Introduction:
Manifesting His Glory - What Jesus Wants Us to Know from His First Miracle (John 2:1-12):
- Jesus Cares about what you Care about. (John 2:3)
Matthew 10:29-31 - Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
- Jesus turns Ordinary things into Extrardinary things. (John 2:9)
- Jesus saves the Best for Last. (John 2:10)
Romans 8:18 - For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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01:11-01:13
The Gospel according to John. Are you there?
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The Gospel of John was written to take us from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus.
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And that's our ministry theme this year is knowing Jesus.
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Can you think of anything greater to go after as a church, as a family, as individuals?
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Can you think of anything greater to go after than knowing Jesus Christ?
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That's what we're going after.
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which we find in the Gospel of John.
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Because according to Jesus, eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ, who God the Father sent.
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We saw in chapter 1, these past three weeks, we've seen three glorious truths about knowing Jesus.
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The first one is He's made Himself known.
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That's the only way we know anything about Him is He has made Himself known.
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And we saw from John the Baptist We need to prepare ourselves to know Him.
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Any obstacles in the way, clear them out.
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Prepare the way for the Lord.
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And last week we saw that like all disciples who truly know Jesus Christ, our job is to make Him known.
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So today, Jesus' ministry sort of goes public at a wedding.
02:37-02:51
Now, by virtue of my position, and by virtue of how long I have been doing this job, I would guess that I've probably been to more weddings than most people here.
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Therefore, it follows that I have seen more embarrassing things at weddings, more crazy things at weddings probably most people here.
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And I thought, boy, I could share some stories.
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And I had a whole bunch of stories I was going to share with you.
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I'm just going to share one, because the embarrassment was on me on this one.
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But years ago, I did a wedding for this young couple.
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They were family members of a friend of mine that I used to do services at these senior housing facilities and this young couple came to me because I knew their grandma.
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Okay, and they're like, "We do our weddings, so we went through the whole counseling and the whole rehearsal and went through the whole wedding and the whole rigmarole, so we get done with the wedding." And Erin was with me at the time.
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Sometimes she can't, because of our kid situation, can't go to weddings, but this is, I don't know, was this before kids or?
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Oh, they were small enough that we could contain them at that point.
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Okay, a babysitter could handle them at that point.
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why Aaron was able to join me on this one. So we're like, "Hey, you know, wedding and wedding reception, like, gonna be a great date, right?" Because, I mean, I was dressed up and Aaron, she just looks so beautiful and I'm like taking my girl down to the wedding reception and so we walk into the to the lobby of the banquet hall with a wedding reception. As you know, there's a table set up with all the little, you know, the cards that have the names and the table that you're, where you're supposed to sit.
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You know what I'm talking about?
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Like name, you're table one and you're table 16 or whatever.
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So Aaron and I walk in and like I said, we're just ready for the big party.
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We're looking through the list.
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We're not with the Ms. Maybe it's not alphabetized.
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So we go back over and we're looking at the list again.
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I'm like, "Hey, do you see our name anywhere?" She's like, "Still looking." We're looking, we're looking, we're looking.
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We weren't invited to the reception of the wedding that I just held.
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So this was awkward, because now we're standing in the lobby.
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And I'm like, let's just get out of here.
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So we just kind of snuck out.
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I'm like, you know what?
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I felt so bad for Erin.
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I'm like, I'm going to take her to dinner.
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So we ended up going down the road a little bit to another restaurant.
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I'm like, take my girl to dinner.
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So we go, have a real nice dinner.
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We ended up having a real nice date anyways.
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But we come out of the restaurant, I get back in the car and I open the door and I just happened to glimpse in the backseat of the car, I forgot to give the couple their marriage license.
05:59-06:03
So now, and they were going on a honeymoon, so they needed the documentation.
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So I'm like, I've got to go back in there to this reception, where I wasn't invited the first time.
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So I walk back in, and I kid you not, as I walk in.
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The groom and the whole bridal party, and the bride, they're all up on the stage on their elevated place with the table, and I kid you not, the groom sees me coming.
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And he hollers.
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He's like, "Pastor Jeff!" He goes, "Hey, hey, hey!
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If you're hungry, I think they've got some leftovers in the kitchen!" And I'm like, "Oh, you saved me some scraps from your table?" I'm like, "No, I'm just here to drop off marriage license and I gave it to him and very shamedly walked out of there but there are some crazy things that I have seen at weddings but the craziest thing that has ever happened in a wedding is right here in this passage And in Jesus' day, the wedding was the most important event in the community.
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It's a little different than weddings today.
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Today, when you have a wedding, the bride is the main event, right?
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But in this day, the groom was the main event.
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You see, the couple would get betrothed, which meant they were legally married, but they weren't together.
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But the groom would go away and prepare a place for them, and then he would, unexpected, unannounced, return one day and take his bride to be with him.
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But this return included the wedding festivities, including the wedding reception, which lasted for days, even up to a week.
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And that's important to understand because I hope the story makes sense.
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That this wasn't some hour or two long wedding party.
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This was a days long wedding party.
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Alright?
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So look at verses 1 and 2 here.
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John chapter 2.
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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." So this is the third day.
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This is the day after the whole exchange with Nathaniel we talked about last week.
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And Cana was actually a very, very, very small village.
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And Mary, Jesus' mother, was there.
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And apparently she had some sort of a role in the wedding and the coordination.
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She had some part of it you're going to see here in a second.
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Verse 3, it says, "When the wine ran out, The mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." Now this is a problem.
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Because it was the groom's job - remember I said he went away for a year to prepare a place?
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It was his job to provide for his wife, and it was his job to provide for the wedding party.
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Okay, so he just spent a year trying to prove to his in-laws that he could be a provider for this woman that he is marrying.
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And not off to a great start. Like, "What's the matter, son? You couldn't even provide for the wedding party. You think you're going to provide for my little girl? What's the matter with you?" So this was a problem. Like, what happened here? We don't know. Did he Did he underestimate how many people were coming or how much wine they were going to drink?
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Was it just poor planning?
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Did he run out of money?
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Like, "I wanted to buy more, I just didn't have..." We don't know.
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What we do know is Mary informs Jesus.
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And that's interesting.
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Because when you think about it, I'm not really sure at first why she would have informed Jesus, Because at this point, He hasn't done any miracles.
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So my question is, what was she expecting Him to do?
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Like, "Jesus, can you spot us some money?" Or, "Can you and your disciples pull your money together and run down to sheets or something?" I don't know what she was expecting.
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So why did she bring this problem to Jesus?
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the only real logical answer is, she was his mother.
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And for 30 years of his life, she would have seen nothing but wisdom from him, right?
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Great choices, great ideas.
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That's all she would have ever seen from him.
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So, in this situation, who are you going to turn to?
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Who are you going to turn to for advice?
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Who are you going to turn to to try to fix this problem?
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She's like, "My son is literally perfect.
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and I'm going to turn to Him." So she goes to Jesus and she says they have no wine.
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Look at verse 4.
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"And Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what does this have to do with Me?
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My hour has not yet come.'" Now, when you read this in the English, this can sound harsh.
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To say, "Woman?
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What does this have to do with me?
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But you have to understand, in the Greek and in this culture and in this context, there was absolutely nothing harsh about what was said here.
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First of all, the use of the word "woman" wasn't meant in a harsh way.
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It was used in the same way that we use the word "ma'am." That it's not really personal, but it's not harsh either.
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Like "ma'am." Maybe it's actually impersonal to refer to your mother that way, but it's not harsh.
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He's like, "Ma'am." And then his statement literally is, "What to me and to you." That's the literal translation of that.
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What to me and to you.
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In our vernacular, we would say it this way.
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Why is this a "we" problem?
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I could explain this further, but I know at least the husbands in this room understand this perfectly.
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Right, husbands?
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Back me up here.
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Don't be afraid.
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But when your wife says "we," what does she really mean?
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She means you.
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Right?
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That's what she really means.
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When your wife says "we," she means you.
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example, we had a snake in our crawl space and Aaron said, "Jeff, we need to do something about that snake." What did she mean by that? "Jeff, you need to do something about that snake." Right? What's this "we" stuff? And see, that's what's going on in this passage. You have to see that Mary comes to Jesus And she says, "Jesus, we're out of wine! We need to do something!" And Jesus is basically saying, "What do you mean, 'we'? How am I included in this problem?" Jesus was sort of pointing out here that the nature of their relationship was changing.
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His focus is now on His ministry.
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And Jesus says, "My hour has not yet come." We're going to see that as we go through John over and over and over.
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Jesus talks about His hour, the hour, the hour.
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It's about coming to die for your sins.
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To raise from the dead to give you eternal life.
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That's what He's talking about, the hour that He fulfills what God sent Him to do.
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Basically, Jesus is saying here that His agenda is the cross, and everything in His life and His ministry is about getting to that moment where he glorifies God through his sacrifice.
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So I hope that helps you understand Jesus wasn't being harsh with His mother.
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He says, "Woman, what does this have to do with me?
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How is this a 'we' problem?" He says, "My hour has not yet come." V. 5, "His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever He tells you.'" And I would say in general, that's good advice.
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If Jesus tells you to do something, I think you should do it.
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But again, I'm just not sure what she was thinking here.
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Because she comes to Jesus with the problem, and He's like, "This has nothing to do with me." And she still obviously assumed that He was going to do something.
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Right? I mean, that's pretty obvious.
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She goes, "Do whatever He tells you to do." Verse 6, it says, "Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons.
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Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.
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Stop there for a second.
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So these jars were looking at about 120 to about 180 gallons of water total.
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And these jars were for purification.
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It was a Jewish ritual for washing.
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It wasn't so much a sanitation thing as much as it was a ritual thing.
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It comes from Psalm 24.
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They would dip their hands in the water and hold their hands up to heaven as a way of saying, "Lord, I am clean before You." It was purely a ritual.
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That's what these jars were for.
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And Scripture makes it clear.
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That's what these were for.
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But notice, Jesus said to fill them, And it says they filled them to the brim.
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And the fact that it says they filled them to the brim shows you that what's about to happen is supernatural.
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Why? Because if they only filled them three-quarters of the way - and Jesus is about to turn this water into wine, spoiler alert - but if they only filled them like halfway or three-quarters, somebody would come along later and be like, "Oh yeah, Jesus just like, when they weren't looking, He snuck in and He dumped some wine in there, like ta-da, but the fact that they filled them all the way to the brim was proof that something supernatural was about to happen. Right? So just no room to add anything if they're 100% full. Verse 8, it says, "And he said to them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.' So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.
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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." Stop there for a second.
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You know something that baffles me about this passage?
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as what's not in the passage.
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Meaning, there was no show, there was no grand display, there was no proclamation over this water.
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And you notice Jesus himself didn't even touch it.
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And only the servants knew what happened.
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Now if you look closely, you see the head waiter, or the master of the feast, same thing, the head waiter was shocked.
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Why?
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It wasn't because he saw a miracle.
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I mean I think our minds sort of make that bridge, like, "He's shocked he saw a miracle." No, he's not shocked because of a miracle because apparently he didn't even know a miracle happened.
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So why was he so shocked?
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He was shocked because he just assumed that the groom saved the best for last.
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Why was that shocking?
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Because nobody does that.
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Nobody saves the best for last.
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When you have guests, especially at a wedding, You give them the good stuff first.
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And when that runs out, you're scrambling to just give them whatever's on hand.
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I saw this firsthand.
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Years ago, we were babysitting a bunch of kids at our house.
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Our kids and a bunch of other kids at our house.
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And I remember Erin, she worked all day.
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She got all these snacks prepared.
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She had these little styrofoam bowls, you know what I'm talking about, and cleared off the coffee table.
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and she just had like this whole spread on the coffee table of all these bowls and all these snacks and Aaron worked so hard, spent hours getting all this stuff ready.
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And then the kids showed up.
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And church, it was like a swarm of locusts.
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(roaring)
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They blew through there, my kids too, okay, my kids too.
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They blew through there and under two minutes snacks were gone and there were even some bites taken out of the styrofoam bowls. So Erin spent all day preparing and like gone. So Erin was going through the cupboards and she was just pulling everything she could out of the cupboards and the kids were mowing it down. Fruit snacks and pretzels and yams and paprika and she's just pulling everything out of the cupboards. And the kids collectively mowed it down. But the point is, the good stuff goes out first, right? And then the leftovers... that's why this head waiter was shocked. He goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second here. You brought out the good stuff at the end. That's really different." Then verse 11 says, "Now this, the first of his sons, Jesus did at Cana and 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, and they stayed there for a few days." So, Jesus made His miracle debut at a wedding, and He did it by turning water into wine.
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And I'm just going to be honest with you.
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That's not how I would have booked that.
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If I was like Jesus' public relations guy, you're about to perform your first miracle.
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You're about to show people again, you are the Son of God.
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You are God in the flesh.
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Here's how we're doing this, Jesus.
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What I would have done is I would have had at the temple during one of the peak, busy, feast season times, and I would have had Him transfigured at the temple.
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So everybody saw this is God.
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That's not how He did it.
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Or I thought maybe Jesus should have kicked off His ministry with the resurrection.
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Maybe start off with the cross and the resurrection, and think of how that would have got people's attention, but in His perfect wisdom, that's not how He did it.
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And see, with all of this that happened in the passage, to me the most profound statement is in verse 11.
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It says, "This the first of His signs Jesus did at Canaan and Galilee." Here's the profound phrase to me, "And manifested His glory." And I read this passage and I think, "This is how Jesus chose to manifest His glory?" Like this? Like water to wine? Like no fanfare?
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I mean, what does this manifest about His glory?
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Like I said, He did it quietly.
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He didn't announce it. There was no "Ta-da!" There was no big production.
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There was no "Wine by Jesus" banner put up.
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So I'm reading this this week, and I'm thinking, "The Scripture's clear, this is how He manifested His glory, but how does this manifest His glory?" In other words, what does this tell you about Jesus?
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Right? We want to know Jesus, so what does this tell you about Jesus?
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They're like, "Well, it tells you that if you have a wedding, you should invite Jesus." And I thought, "Well, if Jesus was invited to a Pittsburgh wedding, would He bless the cookie table?" What does this tell us about Jesus?
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And the truth is, if you look closely, this miracle gives us some life-changing truths about Jesus Christ.
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Jesus spoke so much about who He is through this miracle.
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Let's look at it.
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So on your outline, "Manifesting His glory, what Jesus wants us to know from His first miracle." Here's the first thing that we see.
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Number one, jot this down, "Jesus cares about what you care about." Jesus cares about what you care about.
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And this miracle is really different than the other miracles in the Bible.
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It just is.
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I mean, every other miracle that Scripture records has some huge personal benefit for a person or a group of people, like healing, right? That's a big one.
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The blind, the deaf, the lame, the bleeding, the leprous.
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Huge personal benefit, right?
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Or driving out evil spirits, or raising the dead, or feeding the multitudes.
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I mean, those miracles really changed people's lives.
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And here...
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I mean, was it really necessary that He do this?
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I mean, even miracles like Jesus walking on the water, I mean, at least that miracle had a visible wow factor to it because people actually saw it.
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But these people at this wedding weren't dying of thirst.
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And really, this miracle just boiled down to Jesus was sort of protecting a groom from major embarrassment.
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And that is glorious.
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Why?
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Because it shows that Jesus cares about what you care about.
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Sometimes we think Jesus only cares about the big things.
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Sometimes we think we should only pray about big things, right?
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Praying for my friends who are fighting cancer.
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Praying for my friends who have lost loved ones and are grieving.
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Praying for the unsaved to come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
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Those are big things.
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And does Jesus care about that stuff? Yes, He does.
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He absolutely cares about that stuff.
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But Jesus reminded us many times that He cares about everything that we care about.
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I think sometimes we need to be reminded of that.
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Here's how Jesus said it in Matthew 10.
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Jesus said, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
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And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father." I love this next statement.
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And he says, "But even the hairs on your head are all numbered." Granted, it's a lot easier for God to count some people's hairs than others, because some have less.
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But the point is this, how many hairs do you have on your head?
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That's the most insignificant fact about you, right?
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Even if you knew that number, who cares?
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Are you impressing your friends with that?
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Putting it on social media?
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Like, "Hey, guess how many hairs I have on my head?" Nobody cares. Why? Because it's not important.
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But it's important to God.
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He loves you and knows you and cares about you that much that He knows the most insignificant fact about you.
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Jesus said, "Fear not, therefore you are of more value than many sparrows." Like, you know, God cares about a bird.
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How much more do you think He cares about you?
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Same way, Luke 11, we're not going to turn there, but just to paraphrase, Jesus was illustrating the power of prayer.
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So to illustrate the power of prayer, He told the story of a man who wanted to borrow a snack for his friend.
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And the application wasn't, "Hey, hey, hey, don't bother God with that unimportant stuff." The application was actually the opposite.
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He said, "Hey, hey, hey, shamelessly bring all your requests to God because He cares about that stuff.
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He cares. He cares.
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He cares at work, out of wine at the wedding.
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He cares that you don't have Pop-Tarts for your buddy or whatever.
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He cares about that stuff.
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Those little things that you're dealing with.
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See, Jesus wants you to bring those too.
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Things like, "I really like this new position at work.
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I mean, my job's good, but I was really hoping to get this new position.
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I've actually had people tell me, I feel like I don't want to bother God with that stuff.
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Really, do you think God is bothered?
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Do you think He's worn out with you talking to Him?
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No.
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Just bring it. Bring it.
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My kid needs potty trained.
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Take it to God.
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I want my garden to grow, or Lord, give me another 50,000 miles out of this car.
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Whatever, bring it, because this story about the wine tells us that if you care about it, Jesus cares about it.
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Number two, Jesus turns ordinary things into extraordinary things.
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That's like Jesus' specialty, right?
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He takes ordinary things and makes them extraordinary.
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And how did that happen at this event?
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It really kind of started when Jesus' mother said in verse 5, "Just do whatever He tells you." In other words, listen, somebody needs to hear this today.
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In other words, Mary was saying, "Just put it in Jesus' hands.
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Just let Him deal with it." Mary didn't know what He was going to do.
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And you realize we're in that position every moment of every day in our lives.
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That we have this need, big or small, whatever it is, and we don't know what God's going to do, but the advice is the same.
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put it in His hands, because when He has something in His hands, He's going to do something awesome with it.
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I don't know what, but you can be sure, if it's in Jesus' hands, He's going to do something better than any idea that we could have come up with.
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He's going to make it better.
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So just put it in His hands.
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This is what Jesus does to everyone who comes to Him.
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You come to Jesus as a weak and hopeless sinner.
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That's ordinary. Those are everywhere.
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And He transforms you into an eternal child of God.
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He takes ordinary and makes it extraordinary.
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With every wedding, when God brings two people together, He takes two ordinary people and He makes something extraordinary.
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Two become one.
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When things are given over to Jesus, He transforms them in inexplicable and glorious ways.
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He took the jugs that they used to dip their hands and provided the best wine anybody ever tasted.
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The question for you, for me, what do you need to put in Jesus' hands today?
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What is it in your life that you need to hand over to Him?
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You've got to commend Mary here.
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When she was like, "Just do whatever He tells you." She could have just tried to figure it out.
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Like, "I'll go in the kitchen and I'll whip up something." Right, ladies?
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"I'll whip up something.
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It won't be wine, but I'll figure out something.
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the wedding guests will be drinking gravy or something, but I'll figure out something.
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Or let me pull my resources and see if there's something that I'm able to do to try to..." She didn't do any of that.
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She's like, "I'm just going to...
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I'm just going to...
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Hey, hand it over to Jesus.
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Just do whatever He tells you.
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I'm out." And I think that's advice that we all need to take.
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Your children?
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Hand them over to Jesus.
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This health thing that you've been dealing with?
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Hand it over to Jesus.
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That situation at work that has been frustrating you for like the last forever months?
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Hand it over to Jesus.
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You take ordinary things and you transform them, so I'm handing this over to you.
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I'm done trying to fix it myself.
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it is yourself that you need to hand over to Jesus to say, "I'm done trying things my way.
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I'm done trying to do things in my own power.
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I'm done trying to use my own intellect and creativity because it's not getting me anywhere.
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Jesus, it has to be You." Let's stop trying to fix things.
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Let's stop trying to figure it out.
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Hand it to Jesus. He turns ordinary things into extraordinary things.
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And finally, these are all ways that Jesus is manifesting His glory.
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He cares about what you care about.
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He transforms ordinary into extraordinary.
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Finally, Jesus saves the best for last.
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Again, the master of the feast was astonished that the best was saved for last, and that's a principle that the Lord wants us to get nailed down.
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Think about this.
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Did Jesus know that they were going to run out of wine?
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Do you think He knew that?
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I am 100% convinced He knew that.
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Based on what we studied last week, right?
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He knew the disciples before He even met them.
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Or they met Him, I mean.
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You know what I mean, right?
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You know what I mean?
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Okay, thank you.
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He knew them when they were introduced to Him.
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So do you think He knew what was going...
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Do you think He knew they were going to run out of wine?
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He knew all of this.
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And I'm like, "Well, if he knew that, why didn't he just turn the water into wine first?" And say, "Here you go! This will save any tension or stress that you might have." And I believe he's illustrating a glorious truth.
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You've heard it said that good things come to those who wait, right?
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I think Jesus is doing this one way better.
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The best things come to those who wait on Him.
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If you think about it, you know the devil, he offers the best first. You know that?
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Actually, to be clear, the devil deceives you by offering you what looks like the best first.
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Satan dangles that in front of you to say, "Look, this looks like the best.
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"This is the easiest.
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"This is the thing that'll benefit you now, "so you should go after it because it benefits you now." Right?
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Give in to that sexual temptation now.
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Go into debt now to get that thing that you want now.
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Be lazy now.
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Take this drug to feel good now.
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Just do whatever you wanna do, whatever's gonna make you feel good, whatever's going to benefit you now.
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That's how the devil works.
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But here's the catch.
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He never shows you the path of where that's going to take you.
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The devil never explains to you how that's going to play out when you subscribe to this philosophy.
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He never shows you the end.
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He just shows you the enticing next step.
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Give in to that sexual temptation now.
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He doesn't show you the destruction that's going to come on the homes of the relationships that are destroyed by giving in now.
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He's not going to tell you that part.
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Or go into debt now to get that thing you want now.
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He's not going to show you those credit card bills that are piling up that are going to bury you and you're like, "How did I get in this financial mess?" He's not going to show you that.
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Be lazy now.
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He's not going to show you fired from your job for being lazy.
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We had a whole sermon on that a couple months ago.
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He's not going to show you that.
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Or, "Hey, take this drug to feel good now." He's not going to show you the horrors of addiction and the suffering and the financial suffering and the loss of life and all of the garbage that comes with that. He's not gonna show you that because you're gonna feel good now, right?
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You see, Jesus does the opposite. Jesus saves the best for last and He shows you what that path looks like to get to what's last. That's why Romans 8:18 He says, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." What was Paul saying?
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He's saying, "I am convinced that Jesus saves the best for last.
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So this stuff that I'm dealing with in the meantime, it's all good." We just spent a whole year in Revelation, And if there's one big takeaway from that entire series, I think it's the very thing that Jesus introduced to us at this wedding.
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And that is, He saves the best for last.
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Are you willing to wait on the Lord to receive what He offers?
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Are you going to latch on to this destructive, low-hanging fruit that the devil's enticing you?
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Jesus has a way of saving the best for last.
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So you know at first glance, this whole wedding in Cana, it just seems kind of random.
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And I think if we're honest to us at first, it seems like a really weird first miracle for Jesus.
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But church, I want you to look closer.
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In manifesting His glory, Jesus says, Listen, I care about that thing that you care about.
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Jesus is saying, "Listen, I want you to know My transforming power." Jesus wants you to know the glorious hope that He promises when people wait on Him.
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So like the disciples, let's walk away from this wedding, letting it sink in.
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And like them, you'll find that you believe in Jesus, you know Jesus in a way that changes your life.
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Will you pray with me, please?
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Father in Heaven, Your wisdom is astounding.
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Utterly astounding.
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That Your Son would choose to manifest His glory in such a profound way.
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Father, I pray simply today that this passage is an encouragement for Your people.
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For those of us who have accused You of not caring.
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For those of us who have tried to take matters into our own hands, or have been tempted to take the thing and it's going to make us feel good in the moment.
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Father, teach us what it means to wait on the Lord.
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Father, for anyone here who doesn't know You, I pray that these glorious truths will be transforming for them.
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Your Word tells us that it is Your kindness that leads to repentance.
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This passage so clearly shows us the kind of compassionate and merciful and loving, creative, thoughtful God that You are.
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Thank You for manifesting Your glory and letting us see it through Your Word.
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We praise You in Jesus' glorious name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 2:1-12
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why do you think Jesus answered His mother how He did (John 2:4), but then helped her anyways?
Why do you think this was chosen as Jesus’ first miracle? What does this tell you about the compassion of Jesus, and how He views “minor” things?
If this was the debut miracle, why didn’t Jesus make this more of a “show”/production? Why do you think He did this so “quietly”?
BREAKOUT
What “minor” thing have you been reluctant to ask Jesus for? Ask Him now as a group!