Defined By Days.
John 2:1-5NIV
I know that you would agree with me, there are days. Then there are days that define the rest of your life.
Some follow a predictable path, like the middle isle of a church on your wedding day. Others are as unpredictable as a blind date.
Either way you aren't who you were just a moment before.
In a split second, life is divided into B.C and A.D. The bridge to the past is forever destroyed, and the future rushes in like a flash flood.
It's a new day. It's a new normal. It's the first day of the rest of your life. Paul records in, 2 Corinthians 6:1-2... Today is the day of salvation...Today is the acceptable day of the Lord!
Most certainly, there are days that define us...
The new wine of the Holy Spirit has been given. --This was that day for Jesus. For nearly 30-years, Jesus had worked in his father's carpentry shop. For as long as he could remember, people called him a carpenter.
But on the third day of a weeklong wedding feast, this cabinet maker, became the wine maker.
John 2:1-5NIV On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
For 30 years Jesus defines Himself by His submission to his heavenly Father and to his earthly parents. Jesus leaves Cana of Galilee, and goes to the Jordon river, He’s baptized by John the Baptist to fulfill all righteousness. He then is driven by the spirit into the wilderness and is tempted by satan for 40 days and 40 nights, he resisted all temptations by His Father's word. After 40 days of trails and temptation, angels minister to Jesus. He leaves and goes back to Galilee, He enters a synagogue, Jesus is invited to read scripture, so He turns to, Isaiah 61, and begins to read. 1. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,?Because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”””
The Bible, God’s word, the word you have in your hand, defined Jesus, and made Him ready for public ministry. Therefore, while in “Cana of Galilee,” Jesus attends a wedding feast, these usually lasted several days.
Scripture doesn’t tell us how, when, or where Jesus recognized that he had the power to do the miraculous, but I'm certain it wasn't at a wedding feast in Cana.
Jesus knew that He was in fact the Messiah. The anointed One, the Day Star, Lilly of the Valley. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. The ‘One who was, the ‘One’ who is, and the ‘One’ who is to come. Jesus.
Going back in time for a moment, The gospel of Luke gives us our only glimpse of this boy wonder, named-Jesus. One lonely snapshot in the family photo album from birth to age 30. But this one peek into his personality is like a theatrical trailer that foreshadows his future.
Remember we are defined by days-- Some of our strongest memories often come from unusual moments that take place within otherwise familiar traditions. For Jesus the unusual moment happened during the families 63 mile pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem, for the Feast of the Passover.
One day, Jesus missed the caravan back to Nazareth. (The family would laugh about it the rest of their lives, but it wasn’t funny when it happened). Fear flew through the minds of Joseph and Mary when their 12-year-old went missing for three days!
Q&A: Have you ever lost a child? Your child? For 3 days?
3 days later, Joseph and Mary finally tracked Jesus down, he was sitting in the temple courts, schooling the most brilliant minds in ancient Israel.
Again, What was Jesus doing? He was defining his future by teaching His Fathers word!
Luke 2:47NIV Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.
Again, John 2:5AMP His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
Mary endorsed her approval upon everything Jesus came to do. She believed. P.H
Please remember this, never underestimate the power of one well-timed compliment. It has the power to change a person's entire perspective on life. It has the potential to change a persons plot line for eternity. The right word at the right time could be the catalyst for someone else’s miracle.
“There is always one moment in childhood,” observed English playwright Graham Green, “When the door opens and lets the future in.”
The day Jesus turned water into wine, marked the first major public miracle by Jesus! Isn’t it just like Jesus to begin His public ministry by converting H20, into wine, a type of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus proclaims in, John 14:16TPT And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Savior, the Holy Spirit of Truth, who will be to you a friend just like me—and he will never leave you.
Again, Mary the mother of Jesus states, “They have no wine!”
There are 34 distinct miracles recorded in the gospels. Not including, The virgin birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and His ascension.
John himself notes in the very last verse of his gospel, John 21:25AMP And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were recorded one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
Hear this word--There is no easy or difficult, big or small, possible or impossible. To an omnipotent God, there are no degrees of difficulty.
Say this, “Anything is possible; Nothing is impossible.”
Again, Mary states, “They have no wine.”
Remember this, What Mary did not do at the wedding in Cana is as significant as what she did do. She didn’t tell Jesus what to do, or how to do it. She simply identified the problem and got Jesus involved.
Mary states, “they have no wine.” Mary said so much by saying so little!
1 John 2:20ESV But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
You might ask, “Where is the miracle?” It was in 6 stone jars. God uses what you have!
This I know:
God’s got a miracle with your name on it.
God gave you that miracle, so you can be a miracle to others.
God’s word states in, 2 Corinthians is 4:7AMP But we have this precious treasure [the good news about salvation] in [unworthy] earthen vessels [of human frailty], so that the grandeur and surpassing greatness of the power will be [shown to be] from God [His sufficiency] and not from ourselves.
The miracle develops as we begin calling upon God! Remember this, “Your cry beckons God!!!”
The wedding official states in, John 2:10-11NKJV And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11 This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.
Can I tell you the first miracle foreshadows the last. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus turned water into wine. At the last supper, Jesus raised a cup of wine and said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin.”
Brother Paul brought this up last Sunday, Acts 19:1-7, is 22 years after the first initial infilling of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:1-4.
Acts 19:1-7NKJV And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples 2 he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
So they said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”
3 And he said to them, “Into what then were you baptized?”
So they said, “Into John’s baptism.”
4 Then Paul said, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.”5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. 7 Now the men were about twelve in all.
The Holy Spirit defined these early believers- way. This I know- “It’s the Holy Spirit’s intention to define your way."
Q&A- You got some water pots? Like Mary, “Whatever He tells you to do, do it.”
God proclaims in, Isaiah 43:19NLT For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
“Can you receive a new thing? Some folks can’t.” P.H
Remember the words of the wedding official, “You’ve saved the best for last!”
Ask the Holy Spirit to define who you are. Ask Him for clarity.
Benediction.
