A Second Sign Series

• Passage where Jesus return to the scene of the wine. The wine that had formerly been water. Most in the church have some issue with that first miracle and would rather Jesus would have turned wine into water

• LIQUOR STORE MIRACLE: Take that(bottles of water expensive too)

46 Therefore He came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine.

Hard for Jesus to leave Samaria considering how well he was received Revival breaking out – the people were gladly listening to him

There wasn’t the general sense of religiosity that he experienced in Jerusalem.

But now he was going to head back towards Galilee – a place where he wasn’t well received - Cana was about 3.5 miles north of Nazareth, Jesus’ home town.

44 For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.

WHO NEEDED A MIRACLE? And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and was imploring Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death.

A man went into a drug store and asked the pharmacist if he could give him something for the hiccups. The pharmacist promptly reached across the counter and slapped the man’s face. The man said, "What in the world did you do that for? The pharmacist said, "See, you don’t have the hiccups anymore!" And the man replied, "No, but my wife in the car still does!"

Here is a man seeking the answer to the problem of someone else and yet he ends up gaining something very dramatic himself.

"nobleman" signifies a royal officer: he probably belonged to Herod’s court;{ Gentile ) He was from Capernaum which was about 20 miles from Cana - about a 6-7 hr walk

• Money and position cannot protect the rich and powerful from the normal trial of life and death that effect every person and family.

ARAB PROVERB: Grief is a black camel that kneels at every tent.

• He ‘implored’ or ‘begged’ Jesus to heal his son. With his means he had probably had the best doctors already do all that they could.

Concern for our kids brings out the best in us. Coming back from Tyler(Hosp) and unloading car. Hannah asks to leave running so she can get her school stuff out. I am almost to the door when I hear her yelling for me. I turn around and she is in the back seat of a car rolling back down the hill towards the highway. I headed that way and noticed that the car is now heading for two large trees. I run toward the car, catch up to it after rolling about 100 feet, open the driver door and dive for the brake pedal and stop the car 2 ft from the tree with Hannah in front of the tree thinking she might put out her arms and stop the car by bracing herself on the tree. Cost Lynne here coffee but she didn’t complain.

• This nobleman had tried everything and now he hears that Jesus, the one who had turned the water into wine was now back from His trip to Jerusalem. Sometimes one miracle doesn’t make that much sense but it sets up the one to follow.

• Jesus makes an observation that transcends His conversation with the Nobleman. Not sure how much of this the Nobleman even heard because his total focus is on his child.

• Surrounded by a crowd waiting for the next miracle to unfold.

48 So Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe." (Samaritans did not demand a miracle to believe)

• WARNING: About building our expectations of God too much around signs and wonders. God can do anything, heal anything, nothing is impossible but that is not what knowing Him and living for Him is all about.

• FAITH often begins with a point of crisis. Not always people of faith in the midst of the sunshine. Few people grow deeper when the days are sunny.

WHAT MIRACLE WAS NEEDED? 49 The royal official said to Him, "Sir, come down before my child dies."

• What a horrible place to being with a child slowly slipping away and in desperation you are grasping for any solution you can find.

• This Father’s desperation had created some things to be now true about him that probably were not apart of who he was before.

1. A PERSON WILLING TO RISK REPUTATION: Gentile, high position…etc and willing to pursue Jesus and humble himself to ask Jesus to heal his child.

2. A PERSON WILLING TO EXERCISE FAITH: