So we as a church body, no matter
how good things are from the point of view of how the ministry
looks, or how the preaching is going, or how the singing sounds,
there is always someone among us who is suffering greatly.
Let us never forget that. that we're here today not as
spectators, but as participants. We're worshiping today together,
and not just as participants, but as people who are a family.
And we need to stay very focused to the reality that the devil
is very much alive, and he's very much a liar, and he has
no power over us at all, but there is always war. There is
always trial. And if we're looking for the
day when the trials are over, beloved, that is the day of the
Lord when He returns. Until then, we shall suffer and
we shall suffer well with joy by the grace of God together.
So do not be disheartened. Do not be downtrodden. Do not
let your joy fade for what is there in this life but Christ
when we measure it all against Him. He is everything. And we've
made it through the whole first chapter of John, which I think
I went too fast. I really do. I think I could
have spent a couple of more weeks on baptism. I think I'd have
talked a little bit about the power and the work of the Holy
Spirit. But four years is long enough. We're gonna keep going.
We're gonna go through it, but I pray that it's not just something
that you're going through the motions, that it's actually alive
for you. that you're reading the Bible, that the Word of God
is living in you, that you're going to the Scriptures to find
hope in the midst of trials. And friends, you might be sitting
there, well, man, he knows exactly what's going on with me. You
know how I know what's going on with you? Because it's going on with me. See, we
have trials. We have parenting trials, we
have marriage trials, we have physical trials, we have financial
trials, we have ministry woes, we have the spiritual warfare
the devil gets on us. Jesse, does the devil get on
you? Amen. Why would he say amen? Because
that's the way it is. That's the way it is. The enemy of God
hates us. and the more we grow. Now, if
we were in a position where we had incredible opportunities
for us to be busy about everything but the Word of God and loving
each other, oh, you know what? We wouldn't even notice the warfare. Matter of fact, we would have
enough superficial joy to be able to rise up above the frown
and put on the fake face. And everybody, how's it going?
Man, I'm too blessed to be stressed, too anointed to be disappointed.
Hallelujah. That's a joke. I'm stressed and disappointed
and tired and I have a headache. Praise God. You see, glory be
to God who gives all good things from his hand, including our
trials, including our suffering, And beloved, I desire, and the
elders of the church desire, you to grow deep, with deep roots,
with deep hearts, deep adoration for Christ, through His Word,
that you might be empowered, that when you see, in the mirror
of your soul, an opportunity for despair, that there is something
supernatural that takes place, because the Word of God is so
rooted there, that in the midst of absolute impossible circumstances,
you have joy. If I've had one question in my
pastoral ministry over the last two decades, it is, how can I
rejoice in the midst of this? And my answer is always, you
can't. But the Bible says you will. And the Lord says that
you must. And Paul makes it clear that
we focus on that which is eternal. We focus on the work of Christ.
We don't have to come up with a plan or pragmatism or lists
or options or opportunities to get the joy that we're missing.
We're able to find the joy because the joy has found us. I ran into some witnesses three
or four weeks ago on the street. And their opening statement to
me was, sir, I know you're busy, but can I have just a second?
I want to give you something. He hands me the literature. And
he asked me the question. I didn't want to agree with him
at all because I can't stand the little sales pitch they give.
He says, do you feel like you could use more time in your life?
I'm like, not at all. And he looked at me like, really?
I said, no, I'm lying to you. I really could. It's a good opener. It's good. And if he pulled out
something out of a bag and said, here's a time machine, I'm like,
well, let's see how I can make payments. What can we do? Slow things down, slow aging
down, slow the month down, make the month a little bit longer.
But we don't have that luxury. And these witnesses are out asking
people about the joy that they have and where they can find
it in a false Christ, in a false gospel, which is no gospel. using
the Word of God that has been twisted to give their message
something with teeth, but it actually is toothless, it's powerless. And it's not just the cults of
the world or the false religions of the world, it's the worldview
of politics. We have a savior in our government,
we have a savior in our governor's mansion, we have a savior wherever.
Friends, we don't have a savior in the government. God has established
the government by His will for His purpose that He might destroy
all governments at the end of days. By the grace of God, we
as Americans have been established, God established an incredible
system of government. And no matter where we fall in
a political place, we've only got four years, and we can start
over or extend it or whatever, but something's gonna change,
really, every two years, hopefully. That's what most of us put, but
we don't put our hope in that. And sometimes our worldview is
inundated with self-righteousness, We think the American dream is
really what it's all about. We love the documents of our
nation. We care more about the First
Amendment than we do the Creator. And that's our culture. I'm proud
of the First Amendment. I exercise it all the time. But
there may be a day when that's no longer ours to take. And then
we have to suffer the consequences of speaking the truth without
the law on our side. What then? Where shall our joy
be then? Well, beloved, nothing can stifle
the Word of God. Nothing can stifle the church.
Nothing can stop God's people, because the Holy Spirit of God
is God, and He indwells each of us, and He empowers each of
us, and the Word of God will not be stopped. How often do
they try to stop the Word of God through the preaching of
Paul, but yet every time they arrested him, more people were more willing
to go out and preach the gospel. When's the last time we actually
saw a movement in any nation where people, through persecution,
were fueled with zealous passion to go out and preach the gospel?
When was the last time signs were made at a rally, Jesus is
the King of Kings? When was the last time anyone
picketed to proclaim the truth of Christ? Not in my lifetime. And I looked at the annals of
history, and I think the last time it happened is when they
started setting pyres on fire and throwing bearded men on there
with their books. And the more they burned, the
more came out and preached. And the more they burned them,
then more would come out and preach. Maybe we need to burn
some folks. Are you ready? I pray not. Friends, I see that our joy sometimes
as the American church can be caught up in so many things other
than Christ, and we are all guilty of it. We are all guilty. We
find more joy in health. than we do in Christ. We find more joy in the context
of peace and freedom and free time than we do in Christ. And
there's nothing wrong with enjoying the things that God gives us,
but they're not ultimate. They're temporal and they're
passing away along with everything in the world. And that brings
us to what's happening here in John chapter 2. Because the whole
focus of this record is that we understand that the joy that
we have that cannot wane comes from the glory of God, who is
Jesus Christ. There is no real, true, lasting
joy if it's not in Christ. Doesn't matter what we're looking
for, doesn't matter what we've experienced, I don't care how
bad it is, I don't care how hard you might think it is, there
is nothing that is going to take away the joy of Christ in comparison. There is nothing in this life
that is so horrible that Christ cannot be your joy. Nothing. And these disciples were listening
to the preaching of John the Baptist, behold the Lamb of God
that takes away the sin of the world. And the irony behind that
is that many people, they would hear it and they would say, wow,
takes away the sin of the world. I wonder if he's also going to
get us out of Rome or get Rome out of us. I mean, let's just
be honest. That's what the record shows
us, is that the Jews, who for millennia had proclaimed the
coming of Messiah, there is Messiah. And what they wanted Him to do
was to free them politically, so that they could be free in
their religion. Not so they could have the joy that comes from
seeing the glory of God. We've talked about this some
over the last 16 weeks, is that many men throughout history have
desired to see God's glory. Moses and Jacob and Adam and
others. It was the quest of the believer. I want to see God. I want to
know Him more. I want to experience, as Blackaby
would say, you know, 30 years ago, I want to experience God. And many people have written
many books and DVDs and everything else about how that's supposed
to be done. And the only way we can experience God is to experience
Jesus Christ personally. And the only way that happens
is to be in the Word of God intimately every single day as we have opportunity. For when we're not there, we're
not eating. And when we're not eating, we
are weak. And when we are weak, we are vulnerable to temptation.
And when we're vulnerable to temptation, the devil comes after
us, and he grabs us, and he sucks us into his lies, and he tells
us the lies that are not true, and he causes us to feel the
guilt of condemnation, which is not ours, beloved, for we
are in Christ. And John's Gospel is written
for that very purpose, that you may see the glory of God intimately,
and then by seeing, you believe that Jesus is the Christ. And
seeing and hearing, I'm using synonymously. But by seeing and
hearing, you believe that Jesus is the Christ, and by believing
in His name, you have eternal life, which by definition comes
with the fullness of joy. You see. And it's odd sometimes
that we take the historical narrative of the Gospels and we just sort
of forget about their importance theologically. I had an odd question come across
my way the last week that the person that I asked to clarify
never followed back up on it, but wondered why John was such
a mystic. That was the question, in a nutshell.
Why the Gospel of John was even in the Bible, because John was
such a mystic. Doesn't really fit. And I really
am interested in knowing what they mean. Maybe they mean because they
show the power of God through Jesus Christ, the miracles. Maybe
that's mysterious to them. Or maybe they mean that the symbols
when Jesus does things with stone water jars, or does things with
bread that He does not have, or He says that He is bread,
or maybe the analogies that Jesus uses are sort of mysterious in
their eyes. Friends, there's no other place
in Scripture that gives you a clearer, more understandable picture of
Jesus Christ and His divinity and His divine glory eternally
than John's Gospel in a way of narrative. So let's go there. Chapter 2, verse 1. We'll deal
with the first 11 verses today. On the third day, there was a
wedding in Cana in Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When
the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have
no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman,
what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants,
Do whatever he tells you. Now there were six stone water
jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding
twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, Fill
the jars with water. And they filled them up to the
brim. And he said to them, Draw some out and take it to the master
of the feast. So they took it. When the master
of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not
know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the
water knew, the manager of the feast called the bridegroom and
said to him, Everyone serves the good wine first, and when
people have drunk freely, then the poor wine, but you have kept
the good wine until now. This is the first of his signs
Jesus did in Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and
his disciples believed in him. Let's pray. Father, may Your
Word be true. Father, I pray Your Word would
just empower us to see and to savor and to embrace the joy
that is found in Christ alone. Father, as Your Word is taught
today, Help us to see the deep doctrinal implications here without
losing sight of the absolute amazing and normal life that
Jesus lived with miraculous interventions, with signs and wonders proving
who He was, which is the God of heaven. Lord, I pray that
all of us, our children included, would hear the Word of the Lord
today, that You would cause them to pay attention, that You would
cause all of us to hear and to see and to understand the truth
of Scripture, that we might glorify You, that those who may not believe
would be brought to faith, and that our faith would be strengthened.
In the name of Jesus, Amen. We get out of, well, even in
the latter part of John chapter 1, we start getting into the
narrative of what Jesus is doing, what John the Baptist is doing,
what his ministry looks like, how he's calling his disciples.
Now we get into this text where Jesus goes then on the next day,
on the third day, to a wedding. And a lot of people read this
and they're like, okay, you know, Jesus turned water into wine.
Great. Move right along. Then he cleanses the temple.
Okay, let's get on to chapter 20. so we can figure out the
cool stuff when he came back from the dead. Well, it's a little
before that, but... Let's just get to the good stuff
and let's get creative. Because see, here's where pastors
can lose sight of the sublime. when they start to try to get
creative in how they're going to apply Scripture. One of the
worst inventions of Bibles in the world is the life application
Bible. You know why? Because usually
the application of life listed therein has nothing to do with
the text for which it sits beside, to which it's referring. It has
nothing to do with it. Life application, what we all
want to know is that Jesus turned water to wine. What's that mean?
Let's go get drunk. I mean, that'd be a cool application. I mean,
people would buy that right off the shelf. When Jesus cleanses the
temple, life application is whip your enemies. People that are
stupid, whip them too. Blind, whip them all. I'll never
forget, and I used to be a lot more animated in the pulpit,
a lot more. I used to move like those brothers
who were here yesterday. There's a rut down here in the
floor where Brother Trey was teaching. I bet he walked 6,500
steps yesterday in an hour and a half. And that was me. I also
used to jump and kick and punch and all sorts of things. I mean,
I was animated. I enjoyed it. There was no podium.
You had the earpiece, you know, that I've tried to use here,
but it sounds horrible. And I'll never forget one time when I
was referring to this text and I was just really wound up and
I was really excited and I had a couple of coffees and some
Red Bull or something else and I was just charging in there
and I said, Jesus went in there and just knocking over tables
and beating people and kicking and I kicked like this. And there
was a guest pastor sitting on that one corner. No, my shoe
didn't fly off, but that would have been really funny. But after
service, one of the ladies in the church came to me and she
said, Pastor, I typically would write you a letter, but that
was very unbecoming. Pastors shooting kick and karate chop
in the air while they're preaching and all this kind of stuff, and
you kicked right at a guest of ours. As if I were, you know,
offending him. I'm like, let me see if I can
kick the person in the back from here. I mean, and I'm like, well,
I'm so sorry. And secondly, Jesus didn't whip
anybody. He shooed them out. Shoo, shoo,
shoo. And I said, sister, I'm really
interested in your interpretation of this, but what do you think
a scourge is? Is it a whisk or is it a whip? It's like what you would shoo
flies away. So I brought her a picture of
it next Sunday with some rocks in it and some knots in it. And
I showed what it was used for. She said, well, that's just a
misinterpretation. I don't believe Jesus would get angry. I said, he knocked over their
tables and spilled their money out. He destroyed their business. He did it twice. See how life
application needs to go with the text? Because if life application
doesn't go with the text, then what happens is, is that we actually
create Jesus in a new light and we've got a false Jesus. And
if we've got a false Jesus, we've got a false God, we've got a
false God, we've got a false religion, false religion, false salvation.
And we're going to hell and we're feeling comfortable about it.
So what's the application of something like this? What's the
application of the story of Jesus calling Nathanael? Jesus said,
greater things than these you will see. You think it's something
that I knew you before Philip came? You think it's something
that I know all things about you? It isn't that I just saw
you, Nathanael. I know you. I know the depths
of your heart. The very last verse of chapter
2 of John's Gospel teaches us that Jesus knows the hearts of
all things. No one had to bear witness to
Him about man, for He knew what was in man. And not only does
He know what is in man in general, He knows what is in every man
and woman and child. He knows the core of things that
we do not recognize about ourselves. Why? Because He created us. The Bible says that God knitted
us together in our mother's wombs. Before we were, God knew us. And before we were, beloved,
as the church, God loved us with an everlasting love that had
no beginning and will have no end. And it's effectual through
the love that He had by giving the Son on our behalf so that
He would be just in forgiving us of our sins. What's the application? What's
the application that Jesus went to a wedding? Well, there is
a little bit that we have to understand about the culture
that day. A little bit. But even without that, you can
still understand the theological power of what Jesus has done
here. But let me give you a few thoughts
about a first century wedding in Jewish culture. A wedding
in Jewish culture, they were vitally important. Like if you
did anything at all well, you had to do your wedding well.
And the groom's family was responsible for the wedding feast. And the
wedding feast was a depiction of how well this man was going
to be looked at and how well he was going to provide for his
new bride. And everybody that was invited
to that wedding came there for one reason. And that was so that
they could look and see the opulence of this man's wealth. So that
they could feel secure and that one of their women or one of
their girls was going to be taken care of. And to not have an opulent
wedding, to not show righteousness and regality, to not show wealth,
was a personal affront to everyone there. So if I invited you as
a Jewish person to my wedding and then it didn't go off correctly,
I personally offended you to dare invite you to a half-rate
wedding. You might think, so? When that
happened, the man was ostracized for the rest of his natural life. He was looked at as the deadbeat.
And sometimes, It could be so bad as to he could be refused
temple privileges, which means he was bankrupt, which means
he was hellbound, and which meant he could no longer do any business
with anybody but Gentiles. That's a pretty serious issue.
So here's this wedding at Cana in Galilee, a place where Jesus
does a lot of miracles, and this important situation happening
here We can probably assume these people were probably poor because
they, what, ran out of wine. They didn't have enough money
to buy enough wine and people drank too much. And if you've
ever eaten at any of our family shindigs, we've never run out
of food. Ever. Matter of fact, we're going
like five days in a row and microwaving stuff up and heating stuff up
and then five more days we're turning whatever's left into
sandwiches or casseroles. And that's just when there's
five of us. I mean, our family, historically, like my mother,
I'm gonna cook. It's like green beans, not in
a pot, in a kettle. We're having some barbecue, like
a herd of pigs. We've eaten this year, you know,
right? But that's sort of what this wedding is like. It's a
display, a grandstand show of opulence. And even poor people,
they put everything that they could give into this wedding
because it was that important socially. It was that important
to their religion. And I'll show you why in a minute. And it was a social dishonor
and personally disrespectful to fail at a wedding feast. In
any way, in any appearance, or in any supply. So, Jesus was
there, Mary was there, the mother of Jesus. Now, we don't know
why she was there, but if she was there and she obviously had
a place of prominence because she's being told by the servants,
according to just the deduction of the text, somebody came to
her and said, oh my gosh, they've run out of wine. And so, she's
going to do something about it. So, we obviously think that maybe
Jesus' mother, Mary, is probably related to the people who are
getting married, probably related to the bridegroom. And so here
she is, there, and her attendance is very important, but we know
theologically, as we get through this, the attendance of Mary,
and the point that this is recorded, is for the glory of God. What
Mary says to Jesus, and what Jesus says to Mary, and what
Mary says to the slaves, is important to the glory of God. Now a lot
of times we just scoot right on over that. And if you get
a commentary, there's nothing in there about it. You get, especially
an archaeological commentary, you get a lot of cool details
about weddings, which are important, but you get no theological things.
You get no theological things anywhere. Why is it important
that Mary's response or question to her son and his response is
there? Let's look at it. Jesus was invited with His disciples.
Why His disciples? Because the ministry of Jesus
had already been taken note of. I mean, here He is. John the
Baptist had already stirred the waters of Judaism. He stirred
the waters of Jerusalem. He stirred the waters of Israel.
Rome was feeling a little bit of tension. There's this crazy
guy, bugs in his mouth, animal skin, suits, and all this kind
of stuff. What are they called? Fur. Thanks. Animal skins. Fur
clothing. Sort of a wild guy. They'd forgotten
he was, you know, the son of a priest. They'd forgotten what
had happened 30-plus years ago and the prophecy concerning him. And he comes back on this end,
they go, no, that can't be him. He's a crazy guy. He's talking to the lot
poles out there. You know, those guys. But Jesus started to be
an undercurrent socially. Wow, Jesus has been teaching
in the synagogues already, remember? When he came out of the wilderness,
he goes and he teaches in the synagogues. And they hate him. They try to kill him. They purpose
to stone him. And then he's starting to teach,
and he's starting to go, and he's starting to talk, and he's amassing a
crowd, and people are following him. All within just the first
few weeks of his ministry. Here's John the Baptist that's
got everybody looking, and then he points, and now everybody's
following after Jesus. It's not just Nathaniel and Philip
and those guys that are following after Jesus, but it's a lot of
people following after Jesus. So Jesus is invited and by default
his entourage is coming. Oh, we want the whole crew here.
You know what that'll do to us? You know what that'll do for
us? Jesus is coming to the wedding. That's not saying, hey, the governor's
coming. We thought this was a gala. We thought this was going to
be a nice party, but oh, y'all better pay attention, the governor's
coming. We have this little joke in my family about when our great
Well, grandparents and great-grandparents and all the, you know, that generation,
they've been long and gone for a while. When they would give
you something, they'd say, now we bought this for you. And the
way that they would tell you that it was very expensive or
valuable, they'd say, no, it's nice. It's really nice. Well,
thank you. Put it on the shelf and look
at it. That's really nice. So that's a joke. If you ever
hear my family say that, no, this is really nice. We're making fun
of that. Well, it was really nice that
Jesus was at this wedding. It was good for the family. It
was good for the people. It was good for the community
outlook upon this family. And they're like, wow, you know
what? Jesus is here and his disciples are here. Man, this is going
to be nice. We're going to be able to just
like put that on the... What is that called? Invitation.
Headache. Because this social current of
Jewish life was to appear opulent. Not only that, how else were you to appear in
the eyes of your Jewish brothers and sisters? You were to appear
pious. So what greater person to have
at the wedding than the God that's been teaching? The God that everybody's
calling Master, Rabbi, Teacher. The God that everybody's already
started to talk about in such a way that, wow, if we got this
guy at the wedding, it's like having the pastor at the wedding.
Well, if you don't have a pastor at a wedding, then who's doing
it? But I remember, I've got friends who have been married
by very famous pastors, and they let you know about it, you know.
We're celebrating our 51st anniversary, and don't you forget now, John
the Baptist married us. This wedding was not only a social
display of opulence, but a social display of their righteousness,
evidenced by the things that are sitting there in abundance,
ridiculously. Things that are here, they're
supposed to give glory to God, but they're actually giving glory
to men, including Jesus' invitation to the wedding. But what men
do for evil, God uses for good. And what Mary was doing in her
fretting and sinful worry was for God's glory. And Jesus' invitation
with His disciples was for God's glory. And all the opulence and
the lack thereof was for God's glory. And the religious self-righteous
display was for God's glory. Now let me explain everything
I've just said. The problem is that the wine ran out, verse
3. So they put this thing together. They've shown that they're very
religious. They've got these not just a
purification jar with 40 gallons of water in it, which everybody
at the wedding, probably 60, 70 people. This is not like thousands
of people. Everybody could have washed their
hands in perfectly. And not just two in case the
kids used one and spit in it, but six. Let's use six 40-gallon
buckets of water that are found in the temple for when you go
in to worship, you wash yourself ritually. That's what these are.
Let's get six of them and put them on main display. So not
only can people see that I'm serious about being pure, but
I want everybody to watch me wash myself. I want everybody
to see me living for God and following after the law of Moses.
And I want everybody else to do it too. So it'll be like a
spiritual time during this wedding. And then we're going to have
this cool new teacher here with his entourage. And man, we're
going to be the talk of the town. We're going to be the talk of
the town. So what I suspect, and this is not in the narrative,
but what I suspect is because this hubbub of Jesus and all
this stuff was there, that's probably why they had a little
more jars than normal so they'd look righteous to Him even. or
to the community. That's just a speculation. It's
always an assumption. But also maybe there were more
people than they thought were going to be there because there
was a little bit buzz about the wedding. But the problem now
is that the wine ran out. And this is a problem because
no matter how good everything looks, no matter how beautiful
the service was, and no matter how awesome the voice of the
soloist was, or the organist, the pianist, the violinist, or
whatever you had, When everybody runs out of food, it's a problem. And when people run out of wine,
it was a problem. Because it showed ill preparation
on the part of the bridegroom. It showed that if he could not
even prepare correctly or afford to prepare correctly for a small
feast in the beginning of his life with this new woman, how
in the world would he ever do anything correctly from this
point forward? But why wine? Because wine is
symbolic of joy. That's why I started the sermon
with the idea of joy. Wine is always symbolic of joy. All through the Old Testament,
wine will be overflowing. The land of milk and honey, it's
wine. Wine is a symbol of joy and a symbol of wealth and a
symbol of things going well. Prosperity. Thanks. A symbol
of good times ahead. Not because everybody was drunk.
Of course, you can get drunk, and we see drunkenness in the
Scripture. Every time drunkenness is seen and mentioned in the
Scripture, it is an abomination. So, Jesus doesn't condone drunkenness,
but he does understand the cultural reality. Wine was used at every
meal, every day, seven days a week. All the time. It was the only
thing they drank. What about the woman at the well?
She got water to bathe in. Drink water? You ever been to
Mexico? Drink water? No, because they give you water
bottles. And they tell you what? At the hotel when you log in,
don't open your mouth and shower. Why? Because you will get all
sorts of stuff. Parasites and things like that.
Wine was not diluted. Wine was not non-fermented. It
was not Welch's. It was alcoholic. It was potent. And it would put you out. Would
put you out. Every reference to wine in the
Bible is a reference to alcohol. It's a symbol of joy. And so,
though drunkenness is forbidden, weddings are to be a joyous occasion.
Yet here they were, without wine, and the guests were going to
be less than joyful, and they were going to cause permanent
problems for this bridegroom and his family. Now, our wedding,
what, 22 years ago? We didn't get to eat hardly anything
because so many people showed up. The church was full, people
were standing up, and we took pictures and went to the reception
and they ate all our food. So we were upset. We didn't get
to eat. So we leave the wedding and we
go to McDonald's and get an Arch Deluxe. And before we get to
Hilton Head Island, heading to Pennsylvania, Robin's asleep
and I'm halfway making it. We need to stop in Statesboro
and go to sleep. We were upset. Imagine what would
happen if it was a social taboo or a social disaster. Running out of wine was a social
disaster. They were going to have problems. As I've already
said, drunkenness is forbidden. But Jesus, as we'll see, provides
for the abundance of joy, but he never condones the abuse of
that joy and the abuse of those gifts. I mean, food is a gift
from God, but we can overeat. Alcohol or wine is a gift from
God, but we can over drink. Money is a gift from God, but
we can be greedy. Or we can spend $10,000 on a
toilet. Or $40 million on a plane, because
we need to share the gospel. If you don't get that reference,
good. The same is true when giving much, and we sometimes take our
opulence as our heartbeat. Luxury is not the point of wealth,
just like drunkenness is not the point of wine. Selfishness
is not the point of life, especially for the believer. But Mary says,
they have no wine. Now imagine this, here they are,
and Mary comes up to Jesus, they have no wine. I mean, if somebody
walked in here today to you, And just randomly walked up and
says, there's no cups at the water fountain, which is true.
And you go like, you know, or there's no toilet paper. But
somebody walks up to a man and says, there's no toilet paper
in the ladies bathroom. And there's like 10 women in there. What
am I supposed to do about it? That's not even what's going
on here. Mary had some kind of connection with this family and
the servants went to her and said, they're out of wine. No,
they're just running low. We're out. There is no more.
And we're just getting started. The evening's just going. And
we have run out of wine. And why is this important to
the story? What was Mary's heart when she
said this thing? What did she want? She was fearful. Why? Because a pock against her
relative is a pock against her. Oh yeah, your marriage. Oh yeah,
I remember. You know, Jebediah, that nephew of yours. Loser. Terrible guy. Couldn't even buy...
I mean, he could have gotten a box of wine or something from
the bodega down there. He couldn't even do that. He
couldn't even get the food coloring wine, put a little scotch in
it. He couldn't do anything. He's a terrible guy. I mean, Mary's
worried about this. She's worried. She's more concerned
with how it's going to look than what actually is happening. She's
concerned and fearful about the outcome when people start leaving
dishonorably because they've been disrespected. Because it
was personally an affront to run out of wine. Mary was told
about the wine, thinking that maybe she could do something
about it. Now, why would she say to Jesus, they've run out
of wine? What was she thinking that he
was gonna do? He'd never done a miracle before. I mean, it wasn't like he was turning
water to wine at 12. Hey, mom, look what I can do. There's no
record of that. The Bible says this is his first
miracle. And there's some other miraculous things happened, but
the Father's done that, the Spirit's done. This is the first miracle
that Jesus has ever performed. That's a sign of who He is. Why
would she go and say they've run out of wine? Well, think
again about who Jesus is and what's happening in the culture
that day. Jesus is at the party, and it'd sort of be like if we
were having a members meeting, and then something was going on,
and there was a stately gentleman who was known as a father in
our church, and he'd been in the pastorate for 50 years, and
we started having some conflict, and somebody walked up and says,
hey, look, we're having some trouble over here. And maybe she thought that Jesus
could then start to teach and everybody would be really impressed
with the teaching. Or maybe Jesus could do something and start
to speak or teach the Word of God, teach the Scriptures in
such a way that the wine problem would become a lesser problem.
So even if they couldn't fix the wine problem, then maybe
they'd leave there going, you know what, they ran out of wine,
but man, they really had good Christian teaching or good Jewish
teaching. Man, they ran out of food fast,
but I mean, did you see that was such and such ban on the
stage? You see what I'm saying? I think that's the main issue
that Mary is following, that is showing us, and it follows
the logic of Jesus being there. She doesn't expect Him to do
something miraculous. She just expects Him to do what
He does. And that's to get in front of the whole crowd and
begin to teach and to possibly even talk about forgiveness or
something of that nature. and lead them to a place where
they're not so upset to take the focus off the situation.
But Jesus doesn't do anything immediately, does he? As a matter
of fact, he says publicly to his mother in front of his disciples
and in front of the servants. He says, woman, what does it
have to do with me? Now why would he need to say
that? Don't you think that's overly harsh for the statement that
Mary made? Let's just say yes. It's overly harsh for what Mary
said to how Jesus responded. But remember why Mary spoke for
the glory of God to be revealed. Remember why Jesus responded
so that the glory of God would be revealed. How was the glory
of God revealed? It says there in verse 11, right?
Because He did a miracle. So Jesus can't be being told
what to do by His mother. Because, I mean, he's like, Jesus,
we're out of wine. Well, I'll fix that booth. And
then guess what? Mary's praised for getting the wine going. Man,
she told that son of hers to get on it and he turned it into
wine. He fixed the problem. Wow, hail Mary. See there? You think that's where that comes
from? It's part of it. Why did God record John chapter 2, the
wedding of Cana? Why did He record that small
little retort back in 2 between Jesus and His mother Mary? So
that we could see that Mary is not the Queen of Heaven. She
can't tell Jesus what to do. She has nothing to do with it,
for Jesus is going to be glorified in His obedience to the Father,
not His physical mother, you see. And not only that, Mary
was worried to death. She had no divine essence in
herself. She had no faith at all. She
was more worried about social repercussions than she was the
glory of God. And he says to her, what does
this have to do with me? My hour has not come. See, he could not be in response.
The miracle that he was about to do could not be in response
to his mother's concerns, but the Father's command. He also
needed to reveal in front of his disciples and in front of
others for the record of history, for the sake of the gospel of
grace, Mary's true place in the scheme of his ministry, which
is what? She's just another woman in need of grace, just like every
woman at the wedding, just like every woman in this room, just
like every woman that has ever lived in the world. Just as John the Baptist would
say, I must decrease that He made increase, so must Mary not
be the object of any divine favor in the context of our worship. She was a fallen vessel with
fear and worry in need of redemption. The disciples and those around
Jesus needed to clearly see that the role of Mary as His mother
was as a servant. So that she immediately turns
to the servants and says, you do what He says to do. Don't
listen to me anymore. I don't know what's happening.
You do what He says to do. And there's some important things
there. And if you ever read any of the Reformers, They put some
papal blows in with every text in John's Gospel. I mean, there's
a period at the end of that sentence, you know, period, and the Pope's
not Christ, period. I mean, they're going to give
a jab in there. It's not for jabs, it's for truth.
It's not for deconstructing a world religion, it's for revealing
the true God of heaven. And that's why this is here.
Because Jesus is about to display a power And Mary cannot be related
to it at all in any way. Because He is the God of heaven.
She is not. He even goes on to solidify these
things when He says, Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?
Who is my family? And He places His material, His
earthly family as if they're just like everybody else in the
world. You often hear me say that our
family ties, our blood ties, our relational ties in marriage
and in childbirth and child rearing, they're temporary. But our relationship
as Christians is eternal. My wife is my wife. She is my
bride until the day we die, or one of us. We used to be romantic. We're all going to die together. But she will forever be my sister,
and I her brother. But she will not, and I will not always be
her spouse. His hour not come, because the
hour of Jesus came at the will of the Father, in order that
His glory might be revealed, so that some may believe. His
hour is not to the aid of our problems, beloved." I want you
to hear that. Here's a life application for
you. The hour of Jesus and His miracles is not to the aid of
our problem, but is always to the display of His glory. Why? Because the ultimate end of all
miracles is to believe and worship Jesus Christ. Not that we might
get our problems fixed. It's not that. So these preaching,
this preaching that continually talks about how Jesus is the
answer to all of our problems and if we trust in Jesus we'll
have all the money we want, we'll have all the health we want,
we'll have all this. These are lies from the devil. The devil,
Satan, is the only one in the New Testament who has been given
the authority to promise the world's goods. The only one. And yet sometimes in the same
way, even though it might not be well, there may be the answer
to our problems. There may be something. Well,
I know Jesus is going to manifest a miracle so that I can be happy.
Jesus is the miracle so that you are happy. Few people can stomach that. But now to the display of God's
power. I would even say, too, let me
add to what I just talked about. I would even say that the hour
of Christ is not to the aid of our social justice issues, not
to the aid of our political problems, not to the aid of our economic
matters, but the display of Christ's miracles is to the praise of
His glorious grace, as Jesus Christ is the Creator of all
heaven and earth, and He is the God of the universe eternally,
the Son. I've already alluded to these
water jugs and what they are, but here they are, these large
stone water jugs that were used in the Jewish rites of purification. That means that they would wash
themselves ceremonially, their bodies, their arms, their hands,
their faces, in these jars. The law required washing in certain
areas of life, in certain times of worship, in certain situations
like before you ate and different things, but not necessarily ceremonially
did you have to wash before you ate. But yet Jews during this
time never took anything as it was written. They always did
it overboard so that it might be seen clearly that they are
truly the righteous people that they claim to be. I could imagine
Nathanael was very impressed as he walked into this wedding
and saw those six jars of purification. He thought, wow man, we're in
a good spot. These are really authentic Jews. Just like he
was. Following the rules, following
the laws, and in his mind honoring God with every step. Giving glory
to God in every step. These six jars were an over-expression of the
piety of this family. It's what I say, religion on
display, as well as a view of righteousness that the world
could see. But what was inside these jars, beloved? Water. And what was inside the water?
The nastiness of everybody who washed in it. These jars are really a cesspool
of bacteria, like the candy jar at the steakhouse. Let's get
a mint. Only 1,600 people have touched
these mints this month. I won't catch anything. You'll
never eat a mint, will you? Or the toothpick. I seen a guy
take a toothpick out of the thing with his mouth the other day.
Lips on the top. Wow. Here are these jars filled
with water that have been used for washing people's dirty hands. And Jesus says to the servants,
after Mary has said, do whatever He says, Jesus then tells the
servants, fill them up to the brim. Now they're already full,
they're already holding some water, but Jesus wants it very
clearly to be known that what He's about to do is a miracle.
So He tells the servants, fill these water jugs to the brim
for two reasons. One, so that they'll have more
wine than they could ever drink. Number two, that there'll be
witnesses to the fact that he actually had water in there and
it wasn't some trick, and that there is evidence that
it was truly something nasty. And they fill it up, and immediately
he says to them, now draw some out and take it to the master
of the feast. Now think about that. Master of the feast, the
grand showman, making sure everything's going on without a hitch. And
he's probably freaking out by now because the wine's gone.
And Jesus tells these servants to take nasty water and let the
man drink it. But they did it. And they took it to him. And
in verse 9, this is where it all comes together. When the
master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine. And he did not know from where
it came, though the servants knew. He didn't know. Jesus didn't do. Like most of
His miracles, it was not a public display. The largest miracle
that Jesus did was the feeding of the 5,000. The feeding of
the multitudes, twice. The other miracles he did were
private. The healing of the blind man, the healing of the lame
man, and so on. As a matter of fact, when we
see that Jesus at the Pool of Bethsaida, He went in there and healed this
one man out of thousands, and the Scripture says that He left
vanished because there were many there. Imagine what would happen
if he'd been standing there and that man walked off and everybody
started to notice. He would have been inundated
with requests for healing. Jesus wasn't healing for the
sake of the people. He was healing for the sake of
the glory of God. Healing for the sake of displaying who He
was to individuals precisely, powerfully, and particularly
so that those particular people would go and say the right thing
to the right persons, that He would end up on the cross and
displaying His glory through His resurrection from the dead.
So that they believed. And the Mass of the Feast did
not say, now where did this wine come from? He just assumed. Where
should it have come from? It should have come from the
bridegroom. And so the Master of the Feast goes to the bridegroom
and calls him, and he gives him praise. He said, man, every wedding
that I oversee, it's always a little bit of the good wine. And after
they've drunk enough, they're a little tipsy, they give them the swill. They give them that box of wine
garbage that nobody wants to drink. And you've done the opposite. You've brought the best out for
last. And not only is it the best for
last, it's the best I've ever had. I'm amazed at the wine that
you have procured for your wedding. Wow, what a great bridegroom
you are." And the guy's thinking, sure. And he's not going to say,
what are you talking about? That's not my wine. Absolutely.
We get caught with something we shouldn't have, that's not
mine. We get caught, we get praised for something that's not ours,
you go, yep, that's ours. We take credit for things that aren't
ours. Does it sound familiar? Beloved, we've taken credit for
righteousness that's not ours because Jesus gave it. And in
the same way, this miracle shows a lot about Christ. Jesus did this miracle and created
the best wine the world would ever taste, to date. Why? Because Jesus didn't make wine-flavored
dirty water. He didn't add welches and a bottle
of vodka to give it some semblance of alcohol. He took nasty water
and he turned it into perfect wine, which means that somewhere
along the way Christ supernaturally and instantaneously created the
greatest grapes that ever grew as if they were old and had age. And then he took and he smashed
them And they weren't wines that had
been affected by the fall of man. And he drained them and
he fermented them all in like a half a second. So this wine
had the appearance and the taste and the potency of a wine that
was the greatest wine that has ever been known. Untainted by
the fall of the world. And he did so in the midst of
what symbolized purity, which was really filthy, And somebody
else got the credit for what he did. I don't have to say anything
else. It's grace upon grace upon grace. That's all this is. From Moses,
we receive the law. From Jesus Christ, we receive
grace. upon grace, upon grace, upon grace. This wine not only
was it good, it was overly abundant, as if it would serve many wedding
feasts. The bridegroom had failed in
his obligation of preparedness, but the true bridegroom took
no credit for what he did. And in verse 11, the reason this
was done, it says this is the first of his signs Jesus did
at Cana in Galilee. and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in
Him. And I said, whoa, whoa, they're already falling. Listen,
is your faith really strong? Let's just be honest. Is your
faith unshakable? Is it pure? Is it solid? Is it marked with like a big
band of pomp and circumstance? Faith? Look at the faith of this
guy. No. Sometimes it's barely noticeable.
And just because these disciples followed after Christ doesn't
mean their faith was strong. And now this miracle gave them
a little more faith. This miracle solidified that
which they knew in the heart Jesus was Messiah. Now all of
a sudden they're like, whoa, we have proof. Amazing though
that the signs and the wonders don't produce an eternal fate
because when trials come, we forget about them. And we're
looking for the next sign like we see in John 6. We're looking
for the next sign like we see in John 12. They believed that their faith
was now strengthened and Jesus proved Himself as the true and
better bridegroom. Jesus provided the greatest joy
and great abundance. Jesus obeyed the Father. Jesus was God and He created
wine from grapes that were not of this world, that had not been
touched by the fall of sin. Jesus gave grace upon grace. And in this symbol of wine, this
material of wine, Jesus uses it as a symbol of His blood in
the Last Supper, whose blood gives eternal joy.
The purification jars of Israel had never purified anyone ever,
had never prepared them for worship, had never prepared them for sacrifice,
but they just symbolized the need. And those jars were nothing
but a grand display of self-righteousness. And Jesus took the grand display
of self-righteousness and He changed that nasty water into
pure wine, the symbol of His blood, which brings pure righteousness
and pure joy, where religion does not. So that Jesus, through
His gospel, then is the pure joy giver, the true bridegroom,
the obedient Son of God, who is the God of heaven, displaying
the glory forever. for our joy. So that as we look
at this, the application is that we can see Christ and we can
see that even in the smallest things and in the smallest circumstances,
with the most insignificant place, just a nobody wedding in a nobody
town, Christ is gracious to display His glory and to point to what
He truly would do and what He's doing now for you. But He's taken
your sin, and He's taken it on Himself, and He's taken His righteousness,
and He's put it on you. Can you believe that? Faith in
who Christ is and what He's done is eternal life. I pray that
you believe on the true Christ. Let's pray. Lord, I thank You for Your grace
to be able to get through the teaching this morning. I thank
You for Your grace that we're able to assemble together without
incident. I thank You for the grace of
having Your Word right here in front of us, all of us with copies
in our hands and copies on our phones and our tablets, multiple
copies. There is no famine of the Word. in its quantity. Father, if we're
not careful, there'll be a famine of Your Word in our hearts and
minds. We thank You for the grace to
empower us by Your Spirit to be driven to study. Father, I
pray for those this morning who are in despair. No matter what
it is, no matter what's causing it, no matter how hopeless it
seems. Lord, the grace that is ours
in Jesus Christ is sufficient for our salvation, and if so,
it is so sufficient for our trials in this life. Let us look to
You, and hold to You, and worship You. In Jesus' name.