John 2, verses 1 to 11. On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. Now there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing 20 or 30 gallons each. Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water. So they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter. So they took it to him. When the headwaiter tasted the water, which had become wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, every man serves the good wine first. And when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now. This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory in his disciples believed in him. This ends the reading of God's word. Please pray with me. Our Father in heaven, we thank you once again for calling us here together this morning to worship you and now to sit under the preaching of your word. We do pray that you would attend and bless both the preaching and the hearing of your word. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. So we need to quickly recap where we've been in this glorious gospel account. We remember going back that Jesus is the eternal word of God, God from God from all eternity, with the father and equal to the father in glory, power, majesty, adoration, praise. And John also shows us that this cosmic reality of human rebellion against God and against the word had been taking place from the very beginning. He is the light and life of humanity, but humanity rejects and rebels against their maker. But wonder of wonders, their maker will become made for their salvation. And further, John shows us, even in the midst of a darkened and rebellious humanity, the marvelous reality that some believe and embrace Jesus. In being born of God, they are pulled out of darkness into the light to see the glory of God, the abundance, of God's grace in Jesus Christ. And they bear witness to his glory and grace for us. And the forerunner and foremost was John the Baptist, the humble prophet, who, as we've learned, comes and fulfills his calling and then goes away into the background and makes way for Jesus, the Messiah, as he enters into his public ministry and gathers his first disciples in that glorious account. What we have just to sort of summarize in chapter one is really two things. The prologue gives us a background that begins in eternity and stretches from the first creation to the current point in redemptive history. While verse 19 to the end of the chapter give us really the proper historical introduction to the book. Both parts give us specific themes and patterns that will run through the rest of the gospel, and hence they're both very important for our study of this great gospel. Light and darkness, belief and unbelief, seeking and following or going away. We have double meanings. These are some of the themes that we've seen that will run through the first half of the gospel account through to chapter 12. And One of the themes that we've discussed and that will come to light for us today is that of the new creation and lastly we're entering the book of signs the book of signs goes through chapter 12 and There will be seven signs here that Jesus will perform that essentially demonstrate to the reader his person and his work is John the Baptist testimony true and That's the question, and each episode is a case test, if you will. John the Evangelist is calling witnesses to the stand, and how the reader or listener responds demonstrates their current spiritual state and determines their ultimate fate. And so, to our text. It begins on the seventh day at a wedding. And we'll look at this text under five points. The setting, Jesus and his mother, the sign itself, the response, and then we'll make some points of application. So the wedding, you're invited to this wedding, by the way. As the reader in here, we're all invited to the wedding. It's significance. Weddings are a huge deal at this time. They lasted up to seven days. They were of major social significance. How the wedding played out could greatly affect your social status in the community. A poor wedding would not be quickly forgotten. The couple had the potential of being sued for any inconvenience or unpleasantness the event might cause. You could essentially be shunned in your society for the rest of your life. There could be life changing, in other words. Weddings are a huge deal and who are the guests at this wedding? Jesus' mother is most certainly She's there and she's most certainly a close relative or friend of the couple shown by the level of responsibility she had to the wedding. And Jesus and his disciples are invited probably as a result of this close relation. And it appears almost certain that Jesus and his disciples were later invites. He's just gathered them as his disciples and now they're going. So they're later invites and are in some sense responsibility for the shortage of wine. It is the third day. John, under the inspiration of the Spirit, wants to tease something out here for us. There's no accident that he puts the third day. You're about to witness something extraordinary on the third day. But it will seem nothing to what will take place on the third day just a few years from now. When the hour of his glorification comes, something much more extraordinary is going to take place. He's going to conquer the grave. That's our setting. And now the dilemma. Jesus and his mother and his mother's requests. Why does Mary bring this to Jesus? Jesus hasn't performed any miracles as of yet. Mary has been pondering in her heart the things prophesied about her son, the announcement of the angel, and all these things. And I believe what's going on is she, with a growing faith, believes he has the ability to intervene and so prompts him to act. I don't believe that she's trying to push along his messianic revelation as some would suggest. It's not even clear that she's asking a miracle, I don't believe. And I believe the nature of her simple request and Jesus' general rebuke helps this interpretation. If you contrast this with her words to Jesus in Luke 2, 48 at the temple scene, she says, so when they saw him, or Luke 2, 48 says, so when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. whereas her words to him here are simply, they have no line. So how does Jesus respond? His odd response. Jesus' response is odd only because we don't really have a good equivalent in English for his use of the word woman, but I think it's best translated, dear woman, would be good. Dear woman, or my lady, would be sort of a way we might put it. It is an endearing term, though, and there isn't any harshness or severity in it, unlike the woman that we're prone to think of when we hear the term. The NIV of 1984 captures the verse well in that sense. Dear woman, why do you involve me? The Greek literally reads, what to you and me, woman? And the idea is that the two have nothing in common. The Greek puts the contrast, what to you and me, it puts it first for emphasis. What do I have to do with you, dear woman? Several Old Testament texts will help us bear this out. 2 Samuel 16, 10. But the king said, what have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah? So let him curse, because the Lord has said to him, curse David. Who then shall say, why have you done so? First Kings 17, 18. So she said to Elijah, what have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to kill my son? In the New Testament, Matthew 7, 29. For he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. And in Matthew 27, 19, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him saying, have nothing to do with this just man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him. John 2, 4, back to John 2, 4, Jesus said to her, woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. I believe Jesus is referring to his relation to his father as the eternal son of God and the redemptive work that our triune God has come to accomplish in and through Christ. Dear woman, who I am as God's eternal son come in the flesh for you and your salvation has nothing to do with you other than the fact that you need this salvation accomplished. It goes beyond your role as my earthly mother. My hour has not yet come. The hour of my redeeming work for you and the children God has given me is not yet." In this response, he is not only keeping with his own sovereign schedule, as we'll see throughout the book of John, but he also gently prodes Mary to further ponder her own need of her son as her savior and for him to accomplish it. Here, Brooke Westcott's comments on this verse. might, says it in a different, similar but different way, it might help you out here. He says about this contrast, he says, everywhere it marks some divergence between the thoughts and ways of the person so brought together. In this passage, it serves to show that the actions of the son of God, now that he has entered on his divine work, are no longer dependent in any way on the suggestion of a woman, even though that woman be his mother. Henceforth, all he does springs from within. and will be wrought at its proper season. And her compliance shows us that she both understands that it's not her prerogative, but also a firm confidence that Jesus will take care of the situation. Whatever he says, do it. Again, Mary is not only to ponder that Jesus' redemptive work is on a whole other plane than her relation to him as her mother, but that his hour and work are necessary for her salvation as well. I believe that Mary will ponder these things in her heart going forward. She has a great need and responsibility here, but she has a greater, more important need concerning her own soul. I think this is what John would have us gather, as she's not going to be mentioned until the end of the gospel, where Jesus will say, In reverse terms, woman will be at the front now, showing forth his compassion in the relation woman, behold your son. And Mary is an example to us here. We've just seen a very different picture of the Mary that Roman Catholicism holds out. But she is an example to us here, but no more than an example of great faith. Let us take a few lessons here. First, to be content where God's providence leads. Even when we think we've got it figured out and that everything should fall out this or that way, be content when God has a different or better plan. Second, notice how gentle and lovingly Jesus deals with us when we stumble, when we don't understand what he's doing or working in us. He doesn't dump us. He gently rebukes us and stirs us on to maintain an even greater faith. My kiddos are all, they're doing all they can at this point in time to be involved, to help out, to be paid attention to with this transition and the moving and everything that's going on. And they think they're helping. And when sometimes what they're doing to dad for dad or mom is not really helping. And they think they're doing the right thing. I think just like what Mary thought she was doing with looking to Jesus. They think they're doing the right thing. And too many times I respond in ways I shouldn't. Don't touch that. You need to go out of this room or whatever. You ever had that moment when you hear yourself and your kids? When you hear some, and particularly some of your bad attributes in your kids? Owen was following Idalette around on Friday, bossing her around. She was getting into something and he goes, Oh no, we're done here. And I heard my own voice there. That's how I've been acting. We're done here. Go upstairs. You know, you're, you're getting into too much. He says, we're done here. I thought, man, that's me. I don't, I don't want to respond like that. And that's not the way that Jesus responds to us. He is gentle. He's forbearing. He won't break the bruised reed. And this is very much a way he is to be imitated by us. Calculate your responses to those under you when you need to correct them. Lastly, maintain faith in the midst of God's correction. Rather than turn away from him, come to him, rely on him, and say with Mary, whatever he says, do it. Whatever your will is, Lord, let it be done. I'm confident you'll provide in a way that's better than how I would have had it. Moving on now to the miracle. And it starts by mentioning these cleansing, ceremonial cleansing pots. Now there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification containing 20 or 30 gallons in each. The ceremonial cleansing pots have much significance. First, their number is six. As you all know, seven is the number of completion. Seven is the number of perfection and fullness, while six is the number of incompletion, lax perfection, lacking fullness. It first represents the ceremonial system, which was always meant to point beyond itself. It didn't have that perfection and never boasted it. Next, it represents the lack and want of the corrupt implementation of religious practice common in the day, by mention of the Jewish ceremonial practice. It is a corrupt and depleted system, further represented by the fact that they have no wine. It lacked any genuine spirituality, and consequently, it lacked any joy and any gladness. There's a sourness to everything about them. And Jesus has come to flip all that. He is coming to bring spiritual life. And that life will be accompanied with both joy and gladness. It is signified by his presence and provision at this wedding. And don't miss this. Jesus and his disciples attend and participate at this wedding without any lack of moderation or immodesty, with great joy and merriment. And this flies right in the face of the current religious practices of the Jews and Pharisees. Not only were they destitute of life, they thought they had life in these ceremonial cleansing pots. But they're also sour and dry. There was no joy, no vigor, no gladness. And Jesus comes not only upholds and honors the marriage, but the celebratory nature of the occasion with such sanctity, modesty, and delight that it causes the religious leaders to call him a drunken, a drunkard, and a glutton. It's just repugnant to them. They can't imagine it. They can't stand it. Perhaps this is too much between the lines, but I believe that Jesus and his disciples behave in such a way that it would have run throughout the whole wedding. It would have been contagious. Yes, certainly at the time there are wedding celebrations that were a moderate amounts of food and drink were consumed. But we know that our Savior did not come to participate or condone that type of wedding party. That's not what was taking place here. let alone to provide for it. You kind of get, you know the Puritan caricature, where everybody talks about Puritans and they say their concern is that somebody somewhere might be smiling or somebody somewhere might be having a good time. We don't want to have that posture, that attitude, and obviously there is a need for discernment and a need for, you know, being wise as to situations that we put ourselves into, without a doubt, and I'm not dismissing that in any way. But anyways, we don't want to have that sour, grim attitude that the Pharisees had here and just snuffed out all the joy of something that, like a marriage, that God upholds. And he says, with the pots, fill it up to the brim. Overflowing is the provision of our Savior, not just a little here and a little there, more than enough, more than the need required. It's from His fullness. We have all received grace upon grace. The infinite fullness of God dwells bodily in Jesus. He is an infinite well to draw from, draw out now from Him. Children, what have you delighted yourself in up to this point in your life that has left you satisfied? Have you ever sat down and played a game or with a toy and then went away feeling satisfied to the point where you didn't need anymore? You just put it down in the middle of playing, just said, wow, I'm just so filled. Adults, do you ever remember an experience like that? Playing with some game or toy and then just pausing and wiping your hands clean and thinking, boy, that just filled me up, I can't take anymore. That's not the case. No, we haven't, right? We never can have enough from the creature. Only Jesus can give that filling. Only Jesus can fill you up with that satisfaction, fill you up to the brim with His grace, with His delights. And it's because of who He is. He's the eternal Son of God. No one else can give us that but Him. We struggle to be filled and satisfy ourselves, even as Christians, to stay on that track. We still try to fill our empty ceremonial cleansing pots, if you will, with things that don't satisfy, that don't fill us up. I'll sit on my phone and look at 100 Facebook reels and think, that will fill me up, you know? Or whatever else it is, whatever else you waste your time doing. It's not saying that any of those things are bad in and of themselves. They can be used. But we know the experience, the common experience, is that we really struggle to use it as we should. I went to a massive book fair about a month ago, two, 300,000 books, this book fair. You had to pay $10 to get early entry into it. And there's all these folks, hundreds of folks lined up early. And you get a ticket. The first 200 get to go in and spend five minutes looking before everybody else does. But everybody's scrambling around for that one book that might be of $100, $200, $300 value on it. A lot of them are booksellers, right? And it's just that feeling, that icky feeling of being in there and everybody just going after that. And the bin store, you guys hear of the bin store? It's the same thing with the bin store. There's a lot of good things you get in there, but I've been to one the first day. OK, so the bin store. Um, Amazon gets all these returned items, okay? And then these returned items go to these stores, where they put it all in these bins. And they let people in, like, the first day, and every item is $7. And the next day, they're $3. Next day, they're $1. Well, you go in there, and as soon as the first day you're in there, you rush in, and all you hear is all the rustling of people just scrummaging through things. And it's, it's wild. It was similar to that experience at the bookshop, but probably on another level. Is there anything wrong with these? No. But it's nothing like that with Jesus. Nothing like this in the Kingdom of Heaven. We won't be competing for blessing. We won't be competing for that one object that's going to get us two, three hundred bucks as we saw it on Marketplace. There's no competing for His presence. like we were supposed to learn in Sunday school. We didn't learn that in Sunday school. And there's no competing for his blessing because it's from the same infinite God. It's from his fullness. Only he can fill us up to the brim with what our souls truly need. The miracles show us the abundance of gospel life found in Jesus. Forgiveness, life, renewal, and the new covenant blessing all in abundance. Grace greater than all of our sin. And not only that, but it says, the head waiter says, you have saved the best wine for last. Jesus provides the best wine for last. God the Father has provided the best wine for last in world history. The best wine is the gospel of his son. He will give his only son. You see, this is the will of the father. Remember that Jesus is explaining the father's will in mind to us, his love for us. The father himself is communicating the gospel to us from his own fullness and through his son. As John Owen admonishes us in his communion with the Triune God, he says, don't have hard thoughts of the Father. Don't think that the Son has only come to pacify the wrath of an angry father. It is true that Jesus propitiates the wrath of God, but we know it was the Father's love for us that sent Him, and that it was the Son who came in love, and the Spirit as the gift of love. Is there any one or anything of greater quality? Can anything be better than Jesus? Can the best meal and the best wine give greater joy or delight? Can the wine that Jesus himself provided at this wedding give it? No, just like the food he will give to the crowds in just a few chapters. won't satisfy them. They were meant to point beyond that. They were meant to point to Himself. Can anything or anyone give more abundantly? No. Only Jesus Himself. He gives above all that we can ask or think. He gives from the fullness of who He is as the infinite, eternal God. When you are tempted, call this to mind. When you are in the dregs of sin, grab hold of Christ. When you are despairing, let the wine of the gospel cheer your soul. And these blessings are both now and to eternity, both experience here and now, but in the glory to come, they will be inexpressible, inexpressible, infinite, and eternal. There is no end and no shortage. It's the best and it's overflowing. There won't be any vying for it. And we won't be looking for something better because it will always be the best. As we move towards our conclusion, we're going to look at the signs and what they reveal, how they reveal His glory. And a few things on signs first. One, the signs Jesus performs are never done for the sake of being flashy or to some gross satisfaction of earthly wants and desires. To the contrary, they are always useful, fitting, proper, and to the need of the hour, if you will. Two, the idea of the language of sign has the idea of pointing beyond itself. If I see a sign that says Grand Canyon five miles ahead, is that sign the Grand Canyon? It's not. The Grand Canyon's five miles ahead. The sign points to something greater. The signs are meant to show us some great aspect of Jesus' glory. Three, they are meant to show us something of Jesus' glory as the Messiah, as I just mentioned, the Son of the living God. That's the purpose statement in John chapter 20. And four, John edited with great care what signs he would put into his account, so we should consider, every time we encounter one, why he does so. So how is Jesus' glory put on display in this sign? Jesus is the God-man, the promised Messiah, the true and faithful covenant Son of God. Adam, Israel, and David were all sons of God, but Jesus surpasses them all because He will succeed where those sons fail. He will do His Father's will to the point of death. He's the natural Son of God, God from the essence of God, as we've already discussed. He performs this miracle on His own merit. In John 5, 26, it says, just as the Father has life in Himself, so He has given the Son to have life in Himself. He does not even say a word. He merely wills the water into wine. He also identifies himself with Yahweh in displaying his power over nature and particularly over the element of water. Yahweh had performed wondrous miracles and judgments through water in the Old Testament. Jesus here does the same, but on his own merits. Yet rather than judgment, he brings a blessing, and a blessing that inaugurates or appoints us to the new covenant. He ushers in the new creation on his own divine authority. In the new creation, he brings new life. With the wine of the gospel, new life, eternal life, and abundant life are the themes that run across the first four chapters of this gospel. If you think of those accounts, when you go home this afternoon, you'll see that running through those first four chapters. This is our Savior, and these words should evoke increased faith in us, increased meditations on Jesus' glory, increased love for Him, increased hope of an anticipation of what is to come when what has only been culminated in us now will be consummated at His second coming. Behold, I am making all things new. He only turned water into wine here. which is actually pretty insignificant on a large scale. You think about it, all things came into being through him. Here he is only altering his own creature. But what does he do in us? He has begun his work of a new creation, a brand new creation in us. It's already at work in us, even now, even today, moving us and its kingdom to its consummation. And this answers to the previous episode two times ago, why would anyone spend the day with Jesus? And why should we remain and abide with him? Because he serves us the best wine. No greater joy, no greater gladness can be found than that of coming and attending this wedding where Jesus fills you with joy and gladness of his gospel. He will fill you from his own infinite fullness. You will never be let down in becoming more intimate with Jesus, person and work of the new creation in you. A wedding feast can be a great thing. The time of prosperous harvest can be a great and delightful thing, but both are mere shadows to the delight, joy, and merriment that God gives in Christ. May the Lord convince us of these things all the more this day by His Holy Spirit, and may we sing heartily of it as we conclude with Psalm 4, and particularly pay attention to the last verse. It says, You, that is, God the Father, in the gospel of His Son, You, have given my heart greater joy by far than when grain and new wine most abundant are. Please pray with me. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the wonderful gospel, the wonderful good news of you sending forth your Son for us and for our salvation to begin a new creation and a new work in us that he's already wrought, that he's already begun. We pray that you would give us to delight in these things this day. And there be any here that do not know you, we pray that you would work in their minds and hearts to convince them of the glory of Jesus, of their sin and of their need for a Savior. We pray that you would hear all these things for the sake of Christ. We pray in his name. Amen.