Believe In The Abundant Goodness Of Jesus

Well, thank you for your singing. I ask you to open up your Bibles to John chapter 2, please. John chapter 2. After a short break, I'm looking forward to continue John. We finished off chapter 1, and so now we continue into chapter 2. So I'll read up to verse 12, and then we'll go to the Lord in needed prayer.

John chapter 2, verse 1. 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 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, and when the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came 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, than the poor wine.

But you have kept the good wine until now. And this, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee. And he manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brother and his disciples. And they stayed there for a few days.

Let us pray to our God. Oh God, I ask for your help this morning. Lord, I ask for your help with confidence because you are a God who loves to give help. Lord, you are fully aware of just how weak we are here sitting and standing in this room. And God, you are, we know, willing to help those who call upon you and trust. And so, Lord, I speak for the church before me as I cry out to you for help, that you would give us ears to hear and you would give me words to speak.

Let it be words of truth and let it be words that exhort and edify and comfort and whatever the words need to do for each believer in Christ here to receive them and look to Jesus and to experience salvation today. God, we know that we need your spirit for this to happen, and so we call on him to be so kind to the people who do not deserve it, but because you are merciful and full of grace, we know that you freely give of your salvation. So help us to trust upon you.

Help us to have confidence in you. Let us draw near to you by the means that you have enabled through Jesus Christ and his blood and by the spirit that he sends. We thank you for this great work of salvation and we praise you in his name. Amen. So as we look here in John, the Gospel of John, chapter two, I want your eyes to look to verse 11. And I think as we look to that, it will help us to understand this sign, this narrative in a way that's going to be deeply helpful for our salvation and deeply helpful for those of you who do not know Jesus, who are outside of him.

It will be deeply helpful to you to look to see Jesus in salvation. I want your eyes to look to verse 11 in chapter 2 when John writes, this is the first of his signs. That is the narrative, the miracle of the water and the wine. This is the first of his signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. I want you to highlight that word in your brain or even with a pen if you do so dare.

I want you to highlight that word sign. Notice that word sign. And notice it's not the word miracle. And the sign that Jesus does certainly contains a miracle, but it's more than simply, if I may say that, a miracle. You know, if it's just a miracle, it's a nice little story that happened 2,000 years ago that we hear in Sunday school that keeps us engaged for a few moments, but then we kind of forget about it because it's not very impactful for us now.

But this isn't just a miracle. This is more than that. It is a sign. It is something that points to a deeper reality that beckons us to respond. That's what a sign is. You think about when you go on vacation to Disney World, you go down to Florida, you start getting really excited when you see the signs that say Orlando, Florida, don't you?

Because that means you're getting closer to your destination. That sign Orlando, Florida, that doesn't have any kind of value of itself other than the fact that it points to something that has tremendous value, I guess, if you like that sort of thing, Disney World. And in fact, as it points to it, it says it's this way, you get excited, it looks beautiful, all right, and it also beckons you to respond by obeying it.

You go the way that it tells you to go to get to Orlando, Florida. Now I got a GPS, so I don't pay attention to signs anymore. But back in the day, you paid attention to signs. So it beckons you. It says it's pointing to something greater behind it. It's pointing to something greater.

And it beckons you to come, to go, to obey. And this is why it's so important for us to settle on our minds right now. This turning water into wine that Jesus did 2,000 years ago is not just simply a cool miracle that we learned about in Sunday school. But it is a sign pointing to a deeper reality that beckons you to come to know something deeper a deeper spiritual reality that causes you to obey follow trust or as the disciples it says in verse 11, believe.

And this is what we're going to see. This is our endeavor today. The sign here in John gains its full significance as it points to the glory of Christ and beckons you to respond with belief in him as the son of God, which is the thesis of this book, if you remember. And our task this morning, as we look at it this morning, is to appreciate the sign itself, context, the wedding, and everything of itself, while responsibly allowing it to lead us to the deeper meaning of Christ, his kingdom, and again, our response.

So Lord willing, that's what we're going to do this morning, leading up to the sign in verses 1 through 5, the circumstances leading up to the sign will be helpful to help us get to that deeper reality and to respond well. And then the sign itself, verses 6 through 11, will Lord willing help us to do that. So let's look at the things leading up to this sign, this first sign of Jesus as Son of God.

Look again at chapter 2, verse 1. Let's look at the time of the sign. It says, on the third day. Now I know you can read that, you can kind of gloss over it. I get it. On the third day.

But if you notice, John is doing something really, you know, significant in these last several verses. Have you noticed he keeps on saying on the next day, on the next day, on the next day, on the third day. If you notice, look in your scriptures, look at John chapter one, verse 29, or actually look at verse 24 through 28. That's when John the Baptist is being quizzed or questioned by the Pharisees.

Who are you? Right? And then look at, notice verse 29. On the next day, he then says, behold the Lamb of God, as Jesus is coming. And if you notice in verse 35, on the next day, again, John was standing with two of his disciples, and he says, there he is. And if you notice again, on verse 43, the next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee and gathers the next two disciples.

And then we settle here in chapter 2, verse 1, and it says, on the third day. Now, if you do a little bit of math, I know it's scary. I don't like to do math myself, but you have to sometimes. and if you do a little math, you see that this is, this day of the sign is the seventh day. It is the seventh day that Jesus is going to culminate the first week of his ministry with this sign of turning the water into wine.

Now, if we are a student of scriptures at all, we know that the seventh day is an important day, don't we? You can't help. You read Genesis chapters 1 through 3, you get that creation account, you can't help but see the importance of the seventh day, right? God created, and on the seventh day, he rested. And then that seventh day becomes important in the old covenant economy with Israel, that the seventh day, Israel celebrated the Sabbath, rest that celebrated the salvation that God brought Israel out of Egypt into the promised land.

The seventh day was a day in which they celebrated that rest, from enslavement to Egypt, salvation, and the promised land. And so I think it's very clear, as we look at the deeper meaning of what's going on here, when he says the third day, it's the seventh day, this is a sign that reveals what kind of rest or salvation Jesus brings us to. That make sense?

This is like a sign that Jesus is putting there for you to say, this is like what salvation is. Or to put it another way, do you remember the purpose of this book is for us to believe in the Son of God and by believing we would have what in his name? That's it. Right. I think everyone said it. Good job.

Everyone, good job. We would have life in his name, right? And that life, this is what John is doing here. This is what Jesus is doing. Here's the sign that says this is what it means to have life in my name. It's something like this, the deeper reality here.

So I think that's the significance of the third day, the seventh day, Jesus is culminating his first week of ministry on the seventh day, showing this is what it's like to rest, to have life in me. Moving on from the time, we look at the event itself in verse 1. On the third day, there was a wedding. The event of the sign is a wedding, and that's very fitting, isn't it?

That the sign Jesus uses to describe the life that he brings to us is a wedding. It's very fitting. We are the bride of Christ. If you believe upon Jesus, you are the bride of Christ. We see that in scriptures and Ephesians. When he returns one day, Christ is going to return.

And John in Revelation describes it as a marriage supper feast, like a reception. And so it's very fitting that Jesus, the sign that he's putting in the ground to say, this is what it's like to have life in me, is like a wedding. And this is something to consider very, really much, meditate on for a while, if you struggle at all with sadness or loneliness.

If you are a person who struggles with sadness or loneliness, consider the fact that when Jesus decided to create a sign to point to what it's like to have life in his name, he made it a wedding feast. And why is that? Because, you know, I don't know, all things being equal, I don't know if a bride, a woman on her wedding day, is ever any more happy or any less lonely than on that day.

You get what I'm saying? A woman and a man too, but a woman on her wedding day, I don't know if there's a more joyous occasion for her or a time which she feels the least lonely. And here Jesus is pointing to that wedding, that picture of a wedding and making it a sign saying, this is something like what it means to have life in my name. And if you struggle with depression, sadness, if you struggle with loneliness, consider what Jesus says is true about the experience of salvation And this is what he doing for us He providing the sign for us Now that the event It a wedding And notice the place It in verse 1 again It at Cana in Galilee At Cana in Galilee And really what you should do when you read that you say where And you say in Cana in Galilee.

Where is that? In Cana, I get where in the world is that? It's no, it's a flyover land, a flyover zone, right? You don't care much about it. Imagine being Jesus's disciples, remember he just called a few of them, and the first week of ministry, he'd be pretty excited. And imagine he goes, not to Jerusalem, to culminate his first week of ministry, to point out a sign of salvation, but he goes to a no-name place, to a bunch of no-name people.

It'd be strange, indeed. Absalom, when he wanted to take the crown from David, where'd he go? He went to Jerusalem. Caesar went to Rome. William of Orange went to London. Napoleon went to Paris.

Hitler went to Berlin, Jesus goes to Cana in Galilee. And it's a fascinating thing, something that the scriptures point out often is that Jesus loves to build his kingdom in unlikely places with unlikely people. And so perhaps you're sitting here right now filled with all sorts of sin, filled with all sorts of doubts, filled with all sorts of things on your mind of depression, sadness, what we just talked about, loneliness.

Would Jesus even come here to me and reveal salvation to me? And the answer, beloved, is yes, he does. You could have professed faith in Jesus 10 years ago and have lived like the devil ever since. You know that Jesus still reveals salvation even to you. He's at Cana in Galilee, first week culminating there with a bunch of no-names, and he's satisfied to do so.

This is the place of the sign. Now let's look at the people of the sign. Look at verses 1 and 2 again. In chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, we see the people of the sign. I don't like to use the word character because it feels too much like a made-up story, but nevertheless, the characters of this narrative. And the mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus, in verse 2 now, also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. And so there are the three major players there. You have the mother of Jesus, you have Jesus himself, and you have the disciples. We're going to see it played out, so I don't want to spend too much time on that now. But we'll see the mother of Jesus is going to tell about the problem at the wedding.

There's going to be a problem. In order to reveal this sign, there needs to be a problem here. And the mother of Jesus is going to reveal that problem. And we're going to see Jesus is the one that fixes the problem by a sign, with a sign. And the disciples are the people who believe upon Jesus because of this sign. But let's move on.

That's the people, the sign. Now let's look at the problem. And let's spend a few minutes doing that, because we really got to understand the problem well, in order to understand not only the narrative, but also the things that it's pointing to, the significance that it's pointing to. And so we see in verse 3 again, look at your scriptures, John chapter 2, verse 3.

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Now there's like three layers here. There's three layers I want to look at. The first layer is the narrative itself, and the next two are the deeper, significant things going on here. And so the first layer, the narrative itself, is they ran out of wine. Now, when you read that, it helps whenever you're reading this to audibly gasp when you read that.

They ran out of wine. That was a big deal. And especially in this age, it was very important for you to be hospitable. And the groom was throwing a party because he was marrying his bride, and it was expected that he would be hospitable and do it well. In fact, I've read some occasions where if a groom ran out of wine, failed at some important aspect of the party, there was even reports of him being sued by the bride's family because he completely defamed the name of both the bride and himself.

And so this is a big deal. To run out of wine is to not be hospitable, to fail at your duty at the party, and it would be a big deal. So when Mary says this to Jesus, it's like how embarrassing. He ran out of wine. And by the way, the fact that he runs out of wine probably reveals something about this couple. Probably not the richest people.

Probably no names, as we said earlier already. Rich people, kings, and palaces typically don't run out of wine. But this person did. And it's embarrassing. And the mother, Jesus' mother, how she knew, we don't know. Some people think she was part of the servers and everything like that.

We can speculate all we want. Nevertheless, she knows she doesn't have any wine, or they don't have any wine, and she tells Jesus this. Now, that's the first layer, the narrative, the first layer that we see. But if we just leave it there, then we lose the significance in our own lives here. Again, this is a sign pointing to a deeper, a deep reality that actually affects us tremendously that we need to respond appropriately.

And so we need to look at the different layers. And the second layer, as we look at the mother of Jesus saying they have no wine, is the mother of Jesus is speaking of the human condition in sin. They have no wine. Now, in order for you to make sense of this, we got to understand the way the Bible views wine. We've got to look at the way the Bible views wine.

Now, we've got to look at the way the Bible views it, not the way the Baptists looked at it in the last couple hundred years. Because it's two different things. And just to quickly do this, and there's examples that we can go to if we were just doing a sermon on alcohol, which would be kind of silly, but this just, I think, suffices. Go to Psalm 104 to see how the Bible views the teaching of wine in a general way.

Look at Psalm 104. And we're going to look at 14 and 15. And what we see here is wine is a blessing from God, a tremendous blessing from God that provides happiness, is what we see. 14 and 15 of Psalm 104 you cause that is God Yahweh you cause the grass to grow for livestock the plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth food from the earth and you make wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man's heart.

You see, this is found in a psalm that's just glorifying God for his provision and blessings to his creatures. God, his natural way of functioning is to bless. You know that his wrath is kind of like a weird thing it caused because of our sin but he just he's a god who loves to bless and so wine really is pictured in scripture as a revealing of his love to bless his creatures his creation and bless them with happiness now i need to say this just like any other blessing of god when we twist it and try to make it an idol it turns into a great curse doesn't it in fact the greater the blessing, the greater the gift, the greater the curse it becomes when we decide, I don't need to use this to glorify God.

I can just make it an idol myself or make it a God itself. So I want to just put that in there, right? That the blessings of God, the gift of God, the greater the gift, the more it becomes a curse to you when you decide to use it like it's a God itself. So with that now being said, we can push that aside and just look at it. This is what the Bible talks about wine.

It shows a great blessing or gift from God, and it's given to gladden or to make us happy, joyful, right? This is the way the scripture is by and large, when it's not talking about the curses of alcohol or wine, and when it talks about the blessing, that's how we see it. And so when, going back now to the wedding at Cana, when the mother of Jesus is saying they have no wine, this is a condition of humanity.

That when we decide to sin against God instead of follow him, our condition is one of without wine. In other words, without happiness, without joy, without blessing. And so you really need to hear this when you read this. that the problem really again is that they have no wine in the narrative but also you need to see yourself that the human condition without god and in sin is always always always misery emptiness brokenness and no blessing from god so you ought to hear that kind of rocking around in your spirit and in your brain sin always lies to you have you noticed that sin always lies to you and says you don't need God's blessing, I'll bless you.

I'll do it. Disobedience, this will make you happy. If you notice how sin always works that way. But it always leaves you miserable. Now maybe for a moment you had that satisfaction, but that's how it gets you. And then it just leaves you empty, broken, miserable.

Everyone who's called upon the name of Jesus can attest to that. Amen? so we got to understand that there's this going on here in this narrative when the mother of jesus says to jesus they have no wine you ought to hear about your own condition of your own soul as a human being in adam in sin oh we have no wine no blessing no happiness no joy there's something wrong here but then there's another layer that i want to point to that i think is is is needed And that is this theme running through John and also in the New Testament that the old covenant worship practices, the system, had no wine, had no blessing, had no joy, happiness. there's a serious brokenness in Judaism in Israel that Jesus needs to remedy and fix and fulfill in order for it to have life in it and to even see that look at the way we're going to see this in a few minutes but look at the way Jesus fixes the problem do you notice that look at verse four or what is that five six well six now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. So Jesus is using Old Testament worship practices that was meant to try to bring people close to God that failed overall, and he's using that to then give life.

In fact, what does Jesus do in this, in John right after this wedding? Look at the topic heading of verse 13 in chapter 2. Jesus cleanses the temple. The temple needed to be cleansed. It was not functioning as a, the Jews were not utilizing it as a way to grow closer in life to God. And so, and so this is part of the layer two, is that you can hear the mother of Jesus saying they have no wine.

That is the religion of the day has no joy, has no happiness, has no blessing. There's a problem here. And by the way, just to bring it full circle back to us, you know that your religion right now can have no wine in it. You know that you can engage in proper religious practices, proper God-ordained practices, and it have no wine in it. You can listen to the best of sermon in the world, and it can have no wine in it.

I am convinced we've had a generation of children leave Christianity, and that's not normal, by the way. That's not normal at all. We shouldn't act like it's normal. That is a problem, and we should lament and weep in ashes. Because it's not normal that our children would grow up and say, yeah, I don't want that. And the reason why I'm convinced is because their parents had Christianity, but it had no wine in it.

No joy. No happiness there. No blessing. Perhaps the truth, the Bible, but there's no wine in it. So when the children grow up, they say, I don't want that. but we see Jesus this sign he's setting up is to say that I've come to provide wine blessing joy happiness to you so I think that's third layer that's going on here. And again, that's played out through John.

We'll see that time and time again, Jesus came to fulfill, to give life to this religious practice that was just lifeless. He came to bring you life, O beloved, to turn you away from sin and to life instead. He came to bring you wine, blessing, joy, happiness. so that's the problem of this narrative that's the problem of the sign the cry of the ages is although we are surrounded with this beautiful creation or we may even have a beautiful religion we might be reformed baptists the human condition has been they have no wine that is our condition and these words of mary echoes in the emptiness of every sinful heart even today and perhaps you're a believer in Jesus and you haven't tasted wine in some time.

It even echoes into that. And so this is even for you, oh believer in Jesus, for you to remind yourself of this is what Jesus has come. He has come to do this, to provide you with this. Now before we get to the actual sign, let's look at verses four and five with the mission of the sign. Look at verses four and five. So Jesus, the mother of Mary says to Jesus, this lovely couple, they've run, they have no wine.

And Jesus said to her, and this can be kind of strange to us, but he says, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. So there's like a few questions here that we can ask. And the commentators all disagree, all disagree. There is no agreement in this at all. That makes my job very difficult.

I love it when my guys just all agree on stuff, right? But there's all sorts of questions, right? What does Mary expect Jesus to do here exactly? She says to Jesus, they have no wine. What exactly does she expect him to do? How much did she know about her son and ability to provide wine or whatever it may be?

Another question is, why does Jesus connect the problem of no wine with his death? You notice that too. My hour has not yet come. That is always, we'll see that in the book of John, that's always referring to his death on the cross, his hour given to him by the Father to complete the work of salvation. So it's interesting that he would connect a lack of wine with his hour.

He says, woman, my time hasn't come yet. And why does it seem like Jesus won't do anything about it, but then does? After you read that, you would think, well, he's tough luck. I don't think Jesus would have used the word luck. But it seems like he's just being like, I'm not going to do anything about it. But I want to settle our hearts on what I think we can know, though, about this.

There's a million questions we can ask, and they can be fun to talk about. But I think what we can know is what we read from here is the mission of Jesus. The mission of Jesus. Jesus is on a mission from his Father to provide life for his people. And though he won't use this problem right here to do the thing needed to provide life, that is die and rise again, my hour has not yet come, he will use this situation to put a sign up for us all to tell us what life is like that he's going to bring.

He's on a mission from the Father, and no one is going to deter him from that. This week of his ministry has started, it's culminated here, and you can see Jesus' focus now is only on fulfilling that mission. And for this narrative now, it is for him to put up a sign that says, this is the salvation that I'm bringing you to. so Mary aware and there's different things we could say about that right um you know this is the mother of Jesus and perhaps she you know I don't want to speculate too much but perhaps she's used to having a little bit more authority as his mother and he's saying mother my my mission my I'm following everything the father would have me do now this is this is what I'm doing these next several years now nevertheless I think these verses show reveals the mission Jesus has he's focused on providing and showing and revealing the salvation he's bringing to his people.

And so the mother of Jesus, aware of this, says in verse 5, to the servants, do whatever he tells you. This is his show. He'll do what is proper for the mission he has from the father. So this story, this narrative thus far, is about a terrible condition of this new couple running out of wine for their guests. Awful condition, awful situation to be in.

But it's ultimately pointing to our condition as sinners without the blessing from God. But praise be to God that Jesus mission is to bring life and the sign itself reveals what that life is like And so let look at the sign itself to see that let look at the sign itself look at verse six now here the sign chapter two verse six now there was excuse me six stone water jars there for the jewish rites of purification each holding 20 or 30 gallons so it's fascinating that jesus he's going to give he's going to provide miraculously wine and he uses these huge jars fills them up with water in order to do so again we've already noted and so i'm not going to belabor it too much here but how it does seem to be significant that he uses old jewish religious practice as an attempt to get close to god that failed to do so he uses that to reveal the sign jesus can make lifeless things come to life and his fulfillment of the Jewish religion is a great example of that. And even so, it's important to point out that Jesus loves to use even your lifeless soul that's in sin to bring about great life and blessing and happiness.

Jesus loves to use lifeless things to produce great life and glory. In fact, sometimes we'll see in John, he likes to wait a few days just to wait people squirm, right? We think of Lazarus and his lifeless body and his friends beckoning him or his family is beckoning him. Would you come and fix this situation? He waits a few more days just to make sure that everyone knows it is dead.

Jesus loves to bring dead things to life. He loves to use dead things for his purposes and breathe it full of life like he did at the beginning of creation. Now, he uses lifeless vessels. Now look at the sign. This is two major things that he's revealing here in the sign. Abundance.

Think of this in your head. Abundance. Jesus provides abundance in salvation. This is what the sign is pointing to. And he provides goodness. Goodness.

Look at the abundance first. Look at verse 7. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water. And they filled them up to the brim. You see that? They filled up to the brim.

So not only are these jars large, but Jesus, he ensures that they fill it up all the way to the brim. It is an abundance that God is providing for this happy couple. And it is abundance that Jesus provides for us. In our misery, he provides an abundance to us. Again, sin promises you the world, but its only power is to take away. It's like a thief.

And again, that's the temptation that it provides you. It tells you, if you do this, you're going to have everything. You're going to have an abundance. But it's a lie. It always just takes and robs and steals everything from you. In fact, that's why Jesus says later on in this gospel, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

So this sign is telling us about salvation. It's saying that Jesus provides you with an abundance. He never runs out. And just like when he feeds the crowds, there was extra. They ate and were satisfied. Jesus always satisfies.

He always has enough. Where everything else, sin will promise you that, but fail to do it, Jesus promises and he will always provide abundantly. Not only that, it's good. It's good. Look at verses 8 through 10 in chapter 2. And he said to them, now that it's filled to the brim, He says, now, draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.

So they took it, the person who's kind of running the show, the party. And when the master of the feast tasted the water that now became wine and did not know where it came 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've done this strange thing.

You've kept the good wine until after the bad wine. What's being said here is this is a normal way of doing things, right? After you drink something enough, it's not as good, right? The value of it kind of goes down. And so typically, whenever you're throwing a party here, you would serve the best wine because your palate is very sensitive to it. And once you drink some of the best wine, then your palate isn't as sensitive, and you give them the cheaper, the worse wine.

But here we see it seems to be flipped. it looked like the bridegroom planned this. He's serving better wine now because it is the wine that Jesus has provided. So it's not like Jesus provided something in abundance. And usually when something is in abundance it not all that good But in this case because he Christ he provides something in abundance and it is the best It is goodness to the nth degree Again we are used to things that are considered good and beneficial for happiness to be scarce If you notice, that's how life tends to be.

For instance, we have Friday night is family night with the family, and we always have a veggie tray. Well, typically, I think always, we have a veggie tray, and Sarah always makes two different kinds of pizza. And I don't have to, like, I can go to after we've all ate for a while and I'm going up for seconds or thirds, and I can know which one was the better veggie or the better pizza because it's gone, right?

And usually there's only broccoli left, which is fine with me because I like broccoli. But pizza-wise, I can tell which one they enjoyed more, which one was better, more good, because that's the one that's scarce and gone. But Jesus likes to flip everything. I think that's a general way we experience things in life. Good things tend to be scarce and not a lot of it.

But Jesus flips this right on his head like he likes to do. The life Jesus provides his bride is most abundant and full of happiness or goodness, joy. It is perfect in joy and happiness. To illustrate this, I want you to imagine now a very mature Christian. You know, we all hopefully know at least one. Imagine a very mature Christian, one who really has tasted and seen that the Lord is good and has been following him, has been turned away from their sin, following Christ because they're convinced that he provides a better thing.

And is that mature Christian ever a miserable person? That mature Christian could be going through the worst of circumstances. but yet there is a certain joy that underlines their hardship that is just hard to explain and this is a perfect example this is what Jesus provides he provides life to the abundance and it's the best of life the best of joy the best of happiness that no circumstances in life can actually take away it never stops it always comes it doesn't mean that you're always smiling from ear to ear and giddy like a school girl on their way home from school but it does mean that there is a certain joy that just is, it doesn't exhaust itself as you pursue Jesus. And this is what this sign is pointing to, is that when you believe upon Jesus for salvation, when you are following him, you are turning away from the sin that robs, steals, and destroys, even though it promises everything, and you're going to the one that gives you abundantly his righteousness, abundantly and good.

Because when we believe upon Jesus, he gives you of his righteousness. And his righteousness is good. It tastes good. To practice that righteousness in life is the most pleasurable thing you can do in this life. He provides it to you abundantly, forgiveness of sins, an ability to walk in righteousness, and it is the best kind of life to live until he takes us home in which we enjoy it in complete and full.

So again, where sin leaves you empty and miserable, the life Jesus provides you is abundant and good. And now to conclude, look at verse 11 again. Look at verse 11 again. This, this, this sign, this miracle, this event, this, the first of his signs, because we're going to see seven signs in this first half of the book of John. This is the first of his signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and he manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

So what a way to conclude. Are you a disciple of Jesus? Do you believe in him? Do you see this sign here, and do you, within yourself, are you believing upon Christ and the way that he's revealed himself and the nature of his kingdom and who you are and what you need? Do you believe? Are you believing as disciples put their faith and trust in Jesus and followed him, are you believing in him?

This sign demands your response. Just like whenever you want to go to Disney World for some reason and you see that sign saying, this way to Orlando, Florida, and it demands you to follow it. Do you want Jesus? Do you believe that he does provide abundantly and the best of things? It demands your response and belief, oh believer, in Jesus. and you want to know a great test of that belief because one thing we say often is that believing is not just simply mentally assenting to it Especially for you young people if you think that you can say you believe in Jesus yet you living like the devil behind closed doors when your mom and dad not looking that is not true belief So believing is more than simply just, okay, yeah, I believe that happened 2,000 years ago.

A good test to see that you are believing in this sign and it's actually creating a stir of response in you is what do you tell yourself in the moment of temptation to sin? What do you tell yourself in that moment, Every one of us are struggling with a certain sin today. And if you don't know what you're struggling with, that means you are not pursuing Jesus very well.

We all have these temptations to sin that grips our hearts. It grips our feelings. It grips our emotions, our desires. And what do you tell yourself when you are gripped with that temptation to sin? See, temptation is when your feelings are calling Jesus a liar. that's what temptation is temptation is is is calling jesus and his word his truth a liar that's not true what do you tell yourself in that moment and what jesus is providing you right now is a sign to say this is what salvation is like it is i give you abundantly of my righteousness and it is better and good and never runs out and so in that moment of temptation when you want to commit sin, true belief, and believing upon that sign, believing upon Jesus is to say, even though my feelings are saying this sin is better, I believe what Jesus provides is better.

And that means to walk righteously with God because of his power, not to commit this sin against him. That will lead to death. I'm convinced of it, even though my feelings are not. So what a great God we have, that we have all these things at our disposal, all these signs that we have, these teachings of Jesus that say this is what salvation is like. It is joy and happiness.

It is turning away from sin and relying upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Lord who has done everything for his people to die and to rise again and say, and I empower you to walk the steps that I walk now. What do you tell yourself whenever your temptation tells you, lie. You need to look at the sign, you need to meditate upon these truths and say what Jesus provides is better even when my feelings are screaming the opposite.

Praise be to our God that he gives us these good things for us to meditate on, to believe upon, and enjoy the life he provides. Let us pray. God, you are good to us. You're good to your people. Lord, we know just how much we fail. One day we will have this in completion.

There'll be no more sin. There'll be no more temptations to sin. All we will enjoy is the abundance of Jesus' goodness every day of our lives. Just righteousness, just worship, just following God, following you, and relying upon Christ Jesus every day of our lives. One day that will be complete, but as we walk this world now, we know that we have the great enemy of Satan, and he loves nothing better but to draw his people away from the beauties of Jesus Christ the Lord and to the lie of sin.

So I ask that you would strengthen the people before me this morning. You would help them to see their great need to believe upon Jesus and what he says as true, even whenever we want to, with our flesh and our desires, believe the opposite. God in heaven, you did not have to provide the better wine of righteousness. You didn't have to provide abundantly from the wounds of Jesus Christ our Lord, but you did so anyways because you are a God abundant in mercy and grace.

So how can we do anything other than to turn away from our sins and to rest in Jesus Christ our Lord? God, you provide us these temptations to sin to show whether or not we are believing upon Jesus or whether we are failing to believe. Oh Lord, help us to believe. And God, for those people before me that do not know Jesus Christ, they are believing the lie of Satan, that their sin provides abundance even though it only takes, that their sin provides goodness even though it only creates misery, would you cause them to see right now that Jesus Christ is their only hope?

Would you cause them to see that their only hope in life is to pursue Jesus, to turn away from their desires and their sinful flesh, and to grab hold of the wine that Christ provides by his work on the cross and resurrection? Would you cause them to even see that now? Thank you for this great work of salvation. We praise you and thank you. May we be filled with worship for the rest of this worship service, even unto the rest of this Lord's Day and into the rest of eternity, because you are worthy and you've done good things for us.

We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.