All right, well, please turn in your Bibles to John chapter 2. You're like, finally, we made it into chapter 2. We're in John chapter two, and we have just an incredible privilege to witness one of these great miracles that only the disciples witnessed at the time, and only the servants along with the disciples knew about it. So it's indeed a privilege to peer in to take a look at Jesus turning water into wine. And John notes that it's his first sign that he did at this wedding in Cana, of Galilee. So we'll be looking at chapter 2 verses 1 through 12. And today's point is very simple. It's this. It's Jesus gave many signs to validate his testimony concerning his identity, his power, and his authority. Now we'll find some other meanings, some other important things here, but that by and large is the major point. And what I want to do is I want to begin with a summary of the book so you can see how this fits into it. And you begin to see, as you read the Gospel of John, I know some of you are reading it over and over as we're going through the series, as you read the Gospel of John, to really see the big picture, back up, what is this really about? What is John doing and saying here? And this is from the Lexham Context Commentary, and they've summarized the Gospel of John in a single paragraph. In this way, they've entitled their commentary on John as the story of Jesus as told by a disciple whom Jesus loved. And here's how their summary goes. This book is the story of Jesus as told by a disciple whom Jesus loved. or a select telling of powerful events in the life of Jesus, meant to encourage everyone who hears or reads this story to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing, have eternal life. The story begins with the Son, who from eternity is with the Father, but now descends into the world in a human way, yet remains filled with the glory of God. While in the world, the Son does the work that God plans for Him. Some believe in Him because of these works, and some do not. The son, the hero, or the protagonist, meets a number of characters along the way whose words and actions testify to the son's claims. Some of those characters he meets who do not believe the antagonist conspire to eliminate Jesus. Jesus is arrested, put on trial, executed, but on the third day, rises again and ascends back to heaven. The one who saw these things writes this story, and his testimony is true. That's a lovely summary of the entire book of John. And we're going to now read from chapter 2 verses 1 to 11, and we'll see how exactly these fit in. I think you'll find that very simple to see as these things fit in to this whole narrative. It says, starting in chapter two here, on the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Now there are six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with 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. When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine, and did not know where it came from, though the servants who'd drawn the water do, The master of the feast called the bridegroom 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. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. Let's pray. Father God, it is our intention that the word of God here glorify you by accounting what your son Jesus has done. And Lord, I pray this day, as we look at these verses, that you'll guide our thoughts, that you'll guide our intentions, that we will accept them as they truly are the word of God. And so we will be cleansed by them, as you have promised, that we indeed will be shaped and formed by them and further conformed to the image of your son, the destiny of all those who love your coming. We pray this day that you'll make yourself known through it in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so here we have a fascinating opportunity. The first of the signs that's done here is to look at the use of signs as we see them in the Gospel of John. And the first thing we want to note is that there's seven particular signs in John, and they're accounted in your notes. We don't need to go through them all. And we also want to take a look in John as we go through the signs, and it might be good homework this week, just go through the Gospel of John, look at the seven signs and look at the nature of them and what happens and what the response is to them. And you'll get to see a sense of what it is that God was doing through the Lord Jesus as he gave these signs. Well, first of all, we want to point out the quantity of the signs that he did. It's important to understand that because, as it's accounted here in the Gospel, we look just further on in the same context and we see simply this, that He did many signs and wonders. John 2.23 says, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. Well, John accounts the wedding, changing the water into wine is the first sign. And then he accounts a little later, the second sign, but apparently there were more in between. And indeed, that's the case we get from the other gospels as we put the gospel accounts together. There are many different signs that he did. And in fact, it made them marvel. In chapter seven, when they're debating whether he's the Christ or not, some of the people say this, many believed in him and they said, when the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? In other words, to them, this was overwhelming. This was a massive number of things that he had been doing. And John comments on it like this when he gives the purpose of his book at the end of it. In chapter 20, verse 30, he said, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. And at the end of the next chapter, he comments about it this way. I'm sorry about the scrolling, but I didn't have it linked there. There are many other signs that Jesus did where every one of them to be written, I suppose, that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Or as John is saying, there were a bunch. There were a lot of them. And many of them are accounted for us in the Gospels. But I want you also to notice as you go through and you look at the signs, look at the quality of the signs. Not only did he do a bunch of them, he did them well. When he turns the water into wine, they remark, this is the good stuff. You save the best for last. When he heals a man's servant, he heals them at a great distance. He doesn't even need to be there for the occasion to do it. And as the accounting was, he determined from his servants as they came and told him the good news, when did it happen? And he realized it was at the very time that Jesus said to go. He healed a man that had been paralyzed for 38 years. Now, that might go over your head until you really think about what it means to be paralyzed for a period of time like that, because you're not only overcoming the problem that's causing the paralysis, but 38 years of atrophy, a true miracle, not a leg lengthening done by some charlatan. This was the real deal. When he fed the multitudes, it was thousands upon thousands of people. He walked on water and calmed a storm. He healed a man born blind. And we see that in John 9, and someone even remarks, well, who's ever heard of someone healing a man born blind? And that made me think one day, has anyone ever healed a man born blind? And I looked through the Old Testament at the healings and everything, and word study on blind, and word study on sight, and no. Nobody had ever healed someone born blind until Jesus. He raised Lazarus from the dead after being in the grave four days, leaving no doubt this was a true miracle. Now, he raised other people as well, but those were people soon dead or recently dead, and people could say, oh, he was just asleep, or he was just resting, or he was in a temporary state that people get in sometimes, and Jesus happened long at just the right time. But not so with this one who, as it says, surely stinketh. And so we see that in John as kind of the crescendo of his signs, the last of his signs that is accounted in John. And the most important thing about these is not necessarily the quantity or the quality of the signs that he did, for one would surely be enough to attest to his identity, but what is the purpose of the signs that he is doing? And we call it a sign when it's used to reveal the nature of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. And indeed, look at the effect that this had. In John 2, verse 11, the first of his signs Jesus did at Canaan and Galilee and manifested his glory. The idea of manifestation is that it becomes tangible. It becomes something almost you can feel. It becomes real. It manifested his glory, and then look what happens. His disciples believed in him. It's not that the very purpose of John's gospel itself. And we look in the very next chapter when he heals somebody. He was in Jerusalem at the feast, and we saw this. Many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. People are coming to believe based on these signs. You look in chapter four where he heals someone and Jesus kind of gives this indictment of him. Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. But this is the official that came to him because his son was at the point of death. And he says, sir, come down before my child dies. And so this is an urgent plea for Jesus. And Jesus said to him, you know, and this is after this remark Jesus makes, ah, you're just looking for a sign. And he implores him urgently, no, Jesus, you've got to come. And Jesus says, go, your son will live. The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. And look at the result of this. Jesus had said to him, your son will live, and he himself believed in all his household. And so this is the impact, this is the purpose of the signs and the wonders that he did so that we could believe, so that indeed people there could believe, but indeed they've been accounted for us so that we can believe. And a lot of people wonder, why aren't signs and wonders being done so much today? Well, we have the Word of God. All the signs and wonders that were done are accounted there, enough of that for us. There should be more than sufficient evidence to believe. The blood of the martyrs who told these stories attesting to their veracity. This is very simple logic here. Somebody comes and breaks what is perceived by mankind to be the laws of nature. Who can that be but the lawmaker himself or someone at least sent by the lawmaker? Logically, this is very simple. and it attests to his authority. If he can heal someone paralyzed, then he can probably forgive sins. If he can indeed change water into wine, which I know not many of us in the room are chemists, but you understand those things are pretty different. You know what there's not in the store? You have these little energy drinks, and now they've condensed them down into little packets of dry powder, little tubes of liquid that's concentrated, and you put it in your bottle of water, and you shake it up, and now you've got instant energy drink. They don't have that for wine. That's probably a good thing for some people. You know why they don't have it for wine? It's way too complicated. chemists who have devoted their entire lives to doing nothing more than studying the compounds and things that exist in food, that exist in things, and see how they change in the fermentation process and things like that, they still don't understand. They still haven't tracked them all. Much of it's still a mystery. I once had a three-hour junior-level college class called wood chemistry. a three hour college level class, wood chemistry. And you know how much wood chemistry we really understand? Maybe 5% of what's going on in that stuff. And you realize it, you realize you can try and try to build a substitute, to build something else, to be like it, to have the structural properties, to have the beauty of it, and we just can't seem to duplicate it, even to this day. So he changed water into wine, and logically, it's really this simple. If he can change water into wine, he can change the heart of a human being. If he can change water into wine, he can change the course of one's life. If he can raise someone from the dead, can he not then grant life to whom he shall and whom he will? This is very simple, and yet why are there so many that deny the simplicity of the reasoning here? It's because they are suppressing the truth in their very own unrighteousness. And if you find yourself looking at the scriptures and saying, well, OK, so it accounts these signs, but who knows who wrote this down? I wasn't there. I didn't see it myself. It's not really convincing to me. You've got another problem, and it's not that you're unconvinced. It's that you're in rebellion. So those are the signs that Jesus did. They were great in their quantity, they were great in their quality, every single one of them. He never failed in an attempt. The disciples were once caught failing in an attempt to help somebody, but Jesus came and was successful. And the purpose of these is that indeed we would believe. But there's other messages to these signs that he gives. He does the signs in such a way that often they carry another message other than the very simple logic of, well, he's obviously God because he can do that. There are other things to see here as well, and I want to count a few of those for you because I found them very helpful myself. First of all is just simply this. When we look at the occasion of what he did here in Galilee, we see that first of all, he obviously cares about what's going on. It's really that simple. His mother comes to him, and let's look at the verses there, because I think this is important for us to see how this flows here. And it says, Jesus was invited to the wedding, and look at verse three here. And this is where this very brief conversation with his mother is. But when you live with someone for 30-some years, you kind of communicate on another level. And it was like that with your parents, and it's likely like that with your spouse now, where they can say a word or two, and you can say a word or two back, and you've got quite a conversation. And she says simply this, they have no wine. Well, he knows his mother well enough to know it. She's just not stating a fact for him to tally in some kind of a ledger of facts that he's keeping. No, she tells him this, obviously, for a reason. Obviously, she intends him to do something about it. But he says to her, he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? Now, he says woman. And in our language, that would be impolite to say woman to your mother. In that language, not so much, but it is distant. It's not the word mother. It's not that address, that intimate address that a son might have with his mother. It is somewhat distancing them. And I think what he's doing is he's asserting his position that now that he is an adult, now that he is beginning his ministry and calling his disciples to himself, that he is the Christ. And she is a woman, a very special woman, a very wonderful woman. But nonetheless, he's saying, I'm not 12. You can't just tell me what to do. And in that one word, he seems to sum this up and then ask the question, what does this have to do with me? And he adds, and this is the crucial and important part, my hour has not yet come. Now, he says that repeatedly through his gospels, and sometimes I think we have the impression that he just started saying that when his ministry started, but I rather think this was something that was known to Mary, known to the family, that he had a particular time in which things were going to begin to happen. She obviously knew he was special. She remembered the angel visiting. She remembered the nature of the conception, how no human man was involved in this thing. And so she understood him to be special. She finds him in the temple, 12 years old, teaching after three days, and speaking and questioning and giving great answers. She knew. He was destined for something. And he says, my hour's not yet come. And if a mother and son have a connection, it's good enough connection to say, I'm not going to do something publicly here. I'm not going to do something that's going to draw a lot of attention. This is why she walks away and she says to the servants, do whatever he tells you. He knows full well he's going to do something, but he's gonna do it on the down low, as they said. He's gonna do this quietly, and so he does. And he does this, I believe, as a favor to his mother, in addition to the other purposes of believing and for his disciples, we'll get to all that, but as a favor to his mother and as a blessing to this family. because this matters. Why does it matter? Because in those days, wedding feasts went on for days. Summer accounted to being as long as two weeks long. And when you did that, the family of the bridegroom hosted it. They were supposed to provide food and drinking wine for all the families that were visiting. Now, when you think about that, don't think of wine as we have it today. The wine that we have today on the shelf is generally three to five times more concentrated than theirs was. They didn't have the technology to concentrate it like they do now. And furthermore, they would actually take the wine and it would dilute it even further. So you're talking about a pretty weak alcoholic drink. It was done because it was a good and sterile drink. Clean water wasn't the most common thing. rather than get a bunch of water and boil it for the feast and everything else, you got wine. And wine was for celebratory. Wine was, you know, if you drank too much, of course, intoxicating. But nevertheless, look at how the Bible handles the concept of wine, and here's what you'll find. You'll find it's associated with much joy and much foolishness when done excessively. So the point of this passage is not any particular, let's have a rant about the evils of alcohol, or let's not negotiate on how much is appropriate or how much is not. Let's rather look at what the impact of this was. The impact was his disciples believed. and this family avoided a disgrace, because for them to run out before the end of the feast would have been a great social disgrace on them. It's as if, if you want a modern day parallel, you're invited to a wedding, you're invited to the reception, you RSVP, yeah, we'll be at the reception, we'll have, and sometimes they send out the RSVP where you choose which meal you want. I don't know if they do that much anymore, but sometimes they do. And you choose, okay, I want the chicken. No, never do fried chicken when you're wearing nice clothes. No, you cross that off and circle the meatloaf or whatever else it is they have on there. And you RSVP and you show up the day of the wedding, and as many people come as were invited, and you get to the reception and they've got enough food for about half of you. And it would reflect poorly on those who planned it. They didn't get enough food, they invited too many people, whatever. Hey, just don't invite me or tell me to pick up a burger on the way, I'm fine with that, but don't promise me a meal and then you don't have enough for half the people. This is a major social thing in these days because these weddings were so important and such great celebrations in the family, in the community, they're all invited over, they're all gonna have a good time. And so when she comes and says, they're out of wine, it's a major thing. And he spares this family this disgrace. And not only that, but turns what would have been a disgrace into an honor because the conductor of the feast, which would not be one of the host family, it would generally be someone from the community who may be the mayor, may be someone locally who is well-known or something. or maybe a relative that was very well known or wealthy in the area, and they would direct the feast, and they would kind of host the feast. And he calls the bridegroom out where the other people can say, you saved the best for last. So this is a special occasion. I wanna talk a little bit about Why this occasion? Why this for the first of his signs? Now John says this was the first of the signs that he did. He doesn't just say it's the first one I'm going to tell you about. He says the first one. Why here? Well, a wedding was a celebration. And think about a wedding in the biblical context. You think about a celebration of life and love. Your thoughts are drawn back to the perfect union of a man and woman before there was sin in the world. Your thoughts should be drawn back to some of the celebrations of weddings that you find along the way, maybe like the Book of Ruth or something like that, in which this is kind of a central theme, and this is what's happening, and it's a glorious and wonderful thing. You might even think back to the creation account and to the flood account, and remember, didn't God tell us, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth? And marriage is the context that God has designed for the obedience to that command. And so biblically, this is a beautiful celebration. It is supreme above the celebrations that we have, other than a celebration centered around God. And so it's in this context that he comes and he does something to indicate that he has come to fundamentally change things. Now, it's a special occasion, but it's also a common occasion. It's something that most of us can relate to, and if we ourselves have not been married, we have been to those occasions, we have seen those occasions, and we've gotten maybe a tear in our eye. Don't admit it, guys, but you've gotten a tear in your eye at a wedding or two, maybe. But these are profound and important occasions, and they happen frequently. I just talked to Nate and Sarah last night. They have gone to eight weddings this year, and they're planning theirs in April. And they said, I think that's the last one until April. So I think the next one will be theirs. But think back on the significance of weddings, and then begin to consider how has God used the illustration of weddings in the scriptures in revealing himself? And when we peruse the New Testament, we find Jesus referred to right here in the Gospel of John as the bridegroom. John the Baptist says, you yourselves bear me witness that I said I'm not the Christ, but I've been set before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease." Those people were saying, John, this guy came along and you call him the Lamb of God and all your guys are going off after to follow him. And John says, yeah, that's the way it ought to be. I'm rejoicing, all the glory is his. It's his day, he's the bridegroom. And so we're supposed to start thinking, Jesus is the bridegroom? Yeah. Paul expounds on the idea in a famous passage in Ephesians chapter 5, where he says it's like the church is the bride of Christ. And he is preparing, interestingly, to come back and take us to be with himself, just like a bridegroom. And so this illustration is important and we understand then, okay, God wove marriage into the very reality of our existence in order to make us understand the son's relation to those he would save. It's also important to see the imagery continuing from the Old Testament. And this is not as positive, and the links are in your notes. Links will be on the blog page. If you go to Ezekiel 16-23, if you go to Jeremiah 2-3, if you go to Isaiah 50-54, you're gonna find references to Israel as being the bride of God. And not all those references are nice. Some of those references talk about adultery. Some of those references talk about the betrayal of the people of Israel against their God. And so these are important for us to understand that marriage was put here to explain the relationship of the church with the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's more than one purpose, it appears, to what Jesus is doing here. And this point I wanna bring to you is, I believe, one of the major reasons he did this, when and where he did, is to show that he came to bring change. And he came to bring such great change that it is on the level of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. You read the scriptures and you read the Old Testament, you find that to be a major turning point. We're going from wandering in the wilderness now, we've come out of Egypt, and we're this great multitude of people now, and they're going to be taken into the promised land. And they're given this law, and they hear the voice of God himself, who himself gives them the law at Mount Sinai. Well, in John 1.17 there, in what is the prologue, it says, the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John sets up right in the beginning. This is major. This is the one who was there from the beginning. He is God, and he has come to be in the flesh, and he has revealed true glory as of the one and only unique son of God, and he has come to bring grace and truth as Moses gave us the law. And then we come and he changes water into wine. And the question is, well, how does it follow then that he is doing you know, that he is announcing change and he is doing this for the purpose of explaining that he came to change. Read what follows in the context. You start in the beginning of chapter 2, he turns water into wine. And further on in chapter 2, he cleanses the temple and refers to himself as the temple. And then in John chapter 3, a man named Nicodemus, one of the leaders among the Jewish people, comes to him at night, has some questions. Jesus says to him, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He just took every conception that everybody had about what this kingdom was, and what it was going to look like, and how it was going to be inaugurated, because they were all expecting the king. They were expecting a new kingdom. But then Jesus says, but you have to be born again to see it. And of course, he's like, what do you mean born again? Obviously, you don't mean that I'm going to physically be born again. And Jesus begins to explain. And he says something really interesting. He connects to the concept of eternal life, which the concept of eternal life was not unknown to people at that time. Many people had a conception of eternal life, that there was eternal things. And Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and he would be among those people that believed in an afterlife. And Jesus says this, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. So what Jesus did there is he linked us to a story in the book of Numbers in which the people were being bitten fatally by these fiery serpents for their disobedience to God, and God provided them with instructions, and Moses made a bronze serpent, put it up on a pole, and if they were bitten, they were going to die unless they looked upon that serpent. And Jesus said, that's me. You'll die if you don't look to me. just like that serpent, I'll be lifted up. And whoever believes in me will have eternal life, not just continue on in their dusty existence in the wilderness, but have eternal life. So you see what is happening here, starting with that wedding, Cana Galilee, Jesus begins to come overturn some of their conceptions about religion, their conceptions about the kingdom. In chapter four, he speaks to a Samaritan woman, and they had a slightly distorted religion of the Jews, and they had different beliefs and different conceptions. And he starts to get a little too personal with her, and she kind of says, hey, you know, you Jews, you say we have to worship at Jerusalem, but we say you have to worship here in Samaria. And he says, the hour is coming and now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. And so Jesus is saying once again, there's going to be a fundamental change. It's not about whether it ought to be in Jerusalem or here, it's about something entirely different that you hadn't even dreamed of. In chapter five, he begins to get in trouble because he's healing on the Sabbath. Why would he do such a thing? He came to show it's fundamentally changing things. In John chapter 9, a healing on the Sabbath really, really comes to a crescendo. This is one of those things that really drives a wedge between him and the leadership. And he shows, indeed, he's come to change, to change quite fundamentally, to change at such a fundamental spiritual level nature of relating to God as the fundamental changes down to the molecules of water versus wine. The religious leaders of Israel by and large don't get it, and Jesus never submits to them. He puts himself forward as the alternative. and at one point accounted in some of the other gospels publicly denouncing them. And it begins with this, we're gonna do something different here. We're not saving the cheap stuff for last. God is saving the good stuff for last. And what he did with the Israelites before this, it was all good. He gave them a land they hadn't worked for. He kept the promises to Abraham. Many people lived in that land blessed. And when we read the Old Testament, we tend to think about all the error and all the disobedience and everything else. But nevertheless, they were a nation where people lived and died good and fruitful lives for hundreds of years. And now he comes along and he says, it's gonna be a little different. This is about grace and truth. And something I want you to see is I want you, if possible, to kind of put yourself here with the disciples for a minute. Because Jesus does some signs just for his disciples. Come back to the scriptures and look at this. If we look in John chapter one, what leads up to this is we have John the Baptist. He says, behold, the Lamb of God. And the next day he sees Jesus again. He says, behold, the Lamb of God. Two disciples that were with John go and follow Jesus. This is Andrew, and the other one might be John. We're not sure yet. But one of them is definitely Andrew. And Andrew then goes and they ask, hey, where are you staying? Jesus is like, what do you want? They're like, where are you staying? yet they didn't know what else to ask. And he goes, come and see. And it's interesting he says that because it counts the next day, the next day, the next day, and then in Canaan, Galilee, it's on the third day. That's a two-day journey. Where did they find Jesus was staying? Well, he was staying somewhere locally, and then he was staying somewhere on the road, and then he was staying somewhere in Canaan of Galilee. And these guys are taken along for this ride. And this is interesting to see them dragged along with it, but before they head off to Cana of Galilee, Andrew goes and gets Simon, and then we meet Philip in verse 43 of chapter one, and Philip goes off and he gets Nathanael, and there's an interesting interaction between Nathanael and Jesus, and then all of a sudden they travel two days to Cana of Galilee, and they witness this miracle. All the disciples know it, and the only other people that know it are the servants that actually served it. They witness it, and no one else in Cana witnesses it. And that brings up an interesting question. He says, my time has not yet come. He does the miracle anyway. Well, he did the miracle in Cana. He's going to leave Cana. He's going to go back to Galilee. And then he's going to go to Jerusalem. And he's going all kinds of other places. And there's few enough people that saw the miracle that this is not going to follow him. He did this for his disciples. And he did it out of town, so to speak, so that the rumor wouldn't follow them so quickly that he had done this thing, because there's going to be an information leak somewhere, if not one of the disciples, probably one of the servants. And he does this. But this is not the only time he does something just for his disciples. As you peruse the Gospels, you find him walking on water. Who saw that but the disciples as they were in the boat? We see Jesus transformed upon Mount Hermon, and who sees that except the inner three of the disciples, Peter, James, and John? The same three were witness to his raising of a young girl who had died, and no one else. In contrast to this is the raising of Lazarus in John chapter 11. where a great deal of people, Los to Jerusalem is where this happened in chapter 11. A great deal of people witnessed this thing. He does it quite publicly after someone remarks, no, no, no, don't open the tomb. Surely he stinks by now. It's been four days in the tomb. So everybody knows the situation. They know how long it's been. He raises Lazarus. And in about a week, he's crucified. When we walk with Jesus, when we follow Him, when we obey His commands, when we hang out with His people, when we learn His ways and we meet Him in the Word of God, He will confirm Himself to us in ways too wonderful for the world. Now this is important. Do you remember Jesus saying, don't cast your pearls before swine? In other words, don't tell an unbeliever everything if they're rejecting what little you've told them. It's like he says kind of confrontationally with Nicodemus in his conversation. He says, I've told you worldly things. You haven't believed me. How are you going to believe me if I tell you of spiritual things, heavenly things, he says. that as a believer in Jesus Christ, as one who has believed the gospel and has put our trust in Him, repented of our sins, and received the Spirit of God, we receive testimony from God that no unbeliever ever receives. You say, well, that's not fair. Well, no, the gospel's gone out to everybody. The gospel's there for everyone. It's all there for them to see. But the fact of the matter is this, that when a believer and unbeliever side by side are reading through the scriptures, something's going on in one that's not going on in the other. Now, why do I bring this up? Because that's your living water. as he says in chapter four. That's your bread of life, as he says in chapter five. This is the Lord Jesus Christ that we partake of him in the scriptures, and as we walk with him, and as we know him, and as we follow him in obedience. And he tells them, hey, where are you staying? And he says, oh, come and see. That's an imperative statement. That's a command. What if all of a sudden he gets on the road, he starts heading to Cana, where are you going? I'm going to Cana. I'm not going to Cana. That's two days away. I've got things to do. And how often we do precisely that. when the Lord Jesus says, hey, go this way, trust me, we find an encouragement, a command in the scriptures, and it says this, and to be this way, or to seek him and to do these things, and we say, I don't know, that's just... I'm busy, and gosh, the game is on in a few minutes, and gee. But here is an encouragement, the first encouragement I wanna give you today is this, Follow Jesus by faith, and your faith will be deepened. You take that first step. He says, come and see. Okay, I'm going to follow. I think he's going to Cana. This is the road to Cana. It's okay. It's okay. He told us he's going to show us. And because they stuck it out, and they followed the road, and they stayed with the Lord Jesus until this thing, and they held by close to Him, when they were at this wedding in Cana of Galilee, they got to see something so fundamentally miraculous that they believed in Him. And so the encouragement is, just follow Jesus, just take the next step by faith, and He'll reward that step. with something to bring the next, and something to bring the next step. He doesn't dump it all on us at once, because frankly, we can't handle it all at once. He's gonna tell us what we need to do next. And if we do what we need to do next, he'll be there to show us something new. Follow Jesus by faith and your faith will be deepened. And most fundamentally, the purpose of John's gospel, and as we found it there in the end of the account there in two, his disciples believed him. Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Do not the scriptures hold everything sufficient for that understanding? to see our need of Him before us. As He spoke of holiness, and as in the Sermon on the Mount, He says, yeah, you've heard about murder, and I'm pretty sure you haven't murdered, but you know, hate in your heart's the same thing. You've heard about adultery, but I tell you, lust in your heart's the same thing. And you know to go and to pray, but do you do it just for a show before other people? He challenged us on every level. and hopefully we're found falling short of the glory of God. We're found of those in sin and we're laid bare before God and we go, what shall I do? I cannot be with God, I will surely die. But we look to Jesus, the one who's been lifted up and we trust in him for our salvation. We repent of our sins and we look to the one who took our place on the cross and shed his blood and cleansed us. and we ourselves can be saved. Believe that the Lord Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing, have life in his name. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you so much for what Jesus did, how he manifested his glory. And Lord, we are looking at the Word of God today. And we are told that the truth found in it is spiritually discerned. And so I pray that you'll lend us your spirit to manifest His glory in our hearts. While we're there and we can't see it and we don't see the actual thing happen, Lord, see it with the eyes of faith. and you can encourage us, and you can manifest your glory to us within. Lord, you're one who can fundamentally change the molecules in the universe. You can change our hearts. You can open the eyes of the blind. You can make us see spiritually. You've shown us so much, and I pray that we act in faith so we may see even more. We thank you, Lord, for your great grace that you've given us to reveal to us things too precious that we do not deserve to lay our eyes upon, and yet there they are, and we thank you for them. And I pray, Lord, that each of us this day are emboldened by the truth that we have seen, and we realize that as we share your gospel truth, and as we go out to live a life that we live it not in our own power, that we share the gospel truth not by our own doing, but by the very power of God, the power that changed water into wine, It's a power that works in the hearts of men. May it be so for us and for those we encounter in these coming days. We thank you so much for your ministry in and to through the saints. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen.