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Good afternoon. Good day to you. I'm not sure if it's afternoon.
I may get this up in the morning yet. This is Pastor Greg of One
Hope Fellowship in Norfolk, Nebraska and Community of Believers Church
in Creighton, Nebraska. Today's Thursday, April 2nd.
I'm continuing today with my Homebound series, seeking to
teach and encourage during this time of coronavirus and sheltering
in place and maintaining social distance. I want to take a little
time today and talk about improving your Bible reading. Now, I'm
making a couple of assumptions there. The first is that you're
reading your Bible on a consistent basis. If you're not, then I
urge you to start. You could read one chapter a
day. You could read enough that you just have to turn the page
each day. Whatever you do, as my wife Linda
says, keep your bookmark moving. The second assumption that I
make is that your Bible reading can be improved. Now that's an
assumption, but I think it's a safe assumption. You might
be reading 10 or 20 chapters a day, but between the two of
us, are you getting as much out of the scripture that you can?
And we want to maximize the time that's there. I want to walk
you what I do when I come to a passage of scripture as I begin
to study it, whether it's for a Bible study, whether it's for
a sermon, whether it's for preaching at a rescue mission chapel, even
for my own reading, just how I approach it. And I'm doing
this not on the basis of a book that I read or a technique that
I learned. I'm doing this on the basis of
having preached more than 1,600 sermons. over the past 27 years
and spent well over 20,000 hours in study in the process of doing
that. So I've developed a kind of muscle
memory that for scripture that a guitarist has or that a pianist
has over time spent practicing. And I just want to pass on to
you what I do. Now I've just opened my Bible
and it came open to John chapter 2. As I look at John chapter
2, I use the English Standard Version, by the way, and you
might be using another version. Most modern Bibles will break
the passages into groups for you. So as I look at the page,
I have John chapter 2 from verse 1 to verse 12 is under the heading,
The Wedding at Cana. The second passage from verse
13 to verse 22 is under the heading, Jesus Cleanses the Temple. And
then the third heading is verse 23 to verse 25, very brief at
the end, Jesus Knows What is in Man. As I look at the first
passage, The Wedding at Cana, I notice that it's in two paragraphs. And those two paragraphs, actually
three paragraphs, excuse me, those three paragraphs consist
of 12 verses. There are five verses in the
first paragraph. There are six verses in the second
paragraph, and then one verse, verse 12, in the third paragraph,
as it brings it to a close. Okay, so let's begin reading
at verse one. 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. And 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 were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of
purification. each holding 20 or 30 gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, fill up 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 had come from, though the servants
who had drawn the water knew, 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. So as we look at these three
paragraphs, the first paragraph clearly is a setup. It sets the background for the
second paragraph. The second paragraph contains
the working of the sign, the miracle that Jesus performs as
he changes water into wine. And the third paragraph simply
transitions into the remainder of the gospel. We don't need
to look at that specifically right now. As we look at that
first paragraph, there are some things that stand out to me.
The first three words are, or first four words are, on the
third day. On the third day. On the third
day of what? Well, I have to go back into the end of chapter
one. When I go back into the end of
chapter one, I see that Jesus called Philip and Nathaniel.
That's a heading in my English Standard Version. from verse
43 to verse 51 of John chapter 1. So Jesus has just called Philip. Philip found Nathaniel, brought
Jesus to Nathaniel. They had a brief conversation.
Jesus made a wonderful statement to Nathanael and said, truly,
truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels
of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. And then on
the third day. So the third day after that is
the wedding. Interestingly enough, the passage
with Philip and Nathaniel begins the next day. So I have to go
back up and then the passage before that begins the next day. And then I have to go back up
and I go back up to verse 29 and it says the next day. And so I have to keep going back
up even more. And I find that I'm starting
at verse 19, which is the testimony of John the Baptist, the work
of John the Baptist. The testimony of John the Baptist,
the work of John in preaching and baptizing, his identity. The fact that he had baptized
all of these people. Then the next day he sees Jesus
coming toward him. The next day after that, John
is standing with two of his disciples and says, behold, the Lamb of
God, as Jesus walks by. And the next day, Jesus goes
to Galilee. He finds Philip and finds him, finds Nathaniel. And then on the third day. So
all of this is happening very, very quickly. Now on the third
day, then there's a wedding. at Cana in Galilee, if I look
in the map in the back of my Bible, I've got several maps
in the back of my Bible. I've got the world of the patriarchs,
the Exodus, the 12 tribes of Israel, Israel under Saul, David,
and Solomon. And then I have a, next to that,
there's a map of Jerusalem during that time. And then I have Palestine
in the time of Jesus. So I'm looking for Cana. I look
up in the area of Galilee and I see that Cana is over West
of the Sea of Galilee. According to the scale on the
map, Cana is about 10 or 12 miles West of Galilee. And it's about
six or eight miles North, pretty much due North of Nazareth, where
Jesus and his mother were from. And then they ended up in Capernaum
according to verse 12. Right? Capernaum, I find it there
in Galilee, and it's at the very top of the Sea of Galilee. Bethsaida is actually kind of
up on the river that comes in, but Capernaum is just right there
next to it. So we're talking about events that are taking
place in Galilee, but it's interesting that they're not taking place
in Jesus' hometown. The mother of Jesus was there.
Who is the mother of Jesus? Of course, the mother of Jesus
is Mary. It's interesting to me that In
these 12 verses that we've read, she's never called Mary. John
only calls her the mother of Jesus, or his mother. And I've
cheated a little bit. I've done a Bible search in the
Gospel of John for Mary, and John never uses Mary's given
name. He always refers to her as the
mother of Jesus. Well, the mother of Jesus is
there, and then verse two says, Jesus also was invited to the
wedding with his disciples. That's an interesting way to
put it. It's kind of a subtle way. It's a subtle thing, perhaps,
but Jesus is not the first focus for those who are holding the
wedding. They're not saying, let's get married. No, we have
to invite Jesus at this point. Mary is there. And because Mary
is there, it seems that Jesus is there. He brings his disciples
because he's beginning to call disciples to him. And then the
wine runs out. And the mother of Jesus says
to him, they have no wine. Now you have to do a little bit
of reading into ancient cultures, into ancient practices. This
is not our time when a wedding reception lasts maybe a few hours
in a rented hall someplace. This wedding reception would
have been centered around the house of the bridegroom. He would
have gone to bring his wife, gone to bring his bride to his
home. Everybody would have come. They
would have come with lanterns if it was nighttime or candles.
There would have been food and the feast may have gone on for
as long as a week. It depends on what he had as
resources and what he had available to him. The feast really kind
of centers around wine. This is a party. There is singing.
There is dancing. There is a lot of joy going on. There's a lot of happiness going
on. Joy in a, in kind of an earthly sense. They are really thoroughly
enjoying the moment of all of this. So to run out of wine is
kind of an interesting circumstance. I'm going to pour a cup of tea. while I'm talking. To run out
of wine is an interesting circumstance. It either means that more people
showed up than the bridegroom thought would
show up. This is me closing my thermos.
It either means that more people showed up than the bridegroom
thought would show up, which is a possibility. Or it means
that he didn't plan well. He didn't plan efficiently. And so Mary comes to Jesus and
says, they have no wine. And Jesus says, woman, what does
this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. It's
kind of an interesting, kind of an interesting statement.
Mary turns to the servants and says, do whatever he tells you.
She expects that Jesus is going to do something to help and anticipates
that. Well then, what do we see there
in that first paragraph? We see the relationship between
Jesus and his mother. She's leaning on him. She's coming
to him. I've read, as I've looked at
this before, I've read that somebody says, well, Mary came and whispered
to Jesus. It doesn't say that. I've heard
it said that Mary came to Jesus kind of nagging him, and it doesn't
say that. When Jesus says to her woman,
what does this have to do with me? He's not being harsh or brusque
by calling her woman. It was a common way of addressing
people and addressing women, even addressing female family
members. So Jesus isn't being disrespectful
there. The interesting statement is
that that phrase, my hour has not yet come. My hour has not
yet come. And understanding it would be
difficult if you'd never, ever, ever read the Bible or the Gospel
of John. If the first thing that you'd
ever read of the Bible was this, I think you'd be completely and
utterly confused. But for most people, and certainly
for Christians, we understand that the hour that Jesus is talking
about is the hour of his passion, the hour of his death, the hour
of his sacrifice, his death, his substitutionary death. for
the elect of God. It hasn't yet come. The intriguing
thing is how does Jesus, or how do we connect up this very innocent
sounding statement from Mary, they have no wine, to this statement
that Jesus makes of it's not time for me to die. Moving on
into the second paragraph, John says there were six stone water
jars there And he explains that they were for the Jewish rites
of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. So that's,
uh, between 120 and 180 gallons of water, uh, 20 or 30 gallons,
by the way, that, that these are, these are large jars. These
are barrel size jars. If they were used for the Jewish
rite of purification, they wouldn't have been used for anything else.
They wouldn't have been used for general storage or something
like that. These were important. As people
came to the feast, they had been walking through the streets,
their hands were dirty, their feet were dirty, their faces
were dirty. And according to the customs of the Pharisees
then, they would bend over these barrels and get water out of
the barrels to wash their hands, to wash their faces, to refresh
themselves and to wash their feet before going into the home. And Jesus says 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. And so they did that. And the
master of the feast tasted the water. It's become wine. He doesn't
know where it came from. The servants knew. He calls the
bridegroom and says, everyone serves the good wine first when
people have drunk freely than the poor wine. But you have kept
the good wine until now. So there's a couple of things
on the, on the surface there. It's, it's really cool that the
wine that Jesus made was really good wine. It, it, it wasn't
cheap wine. It was very, uh, it was very
good wine. It was the kind of wine that
you serve at the start of the feast, not the kind of wine you
serve at the end. Now, not advocating drunkenness,
the Bible condemns drunkenness, but the Bible never condemns
drinking alcohol. Especially given the fact that
they would take wine, they would ferment it. Wine has a, grape
juice has a built-in top. It can only ferment so long because
the sugar runs out. And then they would dilute it.
And they would dilute it down to a level where they would drink
it all through dinner. And they could drink it all through
dinner without really becoming drunk. Because there just wasn't
enough alcohol in it to do that. Drinking undiluted wine, drinking
strong wine or concentrated wine certainly would cause you to
become drunk just as it would today, but they were diluting
it. The master of the feast tastes the wine and he goes to the bridegroom
and he says, this is the best wine. This is better than what
we had before. Everyone serves the good wine
first. When people have drunk freely, when they can't really
taste the difference anymore, when they've become a little
bit warmed by the wine, not drunk, not even tipsy, just a little
bit more relaxed, then you serve the other stuff and they're no
longer paying attention to what the good stuff is. But you've
kept the good wine until now. And then John gives us a really
significant statement in verse 11, and we have to take this
back through the passage. He says, this, the first of his
signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and
his disciples believed in him. Wow. Okay. So we start out with
a wedding and a reception, a party. Jesus' mother is there. Jesus
is there with his disciples. The wine runs out. Mary comes
to Jesus and says, they have no wine. Jesus says, what does
this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. And
what does that hour, that hour, as we talked about is the hour
of his sacrifice, the hour of his death, the hour when his
blood would be shed, right? Right. His mother says the servants
do whatever he tells you. There are six stone waters there
for the Jewish rights of purification. And that's a clue. They're not
just water jars. They're there for a very specific
purpose, and that is the right of purification. And so Jesus
says, fill them up with water just like you would normally
do, and then draw some out and take it to the master of the
feast. And it has become wine, and it has become better wine
than they had had before. And this is a sign. that everybody
serves the good wine at first and then the poor wine once people
can't taste the difference. But this bridegroom is serving
the better wine later. This is what I think is taking
place. This is how it serves as a sign. It's not just the
miracle. It's not just the fact that he
changed water to wine. He didn't just do a parlor trick
to amaze people. What Jesus did was indicate through
this sign for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see,
who know the totality of the story, who are following along
with the story, that there is something old and there's something
new. The something that is old is
the law of Moses. And beyond that, outside of the
law of Moses is the traditions of the elders, the traditions
of the Pharisees, which We're not based entirely on scripture
in which often violated scriptures. We know traditions of the Pharisees
drove them to have these large Jewish rites of purification,
water jars. The law of Moses is the old wine
that's run out. It's not as good. The gospel
of Jesus Christ, the new covenant in his blood, which is depicted
in wine in the last supper. is what Jesus comes to offer
and what would come ultimately through his hour, as he mentions
it in verse four. This is how I come into a passage. I've just kind of walked you
through the process. I don't know that everything that, that
I just commented on, I don't know that everything that I just
commented on is it would make it into a sermon or make it into
a teaching. I do know that as I go through, I want to see how
the passages is linked together and is held together by the varying
words and phrases and the language that's there. God never said
anything in scripture just to say it. He never said anything
in scripture just to talk, hear the sound of his own voice. What
he says is significant, but I know that this is a sign. I know that
What he gives them, the wine that he gives them, is better
than the wine that they had. And I know that this is a sign,
and I know that it's connected to his hour. I know that it's
depicting, in some way, his hour. He wouldn't have brought it up
otherwise. And so now what I would do is I would take advantage
of the commentaries that I have, and I would read. I would work
through the text again. I would lay it out again. But
what I've just done with you over, I don't know how long it's
been, 10 or 15 minutes, is just think through 12 verses, 11 verses,
we didn't really talk about verse 12. Just talk and think through
11 verses out loud. To try and go from the words
on the page to the meaning that those words convey. And so I've
gone from Jesus went to a party and they ran out of wine and
that was really sad and embarrassing for the host. And so just to
be a nice guy, Jesus made more wine so that they could continue
the party. To Jesus went to a wedding reception and by changing water
to wine, and giving them a better wine that they had had showed
them that what he was bringing in terms of the new covenant
in the gospel was orders of magnitude greater than anything that they
had ever had before. It was better than the traditions
of the elders, the traditions of the Pharisees with those Jewish
rites of purification. And it was better than the law
of Moses. that is manifested and revealed in the old wine
in the story. The new covenant, the blood of
Jesus Christ, is better than anything that we could ever have. That's how I approach a passage
as I begin to read it. I think that that gives me a
better foundation for my day than simply reading the text,
finishing it, closing my Bible and saying, I've got no idea
what it was about, but I've done my duty. So this is Pastor Greg
again, signing off for now. I will be talking to you in a
few days. Remember live streaming Sunday morning at 1030 on the
onehopefellowship.org website and on the One Hope Fellowship
Facebook page, both at 1030. We will have our worship service.
God bless you. Have a wonderful day.
Better Bible Reading
Series The Homebound Series
| Sermon ID | 5320120596574 |
| Duration | 22:42 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Language | English |
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