While you're turning to the second
chapter of John's Gospel, let me remind you of some statements
in the Old Testament Scriptures about God's work. You'll recall
the other night we looked at Moses' song in which he set forth
God's solitariness as God. And he said, who is likened to
thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders." Moses tells us
that the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt, a nation
brought out from another nation by temptations, by signs, and
by wonders. David saying, thou art the God
that doest wonders. Thou hast declared Thy strength
among the people. Declare His glory among the heathen,
His wonders among the people. Job describes God as He which
doeth great things past finding out. Yea, and wonders without
number. In Zechariah chapter 3, The prophet
Zechariah describes God's people in this world who have been saved
by his free grace, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ
and born of his spirit as people wondered at. People wondered
at in the earth. All these wonders of old foreshadowed
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the accomplishment
of the great wonder of salvation in and by Him. When our Lord
Jesus stepped forth in His public ministry, after 30 years of quiet
obscurity in Nazareth, as soon as He was announced by His baptism
by Elijah, As soon as he came forth on the stage, setting forth
himself as the Messiah with dazzling brilliance as God, he set himself
forth as God doing wonders. Here in John chapter 2 verse
11. This beginning of wonders, read
it like that. This beginning of wonders, This
first of wonders, this the foremost of wonders, this the most important,
most significant of wonders did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, now
watch this, and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on
him. I take those words to mean that
our faith in Christ is created and sustained by the manifestation
of His wonders to us. This is the wonder of His grace.
Let's read about this beginning of wonders, this beginning of
miracles in John chapter 2. The title of my message this
morning is The Beginning of Wonders. And the third day there was a
marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
And both Jesus was called and his disciples to the marriage.
And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him,
They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His
mother saith unto the servants, whatsoever he saith unto you,
do it. And there were set there six
water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the
Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece, twenty or thirty
gallons apiece. Jesus saith unto them, fill the
water pots with water, and they filled them up to the brim. And
he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor
of the feast. And they bear it. When the ruler
of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew
not whence it was, but the servants which drew the water knew, the
governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto
him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and
when men have well drunk, then that which is worse. But thou
hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of wonders
did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory,
and his disciples believed on him. Now, I'm always urged by
folks who think that I don't do it sufficiently to preach
practical sermons. Let me hear something practical
today. Well, I'm going to please those
who want to hear something practical today. I'll begin with practical
lessons clearly set forth in these 11 verses. First, we see here the omnipotence
of our Savior. Oh, how do you see His omnipotence? All He did was call His servants to put water
in the water pots, and He didn't even say, water be made wine. He simply willed it. He just willed it. And the water
was made wine. Oh, how I thank God for His omnipotent
will. His will that rules everything. His will that governs everything. His will that dictates everything. His will that is never dictated
to, never governed and never ruled, but His rule that is omnipotently
controlling all things at all times. If He wills my salvation,
I shall be saved. If He wills my safety, safe I
am. If He wills my everlasting inheritance
with Him in glory, I am heir of God and joint heir with Him
of all things. All right, here's another very
practical lesson. Turn to Genesis chapter 2. Hold
your hands here in John 2. Turn to Genesis chapter 2. places high honor upon marriage
as the ordinance of God. His presence said, this is an
honorable thing. This is an honorable thing. The first time I was down at
Hucumba, there were some folks who came to hear me preach. from a place that I was unfamiliar
with, thankfully. They came from the local nudist
colony. And after the service was over,
asked if I'd be willing to come down and preach down there. I presume I would have been allowed
to keep my clothes on. And I said, no. They just might
ask why. Why wouldn't you go down there
and preach the gospel to those folks? They're not interested in me
preaching the gospel to them. That wasn't their purpose in
asking. Their purpose in asking was that they could use my name
and my presence to give approval to their filth and ungodliness. No, I wouldn't go. Well, I'll
go preach the gospel anywhere. I'll go preach the gospel anywhere
to anybody, but I won't be used to give approval to that which
is not to be approved of. And our Lord Jesus, by His presence,
gives approval to this ordinance of God. Now hear me, children
of God. Where men see you, you give your
approval. Where your sons and daughters
see you, you give your approval. As they see you, you give your
approval. Be careful then where you're
seen and how you're seen. Here in Genesis chapter 2, the
Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will
make and help meet for him. Now, I realize that we're living
in 2008, and I realize that everybody thinks I'm behind the times,
but I plan to keep it that way. Ladies, if you're not a help
meet for your husband, you're not a wife. Wife's position in the home,
in the household, is to be the help of her husband. That's the
purpose why God created her, and that's the reason God brought
man and woman together in marriage. Some of the ladies met with Brother
Wayne's wife, Vicki, last night. What does the Bible say about
a pastor's wife? Not one frazzling word. My wife wasn't called to be a
pastor's wife. Not one frazzling word. What's
it say? Nothing. Nothing. What's a pastor's
wife supposed to be? What every other wife is supposed
to be. A good wife. A good wife. A woman finds her completion
in a man and she gives completion to a man. And Adam had Eve taken
from his side And the Lord brought the woman to the man and married
them. Marriage is honorable in all,
the apostle says, and the bed undefiled. I had a friend, a
young preacher called me a while back. Somebody wanted to marry
them and they never had a profession of faith. He said, is that all
right? And I said, really? Hebrews 13.4. Marriage is honorable in all.
God ordained this ordinance of marriage for the moral preservation
of society. So that men and women wouldn't
shack up and live together like brute beasts and wild animals,
but rather they'd be committed to one another in marriage. Now
you know just how far behind the times I am. One of the first steps toward
moral decadence in any society is low esteem for this ordinance
of God. I announced in my pulpit at home
a few years back, I said, if you choose to shack up with a
man or shack up with some woman, if that's what you young people
want, don't come to me six months down the road when you get pregnant
and expect me to marry you. I ain't going to do it. I'm not
going to put my stamp of approval on that which is an abomination
to God. It's not going to happen. What do they do? Go to the justice
of the peace. Go somewhere else. I ain't going
to do it. One of the first steps toward moral decadence is low
esteem for this ordinance of God. Where there is no sanctity
of marriage, have we come there in our society? Have we? Well, let's see what follows.
Let's see what follows. There's no regard for God, no
regard for God's law, no regard for moral decency of any kind,
and no regard for human life. Have we come there? Marriage is an honorable thing,
and our Lord puts his approval upon it by his presence. Here's
a third practical thing. Our Lord here shows us plainly
that he gives approval to the party that these folks threw
for the marriage and to the use of wine in the party. Man, this is a badness church.
We don't believe you ought to drink wine in a badness church.
A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh merry. You didn't read that in a comic
book somewhere. You read that in Ecclesiastes
chapter 7 verse 19. Now I'm not suggesting you have
to have a bottle of wine whenever you go home. I am saying if you
want to, you can have a glass of wine and be alright. Perfectly
alright. I never heard a Baptist preacher
talk like that in my life. Well, you have now. You have
now. Our Lord tells us that it's fine
for believers to enjoy life. He intends for you to. He intends
for you to. Faith in Christ, life in Christ
was never intended to be a morbid existence. I had a morbid existence
beforehand. I have a delightful life today. I had a morbid existence in rebellion
against God. I have a life of joy in Jesus
Christ the Lord. Matter of fact, Paul speaks of
our faith in Christ as the joy of faith, doesn't he? These folks
had planned a marriage feast and They apparently were relatives
of Mary. She was at the feast, and because
she was at the feast, her son, the Lord Jesus, and his disciples
were called to the marriage feast. These early disciples who were
following him now. And they all came to the marriage
feast and enjoyed it. Fourth, this passage certainly
teaches us the blessedness of obedience to Christ. Mary said
to the servants at the feast, whatsoever he saith unto you,
do it. The Son of God could have supplied
wine for these folks, all that was needed, without employing
these servants. He didn't need them. But they
would have missed the blessed benefit of being instruments
by whom the God of glory brought about this miraculous boon of
mercy at the wedding feast. More about that in a minute. And then we see something here
of the character of our Savior's gifts. He always saves the best
wine to last. Marvelous as His grace is now, Oh, I've enjoyed hearing and
singing with you and discussing with you the wonders of redemption
and grace and salvation. My heart rejoices at the thought
of forgiveness and acceptance with God. My heart overflows
with gratitude to God and thanksgiving as I think about His sweet electing
love, acceptance with Him in Jesus Christ the Redeemer. But
all these things are but the foretaste of that which is reserved
for us in heaven's glory. We've just begun to sip the wine.
We've just begun to. Our Lord always reserves the
best for last. Even in the experience of grace
here, it's so The sorrow of repentance is followed by the sweetness
of forgiveness. The bitterness of conviction
is followed by the gladness of conversion. The cross we bear
is followed by the crown we shall wear. The valley of the shadow
of death is that which ends in glory, eternal glory with no
sorrow, no sin, and no death. All right, those are some practical
lessons. But I always want to know what
the spiritual significance of something is, don't you? We should
never be satisfied to look at the Word of God only to read
the letter of the Word. Did you notice that this chapter
begins with the word and? That's an indication that what
we read here in these 11 verses has a very close connection with
what's been stated in the previous passage. In chapter 1, we have
a clear presentation of the failure of Judaism and the turning from
Judaism to Christ. Nathanael was a Jew. who was
worshipping God like Cornelius according to the law and looking
for the Messiah, but he had not met the Messiah. And as soon
as he did, he turns from Judaism to Christ the Lord to follow
him, as did the previous disciples. John the Baptist came and announced
the Lord Jesus and the Jewish leaders didn't have a clue who
John was and had less of a clue who the Lord Jesus was. They
were willing to have John as anything except the forerunner
of the Messiah. He came and said, I'm just the
voice of one crying in the wilderness. The law and the prophets were
until John. He wound up the whole Old Testament
system. And when Christ appeared, Judaism
became nothing but emptiness. It was nothing but empty, meaningless,
dead, useless religious form. Nothing else. The wine was gone. The wine that makes Mary the
heart was gone. The wine that gives consolation
and comfort was gone. Judaism still existed as a religious
system and they read the law in their synagogues and in their
temple every Sabbath day. But the joy was gone. There was
nothing in it for man. It had degenerated into a cold
mechanical form of religion. Nothing else. So they set these
six water pots before the Lord Jesus. And those empty water
pots of stone pretty well represented the religion of the Jews and
the religion of men today without Christ. There were six of them. That's the number of man and
the number of the beast and the number of failure. Six water
pots, not seven, the number of perfection. Six, not five, the
number of grace. All that was left of Judaism
was of the flesh. Look down in chapter 2, verse
13. John 2, verse 13. And the Jews' feast of the Passover
was at hand. When did it get to be the Jews'
feast of the Passover? Read about it in the Old Testament.
It was always referred to as the Lord's Feast. But now, it's
just the Jews' feast of the Passover. These water pots were water pots
of stone, not silver, Brother Donnie told us the other day,
speaks of redemption. Not gold, which speaks of divinity,
but stone, that which is of the earth and earthly. And they were
empty. These water pots were used by
the Jews in the observation of their religious traditions, the
purifying of the Jews, verse 6. They had them around everywhere,
especially when there was going to be some kind of public gathering
and they would wash their hands before they ate. They had the
water pots there and they'd go through their religious ceremony,
their meaningless religious traditions and wash their hands. Like some
of you do when you go to a restaurant and you set up your altar and
you're going to pray. Well, I want folks to know I'm
a Christian. Well, saying your little religious
nonsense is not going to make them think it. That's what it
is. You don't pray at a restaurant.
You just go through the form. You know it and I know it. God
knows it. You're looking around to see when the waitress is coming.
Who's looking? Who's going to pay attention?
I remember the first time this came to shocking reality to me,
and I know that's shocking to folks. I was going to preach
for a fellow, Brother Harry Graham in Asheboro, North Carolina,
and he took Shelby and I out to dinner. Of course, we'd been
raised in a religious tradition where you don't dare eat without
praying in public. You don't dare do it. And so
we're sitting there, a couple of nuns calls, waiting on somebody
to call somebody to pray. And Harry looked at me, he said,
are you thankful? I said, yes, sir. He said, God
heard that. Go ahead and eat. Go ahead and eat. These Jews
used the water pots to wash their hands, to wash their cups and
platters, to go through their religious nonsense so that folks
would know they were religious and devoted. You see, religion
without Christ, like these water pots, The Spirit of God specifically
tells us and calls our attention to the fact that this marriage
feast took place on the third day. Now, scratch your head a
little bit when you read that and try to figure out what third
day is talking about. The third day from when? The
third day of what? He doesn't tell us. Now we can
surmise that since on one day John the Baptist saw the Lord
Jesus coming and said, Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world, and then the next day he saw him again
and said the same thing, and now this is the third day since
the first time John saw and declared this is the Lamb of God. Perhaps
that's the case. But since we're not told what
the third day refers to specifically, I think it might be wise to consider
this third day as being highly symbolic. The third day was the
day in creation when God raised the earth from its watery grave
of chaos in Genesis chapter 1. The third day is the day of our
Lord's resurrection from the dead. The third day represents
life and resurrection. Turn to Hosea chapter 6. You remember Peter tells us in
2 Peter 3 verse 8 that one day with the Lord is a thousand years
and a thousand years is as one day. Perhaps then, just perhaps,
Brother Gene mentioned this I think Wednesday night when we first
began. This is the beginning of the The third day since the
gospel first came into the world. The third day of this gospel
age since Christ Jesus was first manifest. And it may be, perhaps,
that sometime in this thousand year day, this third day, the
marriage supper of the Lamb will take place. Hosea 6, verse 2. Verse 1, Come, let us return
to the Lord, for He hath torn and He will heal us, He hath
smitten and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive
us, and the third day will raise us up. Oh, maybe, maybe this
is that day. I don't know. I don't know. I
had no idea. Wouldn't dare to make a guess.
But I know this, The book of God speaks of another marriage
feast and declares, blessed are they which are called to the
marriage supper of the Lamb. Oh, blessed are they who are
called. For if they are called by God,
if they are bidden by the Spirit, They're made willing and they
come to the marriage feast. Blessed are they who are called
effectually by omnipotent, irresistible grace to the marriage supper
of the Lamb. And these are the true sayings
of our God. At that marriage feast, our Lord
Jesus will be there. And all his disciples will be
there. And we'll never run out of wine. Alright, here's the fourth thing.
We're told in verse 9 that the water was made wine. The water was made wine. The water was not made to look
like wine, it was made wine. The water was not made to taste
like wine, it was made wine. The water was not treated as
though it were wine, it was made wine. The water was not made
wine in a legal sense, forensically, it was made wine. Immediately
I think of three other things that had been made what they
were not. Made what they were not by God's
word, by God's decree, by God's will. In John 1.14, the Word
was made flesh. God became one of us. I know what the theologians write.
I know that it's theologically precise and accurate to say that
God did not become a man, but He assumed our nature. That's
not what John 1.14 says. John 1.14 says the word was made
flesh. Acts 20.28 declares to us that
we have been redeemed with the blood of God himself. But God doesn't have any blood.
The God-man does. The man who is God does. And
by the blood sacrifice of this God who was made flesh, we have
life eternal. The Lord Jesus, we're told in
2 Corinthians 5.21, was made sin. Made sin. And that's not a legal
term. I defy anybody, find any Greek
concordance, any Greek scholar anywhere in the world who will
tell you the word made there is a legal term. He is deliberately
lying to you. Deliberately. The word is not
a legal term. The only time legal term imputation
is used with regard to the work of God's grace is referring to
you and I having Adam's sin imputed to us and Christ's righteousness
imputed to us. It's never spoken of our sin
being imputed to Christ. He was made sin. He who knew no sin was made sin. Because there was no way God
in justice could punish a guiltless one. Law won't allow that. Justice
won't allow that. Righteousness won't allow that.
Donahue took our sin and our guilt and made it his own. Explain that. When I can explain
how the Word was made flesh, I'll give it a try. Believe it. Oh yes. And we have been made the righteousness
of God in Him. Made the righteousness of God
in Him. That which He is, He has made
us to be. And that which we are by nature,
He made Himself to be. And that's called redemption. The good wine of the gospel is
Christ himself. When he was made sin for us,
it was he and he alone who trod the winepress of his father's
wrath as our substitute. When the Lord bruised him and
put him to grief, this wine is the wine that cheers both God
and man. When God's justice took the full
draft of this wine for the sins of the redeemed, the Lord God
Himself was well pleased. And when a poor sinner, by God's
sovereign grace, is first made to drink of the blood of the
Lamb, He feels constrained to cry, hallelujah, I have found
Him whom my soul so long had craved. Jesus satisfies my longings
through His blood I now am saved. Moses' first wonder in Egypt. Moses, the law. If you don't remember, One or
two of the wonders Moses performed in the land of Ham, I know the
two you'll remember. The water of the Nile being turned
to blood and the Paschal Lamb. The night of the Passover when
God passed through and every house in Egypt had one slain. Because Moses represents law
and justice. the strict severity of divine
righteousness. His first wonder performed in
the land of Ham by which God judged the Egyptians and saved
Israel. By which God showed his utter
severity and strictness in justice and his complete mercy and grace
in saving his own. by which Pharaoh and the Egyptians
were made to know that he is God, and by which the children
of Israel were made to believe him as God. Moses' first wonder
was turning the water to blood, taking that which was to man
life and making it death, that which was a blessing and making
it a curse. Christ's first wonder is turning
water into wine. Because once he comes into your
life, he makes even the most common mercies water. What's more common? Water. I know around here y'all suffer
a good bit of droughts in the summertime about all the time.
When we have drought time at home, it's rare. It's rare. And it's tough for us to conserve.
We're just not accustomed to it. We're just not. I mean, we
got water everywhere. We got water everywhere. More
water in the state of Kentucky than there is in any other inland
state in the United States. We got water everywhere, and
things are luscious and green all the time. All the time. Just
fantastic. You drink it, you spill it, you
spill a little water, well, it'll go away. Who ever thought about
gathering it up? I wish somebody could have convinced
me 20 years ago you could stick it in a bottle and sell it for
a dollar. But the most common blessing
When Christ comes into your life, He makes to be boons of grace,
boons of mercy. Truly, our Lord has kept the
good wine until now. Never before has my soul been
satisfied, but now that I've tasted that the Lord is gracious,
I want nothing else to taste and nothing else to drink. Let
me briefly call attention to our Lord's conversation with
Mary. We often say our Lord's mother. She was not our Lord's mother.
She was the mother of the man-child Christ Jesus. She was not the
mother of the Lord. She was not the mother of God. Our Lord Jesus being God, knew
that the papist would arise in just a few years, 400 years to
be exact, and starts this strange doctrine that would deify Mary. Make Mary to be one to whom prayer
should be made. Make Mary to be one of supernatural
power. Make Mary to be God. And therefore He said, woman. Now that was not a reproachful
term. As a matter of fact, in his day, it would be like down south, I don't know what
you do out here, we speak to a woman, we say, ma'am. And that's
not a reproach, that's just courtesy, that's just being polite. And
our Lord said to a woman, in a respectful way, but not speaking
of her as mother. He wanted people to understand
his respect as a man for the woman who was called his mother. But never did he refer to her
publicly in his ministry as mother. Mary seemed to be here asserting
her parental authority. Now remember the Lord Jesus is
33 years old now. And his mama is trying to tell
him what to do. By the time a fella gets to be
33 years old, he ought to cut the apron strings. And that's
just what our Lord is doing. He's cutting the apron strings.
And a daughter as well. Cut the apron strings. I had
just one daughter. Do you have any idea how hard
it is for me not to tell her and her husband how to run their
lives? Do you have any idea how hard it is for me not to do so?
But I'm determined not to be an interfering father-in-law.
She has another man in her life to whom she rightfully yields
obedience, not to me. And our Lord here cuts the apron
strings publicly so as to teach us to cut the apron strings.
I can't get used to this day. I'm throwing on a lot of extra
free lumber, but I'll throw it on just in case I don't get to
do it again. I can't get used to this day
when, you know, well, what's your son doing? How old is he
now? He's 41, 42? Well, he's still
finding himself. You know, it was just a, when
I was growing up, I never heard the word spoken, but it was just
a known reality. Bud, your last day in high school
is your last free meal. I just knew it. And when I turned,
well, I wasn't 16, I was 15 years old, got kicked out of school.
Goodbye. How do you figure on living? What are you going to do? I didn't
think about it. Before I got home, after getting
my orders to leave school, I went and got a job. I'm not talking
about a part-time job. I mean, I went and got me a job
working at a cotton mill, 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, just
in case they fill me out on my ear, because that's fixing to
be what's happened. How come? Because you're expected to grow
up. You're expected to grow up. Children, the sooner you learn
it, the better off you are. Mamas and daddies, the sooner
you teach it to them, the better off they are and you too. Life
is not made for you. The world wasn't made to spin
around you. And the world ain't gonna stop
just cause you do. Not gonna happen. Mary accepted our Lord's
rebuke. She recognized His right to act
as He pleased. And He left the matter entirely
in His hands. What a lesson! Sixth, in verse
4, our Lord said to Mary, My hour is not yet come. Seven times
in the Gospel of John, He refers to His hour. His hour was the
hour for which the universe was created. It was the hour of his
sufferings and death. The hour when he accomplished
redemption by the sacrifice of himself. The hour for which the
world was made and upon which all history hinges. The hour
of his sacrifice. What an hour! The hour of the
manifesting forth of His glory. The glory by which God in justice
slew our enemies and in mercy saved our souls. Seventh, we
have before us in this story of our Lord turning the water
into wine a beautiful picture of God's method of grace, of
the way he saves sinners. It was the Lord Jesus who performed
the miracle, and yet men were called to fetch the pots, fill
them with water, draw off the wine, and carry it to the governor
of the feast. The mean Jews were human. The
power that performed the miracle was divine. It might have seemed
foolish to some to fill the water pots with water, but water is
a symbol of the written word. And the way to bring joy and
comfort to the human heart is to fill it with the preached
word of God and pray for God to make it effectual. The center,
like the water pots, is empty. The center receives the water
of the written word at the command of Christ and the water produces
its wine, the best wine, by the power of Christ Jesus. The change
wrought in the new birth is a miracle of grace, as clearly miraculous as water
being turned into wine. And the servants, oh, what a
great blessing. the servants had. The governor
of the feast, when he tasted that wine, he didn't know that
those water pots had been filled with water. He didn't know it
came from the water pots filled with water. But the servants
who drew out the wine and carried it to the governor, what does
the book say? They knew. They knew. All the blessed privileges, the
benefits, the blessings of serving God. Now this is how we serve
Him. Whatsoever He saith to you. That's what you do. Whatsoever
He saith to you. I hear folks talk about serving
God and they're going to serve Him when? I hear folks talk about
preaching. Years ago, I was down in Australia,
there was a fellow, brilliant fellow, brilliant mathematician. He told me, he said, well, when
I retire, I think I'm going to start pastoring. My response
was, no, don't. Don't. Don't do it. God won't have your leftovers. God won't have your leftovers.
Well, I want to get things fixed up so that I don't care what
excuse you give, God won't have your leftovers. He won't have
it. No, sir. Either serve him or
don't. But don't try to pretend you're
serving him when you're not. You don't serve God on your terms. Anywhere, ever. You don't serve
God on your terms. These pastors have made some
sacrifices. Made sacrifices they wouldn't
make for any other cause, I don't believe. Don't believe. Sacrifices
for the families, wives and children. Milton's been 25 years in Mexico,
in Chiapas, down in the southern part of Mexico. I've been there
a number of times. I'm going to tell you something.
You wouldn't want to live there. And you wouldn't want to raise
your boys there, would you? Why on earth would you do that? Why
would a man take his wife into that remote, desolate, empty,
dirty place and spend 25 years? Well, you've robbed those boys.
Look what you've robbed those boys of. Why? Why? Whatsoever he saith to you,
do it. Do it. Any regrets? And you can't serve God any other
way. Can't be done. Can't be done. One last thing. In verse 11. beginning, the first, the foremost,
the primary, the most important of wonders did Jesus in Cana
of Galilee and manifested forth his glory. And when he did, his
disciples believed. Oh, Lord, will you show your
glory today? And calls chosen sinners to believe
you. I've been believing Him for a
while now. And there is a direct correlation
between Him manifesting His glory and me believing Him. And me
believing Him and me seeing his glory. This is his promise. If thou wouldest believe, thou
shouldest see the glory of God. But I can't believe, Lord, except
you show me your glory. And so I keep praying, Lord,
show me your glory. the glory of your person, the
glory of your accomplished redemption, the glory of your all-sufficient
grace, the glory of your transforming, saving power. He took six water pots, just empty, Pots of clay. Six empty pots of clay. Filled them up with his word. And turned his word into life-giving
wine. Wine that gives joy and makes
merry the heart. And he's still doing it. We have this treasure, what does
it say, Pastor? In just old clay pots. That the excellency of the glory
may be of God and not of us. Our Father, O God, our Father,
bless Your Word that's been preached this week. Make it effectual
to the hearts of these who've heard it, and cause it to bring
forth fruit for many a day, manifesting forth your glory.
I thank you for this pastor, for this assembly, for these
brethren that you've knit to my heart and to whom you've knit
my heart. Lord God, as we labor in the
day you've given us for the furtherance of the gospel, make us faithful
and make our labors fruitful for the glory of Christ. Amen.