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.