The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E30 - Dishwater To Wine

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

Hey church family, it is Devo Time. If you got your Bible, we are in the book of John. We're going to go, John chapter 2. This is Jesus' very first miracle. And I love it. It's kind of a controversial one, so we will just dive right in. John 2 1 says, and on the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus was, Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. Let's stop right there. Christians ought to live their lives in such a way that you get invited to the party. I mean, sometimes my grandma used to say, she'd say, that guy is so heavenly minded that he is no earthly good. You see, we are a part of this world. We are not citizens of this kingdom. We're citizens of a different kingdom.

We are not to adopt the ways and the values of this culture, but we are to love the people that we live on this earth with. and sometimes we can be so afraid of this world and afraid of the people of this world that we can be so, that we can be so disconnected from this world that it is impossible to be salt and to be light. You see, in order for salt to impact something, it has to make contact with the something. The salt that stays in the salt shaker is worthless and is useless. do not be a worthless and useless Christian. Jesus was the kind of person that got invited to the party.

I mean, the crazy thing is, is that people that were not like him at all, and people that did not like the things that he liked at all, they really liked him. Can that be said of you? And please, please, please, don't ever blame the Lord. because of your actions and attitude that lead you to be totally disconnected from the people of this world. So Jesus, he's invited to the wedding with his disciples. And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

And Jesus said to her, woman, what does that have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. I love this little statement. Okay. First of all, Mary is well aware that the wine has run out. This was real wine. We'll talk about that in a minute. Now, in the first century, this is a really big deal. Hospitality was paramount.

It would be utterly embarrassing to the groom, to his family, to the wedding planner, if they were not able to provide enough wine for everybody. And wedding ceremonies and parties like this in the first century, sometimes they would last for days and days and days. And then Mary comes to Jesus. Now, why does Mary come to Jesus? So far, in the scriptures, we have no miraculous accounts of Jesus

except his supernatural incarnation. You see, one of the things that the Bible says that when Jesus was born, first of all, when Mary found out she was pregnant and she knew that she had not been with a man, she was a virgin, never had sex before, then she's trying to figure this thing out, and an angel of the Lord comes to her and says, God has found favor in you, not you earned it, therefore God places his favor

on you because you're awesome, but because of God's awesomeness, he places his favor on you. And says, you're pregnant. You're going to have a child. You should name him Jesus. And when Jesus is born, the Bible says that Mary treasures all of these things up in her heart. Now, you know what you do with the treasure? You bury a treasure not so that it will be buried. You bury a treasure so that you can dig it up when in this time. Mary is looking around, and for all of this time, 30 years or so, Mary has been waiting on the moment when this miracle boy of hers is going to step into the scene.

And so maybe she's thinking this is a chance. She's thinking, I know that Jesus can do something about the situation. Now, so she just kind of, I mean, you know, she just kind of puts the pressure on him. They have no one. And Jesus says, is there a woman? What does this have to do with me? This last week in the message, I talked about boundaries, okay? Boundaries are important.

Boundaries are God-given. In order for you to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, then you've got to know where your boundaries are. You've got to know where you end and your neighbor begins. Jesus is the master of boundaries. Jesus does not do this miracle because his mom puts pressure on him. He doesn't feel railroaded.

He doesn't feel trapped. That Jesus, every single time, he knows who he is, he knows whose he is. And now because of that, because he has these healthy boundaries with his mama, then he can, of his own volition, decide to serve or decide not to. He doesn't feel trapped by the pressure of somebody that respects and honors. and the key here, he says, my hour has not yet come. Jesus knows that from before the beginning of the foundations of time, that the father has a plan for the redemption of all mankind.

And when Jesus begins, man, when that first miracle domino drops, then the clock starts ticking. And then his mother said to his servants, some of the best advice you can ever get as a Jesus follower. If we could just do what Mary said, everything in our lives would be better in regards to our relationship with Jesus. Mary looks at the servants and says, do whatever he tells you. She doesn't presume what that is. She doesn't even know if he's going to do anything about the wine.

She just says these words, do what he tells you. Church of 1122. If I could steal the words of Mary and impartial. you, just do whatever he tells you, that when you feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit, do what he tells you. When the Bible commands us to do something, like we talked about this week in big church, love your neighbor, pray for your enemies, love those who persecute you, just do what he tells you. Now, there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rights of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. So what this was, is,

a big party. And you know, all through the Old Testament, there's all these laws and rules and ceremonial washing. And a part of that was just legitimately, when the Jewish people come out of Exodus as a group of slaves, they don't know how to conduct themselves and run a government and all of this. And God is making a people that was not a people, his people. And so he sets all this up. And a whole bunch of it is about not passing disease and viruses. We should know this very well. And so they were obsessed with washing their hands, particularly before they, like, shared food. And I don't know if you've ever had like a Middle Eastern dinner together, but everybody doesn't have their own little plate with a fork and a spoon and a knife,

and you just stay in here. It's very community, and there's a lot of hands and going on there. And so any time before they ate, before any kind of celebration, they had these rights of purification. So these big stone jars, and everybody comes to the party. and you would dip your hand into the jar all the way down to your elbow and then you would wash

and then you would let it drip back into the jar. This is the kind of water that Jesus is starting with. And he says, Jesus said to the servant, fill the jar with water. Well, the reason he had to fill it is because it wasn't full anymore. A bunch of it had been sloshed out by all of these guests for maybe multiple days washing in these jars. of water and they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the

master of the feast. So they took it. All right, stop right there. What do you think the servants thought Jesus was going to do? Do you think that, I mean, they had to think, what does this man do it? You want me to take the cruddy hand wash, backwash, water, and give it to the master of the Feast? Jesus, are you punking the master of the feet? How is this going to go? Okay. And Jesus does not explain himself. So what do you do when God asks you to do something and you don't understand why? Here's what you do. You submit and comply. That's what you do. Because you don't have to understand. He's the master and you're not. But you do what Mary says, you do everything he tells you to do. And so by, I mean, these guys did this. So they took it. And when the master of the feet,

tasted the water. Can you imagine the people are watching and he takes the water and he puts it up to his lips and they think there's no way this is going okay for us. And the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine. It did not know where it came from.

Though the servants who had drawn the water knew. And the master of the feast called the bridegroom and he said to him everyone serves the good wine first and when people have drunk free then the poor wine, but you have kept the good wine until now. All right.

So let's talk about drinking for a second. Is it okay to drink alcohol, wine, etc.? My grandma, who is Southern Baptists up to her, she's fully immersed Southern Babbas, she tried to convince me that in John Chapter 2, that the wine that they used was really grape juice. All right. If that is true, then none of these verses make sense about most people start with the good wine and bring out the bad wine at the end after everybody has

drunk enough. Have you ever met a person that could drink enough welches so that they could not distinguish that it was just Kool-Aid at the end? No. It's just talking about regular old, fully loaded wine. Now, so the Bible, nowhere in the Bible can you make a decent case that a Christian is not allowed to drink alcohol. However, the book of Galatian says that we should never use our freedom in Christ as a license to sin. The question is not should Christians drink alcohol? The question is, should you, should you? The Bible is very clear that we are not to get drunk. The Bible is very clear that we are never to look for a substance for our satisfaction and comfort. but only to Jesus alone.

There's a whole bunch of verses about wine and alcohol being used to celebrate the goodness of God, and there are probably three times more that are warning us to be careful, and if you can't handle it, you should stay away from that. And so, Jesus takes water,

turns it into wine, and not just any wine. He turns it into the best of the best of the best, to the point where the master of the feast goes to the bridegroom, and says, what have you done? Why in the world would you save the absolute best wine to last? Most people try to impress everybody by bringing it out first, but after everybody's had enough to drink,

they get the box of the Boones Farm, but you have brought out the Canis, the silver oak at the very end. Verse 11, this is the first of his signs. Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in his. all throughout the book of John, John doesn't use the word miracles that much. Instead, he calls them signs. You know why? Because a sign, by definition, is not the point. A sign is a means

to an end. A sign points to something greater than the sign itself. Like, you know, 995 when you're driving north coming up from St. Augustine or wherever, and you get to that, there's that big sign for Jacksonville. It's over the highway on the bridge. It just says Jacksonville. Now, is that Jacksonville? No. That's just a sign that points to something greater. Is this the point that Jesus can turn water and no one? No, it is a sign that points to something greater. And the greater thing that this points to is this, is that you and I are the filthy jars of water, that every single one of us by nature and nurture are just nasty on the outside and the inside. We've been used and abused, and no one would look at the filthy hand-washing water and think, I'll have a drink of that. And yet, when we take that,

when we take our very own lives and we put them in the hands of the Savior, the master, Jesus himself, then he can take what was nasty and was only useful to be thrown out. And he can take that and he can turn it into, transform it. Like it's not even the same thing anymore from old dirty dishwashing, I mean, old dirty dishwater to the finest wine that anyone has ever had. And if you've ever put your faith in Jesus Christ, that's what he has done with you. That he took us, children of wrath, by nature and nurture, sinners, dead in our trespasses. But God, being rich in mercy, he made us alive and he has transformed us, and the old is gone.

And behold, now you and I are a new creation. And what they did with this wine is they used it to celebrate the bridegroom. And what God does with us, his transformed people that were transformed from dirty old water into delicious wine, he uses us to celebrate his glory and his work on this earth. Jesus is very first. Let's pray. Jesus, I thank you and I praise you. hum, that you lived your life in such a way that you got invited to the party.

God, I pray that we would live our lives that way too. That we would not just be crudgy old Christians stuck in our ways. That we wouldn't bury our head in the sand. Lord, we know this culture needs your love and how in the world can we be salt and lighten in this place if we are hidden under a bushel or if we never get out of the salt shaker. Jesus, I thank you that every event and environment that you, went to, God, you were always the influence and you were never influenced. God, I pray that we would be the influencers. God, I pray specifically right now for the men and the women that struggle with

alcohol. Lord, I pray that you would give them strength through the power of the gospel to battle against those things, that they would not have to look to any substance for their satisfaction and comfort. They would look to you and you alone. And God, I thank you, just like you transformed dirty old dishwater into fine wine, Lord, that you transform us from death to life. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.