Introduction:
Standing at the beginning of a new year, we hold many hopes and dreams, and even apprehensions. 2001 looms ahead of us with all kinds of surprises.
We each bring various things with us into this uncharted journey. Like it or not, being human, we bring certain baggage from last year, but we also bring potential trophies as well. We will have desperate needs in which we need God to intervene. We will also have joyful triumphs and miracles that God brings to pass.
Today’s message comes from a familiar story at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry: the turning of the water into wine at a marriage feast in Cana of Galilee.
This account will give us some important guidelines for the coming year.
I. Christ is in Favor of Social Fellowship
A. This may not seem all that important in the larger scheme of things, but God wants to remind us that we need others.
B. There are people that think that Fellowship is somehow less spiritual than other forms of Christian activity.
II. Christ’s Priorities are not Always Our Priorities (v.4).
A. V.4 makes it clear that God’s timing is not always our timing.
B. Our goal should always be to discover God’s desires and priorities and bring ours in line with His.
III. We must be Available to God (v.5, 6)
A. Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.
B. God most often uses what we make available to Him.
1. He created the universe out of nothing.
2. Since creation, He has most often used things that we have yielded to Him.
IV. Obedience to God’s Direction is Absolutely Necessary (v.7)
A. Jesus told the servants to fill the vessels with water.
1. That may have seemed foolish to some; irrational.
2. But God does not necessarily do things the way we think they should be done.
B. They faithfully obeyed Jesus.
C. "Faith without works is dead."
V. Christ Turns the Ordinary into the Extraordinary (v.9).
VI. What Christ Transforms Must be put to Service. (Vv.8-12)
A. The servants served the new wine to the master of ceremonies.
B. We must be willing to use what God has done in our lives to touch the lives of others.
C. Oris Hubbard - preached at Roper Pentecostal Holiness Church on January 7, 2001
