It is good to see so many of you together here in the church again after a very busy summer and I trust our kids had a good first week back at school?

Transcription

1 Another Golden Rule Sunday, September 8, :30 AM Intro: It is good to see so many of you together here in the church again after a very busy summer and I trust our kids had a good first week back at school? Today we are going to begin what I trust will be a very rich journey for you that will take most of this year as we look at the Gospel of John. We will not go through it in order but rather will strip out various themes and teachings but I do expect you will get through most of it. Why John you might ask? Each year I try and preach through at least a couple of entire books of the bible and since coming to PPT, we haven t tackled an entire gospel together. This gospel, John s gospel, is important to us as it fills in some gaps left by the other three, it has significant teachings that will help us with the building up of our faith but at the heart of this gospel is the objective of Belief. Here is the key that will unlock the entire purpose of the gospel, are you ready? 30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. 1 I want you to be equipped with teachings that will help you lead others to Christ and I hope for the nominal Christian, those who have sat in a church for years but only have a religious form, that you might be converted too! Some background facts The author John, the author of this gospel is also the author of the Revelation and 1, 2, and 3, John and he accomplished this with the help of a personal assistant. I will not be devoting an entire Sunday to an introduction and will weave information about the gospel itself into various messages but here are a couple of things that you need to know, big picture things that will help you frame in all the other things that you will learn. 1 The Holy Bible: New International Version (electronic ed.) (Jn 20:30 21:1). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

2 The audience At the time of the writing of the gospel, which few agree upon, there would have been up to 100,000 new Gentile Christians for every Jewish one. As you study John, you will see clearly that John although still communicating with Jewish believers, has the objective of Gentile belief in mind and takes great care to carry them along and explain things in a way that they understand. The Gentile pagans believed in an afterlife, in a life force if you will that controlled the visible universe. They were polytheistic and now John is basically saying, You pagans understand that there is an all pervasive thing that is governing the universe, you call it the Logos or Word. Ah, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And now John introduces the notion that Jesus is the invisible God who controls the entire universe both seen and the unseen. Today we are going to look at Jesus first miracle, the turning of the water into wine at Cana. John calls it a sign. As a matter of fact our first series from John will be looking at the seven signs, that all point to something or rather someone, to Jesus and the revelation of who He is and What He does. Are you ready? Let s read, John 2:1-11 I. Everyone loves a wedding (or do they?) It is the third day, the third day since Jesus own baptism and there is a wedding about to take place at Cana, a small village nine miles from Nazareth. Weddings are memorable things aren t they? I have many wonderful memories of them beginning with my own, my children s weddings and many that I have performed as clergy. I must confess however that not all weddings are pleasurable, I have performed some that I wish did not happen and there is always some tension managing everyone s angle. If you have seen the wedding planner, you know about the MOB, FOB, and all that. One thing for sure is the poor Bride never wants anyone upstaging her and that is exactly what Jesus does at this one. A Jewish wedding could last for days and was the center of attention for the whole community while it was taking place. Let s look closer at this one. 1. The guest list

3 The mother of Jesus was there. Given Mary s interest in everything taking place at this wedding, we feel strongly that she was well connected and may have had some responsibility here. As a matter of fact, one commentator suggested that this was John s wedding and this would make a lot of sense. Jesus was there with some of His disciples. We must always remember that Jesus was a very social Savior, a bit of a partygoer and was often criticized for being with sinners. I laughed while I wrote thinking John the Baptist was not invited. John the Baptist on the other hand was the consummate aesthetic. You want more social people at a wedding than prophets, don t you? 2. If something can go wrong When the wine ran out! If you were the host of a wedding, one thing for sure is that you never wanted to run out of food or drink. And now the mother of Jesus steps in, not the mother of God and says, They have no wine. Jesus next words are interesting words to us. Woman Our English translation makes things sound a little harsher than they should, Mary did not complain. Jesus used this exact same expression Woman from the cross. As a matter of fact it was probably impolite to use informal phrases like Mum in public. Jesus seems to protest, not wanting to become involved, My hour has not yet come which clearly is speaking of the time of His glorification beginning with the cross and ending with His taking His place at the right hand of His Father. 3. Another golden rule of etiquette Mary s next words are worth a whole sermon all by themselves and another golden rule, Do whatever He tells you. What powerful words, if we could only live by this one very golden rule. Do whatever he tells you in His written word, do whatever He tells you through revelatory spiritual gifts, which of course cannot contradict the written. When He whispers through that still small voice, simply respond. Although it would appear that Jesus would not respond, He does just that! Next, John includes in the narrative that there are six pots and he adds some words about purification. This was exactly what I was talking about. The Gentile hearers would need to understand what the pots were all about.

4 II. It s time for a sign And now Jesus is moved to action giving instructions, it is time for a sign. For the next seven weeks, we are going to be looking at the seven signs or miracles from the book of John. So what of this miracle, the first of the thirty five that we will read about in all four gospels, the first of the seven contained in Johns. How do people both inside and outside of the church view this teaching on this and other miracles? 1. The simple minded fundamentalists As you know one of my great frustration is with those who point to this as justification for their own drinking. This passage has nothing whatsoever to do with drinking. As a matter of fact just about every researcher, who largely were Anglican wine drinkers said that this wine would have been served one part wine, three parts water on the conservative side and perhaps two parts wine, three parts water on the liberal end. Higher level thinking is in order here! 2. The misguided pagans (worshippers of the god Dionysus) As an abstaining pastor, I must admit I have been a little frustrated with John at times for including this one and I finally found out why after all these years. The Gentiles worshipped Dionysus who was known as the god of wine. The Gentiles has traditional tales or myths that community leaders would seal empty vessels and place them in the temple and that miraculously they would be filled with wine. So John is saying, You Gentiles who worship pagan deities, you have never been able to verify these stories, you have never seen the miracle of wine being created out of nothing. You believe in an unseen world and forces that control the seen world. Consider Jesus, who has been able in this century to do exactly what you believed a God should do and that is to defy natural laws by His power. 3. Scientific materialists Next let s consider these folks. They believe that there is only matter, no possibility for a miracle like this or any other miracle. There probably are not too many of those here in this room today. But you might be saying, You don t expect me to believe that Jesus did miracles, do you? and I am saying, Yes, I want you to believe in Jesus because He did these miracles. 4. Deists

5 There are other who believe in God but they also believe that He would never tamper with the affairs of men through miraculous workings. 5. The super spiritual Now there are some of you. i. The gullible You believe in miracles but you believe in them so strongly, you will be convinced of them even if they didn t happen because you want to believe so strongly. You have to be careful though because many of you have taken faith, stripped it of discernment and added gullibility to it. Remember that the enemy can produce spurious miracles. (Ex. 7:8-13) ii. The sensation seekers Others of the super spiritual kind are actually sign worshippers. You love signs and never get past signs. iii. The miracle legalists You super spiritual of a slightly different kind have developed personal systems of theology that never allow for God to act irregularly or contrary to how He sometimes or even usually does. You have a problem though, whenever God does not act as you think He should have, you need to blame something or someone and you become really obnoxious as you frustrate others who are just trying to sort out God s will for their lives. 6. The one s who get it right Here is the reality and truth. God does miracles, always has, and does now and always will. But if you really look at the scriptures, He does them for a couple of reasons. If you are really honest you have to look at the bible and come to the conclusion they come in bunches and they come at epochs or times that God is really making the point of getting our attention or to bring Himself glory! The miracles were clustered around Moses life, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and then the Apostles. These were all times of great change and I want to make the point that never has anyone found a verse that suggests that God wants to stop or has stopped doing them. Let s go back and have another look at today s.

6 This is a sign, the first of His signs we read in verse 11. So what is the point of this sign? Conclusion: Here is some really important information that you need about the miracles. 1. Jesus was revealing His glory that those following Him would believe 2. Jesus wants us to know that He is God and He does this by defying natural laws. 3. Jesus wants us to know that He is interested in the everyday and small things of our lives. He cares about the embarrassment of this family, remember, He cares about our daily bread. 4. Jesus was announcing a New Covenant to the Jewish people. He was speaking the Jews about the inability of the Law to justify, the inability of the Jewish rituals to truly purify. 5. Jesus was revealing the Logos to the Gentiles who would eventually read of this that what the Gentiles hoped a god could do, Jesus, God, could actually do! It was there, Welcome to the life of Jesus miracle, or the Getting to know Him miracle. 6. Jesus is reminding us of some things, that He will always over answer prayer and exceed our expectations for blessing. Jesus produced 1,000 pints of wine and the wine of a very high quality. This week, let s put the Lord to work on our behalf, perhaps your Wine has run out! Now obviously wine is a metaphor for anything that is going to be an issue in your life. Here is one last exhortation. Do whatever he tells you! If you are sinning, stop it! If you are relationship trouble, that special relationship is breaking down, fix it! If you have an opportunity to serve in front of you, do it! If you are being challenged to a higher level of commitment, welcome it!

7 If you have been blessed beyond your expectations and sense of worthiness, accept it! If you are being asked to work with Him as He works a miracle in someone s life, an opportunity to work with Him and for Him, take it!