So our last week we finished Psalm 23.
This week we are beginning a study of the major miracles of Jesus in the book of John.
So there it will be a seven-part, a seven-week study that will take us up to Advent.
Advent then takes us up into Christmas.
So the miracles of Jesus.
I need to, at this the beginning, to vent all my issues, I feel like, and I have two main issues when it comes to miracles.
The first is I haven't seen many physical miracles.
I haven't seen any.
So that's an issue.
For me, at least, it's an issue.
I've been around.
I'm not a young chickadee anymore.
I've worked in charismatic churches where we prayed a lot for this stuff.
And I've worked in non-charismatic churches where we didn't pray as much for this kind of stuff.
And I can say honestly, I haven't really seen that much.
Every once in a while we'll see an exceptional recovery.
And maybe that counts.
I'll count it.
Why not?
Let's count it.
But still, I haven't seen just in front of my eyes a physical miracle.
And maybe you haven't either.
Let's just kind of take a poll.
I'd be interested in that.
Have any of you, firsthand, not your missionary cousin, second cousin Betty in Uganda, but you, right?
Not like the story or the email, but you.
Have you seen a physical miracle firsthand?
If you have, just you raise your hand.
Wonderful.
Okay?
So maybe 250 people in here, and two people have seen a physical miracle.
And I don't doubt that.
So praise praise God for that.
But the point is made, right?
The point is made that we just don't see a lot.
There's lots of theories and reasons why, but I think it's an issue that we have to talk about, and we have to at least be aware of and acknowledge when we come to talking about miracles.
Which brings me to my second issue.
I have asked for miracles.
And it didn't happen.
And maybe you have as well.
How many of you have asked for a physical miracle for you or for somebody else or a loved one?
You prayed for it and you did not get it.
And you just raised your hand.
Okay.
So we could just all we could just like condemn ourselves that we don't have enough faith, right?
And in some churches, that that is actually what you get.
Just you don't have enough faith.
You know.
I think it's a little unrealistic given how many people are in here, and I know some of you, and you seem to be people of great faith.
So I'm gonna dismiss that, and I'm gonna dismiss that because I just don't believe in religious shame anymore.
So because of that, I'm gonna dismiss the fact that it's the lack of our faith that is not warranting miracles.
It's just a horrible belief system if you go down that path, because it means every time you don't get a miracle, it is because of you.
And then you somehow have caused this horrible thing to happen because you didn't have enough faith.
And that's just shame-based religion and unhealthy, not biblical.
But it kind of all just brings up we need some clear thinking when it comes to miracles.
Because we bring into it exactly what I've just addressed: a lack of us seeing miracles, and we asked and we didn't get it.
So here are a few points just to guide us, some clear thinking as we enter into this idea of miracles.
Number one is this science speaks to the natural order.
Miracles occur outside what science speaks to.
So it means you can be a person of science and be a person who believes in miracles.
Meaning this one night you lose your keys out in the driveway.
It's dark out, you walk inside, you realize you've lost your keys, you turn the floodlight on, you go back outside to your driveway, you look in all the lit area that the floodlight has lit up, and you determine my keys are lost, my keys do not exist.
Well, that'd be a very limited view because there is space outside the lit up area, right?
There's the darkness.
And possibly your keys are in the darkness.
So that's a philosophical argument to say science speaks to a certain range.
It is the lit up area, the natural order.
Now, do you believe that there is space outside of that?
Well, to say, well, no miracle can occur outside of that, now you have taken a statement and a leap of faith.
Just like the person who says that a miracle could occur outside of it is making a statement of faith.
Miracles happen outside of the natural lit up area.
Number two, miracles are not automated by faith, we've all learned that, but an exception to ordinary processes.
So we hope for them.
Many of us are praying for them right now, for somebody or for ourselves.
And that's good.
We pray for them, but we're not dependent on a miracle to be a person of faith or a person of hope.
And that's also relieving.
Number three, miracles are not a break in the natural order.
Miracles are a restoration of the natural order.
Meaning this miracles are a glimpse of what life should be and will be one day, what life was in Eden before the world was broken, and what life will be one day in heaven when decay and destruction are no longer a part of our lives.
And miracles are a restoration of the natural order.
It's actually what we're headed toward.
Lastly, Jesus' miracles validate him as God and teach us something for our hearts and our lives.
The miracles of Jesus have a distinct purpose.
And the purpose is to validate him within his life and his teaching that he is not just a rabbi and a great teacher or a model, that he actually is divine.
And his miracles validated him to everybody around him.
And teach us something, which is great, because when we come in to read this story of John chapter 2, his first miracle, we get to receive something for our own hearts and lives in Marietta in 2022.
So here's the passage in John 2, 1 through 6.
This is his first miracle.
On the third day, a wedding took place in Canaan and Galilee.
Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, They have no more wine.
Woman, why do you involve me?
Jesus replied.
His mother said to his servants, Do whatever he tells you.
So this groom and his friends would be making a procession from his house to the bride's house.
Probably be on Wednesday.
It'd be at night.
They might be carrying torches.
They would get to the house, they would make welcome speeches, goodwill speeches.
The bride would come with that party process back to the groom's house, and a huge feast would be thrown.
Not sweet tea in the fellowship hall, okay?
I mean, this was, they were going, they were having at it.
This was a party.
It could be a week-long feast and party.
And failing to provide for this feast, this groom's family, failing to provide for it would have been a social humiliation and even have legal ramifications.
It's a big deal for the wine to run out.
So that's why Mary says to Jesus, they have no more wine.
And then in verse 4, Jesus says, Woman, why do you involve me?
My hour has not come.
So the term woman there, it's not a derogatory term.
It's not like woman.
It's like darling.
He's like, darling, beloved, my hour's not come.
And when Jesus uses this word hour throughout the book of John, he's always referring to his death for us.
Our sin put upon him who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.
So every time he says hour, he's talking about his death.
So Jesus is at this party, he's dealing with this issue, but at the same time, he's teaching about something else.
So what does the miracle have for us today?
Point number one.
The wine of the world always runs out.
You may have heard about it yesterday morning.
Big, big U12 girls uh soccer team game.
Big big deal in my life, most stressful hour of my week.
Fourth grade team, my team, we were playing some fifth graders.
You see it right away when you walk on the field.
Not a good feeling, not a good feeling.
And right away we're like, okay, but we went up 2-0.
Feeling good.
Go to halftime.
We're preaching intensity, intensity, intensity, you know, keeping the girls motivated.
Then it goes to 2-1.
Then it goes to 3-1.
So we play kind of a defense heavy there for a little bit, but then it goes to 3-2, and the clock's running out, and the girls just haven't learned how to stall.
You know, like the ball rolls out of bounds, you accidentally kick it further.
You know, like they haven't, you know what I'm talking about.
They haven't mastered that art.
It's like, it's a minute and a half here.
I can burn a minute and a half real quick.
Gotta tie my shoe.
You know, I mean like all sorts of things.
But we're playing, we pull it out, three to two.
Huge victory.
Fourth graders, meeting fifth graders, huge victory for us.
I mean massive.
I know you already heard about it.
It's a huge U12 girls soccer game.
And 30 minutes later, I'm at home reworking the lineup for next week.
30 minutes.
That's how long that victory was like wonderful for me.
It took about the drive home 10 minutes, and it's like, oh, let's go make some changes.
You know, like that's how long.
That's it, not a great illustration, but you get my point.
And the point is, you win and you still don't win.
Right?
Like you get what you want and you it still doesn't end.
That's the world.
It just doesn't end.
It was great, great victory.
And then you're just like, let's get the next one.
Right?
Like that's just that's the world.
And it's not that it's all evil, the world's all evil, it's just that it doesn't satisfy.
It runs out.
It just doesn't hold up to its promise.
Point number two, the wine of religion also runs out.
So the kind of way to think about this, Tim Keller developed, is is world or secular religion and gospel.
So we can break it down this way, and I've reworded it.
It's not exactly as he worded it.
The world can say like this I obtain or I merit.
Influence, beauty, money, sex, you could keep filling in options there.
I obtain or I merit, I get it.
I get it.
Then I am whole.
If I get it, then I am whole.
That's the world.
So it keeps you busy your whole life.
Keeps you exhausted.
Religion, also exhausting.
I obey, then I am accepted.
That's religion.
You see how it's all demand?
We call that the closed circle of the law.
That the law is always in demand over you.
You need to do something, and then you will be.
It's like it's a closed circle, just keeping you busy and exhausted, slowly wearing you down.
But the gospel is God's love to you while you are broken.
That's why we say it every week.
The gospel says this I'm already accepted.
In God's grace, I am accepted.
In God's grace, I am whole.
I'm forgiven, fully righteous.
Therefore, because I'm accepted, I am whole and I grow in obedience.
It's a totally different way of life.
Two weeks ago, we went to the North Georgia Fair.
Maybe you like the rides.
We're not ride people.
We like the food and we like the shows.
I saw a man get shot out of a cannon.
Like 50 feet in the air, like like half- did you see it?
Who has seen the man get shot out of the cannon?
It's amazing.
Totally unneeded.
Right?
And awesome.
Like 50 feet in the air, like half a football field is just flying through the air.
It's unbelievable.
Our favorite though is the pig race.
The pig race is the highlight.
It's such a highlight, my wife really thought she needed to catch a video of it.
So here's like the last 15 seconds of the thrilling.
And just by watching that clip, you're a little confused why a crowd would be this excited.
And it's because the beginning of the race was quite different from the end of the race.
The end of the race is actually kind of how we want life to feel like.
You're just kind of plotting along, just you know, around in the corner to the finish line.
That's how we want life to feel like.
We just want it to be moving and smooth and round the corner to the finish line.
That's what we want it to feel like.
Now, the beginning of the race was totally different.
It's also why the crowd got so excited when the pigs actually moved, because they came out of the start, and even before corner number one, just the biggest pig turned sideways in the track and just blocked it, and then the rest just smooshed up against them.
And then it's right when you think like they're gonna push through, it's like, no, they're just happy to stay smooshed up together for a long time.
And you just stand there until somebody gets motivated to turn and they went a little bit further, then another pig turned sideways and blocked the whole track.
That's why we're so excited.
Now, perfect illustration for life, right?
Because that's actually what life feels like.
It feels much more like the beginning of the race than the end.
It doesn't feel like we're always moving nice and smooth toward the finish line.
Life feels a lot, much more like we're hitting a wall.
We back up, we stall out, we change directions, we move again forward, praise God, and then we hit another wall.
We feel condemned, something happens, we're ashamed, guilty, we're not enough.
Then we move again.
And the more that we move forward with our hearts engaged toward world or religion, the more walls we hit.
The more we're being worn down, exhausted, and condemned.
We get stuck.
And the last thing that you or I need when we're in those moments, the last thing we need is somebody or something telling us in that moment of exhaustion, when we have nothing left, is to be told we need to do something else.
Or we need to be something else.
And Gerhard Forday's book on being a theologian of the cross, he writes this God is not one who waits to approve those who have improved themselves, made themselves acceptable, or merited approval, but one who bestows good on the bad and needy.
The love of God creates precisely out of nothing.
Therefore, the sinner must be reduced to nothing in order to be saved.
Only the friends of the cross who have been reduced to nothing are properly prepared to receive the justifying grace poured out by the creative love of God.
All other roads are closed.
It's by becoming nothing that we become wealthy.
In our nothingness we receive the grace of God, which makes us whole.
Therefore we grow in godliness.
The story continues in John 2.
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used for the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water.
So they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, Now draw out, now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.
They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine.
He did not realize where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.
And then he called the bridegroom aside and said, Everyone brings out the choice wine first, and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink.
But you have saved the best till now.
What Jesus did here in Cana Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
Point number three is this Jesus turns the water of law, which is works righteousness, into the wine of grace, which is Christ's righteousness.
He turns the water of law into the wine of grace.
So six huge stone jars, each with about 27 gallons, about 160 gallons total, about 900 glasses of wine.
Usually the host would save the cheapest stuff toward the end because everybody's a little tipsy and they're not gonna notice.
But no, not in this situation.
The best comes out later on.
So here Jesus helps this host lavishly.
There's a lavishness here of quality, and there's a lavishness here of quantity.
Because the stone jars were for Jewish rites of purification.
And therein lies what Jesus is teaching within this miracle.
Because the Jews in Jesus' day they had this complicated cleansing ritual to feel pure before God.
They would use this water and they would bathe themselves and they'd have to do all this to feel pure before God.
Now, we do need good moral law.
We need it.
It guides us to how we should act, how we should think, what we should do.
It is all true, it is good, it's holy.
And at the same time, it guides us, it definitely breaks us because we don't always live up to it doing.
So in this way, the law helps us become nothing, that we might receive God's grace.
The water of law needs to lead us to the wine of grace.
Now, this religious law, these people were living under with these jars of water, this was religious law on steroids.
Just it going out of hand.
People trying to make themselves clean before God and doing this over and over and over again.
It would be an undie.
Now, the good news to your exhaustion, and my exhaustion of trying to be enough or pure enough or whole enough, is Jesus fulfilled the law.
He lived the perfect life that we do not live.
He took the cross, any death or sacrifice needed by us for our mistakes.
And he gives to us all the forgiveness we ever need and all the righteous we ever need.
This is what it means to live in God's grace.
This is the message translation of Galatians 3, 11 through, I'm reading all the way down through, I don't know, 14 or 15 or something like that.
It's a bit of reading.
Just sort of like contemplate with me as you as you hear it, just kind of like let this wash over you, this truth.
The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way.
The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him.
Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you.
Habakkuk had it right.
The person who believes God is set right by God, and that's the real life.
Rule keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule keeping, a fact observed in Scripture.
The one who does these things, rule keeping, continues to live by them.
Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself.
Do you remember the scriptures that say, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree?
That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross.
He became a curse and at the same time dissolved the curse.
And now, because of that, the air is cleared.
And we can see that Abraham's blessing is present and available for non-Jews too.
We are all able to receive God's life, his spirit in and with us by believing.
Just the way Abraham received it.
Now, think back to those jars of water.
That ritual of law these people be doing over and over and over again.
If they do it enough, you know, then they're pure.
Now listen to the end of Galatians 3.
But now you have arrived at your destination.
By faith in Christ, you are in direct relationship with God.
Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start, it also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe, Christ's life.
The fulfillment of God's original promise.
To be put together, to get our acts together, to be enough before each other, or to be enough before God.
Cleanse yourself enough.
Pray enough.
Be enough.
So then you can be whole or accepted.
And the gospel is the opposite.
Through Christ, you are accepted.
You are forgiven.
You are pure.
Therefore, you grow in grace and godliness.
This is what it means not to live under the covenant of law, but to live under the covenant of grace.
The law leads us to grace.
The water of law must lead us to the relief and the celebration of the wine of grace.
There, our hearts are relieved, healed, changed, and begin not just to perform obedience, but to desire to obey the Lord and honor Him.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for your grace to us that the water of law does, in fact, lead us to the wine of grace.
That we need your law.
God, may we respect and honor your law even more.
For it guides us of how we should live.
And yet at the same time, may we receive the humility to know that we do not live up to what you have asked us.
We are more broken than we originally thought.
But we are more loved by you, more provided, more provided for by you in Christ.
For all the forgiveness we need, all the secure identity we need, all the justification, all the righteousness that we would ever need comes by gift.
The great sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, your grace to us.
Help us to live not under the burden of the covenant of law, but under the greatness, the relief, celebration of the covenant of grace.
And may your spirit and our hearts work this deeper into us that we might honor you in always.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.