Sermon for Sunday, June 2, 2013
The First Sign – the Wedding at Cana
John 2:1-12
1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
2Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."
4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come."
5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it.
9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom
10 and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now."
11This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.
Sermon Goal: He gives us joy!
The Problem: Sometimes we end up empty, robbed and devoid of our joy. Jesus needs to fill us back up!
First, a little backdrop – how are we talking about joy when this is a miracle about wine?
Not only is this a sign and a miracle – the first of seven that Jesus performed as notated in the book of John demonstrating that He was the messiah – but it is full of symbolism and rich in meaning.
It is ironic that many Christian congregations – maybe some of us today – have a tendency to get lost on the issue of the “wine” today – whether it was real, whether it wasn’t – whether it is ok to embrace it today – and they are missing the entire point of this particular passage when they twist this and other contexts to support their position on prohibition or the lack thereof.
I do, however, want to point out what wine, not drunkenness, stood for at least in the Old Testament day – it stood for joy! Wine – never drunkenness, but wine was a sign of joy and God’s blessings.
Psalm 104: 14-15 –
14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth
15 and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart.
Proverbs 3:9-10
9 Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Matthew 26:27-29
27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you,
28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
Wine may represent different things to some of us today, but at the “here and now” of Jesus’ life, he was at a wedding in which wine was being served – it was a wedding, an occasion of life, hope, and joy!
So here we are at the third day of this week in Jesus’ life and ministry – we already started this week back in April when we were talking about the calling of the first few disciples. So this is the third day – 2 days after Jesus’ encounter with Philip and Nathanael.
I’d like to chase this metaphor and talk about joy this morning. What is true joy? How do we get it? What do we try to substitute for it?
If “the joy of the Lord is my strength” as it is quoted in Nehemiah 8:10, why are we in a world full of Christians who are no more joyful, no more happy, and no less in despair than the rest of the world?
Perhaps, as CS Lewis puts it, we forget who is our source of joy –
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Today, I want to tell you 4 things about joy that I hope will help us all to have more joy in our walk!
I. The need for Joy
Vv 1-3
1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.
3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."
Listen to the 2nd and 3rd stanzas of “What a friend We Have in Jesus”:
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden,
cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms he'll take and shield thee;
thou wilt find a solace there.
Is it possible to have trials and temptations and still have joy? To suffer from our weaknesses? To be weak and heavy laden? To be despised by our friends? And to still have joy?
They ran out of wine – the physical application –
For some reason, the “wedding planners” had not planned for enough wine to serve the guests. Maybe the demand was greater. Perhaps the guests drank more than their share. Whatever the case, this is a potential disaster! Just like we nearly ran out of flowers a few Sundays ago on Mother’s Day, I can see the wedding party in a near panic as they try to figure out what to do! What to do!
They couldn’t simply stomp on some more grapes and produce wine on the spot.
They didn’t have a wine store they could simply run to and grab some more wine.
Nor could they water down what they had – they were already completely out.
The poor wedding party at Cana had only one shot to get this right – and what are the chances that the Son of Man and the Son of God, wrapped up in one person, would happen to be at their wedding to not only provide them with the physical wine, but to also radiate the eternal joy that could only come from Him in the first place?
We can exhaust all the wine in a wine cellar. But we can never run through the joy that God gives us!
2 Corinthians 7:4 –
“I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.” Are you??
II. The request for Joy
Are we lacking joy today? Have we already come to the place realizing that we are trying to fill a water bucket up out of a mud pond, slowly but surely exhausting its dirty contents?
Look at verse 3 – 5:
3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."
4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come."
5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
Someone knew what to do! Mary was there, and she knew exactly who to go to. She had faith. She believed. She probably couldn’t wait for Jesus to act and show them who He was!
But his response was : Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come."
A. He wasn’t being disrespectful. Both his address to her and her questions are one of politeness that we can easy mistranslate if read with the wrong tone.
B. He was also pointing out that the work of salvation was still yet to come. Mary might would’ve had him reveal everything to everyone!
But this is a miracle in Jesus’ private ministry, in which John examines deeply. This was his first sign, perhaps ever. There are no records of miracles prior to this one.
We are going along, minding our own business, when suddenly, even inexplicably, our wine runs out! Our joy runs out. Sometimes without warning, sometimes without planning – but it is gone!
I have to admit, I’ve struggled with this in the last few weeks a little. Some of you have been able to tell. In an effort to be completely transparent with you this morning, I, like many of you, sometimes want to rely on myself to produce my own joy. I want to have a joy factory, or a joy tree in the back yard producing joy fruit. I want to go to the joy store and buy some more. But the joy we’re talking about today is not a commodity we can find on earth! It is much better than that!
I, like many of you, don’t function well without joy in my life. That joy is always accompanied by a sense of purpose, a sense of mission, a sense of being useful, and a sense of happiness because I love what I do and I am happy with the person that I am.
But too often, we go looking for joy in places that can’t be found! It is rather easy to describe some places where joy can’t be found:
Not in Unbelief -- Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: "I wish I had never been born."
Not in Pleasure -- Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: "The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone."
Not in Money -- Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said: "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth."
Not in Position and Fame -- Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."
Not in Military Glory -- Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer."
Where then is real joy found? -- the answer is simple, in Christ alone.
Despite Jesus’ response, Mary set the stage for what was to come in verse 5:
5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
III. The source of Joy
Just like the wedding party had to obey completely and without question to experience Jesus in His fullness, we too have to be willing to obey Him!
6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it.
What were these servants thinking?
As I read this passage, I was reminded of what Namaan was thinking about the 6th time he dunked himself under the Jordan River. Do you recall the story? The prophet Elisha had finally sent Namaan the instructions to be healed from leprosy. What if Namaan wouldn’t have obeyed? What if he got cold and bailed after dunk #3? What if he doubted and bailed after the 6th dunk?
Our obedience must be full, complete, and it will produce joy! Following Jesus Christ in obedience is the recipe to have joy in your life!
In his book, “Not a Fan,” Kyle Idleman writes: “In fact, it's true throughout all of Scripture....Following Jesus isn't something you can do at night where no one notices. It's a twenty-four-hour-a-day commitment that will interfere with your life. That's not the small-print--that's a guarantee.”
Later, he continues: “Jesus has defined the relationship he wants with you. He is not interested in enthusiastic admirers who practice everything in moderation and don't get carried away. He wants completely committed followers."”
So wait a minute pastor Harvey, are you saying that our joy will directly come as we obey Him and follow Him?
That’s EXACTLY what I’m saying!
There’s an old song that says this about joy – “The world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away!”
Had the wedding party not obeyed Jesus, had not followed his instruction, guess what? Still no more wine! They would’ve had nothing but a thirsty wedding gathering. They had to fully, completely, and instantly obey Jesus right there on the spot. They didn’t have the time to argue the point, to question Jesus’ sanity, to make a back-up plan, or to try to acquire wine from a separate source somewhere. Jesus was their only hope and only chance at getting some wine back on the menu!
If you don’t fully disengage from playing the church game and fully engage Jesus in complete surrender and followship, guess what! You’re going through the motions and you won’t get the end result! If we care more about dotting off a spiritual checklist than we do following our Savior, then we run the great risk of becoming “whitewashed tombs” – beautiful on the outside, dead on the inside. Maybe some of us are in that position today and we’re wondering what is wrong, and why don’t we feel joyful.
Joy is the byproduct of obedience! It is magnificently illustrated here in the sign at Cana, and it has been illustrated in the lives of believers throughout the centuries.
And guess what else? If we would start obeying Him as to become joyful Christians instead of following our own desires, looking like despairing undertakers, perhaps more people would want what Christians have!
IV. The result of Joy
Jesus answered – and boy did he ever!
9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom
10 and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now."
Jesus Christ doesn’t give cheap joy anymore than He produced cheap wine on that day in Cana! No no, this was the best stuff!
James 1:17 - Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
And the joy he gives is the best kind of joy, ever! It is, again as Paul put it, overflowing! It will keep you going no matter what. When we walk in continual obedience, we will be rewarded with continual joy.
It doesn’t mean things will be easy. It doesn’t mean the trials won’t come. But it explains the martyrs throughout the centuries who have gone to see Jesus with a smile on their face. It explains the thousands of malnourished Christian children in African who have more happiness than Christians in America. And it explains why the world might think we are “fruit loops” – “Hey man, didn’t you notice that nothing is going right in your life? Why are you wearing a smile??”
So, smile, because you ARE up to something!
As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a friend: "It's a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians--and I am one of them."
When we follow Him and allow Him to guide our lives, being the ruler supreme over our hearts – this very Scripture will describe two things that will happen around, even through us – read verse 11:
11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
Living a life of joy that comes through obedience will ensure that 2 things will happen:
1. Jesus will be glorified! He will be glorified as Lord, as Sovereign, as God over not only material things, but also the merciful God who will provide for the needs of His children!
2. Others will believe! – just like the Disciples believed in Him more and more –
I imagine that they were in awe at every little single sign and their comprehension of who He was increased along with their own obedience.
Do you want people to believe? Do you want to impact your family, your friends, your workplace?
Have some joy! What does your joy look like this morning?
Does it look like an imitation? Maybe your might bear some of the form, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Maybe upon a casual glance we can recite some joyous saying, but when the going gets tough, our imitation joy cowers before the onslaught of life. We are neither joyous nor victorious. The world is, in fact, able to take away our joy, over and over again. It is worth examining our own spiritual walk. Why do we so quickly lose our joy and our happiness, if we are living on the brink of eternal life? Didn’t Jesus Christ rescue us with the greatest gift ever, from the most hopeless predicament ever? Then why do we lack joy? If we have been redeemed, why do we sometimes act like we’re still in prison?
Maybe there are those in here who have found that joy. And you just want to rub off on people! Perhaps all of us, no matter where we are, have a desire to be used, to be more effective, to be of greater impact to the kingdom. And one of the most contagious characteristics we can have is JOY!
