SPEAKER_01: John chapter 2, verses 1 to 11.
SPEAKER_01: God's word says this, follow with me as I read.
SPEAKER_01: On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, They have no wine.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to her, Woman, what does this have to do with me?
SPEAKER_01: My hour has not yet come.
SPEAKER_01: His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you.
SPEAKER_01: Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water, and they filled them up to the brim.
SPEAKER_01: And he said to them, Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.
SPEAKER_01: So they took it, and when the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine, and he did not know where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine, but you have kept the good wine until now.
SPEAKER_01: This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
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SPEAKER_01: W.
SPEAKER_01: Tozer in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, an excellent little devotional that I've seen tucked under the arms of a number of Manual Bible Church members in the last couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01: He begins that book with this justly famous quote.
SPEAKER_01: He says, What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
SPEAKER_01: I think you could quibble with that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you would say, maybe not the most important thing about us is what we think about God, but what God thinks about us.
SPEAKER_01: And we could have a bit of a debate about that.
SPEAKER_01: But I think that Tozer's words hit the mark in this respect that they're, I think they echo pretty closely the Apostle John's words as he concludes this gospel.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 20, at the end of this book, John tells us the reason that everything in this little gospel was written.
SPEAKER_01: In John 20, in verse 31, he says, These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that's written in this book is written in order to put Jesus on display for you, so that you might see the truth about Jesus, and that you might believe the truth about Jesus, and by believing in him, you would have life, life eternal.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the most important thing about you is that you know the true Jesus and you trust in him.
SPEAKER_01: And so John begins to undo that from the very opening lines of his gospel.
SPEAKER_01: He begins to unfold before us the truth about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he begins, of course, in chapter one with this incredible prologue where he describes Jesus as none other than God himself.
SPEAKER_01: You know the famous opening lines of this gospel where he says that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is distinguished from God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He's with God, and yet he is God.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the Word, and he was with God, and the Word was God, fully divine, all the fullness of God dwells in him.
SPEAKER_01: And this word who was in the beginning with God and fully God has become flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 14, John says, We have seen his glory, glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: And this book is concerned with unpacking and displaying before us the glory of Jesus, the glory of grace and truth, the only Son of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: For from his fullness we receive grace upon grace.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the only place that you can receive grace is in Jesus, the Jesus unfolded before us in this book.
SPEAKER_01: So that the rest of chapter one concerns with setting up the scene wherein Jesus will begin to act in order to reveal his own glory, to manifest his glory so that we might see it and believe it.
SPEAKER_01: So the rest of chapter one, Jesus is beginning to reveal himself through the witness of John the Baptist, and then he begins to call disciples to himself.
SPEAKER_01: And the end of chapter one, you'll notice just the last couple verses before our text, if you look down in your Bibles, he's just called Philip and Nathaniel, and he displays his glory before them, and they begin to believe in him, and he says to Nathaniel in verse 51 of chapter 1 Truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: This Jesus, who's going to be displayed before us as we read through this book, is unlike anything you have ever seen.
SPEAKER_01: He is himself the gateway to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He is himself, God made flesh, revealing his glory and giving you grace upon grace.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2 is the beginning of Jesus' revelation of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Throughout the book of John, John unfolds before us a number of signs wherein Jesus reveals something of his power and his glory, and each sign follows with a dialogue in which Jesus explains the meaning of the miracle, the meaning of the sign.
SPEAKER_01: So we have in chapter two he turns water into wine.
SPEAKER_01: We have in chapter four he heals a person.
SPEAKER_01: And on through the rest of the gospel, we see Jesus healing, raising the dead, and finally the grand culminating miracle when he resurrects from the dead himself.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2 is the first of these signs, the first of Jesus' self-revelation of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, it is the only miracle in which he doesn't have a dialogue following it explaining the sign.
SPEAKER_01: This is the one miracle that is so self-evident.
SPEAKER_01: It so self-evidently reveals what Jesus is like, who Jesus is, that it doesn't even need explanation.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's also interesting to note that as the first of his signs, it's carefully orchestrated.
SPEAKER_01: You can imagine if you were beginning a new job, if you were beginning some kind of public campaign for political office, when you're beginning some new endeavor, your first steps towards that endeavor are carefully planned, aren't they?
SPEAKER_01: You want to put your best foot forward.
SPEAKER_01: You want to display something that's at the heart and the center of who you are and what you're going to be about.
SPEAKER_01: And in John chapter 2, the first of Jesus' miracles, that's exactly what Jesus is doing.
SPEAKER_01: The first of his self-revelatory signs is going to reveal something that's at the very heart of who Jesus is and how he relates to us.
SPEAKER_01: What I want to do is walk through this chapter with us in three chapters, three stages in this story as it unfolds.
SPEAKER_01: And as we do, we'll get a picture of who Jesus is and how he reveals his glory in the form of grace to us.
SPEAKER_01: Three stages along this journey.
SPEAKER_01: There's a celebration, there's a conversation, and there's a revelation.
SPEAKER_01: We'll take them in in turn.
SPEAKER_01: First, the first thing we see in this text is there's a celebration.
SPEAKER_01: It's in verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_01: You look down in your Bibles at verse 1, there's a celebration in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana and Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Now the third day is the third day since Jesus has gathered these disciples and he's told them, I'm going to show you things that you can't even imagine.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where Jesus is going to begin to do just that.
SPEAKER_01: And this wedding is where he's going to begin to display his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And this wedding takes place, the text says, in Cana in Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've read the Gospel of John before, you've heard of that.
SPEAKER_01: But other than the Gospel of John, you would never have heard of Cana in Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Cana in Galilee is about eight miles north of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up.
SPEAKER_01: Nazareth is a hodunk little village in the backwater of Galilee in the north of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing good from there.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Nathaniel says, the disciple that Jesus calls at the end of chapter 1, he calls Nathanael, and Nathanael says, Can anything good come from Nazareth?
SPEAKER_01: That's who Jesus had been introduced to him as.
SPEAKER_01: Philip, Nathaniel's brother, says, We have found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: And Nathaniel's just gut reaction is, can anything good come from Nazareth?
SPEAKER_01: At the end of this book, in John chapter 20, tells us that Nathaniel is from Cana, which is just a couple miles up the road, and it's even smaller than Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: So when Jesus says at the end of John chapter 1 that Nathanael is a Jew in whom there is no guile, I mean he's speaking the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Nathanael doesn't say, can anything good come out of Nazareth?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's looking down his nose at Nazareth, but because he himself is an inhabitant of one of these forgotten little villages in the north backwater of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And as a resident of this little village himself, he knows there's nothing important here.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing worth noting ever takes place where we live.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody from where we grow up ever amounts to anything.
SPEAKER_01: We are just forgotten, humble farmers, carpenters, tinkers.
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody even knows where we live.
SPEAKER_01: But in this forgotten little village, is exactly where Jesus wants to begin his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: This is where Jesus, the God who made the universe, who holds the whole universe in orbit, with a word of his power, wants to reveal his glory in Cana.
SPEAKER_01: There's something about the intimacy of Jesus Christ revealed just in the location he chooses to begin displaying his glory.
SPEAKER_01: He's a God who knows the details of his people's lives.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is in Cana, and it says that in verse 1, it's a wedding where he's going to begin displaying his glory.
SPEAKER_01: It's a wedding where the mother of Jesus is, and of course, people are going to be invited to this wedding.
SPEAKER_01: A wedding is the largest event in the life of a small village.
SPEAKER_01: And so if this town is just a few miles up the road, there's maybe 500 inhabitants, probably not even that number, then many of these folks would be related, they would all know one another, they would know the inhabitants of the neighboring villages.
SPEAKER_01: And the nature of a wedding is that everyone would be invited.
SPEAKER_01: And so, of course, Jesus' mother would be invited, and of course, Jesus and his disciples would be invited as well.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to note before we go any further that you'll notice that Jesus' mother is invited.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're familiar with the Bible at all, in your mind you automatically say, Mary.
SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't say Mary.
SPEAKER_01: Mary in this gospel, the Gospel of John, is only mentioned twice here and in chapter 19, when Jesus is being crucified, he looks at her and he hands care of his mother over to his beloved disciple John.
SPEAKER_01: Only two times she's mentioned in the whole gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And here, she's not even mentioned by name.
SPEAKER_01: She's just the mother of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And what John is emphasizing is that Mary's not the point.
SPEAKER_01: What matters is her relation to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What matters is her love for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is on display in this text.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is invited as well to this wedding, which I said is the largest event in the life of a small village and of all its inhabitants.
SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, all of these Jews three times a year would have traveled to Jerusalem for the major festivals.
SPEAKER_01: But outside of that, life in the village would have centered around the daily grind of work and the occasional wedding, which would have been a major celebration.
SPEAKER_01: The way that a wedding would be arranged, and most of them would have been arranged, was by a betrothal, a legally binding process in which the bride and the groom would have been arranged to be marriage, and the groom would have then been responsible to prepare a home.
SPEAKER_01: He would have spent at least a year laboring and laboring to build a home and to prepare everything that was necessary to receive his bride and to begin their life together.
SPEAKER_01: And the culmination wherein they would consummate the marriage, there would be a great feast that would last often up to a week.
SPEAKER_01: A week celebration when all of your friends, all of your family, everyone from the village and the neighboring villages would come and they would celebrate with you as you begin your new life.
SPEAKER_01: This public, this public covenant ceremony wherein the two become one, one flesh for life.
SPEAKER_01: It's celebrated publicly, communally, and you know what?
SPEAKER_01: The groom's responsible for all of it.
SPEAKER_01: The nature of this feast is that it is the groom's responsibility to provide for all of his guests.
SPEAKER_01: And it's absolutely crucial that he do this and do it well.
SPEAKER_01: The rabbinic texts that shortly follow the time of the New Testament tell us that the groom is expected not just to provide for his guests, but to provide so that there will be abundant leftovers after the guests are done a week later.
SPEAKER_01: And any groom who fails to sufficiently supply for his guests is listed among the worst of thieves.
SPEAKER_01: Which means it would be a big deal if this groom fails to adequately provide for his wedding guests, which is exactly what happens, and it leads us to the next scene in the story: a conversation.
SPEAKER_01: A conversation.
SPEAKER_01: We've seen a celebration, and now we see a conversation.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at verse 3 in the text.
SPEAKER_01: It says, When the wine ran out.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is in this groom's mind, in his family's mind, in his friend's mind, this is the worst thing that could possibly happen in his life.
SPEAKER_01: This is the one event, the one time that he is responsible for the care of everyone around him, and he has just utterly and entirely failed to perform his duty to demonstrate that he is capable of providing for his bride and raising a family and doing anything worthwhile in society.
SPEAKER_01: This would put his marriage at jeopardy, it would put the start of his life at jeopardy, it would put his reputation in jeopardy and his community for all time.
SPEAKER_01: Because as sometimes as Westerners were reminded that one of the features of an ancient Near Eastern society was a high level of honor and shame.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of these ultimately shameful acts that you could commit in the eyes of your fellow villagers and the eyes of your family is to fail to supply for your wedding guest.
SPEAKER_01: You're a dirty thief.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is at stake in this man's mind.
SPEAKER_01: And so Mary goes to him with this little problem, and she says, Jesus in verse 3, they have no wine.
SPEAKER_01: And you notice she doesn't plead, she doesn't grovel, she doesn't lose her mind, she just goes to Jesus and she says very simply, Jesus, they don't have any wine.
SPEAKER_01: Why does she go to Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: I think we know why she goes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Jesus is probably about 30 years old at this point, and it's likely that Mary has become a widow at some point between the last time we saw Jesus when he was about 12, and he begins his public ministry at age 30.
SPEAKER_01: It's likely that Mary has become a widow.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph doesn't show up anymore in the story at the end of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_01: It seems that he's been responsible for caring for her as the firstborn in the family, and then he transfers that care to his disciple John.
SPEAKER_01: It's likely that Mary has become very much accustomed to Jesus taking care of her needs.
SPEAKER_01: And beyond that, Mary has spent 30 years with this man who has never had a single bad idea.
SPEAKER_01: There's never been a problem that he didn't know the solution to.
SPEAKER_01: Mary has gotten very accustomed to there's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is here.
SPEAKER_01: And more than that, Mary knows what nobody else knows.
SPEAKER_01: She knows how Jesus came into this world.
SPEAKER_01: She knows that she was a virgin at his birth.
SPEAKER_01: She knows that he is the Son of God who has come to redeem his people, to save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_01: And in the last chapter, Jesus, it seemed, had begun to act, to fulfill his messianic mission.
SPEAKER_01: He'd begun to reveal himself through the witness of John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_01: He'd gathered disciples.
SPEAKER_01: The disciples are here at this wedding.
SPEAKER_01: It seems like Jesus is ready to reveal himself as Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: And so she just calmly says to him, Jesus, there's no wine.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you're going to do, but I know that you will do something.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very reasonable response.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus' response is, I think, at first glance, very unexpected.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to her, Woman, what does this have to do with me?
SPEAKER_01: My hour has not yet come.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_01: When you read this English text, it sounds a little bit like woman?
SPEAKER_01: That's how I read it.
SPEAKER_01: And yet that's not at all what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: You'll notice as you read through the Gospel of John and the other Gospels that Jesus uses this address half a dozen times.
SPEAKER_01: Woman, and it's always courteous, it's always loving, it's always kind.
SPEAKER_01: It's the way he addresses women before he heals them.
SPEAKER_01: So in Matthew in chapter 15, and on and on, we could find times when Jesus addresses woman, great is your faith, be it done to you as you have asked, and he heals someone.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a rude response.
SPEAKER_01: Even in though in modern English, you would not address your mother this way.
SPEAKER_01: In other modern languages, in Espanol, for instance, to say mujer, to say woman, in many instances is not rude.
SPEAKER_01: It's perfectly courteous.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is being perfectly courteous to his mother, but it is highly unusual for a son to address his mother this way.
SPEAKER_01: It's courteous, but it's putting distance between him and his mother.
SPEAKER_01: And you see this even in the way that he follows up his address.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Woman, what does this have to do with me?
SPEAKER_01: Literally, what to you and to me?
SPEAKER_01: It's an expression that's it's a very Semitic expression.
SPEAKER_01: It's used in the Old Testament, it's used a couple places in the New Testament to indicate that there's no dealing between us.
SPEAKER_01: We're not partners, we're not equals, we don't have a share in this.
SPEAKER_01: What he's doing with his mother is he is affirming to her the nature of their relationship.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I am sovereign here.
SPEAKER_01: I am not your servant, I am not even merely or primarily your son.
SPEAKER_01: I'm your savior.
SPEAKER_01: I'm your sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: I'm your Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Some have said that the way to translate this maybe would be to say, ma'am, or there we've come up with a number of different ways to translate it.
SPEAKER_01: And yet I don't think any of them are quite adequate because all the ways that you would otherwise translate this little expression seem to be looking up.
SPEAKER_01: A son looking up towards his mother and addressing her respectfully.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is actually, if anything, looking down.
SPEAKER_01: And he's telling Mary, Mary, I am sovereign, I am good, I am powerful, I am free, and I am going to fulfill the prerogatives, not of my mother, but of my heavenly father, and right now you just need to trust me.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he says in the following expression as well, where he says, What does this have to do with me?
SPEAKER_01: My hour has not yet come.
SPEAKER_01: And you ask, what hour is he talking about?
SPEAKER_01: And this is an example of John being a very good author.
SPEAKER_01: That hour begs the question, what hour are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01: And as you continue reading, you find that this is a motif through the rest of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus continues to talk about his hour, his hour, his hour, his hour.
SPEAKER_01: And as you read through the gospel, it becomes clear what Jesus is talking about is his mission to die for the sins of his people, resurrect from the dead, and be glorified at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He tells us exactly in John 17 what he's talking about when he begins his prayer to the Father in John 17 with these words Father, the hour has come.
SPEAKER_01: Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about his messianic mission to fulfill all the covenants and the promises of God, to save his people from their sins, to be glorified at the right hand of the Father for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus is affirming to Mary is, Mary, you know exactly who I am.
SPEAKER_01: You know I'm not just a really good problem solver.
SPEAKER_01: You know that I'm the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here firstly and primarily to fulfill my Father's will.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be glorified over all the universe.
SPEAKER_01: That's my prerogative.
SPEAKER_01: You can trust me, Mary.
SPEAKER_01: I know there's no wine.
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever I'm going to do will be wiser than you could have imagined and better than you could have imagined, but I'm not here to serve you.
SPEAKER_01: And look at Mary's response.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't argue, she doesn't complain, she doesn't say, you don't understand how important this is, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: She just says, okay, and turns to the servants and tells them, do whatever he tells you.
SPEAKER_01: That's the response to the real Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Just do whatever he tells you.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible response.
SPEAKER_01: This is the nature of a genuine, saving response to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Just do whatever he tells you.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna come back to this as we come to the end of the story, but this conversation then leads to a revelation because, in fact, after Jesus has Mary rather has revealed this problem to Jesus, and Jesus has asserted that he's going to fulfill his father's prerogatives, it turns out Out that Jesus, in fact, does want to begin revealing himself at this exact moment.
SPEAKER_01: But he's gonna do it in a most mysterious way.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6 says, now, just as an aside, there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of water.
SPEAKER_01: On your 30 gallons, it's over 500 liters.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of water.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 7, Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water.
SPEAKER_01: And so they filled them up, and they filled them up to the brim, which is an interesting little note.
SPEAKER_01: And it certainly precludes the possibility that Jesus was pulling a trick here when he turns the water into wine.
SPEAKER_01: The way that wine works in the ancient world is there's no refrigeration in the ancient world, and so you could make wine with basically any fruit available, and the ancients did make wine with many different fruits.
SPEAKER_01: This area is a major area for viticulture, and so grapes were the most common fruit used for wine, which won't blow any of your minds, but they would make wine and it would ferment, but they would not drink straight wine.
SPEAKER_01: They would not make drink unmixed wine.
SPEAKER_01: That was a barbarian act to drink unmixed wine.
SPEAKER_01: They would dilute it.
SPEAKER_01: And they would dilute it either between one part wine and three parts water, or one part wine and ten parts water.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like what you would get off the grocery store shelves in modern America.
SPEAKER_01: It was a different kind of a drink.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you have these water jars that are not entirely filled, then this miracle would be subject to the objection that, well, Jesus just dumped in a little bit of wine and made mixed wine, and then that's that's not a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus makes sure that they fill the jars all the way to the brim.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 8, he says, Wine.
SPEAKER_01: Or abracadabra or anything.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: He just has them fill the jars and says, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.
SPEAKER_01: And they took it.
SPEAKER_01: It's just that's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing out of the ordinary here.
SPEAKER_01: It's so unbelievably understated.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus isn't concerned with drawing anyone's attention.
SPEAKER_01: He isn't concerned with overwhelming you with his sleight of hand.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is just providing for people's needs.
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what happens in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: As you see in verse 9, so they took it, and when the master of the feast tasted the water that had now become wine, where had it become wine?
SPEAKER_01: Well there's where what?
SPEAKER_01: This this sovereign power of Jesus, Jesus is not, in some ways, he's not impressed with it.
SPEAKER_01: He's not here to be a magician.
SPEAKER_01: He's not here just to gather a crowd.
SPEAKER_01: He's here to provide for his people.
SPEAKER_01: You see this in the rest of the text.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: It says that this water had somehow become wine.
SPEAKER_01: The master of the feast doesn't know where it had become wine.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know that it used to be water.
SPEAKER_01: And that's pointed out to you in order to demonstrate that this is an objective judge who's going to try this wine and say, This really is wine, and it's really good wine.
SPEAKER_01: But the servants who had drawn the water knew.
SPEAKER_01: And so the master of the feast called the bridegroom and he said, Everyone serves good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine.
SPEAKER_01: But you have kept the good wine until now.
SPEAKER_01: Which just makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way that you would do anything.
SPEAKER_01: What this master of the feast, this wedding coordinator on steroids, you could say, what he's attesting is that this is unbelievable wine.
SPEAKER_01: This is better than anything I have ever had.
SPEAKER_01: And it just makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus has done is he has subtly, calmly, entirely patiently, without any effort whatsoever, supernaturally created wine out of nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Kingdom wine.
SPEAKER_01: Wine that bypassed seed and soil and vine and harvest and fermentation.
SPEAKER_01: Straight to the finished product, absolute perfection.
SPEAKER_01: What he's doing is he's giving just a slight whisper, a tiny taste of what life with Jesus in his kingdom is like.
SPEAKER_01: And in this miracle, he has absolutely fulfilled every need of his friends.
SPEAKER_01: He's taken away the shame of the groom.
SPEAKER_01: He has restored the name to his family.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he's enhanced it because this guy is dealing out the best wine anyone has ever had.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Jesus is doing is a supernatural miracle to reveal something of his care for his people.
SPEAKER_01: That's what his disciples see in verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: See, verse 11 says, This is the first of his signs.
SPEAKER_01: And notice the way the text is constructed, it's a little bit awkward if you read it in English.
SPEAKER_01: At least I think it's awkward.
SPEAKER_01: This, the first of his signs, here's the emphasis.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
SPEAKER_01: In this miracle, Jesus reveals his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Not just his glory to powerfully create out of nothing, but in the location he chooses to do it, the people for whom he chooses to do it, he reveals his glory, the glory of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_01: What is revealing is life with this Jesus, life with this Savior, is a life marked by overflowing and abundant joy.
SPEAKER_01: It's a life marked by love.
SPEAKER_01: It's a life marked by celebration.
SPEAKER_01: It's life in his kingdom is a life of intimacy.
SPEAKER_01: It's a life of goodness.
SPEAKER_01: It's a life of satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01: This is the king.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Messiah who has come into the world to reveal the nature of God, to reveal what God is like, to reveal who God is.
SPEAKER_01: And the first thing that he's going to do is intimately at this tiny little town that no one has ever heard of, he is going to fulfill his people's needs.
SPEAKER_01: He is going to satisfy them and give them great and abundant joy.
SPEAKER_01: That's the king that has come into the world.
SPEAKER_01: That's the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: This is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the giver of joy.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus the giver of all things good.
SPEAKER_01: This is the real Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is the picture that I think Jesus wants us to see of himself, but I said we were going to come back to the end, at the end, to the response to this Jesus that Mary demonstrates for us in verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: The text ends by saying that the disciples believed in him.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how can you not believe in a Jesus like this?
SPEAKER_01: How can you not believe in the Messiah who's come into the world to give his people joy?
SPEAKER_01: But I think that response, the response to Jesus, is even more fleshed out to us by this first of his disciples, his mother, Mary.
SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus has already in the text, as we walk through it, shown Mary's role in his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: He's clarified her relationship to him and her role in his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: She is not a participant, she's not co-redeemer in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the only mediator between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: Mary is not a means of accessing him, but she's a fellow worshiper with us.
SPEAKER_01: Just as she confesses in her magnificat in Luke's gospel, she rejoices in God, her Savior.
SPEAKER_01: That's who she sees in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: She's a fellow worshiper with us, but as such, she pictures for us the right and the appropriate response to this amazing Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And she does it in one simple sentence.
SPEAKER_01: So just for a couple minutes to close our time this morning, I want to go back to Mary's little sentence and I want to walk through it part by part.
SPEAKER_01: This is the way to respond to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever he tells you, do it.
SPEAKER_01: And I've just reversed the order that's in our English translations because this is actually the word order in the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever he tells you, do it.
SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible response.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what she says.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever he tells you, do it.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the context again at verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 5, Jesus has just told her, Mary, don't worry, I'm Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can trust me.
SPEAKER_01: And so she turns to the servants, and the servants probably aren't professional servants.
SPEAKER_01: They may well just be relatives who maybe have a little skin in the game and they're worried and they're concerned.
SPEAKER_01: Like this is a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: We got to get this straightened out.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, Whatever Jesus tells you, do it.
SPEAKER_01: Almost like she knew that Jesus was about to tell them something that would sound off the wall crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what Jesus says in verse 7 sounds like.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the text.
SPEAKER_01: It says verse 6, there are six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification.
SPEAKER_01: This has nothing to do with winemaking.
SPEAKER_01: These giant stone jars, stone because stone was considered to be ritually pure and they wouldn't be contaminated.
SPEAKER_01: And you would fill these giant jars up with water and use, you would use them for purification ceremonies, rites, rituals.
SPEAKER_01: You would wash your hands between meals.
SPEAKER_01: You would use this water to wash the pots and the utensils.
SPEAKER_01: This has nothing to do with COVID caution.
SPEAKER_01: This has everything to do with ritual purification.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing to do with wine.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine how this would have grated against the ears of these servants when they are so concerned that their world could be crumbling?
SPEAKER_01: And they looked at Jesus, the one person that Mary says can help them.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, go fill those purification jars with water.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear?
SPEAKER_01: We're out of wine, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Wine, not water.
SPEAKER_01: They're not that similar, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Do you not underst I don't think you understand where wine comes from, Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Mary says, Jesus is the kind of person that whatever he tells you, you do it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the second part of her statement is so important.
SPEAKER_01: Because there will be things that Jesus says to you that grate against your ears that sound like they have nothing to do with the problem as you have identified it.
SPEAKER_01: You have identified this major problem that you need taken care of.
SPEAKER_01: Things are falling apart, or things can't be fixed, or things need to be made right, and you see the solution, and yet Jesus says, fill the water pots.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: And yet Mary says Jesus is the kind of person that whatever he tells you, no matter how irrelevant, no matter how hard, no matter how unnatural, no matter how painful that sounds, whatever he says, do it.
SPEAKER_01: He is the kind of person that you can trust and you can do whatever he tells you.
SPEAKER_01: And look at who Jesus has just shown himself to be in this text.
SPEAKER_01: He is the God of joy, of goodness, of intimacy, and love.
SPEAKER_01: He has supplied all the needs of his people through this seemingly absolutely irrelevant command.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus knew what he was doing.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't just sh putting on a display.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was supplying every need even better than they could have possibly hoped or thought or imagined.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he did it in his own sovereign way.
SPEAKER_01: This is a Jesus that you can trust.
SPEAKER_01: This Jesus who gives joy.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever he tells you, do it.
SPEAKER_01: You see this also, not just in his fulfilling their needs and supplying the wine and celebrating with them, but you see it even in this little whisper of what he's going to do ultimately in his messianic ministry in verse 5, or verse 4 rather, where he tells Mary, My hour has not yet come.
SPEAKER_01: And he tells Mary, Mary, the whole reason that I have come to earth is to supply the needs of my people more than they could ever have imagined or even asked for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: You're concerned about wine.
SPEAKER_01: You're concerned about your reputation.
SPEAKER_01: I'm concerned with restoring you to God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm concerned with satisfying the just wrath of God that is upon you for your sins against him.
SPEAKER_01: I'm concerned with restoring the breach between you and God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm concerned with restoring restoring your relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm concerned not just in wine in this world, but forever in the next.
SPEAKER_01: I'm concerned that you will draw forever, infinitely from the wells of my kingdom, joy and grace upon grace upon grace forever.
SPEAKER_01: I've come into the world to stand in your place and bear the curse that you deserve from God, that you should suffer in hell forever.
SPEAKER_01: I've come to scoop you up out of hell and bring you into my kingdom where the wine will never run out.
SPEAKER_01: And this miracle is just a whisper of the joy that Jesus will supply to his people forever.
SPEAKER_01: If this Jesus loves you enough to endure infinite wrath on your behalf, then he also loves you enough to give your heart infinite joy.
SPEAKER_01: And whatever this Jesus tells you, whatever he tells you, you can do it.
SPEAKER_01: Which is where Mary leads us.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever he tells you, do it.
SPEAKER_01: Trust him and do it.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus will tell you to do crazy things.
SPEAKER_01: As he continues to reveal himself as the Messiah and to articulate what it means to be one of his disciples, to be a kingdom citizen, to be part of his life, he says some pretty crazy things.
SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 9, he says, If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.
SPEAKER_01: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
SPEAKER_01: For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits himself?
SPEAKER_01: Or again, in Luke 14, Jesus says, Anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, deny yourself, lose your life, renounce all that you have.
SPEAKER_01: And Mary says, Whatever this Jesus tells you, do it.
SPEAKER_01: This Jesus you can trust, this Jesus you can follow.
SPEAKER_01: When this Jesus tells you not to be anxious about your life, to be content with your wages, to put to death what is earthly in you, to forgive 70 times seven, to count others more important than yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever he tells you to do, do it.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is the Jesus that came to bring infinite joy.
SPEAKER_01: Joy you can find nowhere else in this world because you weren't made for this world.
SPEAKER_01: You were made to know this Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You were made to know that he is the Son of God and to believe in him, and in believing have life in his name.
SPEAKER_01: And the only rational or reasonable response to believing in the real Jesus is to see him as he is, this infinitely beautiful and glorious and worthy Lord, to hear what he says and do it, and do whatever he says.
SPEAKER_01: And just as Mary has demonstrated, as Jesus has demonstrated, this is the way to experience the joy of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: I want to close by just flipping over a couple pages in your Bibles to John and chapter 14.
SPEAKER_01: Because what is on display in chapter 2, Jesus, in his last conversation with his disciples in the upper room before he's crucified, in John chapter 14, he makes this lesson explicit for his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is an appropriate place for us to finish this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 14, verse 21, Jesus over and over, day after day, has shown his disciples that he's the Messiah who has come to bring kingdom joy.
SPEAKER_01: And in this verse, he tells us how to know it, how to know kingdom joy.
SPEAKER_01: Verse chapter 14, verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.
SPEAKER_01: And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
SPEAKER_01: Just as Jesus manifests himself through miracles to the disciples in his earthly life, Jesus has now ascended to the Father and sent his Spirit into the world, and he manifests himself to his people in a special way.
SPEAKER_01: We could ask the question that Judas, not Ascariot, does in verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 22, Judas says, How is it that you'll manifest yourself to us and not to the world?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus isn't in the world doing supernatural miracles anymore.
SPEAKER_01: How is he going to manifest himself to us?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and we will make our home with him.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever this Jesus tells you to do, do it.
SPEAKER_01: This Jesus loves you more than you could ever begin to imagine.
SPEAKER_01: And when you begin to see who this Jesus is and you love him back, then the only reasonable, appropriate response is to hear what this loving, joyful, good, kind, glorious Jesus tells you, and do it.
SPEAKER_01: And as you do it, your joy will be full.
SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you that you have given us this portrait of your Son, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that this Jesus is so worthy of our obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we ask now that you would do what you can't do.
SPEAKER_01: Would you send your Spirit to work in our hearts in such a way so as to convict us of sin, convict us of where our unbelief has hidden the glory of Jesus from the eyes of our heart?
SPEAKER_01: Or give us humility to confess our sin.
SPEAKER_01: To expose ourselves to the work of your spirit by your word.
SPEAKER_01: Uncover more of the glory of Jesus before us.
SPEAKER_01: And work a supernatural work in our hearts so that we would love him and respond in love to the love he's given to us.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in his name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.