Wedding at Cana Pt2

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 2.
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You can mute this one. John chapter 2.
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We're going to be reading verses 1 to 12 again this week. And I know that some of you may say, wait a minute, in our last message, which was two weeks ago,
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I was out last week and I'm thankful again for Brother Mike having preached. I had preached verses 1 to 12.
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But if you remember, I really didn't make it past verse five. So we are going to again, look at this text and hopefully make our way today into the miracle portion of the text.
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We didn't even really talk about the miracle. This is the first recorded miracle of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And today, as we are going through the text and going through our study, I want us to have this question in our mind and on our heart.
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Why was Jesus's first miracle not a healing, not a resurrection, not something that would affect an entire multitude like the feeding of the 5 ,000.
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It wasn't even a miracle that was public. It was a miracle that was held in the confines of a wedding.
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Certainly it had many guests, but most of them didn't even know what had happened.
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This miracle, as we will see today, really is only understood, at least from the text by the servants and by the disciples who through this believed.
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Why was this Jesus's first miracle? We are a week away from celebrating the greatest miracle in human history.
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The miracle of miracles, the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The one event that changes all of history.
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As the Apostle Paul says, if Jesus is not raised, we of all men are most to be pitied.
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We have staked our eternity on one truth and that is that Jesus Christ came into the world, died a substitutionary death and he rose again, a victorious resurrection.
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We stake that as the foundation of our faith. If it didn't happen, everything else is foolishness, but if it did, everything else is true.
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Therefore, we can say next week we will celebrate the miracle of miracles.
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But today, as we continue our walk through the gospel of John, we will ask this question.
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Why? Why this? Why was this the miracle that John chooses to include as the first recorded miracle of the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Well, let's stand together and read the text. Beginning in verse one, it says, on the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.
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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.
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And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.
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His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Now there were six stone water jars there for the
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Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water.
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And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.
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So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine and did not know where it came from.
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Though the servants who draw, who had drawn the water knew the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, everyone serves the good wine first.
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And when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.
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This the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.
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After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples.
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And they stayed there for a few days. Father in heaven, as we come again to this important text in the gospel of John, we're reminded about what
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John says at the end of his gospel. If all the things that Jesus ever did were written, all the books of the world would not be able to contain them.
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So we know that you have not Lord been haphazard in what stories you have included in your gospels.
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You have been specific to inspire these words so that we would have them even down to today and know that this event took place exactly as written.
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So I pray today we would seek to draw from the text, what it says to make application of these wonderful truths and Lord that we would be submissive to your spirit as he teaches us through your word.
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I pray Lord that you would keep me from error because Lord, it is so easy for me to go off into my own thoughts.
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I pray that you would keep me tied to the post of your word and Lord God that I would decrease and Christ would increase that your people would be edified and those who are not yet your people would be saved.
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And through this all Lord, glory would be given to your name.
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We pray it in Jesus name, amen. As always,
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I'm very thankful when we have guests with us here at Sovereign Grace and it's important to at least make mention of the fact that we do what's known as sequential preaching here, sequential expository preaching, which means we preach through books of the
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Bible. And so you're coming into a study which actually began several months ago as we began with John chapter one, verse one, and we'll continue all the way
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Lord willing to the end of John's gospel. And so for those who have been here, you know how we've gotten to where we are today.
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John's gospel begins with an 18 verse prologue. It begins by telling us the identity of the person known as the word.
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John identifies him as the word. He says in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was
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God. And then in verse 14 he says the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.
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So we know who he's talking about. The word of God made flesh is Jesus Christ the righteous. That's who he's referring to in the prologue.
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And he expresses to us in that prologue, the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only his identity, but his quality, not only who he is, but what he is.
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He is Jesus of Nazareth, but he is also the God of the universe made flesh. So we have this wonderful truth contained in just a few verses at the beginning of John's gospel.
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Make no mistake who this person is I'm writing about, John is saying. Make no mistake who this person is that I'm telling you about.
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Make no mistake who this person is that I'm trying to encourage you to believe in. He is in fact
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God the son, God in the flesh.
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He is in fact the second person of the triune God. And then after the prologue, we continue into the first chapter of John and it goes on for many more verses.
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And in those verses, we hear of this man, John the Baptist, who also chooses to identify who this man is.
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John the gospel writer identifies him as the word made flesh, but John the Baptist identifies him as the lamb of God.
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So you have two Johns and two identifications. John the gospel writer says, behold the word of God.
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John the Baptist says, behold the lamb of God. John and his explanation of the gospel is behold this one who is himself
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God. And John the Baptist says, behold this one who will die for you.
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This is why we read in the gospels and later that Jesus, or rather not the gospels, but the epistles, that Jesus shed the blood of God.
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This is he who came as God made flesh and yet he came as a sacrifice to do what no one else could ever do, to die for sinners.
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After we have this introduction from John the gospel writer and John the Baptist, we see Jesus then gathering for himself some disciples.
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In fact, it wasn't Jesus who gathered the first two, they gathered themselves. When John says, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, two of John's disciples said,
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Gideon, we're going to go follow him. If you're not the Messiah and he is, we're going after him.
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And John did not try to hold them back, but they went. And when they went, they followed after Jesus and then they became evangelists.
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Andrew going to get Peter, his brother, bringing Peter back to him and saying, this is the one of whom the prophet spoke.
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And then he met Philip and Philip became an evangelist and ran and got Nathanael and brought Nathanael back. And Nathanael says, you are the son of God, the king of Israel.
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And therein brings the first chapter to a close. Jesus has been baptized, his ministry has effectively begun.
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And he has begun to draw behind after him men who are called disciples. They would later be called apostles, but John's gospel calls them disciples.
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A disciple is a learner. And so that's what these men were. They were learners, they were followers, they were students of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And you would expect maybe if you were one who tried to anticipate what story might come next, you might anticipate that the next story in John's gospel was going to be some type of powerful message from this
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Savior. Maybe he would go and we would have that powerful message from the mountain, the
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Sermon on the Mount, but John doesn't record that. Or maybe we might have some internal conflict against the
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Pharisees, which we know is coming where he calls them, woe unto you Pharisees, hypocrites.
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But John doesn't record that. Or maybe a miracle, like the woman who had the issue of blood for 12 years and she touches the hem of Jesus' garment and a miracle of healing takes place, which is then followed by the raising of a 12 -year -old girl, the daughter of Jairus.
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But John doesn't record that. John instead records Jesus going to a celebration, going to, as it were, a party.
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A wedding is a party, it's a celebration. Weddings in this time in history did not last one day, like weddings today are generally a one -day event.
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Thank goodness, because I couldn't afford it anymore, having recently participated in my daughter's wedding, certainly one day was enough.
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Can you imagine had it gone seven days of feasting and celebration?
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So, this event in the ancient world, which lasted a week, was a tremendous social occasion, out of which people would sometimes receive great shame, because they did not prepare well for the occasion.
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And if a person did not prepare well for the occasion, that's exactly what would happen. Shame would happen to that person.
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If there was not enough wine, if there was not enough of what was needed to carry the celebration for seven days, that would show a lack of preparation.
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It would show, in one sense, a lack of wisdom in preparing for this event.
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And so that's where we see in this narrative. Jesus has gone to a wedding with his mother and his disciples.
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Apparently, they knew the family. Probably, Cana not being that far from Nazareth, they may have been even related to this family, we don't know.
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But we know that Mary sees something in this situation where she wants to intervene.
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And that's what we read in the first part of the text. It says, on the third day, this being actually the seventh day since Jesus' ministry started, because we see, as I talked about this two weeks ago, we see the next day, the next day, the next day, then the third day.
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So it's seven days now since John has called Jesus, or John has interacted with the
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Pharisees, which was the first event that we see in the narrative. And it says, on the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
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Notice it calls her the mother of Jesus, doesn't use the name Mary. John never calls her Mary for some reason. He always calls her the mother of Jesus.
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Other gospel writers tell us, of course, that her name is Mary, but John chooses only to call her the mother of Jesus.
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It says, Jesus was invited to the wedding with his disciples, and when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.
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So apparently, to her, this was an important issue. Shows care, shows concern.
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She's concerned with the shame that this would bring on the wedding party, the shame, particularly for the bridegroom whose responsibility it was to provide these things.
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She's concerned with that. So she goes to Jesus. And I mentioned this two weeks ago, but I want to mention it again.
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I don't think that Mary went to Jesus with this attitude, Jesus, they ran out of wine, can you make some more?
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I don't think that was her reason for going to Jesus. Couple reasons for that.
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One, John says this is the first sign Jesus did. Does that mean it's his first miracle?
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It very much could mean this is his first miracle. If that's the case, Mary may not have known to expect a miracle.
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Others say, well, maybe what John is saying is this is the first recorded miracle, doesn't mean he never did any miracles. So that kind of is left up to perhaps an interpretive question.
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But as I said last time, I think the reason why Mary went to Jesus was not because she expected a miracle, but because Jesus is the wisest man she's ever met.
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And when you have a problem, who do you go to? You go to someone wise, not a fool.
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You go to someone you trust. You go to someone who in the past has given you sage advice.
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You go to someone who might know what to do. Interestingly enough,
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Joseph is never mentioned after the 12th year of Jesus, where Jesus of course is found in the temple speaking with the teachers.
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And Joseph and Mary, of course, had that wonderful every parent's nightmare, right? Thought the kid was with you.
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And you realize when you get where you're going, thought you had him, no, thought you had him.
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Well, now we have to go back and find him. And when they finally found him, he was there among the teachers.
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That's the last we hear of Joseph. There's a really weird liberal interpretation that Joseph got angry because of that and left
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Mary. How foolish. I mean, I tell you what, the one thing, you know,
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I read a lot of different commentaries and different ideas that people have, and there's nothing more creative than a liberal with a pen.
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They just come up with all kinds of nonsense. And the idea that Mary was left by Joseph because Jesus upset them is nowhere in the text, nowhere reasonable to come to that conclusion.
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We don't know what happened to Joseph, but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen to Joseph. But Joseph is not in this part of the story, which leads many to believe, and I think this is a reasonable conclusion, that possibly at this point,
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Joseph is no longer alive. Right? So now it's Mary.
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She's there with Jesus, who is her oldest son, right? Has to be.
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She's a virgin when he had him, like he doesn't have an older brother. So if Jesus is the oldest in the family, it makes sense that she would go to him and say, what do we do?
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Jesus, they have no wine. And as I said in my last message, and I'm sorry
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I'm rehearsing everything again, but this is so important to build up to the actual miracle. Jesus says, woman, which is not an offense.
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As I said before, this is not an offensive language for Jesus to call his mother woman. It's no different than if I were to call my mother ma 'am or lady, which may sound weird if my mom came and said something to me and I said ma 'am or lady, but it wouldn't be disrespectful, but it would be matter -of -fact.
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And I do think there is a sense in which this language is matter -of -fact. Later on when Jesus is on the cross and he looks down and he says, woman, behold thy son, son, behold thy mother, right?
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This is Jesus calling her woman there. There's no disrespect there, but it's very matter -of -fact. This woman is now your mother, right?
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And so here he says, woman, what does that have to do with me?
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And I think that there is a sense in which in this moment, he is respectfully, but firmly distancing himself from any authority that she may think that she has.
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He is about his father's business at this point, not his mother's.
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I have an hour coming and you don't get to hasten that hour. I have an hour coming.
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And by the way, when he says my hour has not yet come, what is the hour? It's his death. It's his death. That's the hour because it says throughout
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John's gospel, my hour's not yet come. My hour's not yet come. My hour's not yet come. But then in the holy week, which we're celebrating this week, he says my hour has come.
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My hour has come. It's the hour of that coming work on the cross, the culmination of his life in that moment on the cross where he would die for sin and then three days later rise from the dead.
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Woman, what does that have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. And then Mary says nothing else to Jesus, at least not in the narrative.
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She turns to the servants and she says, do whatever he tells you. Mary has not, one, expressed any sense of being jilted or disrespected, neither does she not expect
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Jesus to help. But also, as I said last week, neither is she manipulating him into helping.
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Neither is she forcing him to help either. She simply trusts and she says to the servants, trust him.
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Whatever he says, do it. And as has been noted by some, could be considered one of the great sermons of the
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Bible. Whatever he says, do you do it? I mean, what better, what better thing is that? There's a lot of times people will come to me for counseling and what should be done is obvious, but they don't want to do it.
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Go ahead and say amen, because you know I'm right. We don't always want to do what God commands. And sometimes the simple command of counseling isn't,
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Brother Mike, it's just to say, do what Jesus says. Like, do whatever he says. I'm not happy.
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My wife's not making me happy. I think I should go marry somebody else. No. Love your wife.
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That's what Jesus said. That's the command. Right? That's it. It's not hard sometimes. In fact, it's been rightfully said that the parts of the
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Bible that are most difficult are not the parts that are hard to understand, but the parts that are easy to understand, but we don't want to do.
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We don't want to obey, even though they're so crystal clear. Whatever Jesus says, do.
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That's what we should do. So now we move to the second portion.
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I outlined it this way. I said, there's the occasion, which is verses one to five. And then we have the occurrence, which is verses six through 10.
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And then of course we have the outcome in verses 11 and 12. Well, we're going to look at the occurrence now, which is beginning in verse six.
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And in verse six, it says, now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rights of purification.
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You remember the Jewish people believed at this time that they were required to wash at meals and other times.
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And it wasn't because of what we understand, like getting rid of bacteria, getting rid of things like that. They didn't have that understanding of microbes and stuff like that.
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They didn't carry hand sanitizer in their pocket, right?
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I was shaking hands with Sharon this morning and we had hand sanitizer switched. That happens a lot, right?
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Because we all carry, we want to protect ourselves from germs, but they didn't understand germs. But they did have these
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Jewish rights of purification, these things that they did. And the Pharisees were all about that. Remember when they saw Jesus eat without washed hands?
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They made a fit about it, right? Like, why are your disciples doing that? They're eating without, they're eating with unwashed hands.
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So they had these rituals that they would do.
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And they had water on hand for these rituals. And these water jars were quite enormous, if you think about the size.
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In the King James, I think it says two to three firkins. Firkin is a fun word to say.
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A firkin is 10 gallons. So if you have a King James Bible and you were wondering what a firkin is, a firkin is about 10 gallons.
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And so that's why the, it says two to three firkins. And if you look in a English standard version or some of the other versions, it'll say 20 to 30 gallons, because it's just translating the meaning of that idea.
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But think about what 20, a 20 to 30 gallon pot is no small pot.
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Every time I've ever seen this in a movie, it's always been like, you know, Jesus turned these little pots, these little urns look like something you put ashes in.
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But imagine one of those that stood about this high and there's six of them, which probably says this was when it was all full, about 120 to 180 gallons of water.
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That's a lot of water. And they were there for the purpose, not of drinking, but of using for this
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Jewish rite of purification. And Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water.
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Now we don't know how much water was already in them, but I want you to think for just a moment how much work it would have taken to fill six 25 -ish gallon jugs when you didn't have a water hose and a spigot.
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You've got a well that has to be gone to and has to be drawn from.
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And now that water has to be poured into these giant jars. My point is simply to say this didn't happen in just a moment.
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It's not like they ran out and immediately the jars were full. This took some work. And I've wondered in my heart, why didn't
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Jesus just say, wine, and bypass this entire process?
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Why the process? In fact, if you think about it, there's often a process in Jesus's miracles.
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Man's blind. He spits on the dirt, rubs mud in his eyes. Only does it once that we know of.
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Other times he commands, boom, but this time, mud in the eyes. There are other times
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Jesus takes fish and bread and he multiplies it, right?
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He has a process, some kind of a process. Well, the process for this was go get the water, fill up these jars.
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Some have tried to make an application out of this to say that God wants us to do the things that we can do and he'll take care of the things we can't do.
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I think there's truth in that. I think there are times where we do have this sense of let go and let
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God and the mindset of, well, I don't need to do anything. I'm just going to trust the
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Lord. But God does call us to do things. He calls us to participate in ministry.
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He calls us to be active. This is the most difficult thing I think sometimes is knocking into the heads of Calvinists.
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Well, if God's predestined people, why do we have to evangelize? One, because he said so, and two, because that's the process.
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That's the process he gave us. That's how they're going to be saved, and how will they're here without a preacher, and how will the preacher go unless he is sent, right?
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We're part of it. And so God has a way that he does things, and we don't always know why he does the way he does, but we can trust him.
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And these servants trusted Jesus without even really knowing him. I mean, we don't know what the relationship is here.
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And again, Jesus is probably a family friend, so maybe they knew him in some type of social sense, but he just commanded them to do a pretty big thing.
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Go fill up 120 to 180 gallons of water, and they went and did it.
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No questions asked. And it says they filled it to the brim, which
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I think is an important point. Again, I think every word of the text is always important, and to consider why even mention that it's filled to the brim.
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Here's my answer. Jesus doesn't add anything to the water.
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Jesus transforms the water. I know this sounds foolish, but it's not as if Jesus were carrying around a jar of wine concentrate.
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I remember when I was a kid, Pat used to buy orange juice concentrate and keep this frozen concentrated orange juice in the freezer, and when
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I wanted to have, I'd fill a jar up with water this much, and then I'd take that orange juice concentrate, and I'd pour it in and mix it up, and it gave me orange juice.
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That's not what's happening here. Jesus is not adding to the water.
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Jesus is changing the water. And can
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I just say, again, I don't want to jump to the application point too fast, but there's something to be said about modern
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Christianity where people think that Christianity is about adding
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Jesus to your life. Christianity is not about adding Jesus to your life. It's about Jesus transforming your life.
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Jesus does not become an ornament on an already prepared tree. Jesus does not become a bow on an already wrapped gift.
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Jesus takes the dead sinner and transforms him into a live saint.
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So this miracle of transformation should not be overlooked.
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That he is demonstrating a power here to not add something, but change something.
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We don't say the water added wine. We say the water became wine.
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In fact, that's what the text says, when the water had become wine. Now, does wine have water in it?
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Sure. I mean, it has the element, H2O is in it, but it's different.
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It's been changed. And that's what's interesting.
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The miracle happens in between verses 7 and 8.
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Look at verse 7. It says, Jesus said to the servants, fill the water jars with water. And they filled them to the brim.
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And he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. Doesn't say that Jesus went up, extended his hand to the water jar, and said, wine.
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Doesn't say he went up in every movie I've ever seen. Jesus will go up and lay his hand on the pots.
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He'll get down on his knees and he'll look up and he'll mumble something. And the idea is he's praying. Every play
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I've ever seen has something where Jesus is doing something. He didn't do anything in the text.
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All he says is, fill it up with water. Now, dip some out, take it to the master of the feast. We don't know when it happened, but we know it happened because, and I have to think, the olfactory sense, the sense of smell, is one of our most powerful senses.
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We don't even realize how important our sense of smell is sometimes until it gets offended, then we know. But the olfactory sense has the power.
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Like, you ever been in a room and you smell and it smells familiar? It's because our olfactory sense is most connected to memory.
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Smells connect to our memory more than anything else. And when those men approached that water, now become wine, they would have smelled the change.
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When they put their cup in the water, now become wine, they would have seen the change.
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Wine is not water. It doesn't look like water. It doesn't even feel like water.
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The way that it would have drawn out would have been different than water.
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And as they pull it out and they see the dripping of the wine back into the basin, they would have been amazed in that moment of transformation.
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And now they take it to the master of the feast. The master of the feast drinks it and think on this for a moment.
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What would have been a moment of shame, now has become a moment of celebration.
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If those servants had to go to the master of the feast and say, listen, we know you're in charge of this.
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We know your job is to run everything and manage everything. And we are out of wine.
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The master of the feast at that moment would have had to begin to process, what am
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I going to do and how am I going to mitigate the shame and social stigma that this is going to lay on this family.
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But now wine has been brought to him. Six pots, hundreds of gallons are now at his disposal.
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And he drinks it and to his surprise, he says, this is the best wine.
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And he goes to the bridegroom and he says, hey man, you're not like other people. Because other people keep the subpar wine to later.
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Because once the people have drunk the good wine, then you can bring out the subpar wine.
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They won't even notice because they've already had their palates numbed by the wine that they've already drank.
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So what does it matter if you give the bad wine later? Everybody gives the good wine first, but you've kept the good wine.
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In fact, you've kept the best wine until now. And the bridegroom goes, yep.
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I mean, that's not the text, but he's like, sure, sounds good. That was my whole plan the whole time.
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He doesn't even know what happened. Understand, he doesn't even know.
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How many times in our life has God been in the midst of blessing us and we didn't even see it?
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How many times have we been the recipient of God's grace and not recognized it?
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John Piper, I think I quoted him a few weeks ago. I think it was the same quote, so forgive redundancy, but always remember repetition is the key to learning.
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John Piper said, God is doing 10 ,000 things in your life at any moment and you might be aware of three of them.
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God is working in our lives all the time and we are so sometimes naive, sometimes ignorant, sometimes blind to the goodness of God.
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The blessing of Christ comes to this man. He doesn't even understand the blessing.
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And we see again in verse 10, it says, everyone serves the good wine first.
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And when people have drunk freely, the poor wine, but you've kept the good wine until now.
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Now, I want to, if I could, I want to make a couple of applications before we get to verse 11 and 12.
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I have a few things to say about 11 and 12, but just by way of stopping at this moment. Some things to consider from what we've just seen in this miracle.
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The first thing, this miracle tends to be one of the most debated and controversial miracles of Jesus.
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And there's two sides. It's almost always like there's two sides of a debate.
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On one side, you have the, what we might call the progressive or liberal view. And that is the view that Jesus didn't really do this.
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If you listen long enough to men who do not believe in the authority of scripture, you will find and hear some of the most creative reinterpretations of passages.
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That the Bible never intends us to believe in a certain way. For instance, the feeding of the 5 ,000.
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John Dominic Crossom, I heard from his own voice. John Dominic Crossom is one of the leading liberal scholars in the world today.
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And he is very liberal. He said, Jesus didn't feed 5 ,000 people with five loaves and two fish.
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What he did was he convinced the people who had food to share it with people who didn't. And what it was, was the great first great communist miracle.
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I mean, that's the idea, right? Reinterpret it to fit into a completely foreign idea and worldview.
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John Dominic Crossom also believes that Jesus didn't rise from the grave. He believed he was buried in a shallow grave and his bones were eaten by dogs.
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That's what he said. That's publicly on record. That's the kind of dangerous thinking that can lead when you abandon the authority of scripture.
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And people who believe things like this, they'll say, well, Jesus didn't really turn water into wine.
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What it was, was these jars were already used for wine. And when they poured the water in, the wine that was already there, the wine residue mixed with the water and it became wine -like.
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And that's what the miracle was. Was Jesus was showing them how to make things go further.
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How to press into this ability to make things stretch.
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Like a good homemaker can take, you know, one meal and stretch it into two. Well, Jesus can take the residue from a jar and stretch it into a seven -day feast.
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And you know what? There's a Greek word for that. Baloney. That's what it is.
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The Greek word for that. It's just absolute baloney. There's nothing in the text that would even... In fact, these were not jars used for wine.
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These were jars used for water for the Jewish rites of purification. The text abandons any idea like that.
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Plus, wine residue does not make the best wine. The idea that that's the way to interpret this text is so foolish.
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So we all agree. There's also another liberal interpretation that water is the best wine.
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That sounds so silly. Somebody said, well, water is better than wine.
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And Jesus taught them that water is the best wine. I tell you what. That's just foolish.
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No way water is better than wine. You'll have to agree with me because now you're not going to like this one.
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Because now I'm going to talk about whether or not the wine was alcoholic. Remember I said this is a controversial miracle.
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And there are those who want to say it didn't really happen. It did happen.
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But now to the question of the alcohol in the wine. I want you to hear this from me.
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I have no reason to believe that Jesus created Welch's grape juice.
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In the ancient world, wine fermented the same way it does today.
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People will say, well, it wasn't as strong as it was today. Well, they did dilute wine at times.
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In fact, I'm going to talk about this in my ethics class. Because in a couple weeks I'm going to talk about the ethics of alcohol.
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And there was a sense in which undiluted wine was sometimes considered to be barbaric. To drink just straight wine.
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And so they would dilute it sometimes two, sometimes three to one. But understand this. Diluting wine does not make it not alcoholic.
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If the wine in the time of Jesus was not alcoholic. Why do we have all these prohibitions about getting drunk?
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If the wine in the time of Noah wasn't alcoholic. How did he get drunk and end up naked on his bed?
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And have the situation that happened with Ham? Why all the prohibitions in the
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Proverbs about wine being a brawler? Or wine a mocker and beer a brawler? Because they actually knew how to make wine and beer.
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We didn't invent that in the 20th century. But what did happen in the 20th century was something called prohibition.
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And prohibition, which I will be teaching about in my class. I'm not going to give it all away today. I'll make you come to class. But what happened in the prohibition was created in the
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United States. A stigma against all use of alcohol. And it created something called
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T -Total. T -Total means I'm a T -Total abstinence. Capital T.
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Total abstinence with a capital T. I don't drink at all. And some people believe that's the standard for Christians.
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That they never drink one ounce of alcohol. And if you do, you're sinning.
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The Bible doesn't teach that. In fact, I'm going to tell you the opposite of what the Bible actually does teach.
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The Bible actually says that one of the blessings that will come when
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Messiah comes. And his kingdom comes. Is that there will be an abundance of flowing wine.
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I'll give you a few verses in case you wonder about that. Amos 9 says, Behold the days are coming.
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This is verse 13. Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when the plowman shall overtake the reaper. And the treader of grapes, him who sows the seed.
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And the mountains shall drip with sweet wine. This is a picture of the
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Messianic kingdom. Joel chapter 3. And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine.
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And the hills shall flow with milk. Isaiah chapter 25 verse 6.
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It says, On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all the peoples a rich feast of food.
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And a feast of well aged wine. And all the way back to Genesis chapter 49.
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When Judah was promised the scepter. And you know what the scepter is. The scepter was the kingdom.
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The scepter will not depart from Judah. Listen to the promise given to Judah in Genesis 49.
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The scepter shall not depart from Judah. Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. Until tribute comes to him.
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And to him shall the obedience be of all the peoples. Binding his fold to the vine. And his donkey's colt to the choice vine.
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He has washed his garments in wine. And his vesture in the blood of grapes. The idea is that the wine will be so abundant.
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That it will be like water. Because you don't wash clothes in wine. But the idea of washing the clothes is the idea of abundance.
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The messianic kingdom. One of the things that the messianic kingdom is demonstrated by.
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Is the abundance of wine. And now back up.
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And ask yourselves. Why was Jesus' first miracle?
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To make wine. He's showing who he is.
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He's showing the blessing. In miniature. Of his kingdom.
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Because here's the promise of the messianic kingdom. The blessings of the messianic kingdom.
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When our bridegroom brings us to himself. Is that there will be an abundance of blessing forever.
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And it will have no lack. Never will we have to say in the new kingdom.
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There's no more wine. Jesus brings wine to his people as a demonstration of who he is.
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This is a demonstration of the messianic kingdom. Now having said that.
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Going back to the question of alcohol. Because I have to say this. I'm in no way endorsing the abuse of alcohol.
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All things that God gives as a blessing. Can become a curse when they are abused.
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Sex is a blessing. I know people who teach sex is only for procreation. And if you're not trying to have kids you shouldn't have sex.
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Listen to your elders my friends. Brother Eddie just hollered up. Intimacy between a man and a woman is a blessing.
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And it is something to be enjoyed. But it can be corrupted. Pornography corrupts it.
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Adultery corrupts it. Lust corrupts it. But that doesn't mean it's not a blessing.
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It just means our blessings can become curses. If we allow them to become our masters.
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Food can become a curse. If it becomes our master.
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Alcohol, wine. The bible says wine was given to make the heart glad.
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Did you know that? Psalm, Psalm 104. It says God has given them wine to make the heart glad.
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But the blessing can become a curse when it is abused. Did Jesus make real wine?
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I remember seeing a coloring sheet. Had to have been a Baptist church. We're Baptist but I'm just teasing the Baptist a little.
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It has a coloring sheet that kids were given. And it said remember the day Jesus turned water into grape juice.
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I said you know a Baptist made that. Jesus didn't turn water into grape juice.
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He turned water into the best wine. And now we come to the end.
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Verse 11. It says this the first of his signs Jesus did it came in Galilee.
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And manifested his glory. Understand that's the reason why he did it my friends.
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Why did he do it? Well he did it to keep the people from dealing with shame. And being able to continue the celebration.
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Yes. Did he do it to demonstrate his power to create and transform? Yes. Did he do it as a sign of his messianic kingdom?
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I believe so. But most of all the text tells us this he did to manifest his glory.
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He showed his glory in this act of creation.
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And that's what it was. He showed who he was. He is the one who controls the elements.
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And he can take that which is not and make it so without a word.
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And in doing so he manifests his glory. And notice what it says.
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And his disciples believed in him. Beloved.
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Wouldn't you? Because they knew.
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The servants saw. They knew. And his disciples believed in him.
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Now. Next week we're going to continue in John.
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I know it's Easter Sunday. And you might think I will run to preach on a resurrection passage.
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But no. I want you to notice in the very next section of John's gospel. When he's cleansing the temple. What he says at the end of the cleansing of the temple.
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Tear down this temple and I will raise it again in three days. There's the prophecy of the resurrection. It's right there in the text.
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Why would I go anywhere else? It's right there. But in between these two texts. In between the wedding at Cana.
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And in between where John gives us the recording of the cleansing of the temple.
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We have this short verse. Verse 12. After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples.
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And they stayed a few days. Now. Just want to point out one thing. This text tells us.
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That Jesus' mother and his brothers and his disciples were with him. And I talked about this in my last sermon.
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I said there's this view that Mary had no other children. I believe Mary did have other children.
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The idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary. What's called the Semper Virgo. The eternal virginity of Mary. The text is clear here.
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Jesus and his brothers. Some will say this means cousin or something else. No, it's his brothers.
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In fact, we'll meet his brothers later. One of his brothers,
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James. Becomes the pastor of the church in Jerusalem. He writes the letter known as the
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Epistle of James. And Jude. Also known as Judas. Not that Judas.
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But Jude. Writes the Epistle of Jude. These men knew
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Jesus. They knew who he was. At this point, though, the other text. The other gospels tell us they didn't yet believe.
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Who Jesus was. But they will. But they will. All right, my friends.
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I hope that this has been an encouragement to you to think about. What Jesus did in this miracle. And particularly the transforming power of Jesus.
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And I'll leave you with this question. If Jesus can turn water into wine.
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Imagine what he did to you. Because you were dead in your trespasses and sins.
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And he made you alive. The same one who changed the water into wine.
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Changed you from a sinner into a saint. Not perfect in your behavior.
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But perfect in him. Because we are called holy. Not because of what we do. But because of him.
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And if you are today outside of Jesus Christ. If you have not believed in him. Then I would tell you
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Jesus can change your heart too. So the call of the gospel is this.
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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will be saved. He will take you from death to life.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for this truth.
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And I thank you for so much that we have learned today. And Lord we see so many blessings.
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So many wonderful things in this passage. That even went unsaid in this message. The blessing of marriage.
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The blessing of Christ on marriage. All of those wonderful truths. That we need not forget as we go about our daily life.
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Lord may it be that as we now turn to the table. And we remember when
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Jesus picked up bread. And he said this is my body given for you.
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Do this in remembrance of me. And he picked up the cup of wine. And he said this is the new covenant in my blood.
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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Lord I pray that as we share in the table.
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That we will be reminded that we share in the kingdom of our God. Because our king came to save us.