God is never late. God is never early. God is precisely on time. He is always on time.
That's what it tells us. Now, honestly, there have been times in my life where I didn't think God was on time. I actually told God, I've counseled God before, by the way.
That's how dumb I've gotten. God, you had the chance. It was such a perfect time for you to do that and you didn't do it.
Where were you? God is perfectly on time. Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. What does it mean to be fashionably late? Well, according to Urban Dictionary, it's the art of being just late enough, around five minutes or so, to give the impression to others that you're a busy, popular person. Well, if there's one thing we learn about Jesus from His attendance to a wedding in Cana, it's that He doesn't believe in being fashionably late.
And I'm not just talking about showing up at that event. We'll delve into that a bit more today here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. But before we begin, we have an excellent new resource for you this month at connectwithskip.com. Is your personal Bible study time frustrating? Do you need direction? You can study the Bible with a plan and see progress.
Listen to this from Skip Heitzig. All of us, we have trouble with certain parts of the Bible. Sometimes it's tough. But exposure to the Bible, a consistent exposure to the Bible, and I would add on a daily basis, with a consistent desire to obey it, will do more for you than any other thing that I can think of in your Christian life. Take the mystery out of studying scripture with Pastor Skip's book, How to Study the Bible and Enjoy It. Our thanks to you when you give $25 or more to help connect more people with this Bible teaching ministry. Get the tips and tools you need to open your eyes, mind, and heart to God's truth.
You don't have to be afraid of the one. Get your copy of How to Study the Bible and Enjoy It by Skip Heitzig today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 2, and we'll catch up with Skip Heitzig as he resumes our study.
My hour has not yet come. I want you to notice that phrase because you're going to see it five more times in the Gospel of John. Jesus will make reference to my hour, my hour, my hour, my hour, my hour.
And what does he mean by that? What he means by my hour is the time of his suffering, death, and subsequent resurrection. That is the manifesting sign of who he is and what he has come to do by his death and resurrection. I'll give you a few examples, just a few.
I won't go through them all. John chapter 7 verse 30, they sought to take him but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. In John chapter 13 verse 1, it was before Passover and Jesus knew that his hour had come when he would depart from this world and go to the Father. John 17 verse 1, Jesus is now praying to his heavenly Father. Father, he says, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may glorify you. Okay, I want you to see something. I don't want you to miss this part. Mary asked Jesus something by saying they have no wine and Jesus says, woman, what does your concern have to do with me?
My hour has not yet come. So Mary couldn't have simply been asking Jesus to pull off a miracle. Like, hey, you know, they don't have any wine and you're really good at that.
Because that wouldn't make any sense. It wouldn't make any sense because Jesus rebuffed her and saying, you know, we don't share the same concern and then he makes more wine, which is what she's indicating. No, what she must have been saying and indicating to him is, son, now is the time.
Here's the launching point. Here is the time when you can display and reveal who you are and what you have come to do. Give some unmistakable sign, some supreme manifestation that you are the Messiah and launch it publicly so everybody will know here and the word will go out.
And he says, my hour has not yet come. You see, Mary knew Jesus better than any person on the earth at that time. She remembered back to when she found out she was pregnant and she knew I haven't slept with a man. I haven't been sexually involved with anybody.
I've been pure. But the angel said, you're pregnant you're pregnant and it's conceived by the Holy Spirit. She would never forget that. And she remembered what the angel Gabriel said this child would be like that he would be the savior, etc. She remembered the night the shepherds came after the birth of the child.
She remembered when the Magi came following that star. She remember what Simeon said in the temple and what Anna said and what Jesus at 12 years old said, I must be about my father's business and all of that was in her heart and in her head and she pondered that and she says now is the time to let what I know out so everybody else knows. There's something else Mary knew. Mary knew about gossip. Mary knew that she had to live day in and day out in Nazareth with people talking things like well you know we know that Mary got pregnant before the wedding and that Joseph says he has nothing to do with it.
And all of these rumors of illegitimacy it was so so much so that when Jesus confronted the Pharisees down in Jerusalem they said to Jesus well we were not born of fornication in other words well we weren't but you were so all of those rumors all of that stigmatization socially could be done away with if you would just reveal who you are. Jesus said being in the moment my hour has not yet come. So here's what I want you to see he's moving in a divine time schedule toward his hour leading up to the cross and so it begins in the garden of Gethsemane when he says behold the hour is at hand and the son of man is betrayed. And here's what you need to know Jesus' entire life is moving toward that hour. If you were to take the four gospels and find out how much was written about Jesus growing up in the first 30 years of his life you know you come up with there are only four chapters in all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Only four chapters that even hint at what happened in the first 30 years of Jesus' life that's why they're known as the silent years there's nothing written about them. But there are 85 chapters in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that talk about the last three and a half years of his life. And of those 85 chapters 29 of those 85 chapters deal with the last week of his life. And of those 29 chapters 13 deal with just the final 24 hours that last day.
In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John there are 579 verses that speak of the final day of Christ on earth. That was his hour. That was the focus of his life. And he is saying to his mother I am saving that ultimate manifestation for my suffering, my death, and my resurrection.
Well I'll tell you what what that does to us. It tells us something about God's timing. It's perfect. You know what God is never late. God is never early. God is precisely on time. He is always on time.
That's what it tells us. Now honestly there have been times in my life where I didn't think God was on time. I actually told God, I've counseled God before by the way.
That's how dumb I've gotten. God you had the chance. It was such a perfect time for you to do that and you didn't do it.
Where were you? God is perfectly on time. Peter said the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness. Now I grew up with a earthly father who was late.
Maybe that's why I try to keep putting it on my heavenly father. That's what I grew up with. When my mom would say I'll pick you up from school, I knew she'd be on time.
Whenever she'd say I can't make it your dad will pick you up, I knew I'd be the last kid standing. Inevitably. But not my heavenly father.
It's very different. His timing is impeccable. Spurgeon put it this way, there are no loose threads in the providence of God.
There are no stitches that are dropped, no events that are left to chance. The great clock of the universe keeps good time and the whole machinery of providence moves with unerring punctuality. And the third relationship in our study today is really what most people think about when they think of this story and that is the miracle. Jesus and the miracle that he performed. Verse six. Now there were set there six water pots of stone according to the manner of purification of the Jews containing 20 or 30 gallons apiece. And Jesus said to them fill the water pots with water. And they filled them to the brim. And he said to them draw some out now and take it to the master of the feast.
And they took it. When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and did not know where it came from but the servants who had drawn the water they knew. The master of the feast called the bridegroom and he said to him every man at the beginning sets out the good wine and when the guests have well drunk then the inferior you have kept the good wine until now. Now just a while back I told you that I'd talk about the whole wedding no wine social catastrophe thing.
Here's the deal. Weddings were the social event. If you're a poor person it was the one party in life you'd have. And it was so important socially to have the right kind of a wedding and to have wine at a wedding. By the way in those days wine at a wedding by the way in those days weddings were paid for completely by the groom.
The bride's dad or the bride had no responsibility. The groom paid for it all and supplied the wine. To have no wine was a social embarrassment because in Jewish thinking wine was a symbol of joy. Many scriptures Isaiah 55 and others Psalm 104 says the wine that makes glad the heart of man. Even the rabbi said without wine there is no joy. So for a groom to run out of wine this is what it meant.
It was to admit I can provide no joy for my wife or her family or my friends. In fact if you ran out of wine at a wedding you could be sued for it because you have failed to meet your social responsibility. So when Mary said they have no wine it was like they have no wine they've run out of wine. Jesus knew what that meant. So in verse six John is telling us about what happened. There were six water pots of stone.
Now here was the Jewish thinking if it was made out of stone it was clean if it was made out of earthenware it was unclean. All a matter of purification. But did you get how big they were in that verse? 20 or 30 gallons apiece? That's between 120 to 180 gallons of wine. I agree with William Barkley no wedding party on earth can drink 180 gallons of wine. This isn't Jesus just meeting a need. This is Jesus lavishly going way over the top like more than ever you'll need. Which all I can say about that is what a gift. What a what a lavish gift. Because that wine was so good and even the master of ceremony said this is good wine. And that couple could have sold that wine and could have used that money for their early marriage it was quite a gift. We often like to Skip over things like verse seven we call them insignificant details but notice Jesus said fill the water pots with water and they what filled them up to the brim. You know why John wants you to know that?
He wants you to know that nothing was added. This wasn't some sort of a fake miracle. It was filled all the way up to the top so unmistakably this was a miracle. It's not like there's a little bit of water and somebody dumped a gallon of wine in it. It was water all the way up to the top. This was a miracle. It did not come through the normal process of fermentation that has to happen for wine to be made just instantaneous fresh good sweet wine.
Now our wedding was sort of like this only in reverse because we had no alcohol at our wedding but we had Martinelli's sparkling apple juice and when you put it in a glass it bubbles and I remember a lot of people going champagne and they kind of all rushed for it and then they drank apple juice and we didn't do that to psych them out it just but it was kind of funny. Now I'll tell you why John is writing this. John is writing this to demonstrate who Jesus Christ is. John wants everyone reading this book to know that Jesus Christ was no less than God.
That's the premise of the whole book right? That's why he starts out saying it in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Oh and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and he made everything. All through the book he is saying that Jesus Christ is God and so he's going to demonstrate that. Back in chapter one he demonstrated that by telling us how omniscient Jesus was that he knows everything. So he meets Philip and he knows that Philip is from Galilee and he wants to go to Galilee. He meets Nathaniel and he he knows about Nathaniel's character and he goes hey you're a man in whom there is no deceit.
Well how do you know me? I knew you when you were in the fig tree when you were out there praying I saw that and after that now John is demonstrating that Jesus is not only omniscient but he's omnipotent. That he can control the natural world that he is capable of creation like God creates things Jesus created wine and maybe John even had Genesis 1 in mind because the old testament begins by a miracle of creation. Jesus ministry began by a miracle of creation. So that's Jesus and a miracle but it doesn't end there. Verse 11 is the end of this story really and it tells us why Jesus did what he did. It's really the answer to the whole issue here and it's about Jesus and his men. Verse 11 this beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. Two things are told in verse 11 about this miracle. Number one that this was the first miracle Jesus did. The first one. The beginning of the signs that Jesus did and I'll tell you why that's important because there's a couple books floating around out there.
They have been for some time. One is called the Gospel of Thomas. The other is called the Gospel of Peter. They're apocryphal books. They're not canonical books of the new testament but they have these fanciful stories of Jesus sort of kind of coming to grips with his miraculous power when he was a child and there's this story how that Jesus made a clay bird in class or a few clay birds and then made him come to life and they flew away and then he was out on the playground one time and he got mad at a kid and cursed him and the kid fell down dead and then Jesus raised him from the dead. He's just sort of like whoa I'm pretty powerful and so it's helpful that John gave us this note.
That didn't happen. This is the very first miraculous sign Jesus performed. Second he tells us why he did it. He did it to reveal his glory in order to develop the faith of his disciples because it says and his disciples believed in him.
That's why the name of the series is Believe 879. That's the theme of John's book Believe. Remember our first study and we looked at John chapter 20 I think verses 30 and 31 where John said truly many other signs Jesus did in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the son of God and that by believing you would have life in his name.
So naturally John wants you to know why he did this. It's so that his disciples would believe in him. By the way there's only five disciples right now. If you look at the disciples from chapter one there was Andrew and John that's who we infer it was then there was Peter then Philip and Nathaniel and they go to Cana and so this is a very private miracle.
It is not public. Sure the servants knew about it his mother knew about it but really it's not public. But really the disciples knew about it and what they saw brought faith. Those disciples you know they're just sort of getting a grip on who this is and what's going on and then they see this miracle and they go wow I believe. Now I'm wondering something I can't prove it but I'm just wondering that they didn't think immediately of Moses at this miracle because Moses predicted and they would have known this Moses said the Lord God will send unto you another prophet like me him you shall listen to. And do you remember what the first miracle Moses ever performed was? It was turning water into blood. Jesus first miracle was turning water into wine.
Moses miracle of turning water into blood brought destruction and misery. Jesus first miracle of turning water into wine saved the day and brought joy and they might have put two and two together and thought this guy is like much cooler than Moses. This is awesome I believe and by the way this is part of what Jesus promised Nathaniel would happen and he said Nathaniel you think the fig tree thing was cool? You will see greater things than this and boy Nathaniel had no idea what he was in for in three days. He got up to his hometown Nathaniel of Cana and here's Jesus of Nazareth and Nathaniel said can anything good come out of Nazareth? Now here's the boy from Nazareth doing this in Nathaniel's home digs and his faith was increased. I read a funny little story about a businessman back in the east who always had a dream of being a rancher out here in the west of course it was just a childhood dream he read books and he thought I want to own land to be a rancher so he eventually saved money and bought a ranch or bought land I should say in Wyoming and started his own ranch and a friend of his came out to see the ranch and saw so many acres of land and said this is fabulous what do you call it what's the name of your ranch and the man said well that's sort of the problem we've had we couldn't agree on a name so I've given it the name the double r lazy l triple horseshoe bar seven lucky diamond ranch the guy said wow that's a long name and he goes you know I look around I notice you don't have any cows where's all the cattle and the man said none of them survived the branding imagine that long brand well I thought about that and I thought about all of the people who have joined different religious groups that I have known this brand of spirituality and that brand of cult and this brand of that and I think you know what I listen and I look at what they believe in and some of it's narrow and legalistic and austere and and and they just turn out weird none of them can survive the branding then I think of jesus here who brought joy to a group of people and faith to his disciples and so I have a question do you think that if you came to jesus christ you would ever be empty or you would ever be disappointed this one who could lavishly supply such graciousness 180 gallons because if you ever do feel empty and you ever do feel disappointed following christ it's not because he failed you it must be because you left him the christ who can produce this kind of an abundance is able to take care of you even in a recession he's lavish he's abundant oh you'll be tested and you might even go i don't have any stuff like mary to jesus they have no wine his timing's perfect he knows what he's about so many people today feel like their lives are empty and yet here we are sitting on the good news that jesus can fill a life to overflowing if you know jesus are you sharing the good news of his abundance how he can make a life truly a fulfilled one and as we bring our time to a world where we can share the good news of his abundance how he can make a life we bring our time to a close if you'd like a copy of today's message you can find it at connectwithskip.com or you can call us and order one at 1-800-922-1888 each copy is just four dollars plus shipping and if you have any questions about getting today's message or other resources from Skip ask about them when you call 1-800-922-1888 jesus was no stranger to trouble and we'll see an example of that in our next study so i hope you can join us right here in connect with Skip weekend division a presentation of connection communications connecting you to god's never changing truth in ever changing times
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-03-28 04:35:37 / 2023-03-28 04:44:24 / 9