Jesus spoke. The sermon drew attention to what happened next, and it is easy to rush past it: 'He and his entire household believed.' John tells us a household in that culture likely meant 30 to 70 people — family members, servants, dependents. The official came to Jesus with a plan to save one life. God used the official's deliberate faith to bring an entire community into saving faith. This is the pattern the sermon pointed to: when we stop fixating on the what and start trusting the who, God tends to do something far larger than we originally asked. Not always faster, not always the way we envisioned, but bigger in ways we couldn't have engineered ourselves. There is something worth considering here about the people around you — your family, your household, the people your life touches. Your willingness to trust Jesus, to step when He says step, is rarely just about you. Deliberate faith has a reach. It becomes something others can see and be changed by, in ways you may not fully know until much later.

For reflection

Who in your life might be affected — in ways you cannot fully predict — by watching you choose trust over control in a hard moment?

Pray

Pray for the people in your household or close community, and for the courage to let your faith be visible to them.

Day 6

The sermon mentioned John 6 in the context of Jesus' I Am statements — the thread that runs through John's entire gospel to show us not just what Jesus does, but who He is. In John 6, Jesus stands before a crowd still chasing the miracle of the loaves and says, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty.' The crowd wanted more bread. Jesus offered Himself. That gap — between what people were asking for and what He was actually offering — is exactly the gap the royal official had to cross. Sign-seeking faith keeps circling back for the next provision. It is always asking for more bread. But Jesus consistently redirected attention from the gift to the Giver — because the Giver is the gift. He is the bread. He is the life. He is enough not because of what He produces, but because of who He is. This is not abstract theology. It is the difference between a faith that stabilizes over time and one that stays anxious, always wondering if God will come through again. Coming to Jesus — not to what He can provide, but to Him — is the daily posture the whole book of John is trying to build in the reader. It is worth asking honestly: which one am I coming to?

For reflection

In your honest experience, do you find yourself drawn more to Jesus Himself, or to what you are hoping He will do for you right now?

Pray

Pray for a growing hunger for Jesus — His presence and His person — not only for the outcomes you are waiting on.

Day 7

Reading the whole passage again at the end of the week, the arc is clear. A man arrives desperate and plan-first. He is challenged to move beyond what he can see. He believes a word he cannot verify and takes a 20-mile step of trust. And on the other side of that step, he finds not only a healed son but a transformed household and a faith he could not have reached any other way. The sermon's closing challenge was direct: Where are you stuck in a desperate-faith loop — praying the same prayer, making the same resolution, waiting for God to move your way? That loop is not a failure; it is an invitation to cross the same threshold the official crossed. Stop. Believe what Jesus has already said. And start moving in the direction He has already shown you. That might look like finally making the sacrifice in a relationship instead of waiting for the other person to go first. It might look like trusting God in your finances in a concrete and specific way. It might look like taking the step of baptism. Whatever it is, the sermon promised this: each time you exercise deliberate faith, it builds your confidence for the next hard moment. The cycle of wondering gradually becomes the growing wonder of what God will do. You do not have to have it all figured out. You just have to believe Him and start home.

For reflection

Looking back over this week, what is one specific shift — in how you pray, how you think, or how you act — that you sense God is inviting you to make?

Pray

Pray for the will to keep moving in the direction Jesus has shown you, trusting that He is already at work ahead of you.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message follows a royal official who comes to Jesus in full desperation — with a dying son and a very specific plan for what Jesus needs to do about it. It's a story about how God meets us in those moments, and what He's actually after.

Discussion questions

1
In John 4:46-47, the royal official has traveled a long distance and arrives begging Jesus to come heal his son before the boy dies. What does his request reveal about where his confidence is — and where it isn't?
2
In John 4:48, Jesus pushes back on sign-and-wonder-dependent faith. What do you think He's getting at — and why might a faith that only believes when it gets what it wants eventually become fragile?
3
The message drew a distinction between desperate faith and deliberate faith, pointing to John 4:50 where the official simply believed what Jesus said and headed home. What does it look like — in practical terms — for belief and movement to work together like that?
4
By John 4:51-53, the healing has happened and the official's entire household comes to faith. The message noted that could represent 30 to 70 people. What does that outcome suggest about what God is after when He redirects us from the 'what' we want to the 'who' He is?
5
The message described a pattern where every act of deliberate faith builds confidence for the next hard moment. How might that kind of accumulated trust change the way a community of people faces uncertainty together over time?
6
The pastor challenged us to consider where we might be stuck in a loop — praying the same prayer, waiting on our own plan. Without getting into private details, what would it mean for people generally to 'start moving in the direction Jesus has already pointed' before they can see the outcome?

Pray together

Trusting who Jesus is, not just what we want Him to do — and taking the next step He's already shown us

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Best Year Ever

Week 1 · 3 messages

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