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Bob Davis: She didn’t tell Jesus what to do. She just told Jesus there was a problem. I think that we’re learning some big, big lessons and this is only John chapter 2. We’ve got thousands more lessons to go. If you’ve got something that needs looking after, tell Jesus and then be still. Just wait.

Announcer (Male): Welcome to Apply Within, a verse-by-verse study of the Word of God with Pastor Bob Davis of North Country Chapel. We invite you to join with us as we, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, apply His word within our own hearts as we study line upon line, precept upon precept, verse-by-verse through the Bible. Jesus turns water to wine for a wedding feast as our study of John continues in chapter 2. Here’s Pastor Bob.

Bob Davis: And the third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was invited and his disciples were invited to the wedding. This looks like probably three days after the calling of Nathanael. That’s where we left off at the end of chapter 1, where Jesus had called Nathanael and he said, "There’s an Israelite in whom there is no guile." "You don’t know me, you’ve never met me." "I saw you before Philip said anything to you. I saw you under the fig tree." And he said, "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel." And Jesus says, "Well, if that impresses you, you ain’t seen nothing yet."

The third day after that, keep in mind Jesus is up there in the Galilee region. We read that near the end of chapter 1. He and his disciples are now invited to a wedding. It looks like Mary was well acquainted with the family, so it does look like she had some sort of responsibility at the wedding because you’ll notice Mary was there, but Jesus and his disciples were invited. They were guests, but Mary was serving or overseeing. She was doing something; she knew the family that well.

The wedding feast, if you’ll recall studying through the Old Testament, usually lasted seven days. The way it would begin would be that the bridegroom would show up and surprise his bride at a time when she thinks not. She’s got to always be ready to get married because the groom would go to the father’s house to prepare a place for them to live. According to the Jewish wedding customs, as soon as it was ready, the father would say, "Go get your bride." And the groom was thrilled; he’d go. She’s waiting for him every day.

Get it, church? She doesn’t know the day or the hour, but she knows that he wants to come and get her, that he loves her and he wants to come and get her. So she’s waiting. The groom would prepare that place, then he would show up and he would take his bride back to the father’s house. Then the marriage was consummated, and the family and the guests would be there celebrating that wedding. They would just celebrate for seven days.

If you like to think about the rapture of the church, Jesus coming to take his bride to the father’s house, how long will we be there in heaven? Well, forever, but through the great tribulation period for those seven years, we will be hanging out with Jesus. Look at this. When they wanted wine, verse 3, when they lacked wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him, "They have no wine." Jesus saith unto her, "Woman, what have I to do with you? Mine hour is not yet come."

But just get the picture. They're at a wedding. This wedding is going to be a seven-day celebration. It was usually up to the groom’s family to be sure that they had plenty of provisions for the wedding guests. If you had invited fifty guests, you need to make sure you have wine and dinner or whatever you're serving, whatever provisions you are providing, because you’ve got a week-long celebration. It was the groom’s family's responsibility to make sure everybody was taken care of.

It would be considered an embarrassment if people at the wedding knew they were out of wine. Notice Mary doesn’t announce it to the crowd. She comes and tells Jesus. Mary was clearly a part of the family or at least so close to the family. She was trying to help to keep this family from being embarrassed. Now, what do you expect Jesus to do about it, Mary? I mean, what do you expect him to do? Do you think that between him and his disciples they have two pennies to rub together?

Where are they going to get enough wine to take everybody through the rest of this celebration, even if it’s for twenty-four hours? Who’s going to come up with that? What is she expecting? By the way, this is the very first miracle Jesus ever did. That means that Mary isn’t asking him to do a miracle; she’s never seen him do one. She’s just saying, "We’ve got to keep this quiet. I don’t know what to do. Let me ask Jesus. Before I tell everybody else, maybe I should say something to Jesus."

Mary knows something that the whole crowd doesn’t know. The disciples know it a little bit. Mary knows this is God. This is the Son of God. I do not know what she’s expecting him to do. I love it when she says that they have no more wine. Notice, she doesn’t tell Jesus what to do like we do when we pray. She does not tell him what to do. She just tells him what the problem is. Get it? Thank you for the lesson. I don’t need to tell him how to fix this; I just tell him, "Lord, this is broken. Lord, can you help us because this doesn’t work?"

Mary just says, "They're out of wine. They have no more." Mary is trying not to get her hosts embarrassed, and she just comes to Jesus. She just told him what the problem was. What was she expecting him to do? I don’t know. But let’s just speculate a little. Mary knows who he is. The angel told her before she was even with child that she would become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit and she would bear the Messiah, the Son of God.

Mary is the one used to bring him into this world. She knows that. The only begotten Son of God. And I know that she wants people everywhere to know it. A lot of people have been talking behind her back since she was a young teenage girl because of this pregnancy that supposedly is miraculous. They even make fun of Jesus down in Jerusalem when he’s in his public ministry, suggesting that a lot of people question who his father is. A lot of people don’t believe this Mary-Joseph story.

What does she want? She wants people to know that Jesus Christ is who the angel said he was, God Almighty. He’s the Messiah, the chosen one. She wants Jesus to be glorified. She wants everybody—not just this wedding party—everybody to know Jesus Christ is Lord, so they can all know that Jesus Christ is their Savior. She wants Jesus to be glorified. So some ask this: she’s asking him for help, doesn't know what he’s going to do, and doesn’t tell him what to do.

Why is Jesus so rude and so disrespectful to his mother? He is not. We’re reading King James language. He is not being disrespectful. That’s not Jesus. He would never do that. In fact, he’s doing the opposite. He is being very, very respectful. He uses the word *gunai* in the Greek, which means you could translate it "ma’am." But if you were to translate it into our American today, it would be speaking like you were speaking to royalty. He would be saying, "my lady."

That is far from disrespectful. That is super respectful. Treating her almost like royalty. "My lady," he says. "Why would you involve me in this matter? Mine hour has not yet come." Well, what does he mean, "mine hour has not yet come"? Jesus entered into his public ministry at thirty years old because God called him at that time. He’s always been God’s Son. He’s been learning and growing and waiting on the Father’s watch, on the Father’s timetable.

Jesus lives on a heavenly timetable now, not on an earthly one. There is a specific time he must go to the cross. "My time has not come yet." "Well, I’m not asking you to go to the cross, dude. I’m just telling you they're out of wine." No, but don’t you get it? My hour is not yet come. He’s living a heavenly timetable now. Are we? Is that the way we think? "This is what God wants me to do." "How long are you going to do it?" "Until he tells me to do something else."

It’s his timetable we’re living by, and it doesn’t matter how you feel about it. We’re living on God’s timetable, on heaven’s timetable, not our own. We’re going off heaven’s calendar, not our own. What hour is he talking about? He tells us in his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. Always let Scripture, when it can, interpret Scripture so you don’t speculate. It's one of the rules of interpretation.

John 17, verse 1: Jesus, the night he was betrayed as they're walking toward the garden, says, "Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son that thy Son may also glorify thee." Mary wants Jesus to be glorified, meaning she wants everyone to know he is God Almighty in human flesh. Jesus is saying to her, "It doesn’t matter what I do here. It’s not time. It’s not God’s timetable. My hour is not yet."

His hour is when he goes to the cross. When he is beaten and taken to the cross and sheds his blood and suffers and dies there and rises again. And he will glorify the Father, and the Father will glorify him. His hour is then. Until then, there’s nothing you’re going to do. People will choose or they won’t choose. Got it? There’s nothing you’re going to do, Mary. He’ll go to the cross and suffer and shed his blood and die. He will rise again from the dead.

The proof to the whole world that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, that Jesus is God Almighty in human flesh. He said, "There’s your proof. You want proof that I am Messiah? Destroy this temple, I’ll raise it up in three days." He wasn’t talking about the big beautiful temple; he was talking about his body. Jesus will glorify his Father in heaven and his Father will glorify him. There’s his hour. Mary wants everybody to know. He goes, "It’s not time yet, my lady."

Look at verse 5. His mother says to the servants, "Whatsoever he says unto you, do it." And there were set there six waterpots of stone after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, "Fill the waterpots with water." And they filled them up to the brim, to the top. And he saith unto them, "Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast." And they did it.

Look at this. She didn’t tell Jesus what to do. She just told Jesus there was a problem. I think that we’re learning some big, big lessons and this is only John chapter 2. We’ve got thousands more lessons to go. What a lesson. If you’ve got something that needs looking after, tell Jesus and then wait. Just wait. Don’t explain how it works; he created everything, he knows. Don’t explain how you feel that it should be this and this and this. Don’t give him your blueprint. Be still.

Isn’t that what the Lord says? "Be still and know that I am God." Just let him do his thing. Let him do what he’s doing. That way you can’t get in the way. Just back up and let God do what God is doing. She turns to the servants and she simply says, "Whatever he tells you to do, do it." Have you ever heard any better advice from anybody ever in the whole world? This is Jesus’ mother, not telling people to listen to her like a lot of people pray to her and teach. She's saying, "Listen to him. Whatever he says, if he tells you to do something, do it."

Jesus told the servants to fill each one of those waterpots full with water. The servants obeyed the Lord and filled those pots full of water. Now Jesus says, "Take them to the governor." That would be the overseer, the one who’s in charge, the caterer, whoever’s in charge of making sure everything’s in order. Take it to the overseer of the feast. If the disciples would have filled those and then taken them to the governor, everybody would have said, "Oh, he had this planned. It’s a setup. It’s not a miracle."

Skeptics, that’s our heart—that’s our nature. So Jesus—how smart is he? He's one step ahead of everybody. "You guys do it. And you take it to the governor." And my boys, I can see him going, "You pay attention. Learn from this." The servants obeyed. They filled them up, then they just dipped some out and took it straight to the governor. And Jesus’ disciples had nothing to do with it. It was the servants who were on nobody’s team, so you can’t call foul or a setup.

The disciples were just as shocked and stunned as all the servants were. The people, they don’t know what’s going on. So this is not a big open miracle. This is only Mary, Jesus, his disciples, and the servants. That’s the only people that know in the whole place. Think about that. And don’t overlook the fact that this water changed immediately. They filled them with water immediately and Jesus said, "Draw some out and let the governor taste it."

They took some right out. It was water when they pulled it out; by the time the governor drank it, it was wine. The water changed miraculously, instantly. It didn’t sit in the sun for three hours because somebody would say, "Well, you probably had something to do with the light and a situation." Miraculously, water was turned into wine. What did Jesus do? Nothing. He just said, "Well, I want that to be wine. Fill that with water and go ahead and let the governor taste some."

It didn’t sit a few hours in the sun; it became wine instantly. From water to wine in a split second. How do you do that? Only God could do that. Unless they had some instant wine somewhere. Looking for loopholes, huh? Look at verse 9. Now when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, he did not know whence it was. He did not know it was water. All he knows is this is some of the best wine I’ve ever tasted.

The governor of the feast called for the bridegroom. He said unto him, "Every individual at the beginning sets forth the good wine, and when people have drunk a lot, then you put out the stuff that’s cheaper. Save yourself a little money, right? Check weddings sometime, you’ll see what I mean. But thou hast kept the good wine until now. This is better than the stuff you started with. Usually you start with your best stuff. I’m surprised you’re putting out the better stuff now."

He goes, "I’m shocked, I’m glad, thank you, but it’s just surprising." This, verse 11, the beginning of miracles—this was his first—Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him. And chances are good a couple of the servants too. When the overseer of the feast tasted the wine, he was so impressed with the quality of it. He did not know where the wine had come from. He only knew it was better than what they’d been serving.

He only knew that this was good wine, not water, whereas moments before, it was just water. And I love what Jesus says to Nathanael. "If that impresses you, Nathanael, just wait. You’re going to see." Because if it impresses you that he can do that—and it is impressive—he’s going to raise somebody from the dead. He’s going to take a person who has never walked in over forty years and they’re going to walk like they’ve been doing it for the last forty years. That’s amazing to me. It was a miracle, everybody.

Announcer (Male): Thank you for listening to Apply Within with Pastor Bob Davis. Apply Within is the radio outreach ministry of North Country Chapel. Our Sunday morning Bible studies are at 9:00 and 11:00 AM. We also have a Friday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM and a Monday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM. You can download today's message in its entirety at NorthCountryChapel.com/studies. That's NorthCountryChapel.com/studies.

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