John 2:1-11 - Can’t Help Helping
Main Idea: We must bring our troubles to Jesus.
BRING EVERY TROUBLE OF YOUR LIFE TO JESUS (vs. 1-5)
Bring the troubles that life’s given you.
Bring the troubles that you’ve given yourself.
FOLLOW EVERY COMMAND JESUS GIVES YOU (vs. 6-10)
Put in the work to know and obey what He has for you.
Ignore those who want to dissuade you from following Christ.
Discover that Jesus gives far more than He takes.
WORSHIP JESUS, WHO DELIVERS YOU FROM TROUBLE (v. 11)
He is your Savior, who delivers you from sin, death, and Hell.
He is your God, who guides and sustains you each moment.
He is your Brother, who has given you a spiritual family.
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by YouTube)
Today, we're going to be continuing our study in the book of John, and John chapters 1-4 in particular. And the title of the message today is, Can't Help Helping.
In our nature, we so often find that we just naturally, our natural bent is often to help people. And so it doesn't matter maybe what it is, we just naturally help out someone else.
I don't know if you guys noticed, I didn't ask her to like take that. None of you were like, Hey, you got to make sure that you grab that. This was a natural action on her part.
She naturally grabbed this. She couldn't help helping. That's all I needed from you.
Thank you very much. Everyone give Miss Judy a hand. Thank you for helping out.
She just couldn't, she couldn't help it.
It's one of those psychological things that as people, people do things, you know, if you toss something to a guy, studies have shown like nine times out of 10, they're at least gonna like try and make a grab for whatever you tossed to them.
If you see a baby crying on the sidewalk or a kid in the grocery store asking where their mom is, you are going to want to help.
And from today's passage in the book of John, John chapter 2, we can see that Jesus is no different in his compulsion to help people. And he does it perfectly out of love and out of a capability to help that we don't possess in and of ourselves.
As we've been going through, we've seen that this book of the Bible, John, is the last written of the gospels. This is John's eyewitness testimony of what he saw in the life of Jesus.
And he tells us at the end of the book that he's written this so that we would know and believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And that believing we might have faith in his name, that it would spur us to action and to belief.
In John 2, 1-11, we're gonna see Jesus's first recorded miracle. Now, I'm sure many of us would say, okay, man, what would be the first miracle that the Son of God, God incarnate, God come to earth, what might be the first miracle that he would work?
If it was up to you, would you raise the dead? Would you perhaps eliminate a Roman army? What would be your first action, your first miracle as Messiah?
Well, we find something very interesting in what Jesus's first miracle is. The writer John doesn't always follow Jesus's ministry chronologically.
So, as we go through, it's not always going to be this event happened, and then right after that this event happened, and then this.
John takes all the various things and sermons and conversations and ministries that Jesus gave throughout his ministry, and he kind of compiles them into sections. So, chapters 1-4 deals with some things. Chapters 5-10 deals with some things.
Chapters 11-17 or 18 is another chunk. But this one, John does tell us, this was the first of Jesus' miracles, the first one that we're told that he performed.
There's maybe some rumors, there's some questions on whether or not Jesus once healed a baby bird with a broken leg back when he was a little kid. We don't have any of that in Scripture. This is the first one that God tells us that Jesus performed.
We're going to read through the passage. We're going to take a look at what it means for our life today. As you read this story, you might go, cool, that's great that that happened 2000 years ago, but what does that have to do with me?
And hopefully today we will see what the help of Jesus, what his active desire for participation in our life, what it means for us and what we can learn from this first miracle of Christ.
John chapter 2 and verse number 1 says this, On the third day, a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding as well.
When the wine ran out, Jesus' mother told him, they don't have any wine. Well, what does that have to do with you and me, woman? Jesus asked, My hour has not yet come.
Do whatever he tells you. His mother told the servants, Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification, each contained twenty or thirty gallons. Fill the jars with water, Jesus told them.
So they filled them to the brim. Then he said to them, Now draw some out and take it to the headwaiter. And they did.
When the headwaiter tasted the water after it had become wine, he did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.
He called the groom and told him, Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then after people are drunk, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now. Jesus did this, the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee.
He revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. Just as Mary did in this passage, we're going to see today that we must bring our troubles to Jesus. We must bring our troubles to Jesus.
Would you with me? Close your eyes. Let's bow for a moment of prayer.
Ask for the Lord to work in your heart and in your life today. Perhaps say something like, God, if you will speak to me today, I will obey and I will listen. God, if you have something for me to repent and to turn from, I will do it.
God, if you have someone that you want me to show your love to or to witness to or to befriend, God, I will do it. God, I will not live my life on my terms by myself. I am going to rely on you.
To Jesus, I pray that you would bless this morning. May we worship you in spirit and in truth. God, may your words speak to our hearts.
God, I pray that you'd only have me say what you want me to. Love you, Lord, and pray all this in your name. Amen.
First, if we're going to bring our troubles to Jesus, the question might be, listen, pastor, you don't understand, I've got so many troubles. I've got some health troubles. I've got some car troubles.
I've got some personality troubles. You don't understand. I don't know that I can bring all that to God.
I want you to know today from verses 1-5 of the passage that you need to bring every trouble of your life to Jesus. Verses 1-5, they are taking place in Cana of Galilee.
This was a place that wouldn't have been overly far from where Jesus had grown up, maybe about eight or nine miles north of Nazareth. So about one day's, one good day's walk or so.
And as they're going there, Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and his disciples were there. So it was likely some sort of family friend or maybe family member or something that they were going to be a part of this wedding.
Jewish weddings during this time, this was not just like a one day thing. This was a week long feast of seven days and they were going to enjoy everything that would happen.
The groom-to-be would have completed the addition that he would have built onto his father's house. He would go and get the bride and then would bring her back. And there would be a huge celebration of this new union.
It was something that as people invited others to, to host the wedding was a very important task.
You could actually, there were some things that said you could maybe be sued if you had invited all of these people to your wedding party and you didn't have sufficient like food or drink for them to have.
They would be like, wow, you, you made us come out all this way and then you didn't even provide for us. And some might take people before the courts.
And so verse number three, there was a huge problem that this couple and their family at large that they encountered that they had run out of wine. And so Jesus's mother recognizes this problem. It was not Mary's fault.
Mary wasn't the one that had stocked up on supplies the previous week. This wasn't her problem. It wasn't her wedding.
And yet when there was a problem, she knew exactly who to turn to. It was Christ. And so she goes to him and says, they don't have any wine.
Now here, as has been mentioned, Jesus up to this point has not done any miracles that have been recorded in scripture. So perhaps Jesus might have done something beforehand. We're not told that.
But it could be that Mary just knows who her son is. That even as the angel had told her that this is the son of God, this is the one who is going to save all of Israel, that she knows if there's a need, I know the person that can meet the need.
Jesus' response to her in verse number four might strike us as odd today. What does that have to do with you and me, woman? Here, I want to start off.
Any kids that are in here, this is not necessarily how you interact with your parents. This is 2000 years ago. This was a specific way of speaking.
This is a courteous way. Maybe today you might say something like, ma'am, what does this have to do with you and me, ma'am? Like, this isn't our problem.
We didn't create this, and so this is not something that is necessarily on us to be able to fix. And then Jesus says something that might seem kind of odd or out of place to us. He says, my hour has not yet come.
What is Jesus' hour? That is when he would openly proclaim his identity to Israel.
Eventually, when he would be crucified and buried and rise from the grave and then ascend into heaven, that completion of his earthly ministry to seek and to save the lost. That's what he had come for.
And so here he says, like, it's not time for me to openly declare who I am yet. But think of how Mary interacts with this response. I think for many of us, if we received this response from Jesus, we'd be like, OK, you know, that's true.
You know, you're not openly proclaiming yourself to be Messiah yet. This isn't our problem. OK.
But you can see Mary continues on. She tells the servants, do whatever he tells you. Mary knew the character, knew the person of her son, knew the character of her God, that he can't help helping.
Over and over again, as you read through scripture, the testimony of our God is that he is one that relentlessly pursues us and blesses us. As scripture says, he makes it to rain.
He gives a rain for the crops of those that are just and those that are unjust. He is the one that no matter if you have spent all of your life running away from Jesus, running away from God, he still pursues you. He still calls you.
If you're a person that maybe you've just started off in your life and maybe you accepted Jesus right away, he doesn't say, okay, you gotta wait and live a little bit more life before I save you.
He does it to the youngest that accept him and to the oldest and those furthest from him. He is passionate about rescuing you and pursuing you. And that's not just true for your salvation.
God has given you clothes to wear today. As I look out, praise the Lord, God today has made it so that you had transportation to be able to come here. God has made it so that you have a place where you can lay your head tonight.
That is all the gift and mercy and goodness of God. So let's bring every trouble to Jesus. We might ask why this particular miracle first?
Like why this watering to wine at this wedding? Number one, I think Mary asked, I think of Jesus' words, you have not because you ask not. Many times in our life, we go through problems and we don't even go to God for it.
We say, God, like this is just too little, this is too small. I don't want to bother him because, you know, he has some limitations that he can only do so many things at once. We need to ask the Lord.
Here Mary asked, hey, they have no wine. Can you help? Hey, servants, do whatever Jesus tells you to do.
Let's go to the Lord and ask when we have troubles that we need to bring.
I also think it's interesting that God's first creation of biological life as exhibited in Genesis 1, where on day three, the first thing that he makes that like grows is plants.
And now in his first miracle, he is making the fruit of plants that just as you would squeeze out the juice from the grapes, just as with his first action of biological life that he's creating now in his first miracle, he's making the fruit of that.
I think it's also interesting that God's first established relationship and covenant in creation, marriage that he made, that first initial thing, he didn't make government first, he didn't make the church first, he made marriage first.
And his first miracle is in helping to save this wedding feast.
And I think that Jesus is the bridegroom, as we would read about in the Book of Revelation and in Ephesians 5, he's the bridegroom who has come to save his bride, to save her from sin and condemnation, and he saves a wedding feast first.
So if we're going to bring our troubles to Jesus, what kinds of ones can we bring? First, bring the troubles that life has given you. 1 Peter 5 and verse number 7 says, cast all your cares on him because he cares about you.
There are many instances in our life where we didn't bring something on ourselves. Life brought it to us. None of you, I don't think, were piloting the ship that took out the key bridge.
I don't think so. Otherwise, fess up. No, but as we as we see that, that affected many people's lives.
And that wasn't something that they had done. It was something that life had brought in. For those kinds of troubles, if it's out of your hands, it's in God's hand.
Truthfully, if it's in your hands, it's also in God's hands. But you can know whatever comes into your life. And maybe you didn't personally do it.
Know that it's coming through the hand of your heavenly father, who, as he tells us in 1st Corinthians chapter 10, he will not allow you to suffer above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape so that you may be able
to bear it through your relationship with Jesus. So bring the troubles that life has given you. And don't think that something might be too small for God to care about or too big for him to be able to do something about.
If it's big enough to trouble you, it's big enough for you to trouble Jesus with it.
Not only should we bring the troubles that life gives us, of someone that is not doing right by us, of a job layoff, of any number of things, not only bring that to Jesus and say, God, I need you to work in this situation. I don't see a way out.
The wine has run out and I don't want to be financially liable for someone to sue me to be like, hey, you didn't provide for our needs while we were here.
We ought to bring the things that life gives to us, but we also ought to bring the troubles that we've given ourselves. I say this as lovingly as I can.
Not every trouble in your life is like Satan or the world or something that is from outside of you. Sometimes we cause our own problems. We're unkind to people.
We're jerks to people. We don't make wise financial decisions. And so then we have dug ourselves a hole that frankly at the bottom of the hole, we go, God help.
But can I encourage you? God doesn't just say, tough luck, have fun down there. Even when we have put ourselves in the situation, God is a good and gracious and forgiving and merciful God who will help to pull us up out of the pit.
You can look at the life of David where as he's interacting with, making really dumb decisions on his own, and trying to run away from saul and avoid being killed.
And he teams up with the Philistines, the enemies of God who actively go after God's people to kill them. That God provides a way that he makes himself seem like he's insane to the king of the Philistines.
And he's got like spit dripping down his beard, and he's acting all crazy, ripped clothes, all that. Even in his stupidity, God made a way so that he didn't have to fight against the other Israelites.
He made a way so that he wasn't killed by the Philistines. And that's where we read Psalm 34. Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Blessed is he who hides in him. Fear the Lord, all you, his saints. There is no lack to those he loves.
So bring the troubles that you have given yourself.
I think of another time in David's life, in Psalm 51, when he had committed adultery, when he had had people killed, when he had covered up his sin, and when God finally got in his face and went, hey, you have caused all of this trouble that's in
your life right now, and you need to be right with me again. Here is what David said. He said, turn your face away from my sins and blot out all my guilt. God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast, a steady spirit within me.
Restore the joy of your salvation to me and sustain me by giving me a willing spirit. He says, then I will teach the rebellious your ways and sinners will return to you. David's reaction was not just, okay, I'm in the pit.
I'm forever in the pit. There's no hope. He says, God, make me new.
And through the sacrifice of Jesus, we are a new creation in Christ that we are no longer defined by our sin, but we're defined by the Savior.
So bring your troubles to Jesus, whether life brought the troubles to you or whether you brought the troubles to you. Will you bring Jesus your troubles every day?
This is not something that maybe you just pray like one day, hey God, I know I really have a problem gambling on the ponies. And Lord, I need you to help me. And then we never like pray that prayer again.
And we're just making bad financial decisions. We're not bringing everything to Jesus every single day. We're not casting.
One of the problems I've heard with the living sacrifice that we are called to be for Jesus, that we don't die, we're not that kind of sacrifice. We're a sacrifice that lays where God has us to be.
The problem with the living sacrifice is that we tend to crawl off the altar. And man, that is so true for our lives. So every single day, will you bring to God what your troubles are?
Day by day by day. God, I'm still struggling with this health struggle. God, I'm still struggling with overcoming this sin.
Will you bring Jesus your troubles consistently until either he has removed your troubles or changed you so that your troubles don't affect you like they used to anymore? We might, in our mind, Mary asked Jesus to help with the wine problem.
There's these 20 to 30 gallon jars, six of them, so about 120 or so gallons worth of stone jars. How we think about our lives.
Jesus solving trouble would be, Jesus goes, you know, let there be wine, and there was wine, and all of the jars would be filled to the brim. But that's not how Jesus did it.
For the problem, he said, okay, servants, take these 120 gallon jars, put water in them, and bring them back.
I don't know if you guys have been to the store recently, maybe I'm getting older, maybe I need to work out more, but as I'm carrying, you know, like a thing of milk and a thing of orange juice and maybe like one other gallon thing, I'm like, oh, you
know, this is kind of heavy. These are 120 gallons worth of water for these guys. And it's not like they could just turn on a faucet to be able to get all of the water. This would have been work that these guys would have had to put in.
And when we think about our troubles and our struggles with God, we go, hey, God, just, you know, fill all of the jars with water.
You know, this person that's frustrating me, my co-worker that's frustrating me, just, you know, have them evaporate or something. I don't know. Instead, God might have it to where you grow in your patience.
You grow in your love. So that day after day, as you're continuing to pray to God, like, hey, I'm still having these interpersonal problems that God's like, okay, well, how did you interact with that person? Did you speak kindly to that person?
Were you a jerk? And God might be shaping you. He might not remove the trouble.
He might not fill the jar full of wine, but he might have you be going back and back and back again for that living water so that your life can be filled, so that what you were naturally just in water, he might transform into wine, into his new life
that he wants to bring. Bring every trouble of your life to Jesus. Secondly, follow every command that Jesus gives you. And see this in verses 6-10.
Now, six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification. Each contained 20 or 30 gallons. Fill the jars with water, Jesus told them.
So they filled them to the brim. This wasn't some sleight of hand by Jesus.
This was truly the God who from the rains feeds into the vines and the plants and grows the grapes, and that the grapes are crushed and made into the juice and the paste, and that over time grows in its flavor and different things like that.
And so, Jesus does, frankly, in a moment, what would normally take months and years worth of time to do, he does instantly because he is God. This is one of the ways that John is communicating to us. Yeah, this is who Jesus is.
No regular prophet does this. No person that I encounter in my life is going to do this for me. Jesus is different.
Verse number eight, He said to them, Now draw some out and take it to the head waiter. And they did.
This would be the person that would be in charge of the whole like wedding feast thing, that it wouldn't necessarily be the groom or the bride that was overseeing each aspect of it.
This was sometimes a person that was hired to take care of everything for the wedding. And so here this wine is taken to the head waiter, at least from how the passage reads, it almost seems like it was water.
It was still water up until the head waiter tried it, just from a few of the ways that it's phrased, that he says, draw some out. And when the head waiter tasted the water, after it had become wine, he didn't know where it came from.
And the servants who had drawn the water knew. He calls the groom and tells him, everyone sets out the fine wine first, then after people are drunk, the inferior. So here he says, the best tasting stuff, the best of the wine.
I'm not a particular wine connoisseur myself, but let's say, you know, someone has something from 2022 and someone has something from 1922.
And you know, you put out the best that you have first, but you can't just always give out the best of the best. But after people have had some, then as the days go on, they don't really care if it's as high quality as it was right at the beginning.
But this head waiter knew, this person who part of their job, their whole purpose was to determine the quality of the feast. When he tasted what Jesus had done, it was so much better than the best that they had brought before.
He says the difference in what Jesus does versus what people do, it is so far better. It is superior in your life. You can try your best.
You can bring your righteousness. You can try and establish your own path before God and say, hey God, I know that you've got heaven, you've got all of eternity.
And as I look at my relationship with you, I think that my good works are going to be enough to get me into heaven. Can I tell you, Jesus has died. He has shed his blood.
As Christians, we observe the Lord's Supper, where we eat some of the bread and drink the cup. And, well, I say the cup. That's how Scripture raises it.
We drink the juice or the wine, and we remember Jesus' sacrifice and Jesus' blood, that wine that was poured out for us, is of so much better quality than anything that you could bring yourself.
Scripture says that it's not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. Jesus has saved you and his righteousness is that much better, much superior thing that you could never have on your own.
You can have plans for your life. You can have your wine. You can fill up your jar with your water, but Jesus might have a better plan for you.
You might have a way that you think all of your family relationships are gonna go. You might have a way that you want your 401k to look, but Jesus might have a different plan.
And it very well might be that his glory is shown and displayed in your life, that you're going to realize who Jesus is and how much he loves you and how much he provides for you through the fact that you run out, that you are inadequate in and of
yourself, but that's okay because that's the whole point. We need Jesus. So follow every command that he gives you, just as these servants did. How do we do that?
First, put in the work to know and to obey what Jesus has for you. 1 Peter 2 verses 2 and 3 says, Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation.
If today I went out and maybe went to McDonald's afterwards and I saw like seven of you guys and all of you had some baby bottles and you were drinking formula, I would go, what in the world is wrong with y'all? It's a bad thing, it's a sick thing.
Once we are older, once we are mature, we are to give up the basics, we're to move on from the basics to the meat of what God has for our life.
So often as Christians, we just go back to milk when God wants us to be feasting on some of the steak of His word. How do I know where I'm at? Am I growing in my Christian life?
I think of the verse from Psalms that says, great peace have those that love your law and nothing will offend them. In your life, are you easily tripped up? Are you easily offended and hurt by other people?
Can I encourage you? Go to the word of God. Do the works of the flesh from Galatians 5.
Does that typify your life? As you read through that list, you go, oh, well, I'm not all of those, but I'm at least like four or five of those.
Turn to the word of God and find out that the fruit of the Spirit is what grows out of a life that follows the commands of God, that as we believe in Him, as we trust Him, as we follow and pursue Him and ask His Holy Spirit to work in our lives, we
find that we are made new. We find that new wine, that new life in Christ in obeying what God has for us. It's not something that necessarily will just happen accidentally.
It's not that as you walk through your life, you wake up in the morning, and as you live five, 10, 20 years, you're not necessarily guaranteed to grow anymore in your spiritual life.
If you don't put in any desire, any want to know God and to follow Him closer and closer.
Philippians 2 verses 12 to 13 says, therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Let's not be tubby Christians with our spiritual life. Let's work out, let's strengthen what God has given us. John, was it you earlier with the Amy Grant song?
What was the way that she phrased that? Oh, it was Pastor Ron. Too fat to fly.
Let's not have that be true in our spiritual life. Like let us pursue Jesus. Do you know what God's expectations for you each day are?
There is more than just be nice, don't steal, pray before you eat. Find out in God's word what His path is. We put in work to find out all sorts of things.
Some of you know a lot about NASCAR. Some of you know a lot about taxes. Some of you know Star Wars, Inside and Out.
Do you know the Bible and God's wonderful plan for you and for everyone that you know? Would you commit this week to spending at least 15 minutes a day in the Bible? That's less than one TV show for many of you.
That's less than half your commute to one way to work. But there's no way of telling how God might use His word in your life. Let's put in the effort.
Let's put in the work to know and follow what God has for us. Secondly, ignore those who want to dissuade you away from following Christ. Here are these purification jars.
It's not necessarily mentioned in this passage. Elsewhere in the Gospels, we read about how seriously the religious establishment took the ritual purification and washing.
Jesus' disciples get in trouble several times for not doing this ritual washing before meals or after meals.
And I could almost imagine if there had been one of the Pharisees that would have been there that day, that they would have been like, guys, no, if you are using this for this commonplace thing and you're not using it for the ritual purification,
we're gonna have to re-consecrate this. It's gonna have to sit for seven days or a whole day until the next evening and it's unclean. Oh, this is gonna be so much work. And they would have stopped what Jesus' miracle would have been.
There will be people in your life that as you're trying to follow Jesus, as you're trying to obey His command, they're gonna be like, you know, do you really have to be a Jesus freak? I think that's probably more of a 90s reference for some of y'all.
But a little bit before my time, that they might be like, hey, why are you doing this? Don't you know that like religion's kind of outdated? We know more now.
We kind of have the corner on truth, you know, 100, 150 years ago, that's when people were dumb. But now people like me are really, really, really smart. And so you should listen to me.
Don't really go with all of this Jesus stuff. Let's not follow that. Let's follow Jesus' commands.
2 John 1 verses 7-11 says this, many deceivers have gone out into the world. They do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.
Watch yourselves so that you don't lose what we have worked for, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who does not remain in Christ's teaching, but goes beyond it, does not have God.
The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the father and the son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, don't receive him into your home and do not greet him for the one who greets him shares in his evil works.
Here John is writing to a church and he's letting them know there's going to be teachers that enter into your life that just say, hey, Jesus was moral. Jesus was a good example. Jesus didn't really maybe come in the flesh.
You have some of the Gnosticism of yesteryear that says Jesus didn't really have a body or wasn't really flesh and bone. They say, oh, it's just kind of a spiritual apparition that was with us.
And he says the ones that are not in line with what God has said in his word, he says don't give those types of people entrance into your churches. Like don't have them be the ones that are speaking here as traveling missionaries.
That's what he's saying here. Don't welcome these speakers into your home and wish them well and be like, I really hope you're successful in your journey. He says, no, no, no.
You need to be separate from these false teachers, these ones that would lead you away from what God has said and what God wants you to do.
For you today, have you centered your friendships and closest relationships with those that are not actively, passionately pursuing Jesus? Can I challenge you with Solomon's words?
Those that walk with wise people will be wise, but a companion of fools will be destroyed. We become like who we are with. So are we intentionally choosing to spend time with the people of God?
Jesus was called the friend of sinners. It is not at all that we should sequester ourselves away from anyone that's not a Christian and never interact and don't work with and don't have over to our house those that don't know Jesus.
But for those that have the greatest influence in your life, those that are maybe giving you advice on some really important things in your life, are they people that are coming from the lens of the Word of God, that they are your brothers and
sisters in Christ, and they're saying, hey, here's what I think God would want you to do in this situation. Or are those closest to you strictly those that are maybe family or friends that don't have anything to do with Jesus?
Let's choose to listen to those that listen to Jesus. Just as Mary listened to Jesus, she told the servants, listen to Jesus, the servants listened to Jesus, and great miracles occurred as a result.
Then lastly here, discover that Jesus gives far more than he takes. What's easier to do? Pour water into a jar or to make 120 gallons of wine?
I don't know if you guys know this, I don't know much about the wine making process of today, but back in yesteryear, you would, you know, grow your full crop of grapes, and then you would take all of the grapes and you would put them into this giant
wine press, and they would sing songs and dance and step and crush the grapes with their feet, and crush the grapes with their feet, and all of the juice would go down into this one vat, and it would fill up, and then you would put that into maybe
some jars or some vessels, and over the course of, you know, months or years or decades or whatever it would be, you would have this wine that would take place, that it would grow and grow in flavor and taste and all of that. And here Jesus did in
one moment what could have taken decades for people to do. Do you know that your God is able? Do you have faith? Do you believe that what you are praying for, God will answer?
And that when He works, it is so much better than what we could do ourselves. And that as Jesus asks us to give our lives, He gives us all of eternity and all of the heavenly blessings, all of the heavenly blessings into our lives.
He asks for your 50 or 70 or 90 year life, and He gives you everlasting life and eternity in return. He asks for you to turn from your sins, and He gives you His righteousness and His Holy Spirit in return.
He asks for your generosity, and He opens up the windows of heaven to pour out a blessing. Jesus gives far more than He takes.
Give Him your little, as the little boy, bring Him your five loaves and two fish, and find out that He can feed five thousand and have twelve baskets left over. Obey Jesus. Follow Him.
Give Him what He asks because the result is so much better. This was all in a fulfillment of what the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 25.
He says, On this mountain, Jerusalem here, the Lord of armies will prepare for all the peoples a feast of choice meat, a feast with aged wine, prime cuts of choice meat, fine vintage wine.
On this mountain, He will swallow up the burial shroud, the shroud over all the peoples, the sheet covering all the nations.
And when He has swallowed up death once and for all, the Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face and remove His people's disgrace from the whole earth, for the Lord has spoken.
What Jesus was doing here was a small picture of the new life that He was going to bring to all of creation.
Jesus came not to be merely another prophet, but to do something entirely new, to give fresh life and joy to all of Israel, even as He brought this joy and new life there at the wedding. And very lastly today, just a few sentences.
In light of us bringing our troubles to Jesus, in light of us following and obeying Him and seeing Him work, just as the disciples in verse 11, we ought to worship Jesus, who delivers us from trouble.
The verse says, Jesus did this, the first of His signs in Cana of Galilee. He revealed His glory and His disciples believed in Him. What is the glory of God?
What does that mean? As we look at even the Old Testament, we can read a wonderful truth, that when Moses asked to see the glory of God, God told him, okay, you can't see me, or else you're going to die, like it would consume you.
My holiness is too much for any person. He says, but turn around and I will proclaim my goodness. Moses asked, can I see your glory?
And God declared, I'm going to proclaim my goodness. And he says, I'm the God that forgives. I am the one that is loving.
I am the one that extends my mercy to a thousand generations. And I execute justice, but only to the third and fourth generation. He says, I am the one that you can rely on.
I'm slow to anger and I'm rich in mercy. Jesus here, He couldn't help helping these people. He had no like demand on him to do so, like his hour had not yet come.
It wasn't his problem. He didn't create it. But your God can't help helping.
It won't always look like we want it to. But man, he cannot help being involved in your life. And he wants you to invite him to be a part.
So worship Jesus who delivers us from trouble. He is your Savior who delivers you from sin and death and hell. If you have never accepted Christ as your Savior or your Lord, can I encourage you to do that today?
Right at the end of service, I'm going to be at the back of the auditorium.
I would love to talk with you, to open up a Bible, to set up an appointment with you for later this week, to talk about how you can know that Jesus' payment for your sin has been applied, that you are now a child of God.
Secondly, Jesus is your God who guides and sustains you each moment. So listen to him, read in his word, find out what his guiding for you is, and be grateful for how he sustains you and supplies you with your every need day by day.
And lastly, he is your brother who has given you a spiritual family. And see this right there at that end. He says he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.
That here it was this community of believers that they see the glory of God. They see him work. Can I encourage you guys?
I know 2024, we all tend to be pretty private people. We don't want people all up in our business. But God has given you a spiritual family for a reason.
He has given you brothers and sisters in Christ that you would be able to say, hey, can you pray for me? I'm working through this. Hey, can you pray for me?
I'm struggling with this sin right now. And I just want someone that can be like, hey, how are you doing with that? I just want some accountability.
You have your brothers and sisters for a reason. God placed them there. They are not here by random happenstance.
So utilize the resource of your brothers and sisters. You've got spiritual leaders. You've got your teachers.
You've got your pastor. You've got deacons. You've got those that want to care for you and love you.
So take advantage of it. We can all be private, but let's realize God has given us a family. And as Jesus is our heavenly brother, as we would read about in Hebrews 2 and 3, He has also given us the rest of our spiritual family.
Today, your God is endlessly gracious, full of compassion, merciful, loving, and able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Will you bring your struggles to Him? Will you bring your heartaches?
Will you bring your sins and your failures? Will you bring to Him the prayer requests from other people that as you hear from brothers and sisters, that you would bring those prayer requests to God? Why would we do so?
because we serve a God who can't help helping. So, let's bring our troubles to Jesus. This time, I'm going to have you close your eyes.
I'm going to take a little bit of time to pray. Randy, I'm going to have you come up and begin just a short time on the piano, and then we'll have our invitation song at the end of this time.
But I want to encourage you, in your heart right now, as you sit in your seat, in the presence of your God, what is troubling you? What struggles do you have? What sins have you been fighting against?
Bring them to your Savior. Bring them to the one that turns the water into wine, the one that can do in a moment what could take anyone else decades. Trust in him.
Believe in him. Realize that he might not do it in the way that you're expecting or that you want or that you would outline it, but he will answer. I love the promise of Scripture that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
And if he hears us, we know that we have the requests that we ask of him. God might change your circumstance or God might change you in your circumstance. In whatever way it is, will you bring your troubles to Jesus?
