Kyle Lounsbury: Good morning, church.
How we doing?
Good.
Great.
What a powerful name it is.
You know, this morning, uh, our worship team has done a phenomenal job leading
our hearts to- Yeah … worship Jesus.
Amen.
Thank you, worship team.
They get up early on Sunday mornings when, even when it's raining in Orange
County, and they get here at 8:00 AM to practice, and they come here on
Thursday nights at 6:00 PM to practice.
And these are volunteers that really are just trying to use
their gifts for the glory of God.
Amen?
So thank you, guys, for worshiping.
I know you guys are in the back.
Thank you for leading us.
We love you guys.
Thank you so much.
Well, my name is Kyle Lounsbury, and along with my wife Jasmine, we
lead our awesome college student ministry here at OC Church.
Amen.
And, uh, today we are continuing on in our series Come and See,
like Sonny mentioned earlier.
And, uh, you know, this past week and the, the week prior, we have started
school, and we've been busy on campus.
And God is doing some great things.
He's teaching us some great lessons.
And one of the really exciting things that we're doing this
year is we've sort of broken our ministry into different Bible talks.
And so we've got two Bible talks in north and two Bible talks
in the south and central area.
And so it's just been really cool to see the students taking ownership of the
ministry, ownership of the mission, and also ownership of their relationships
with one another and with God.
So it's just been really, really encouraging, and, uh, just very
grateful for how God is working in our campus ministry, and how He's
continuing to develop, uh, new leaders and new young people to
continue to serve and worship God.
Amen.
So there's a little update for the campus ministry.
But, uh, like, like I mentioned earlier, we're starting…
or we're in our second lesson of Come and See.
And Sonny had mentioned the scripture there, uh, in John 1:45, how Philip found
Nathanael, and he told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law,
and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
And then Nathanael's response is, "Nazareth?
Can anything good come from there?"
And Philip's response is, "Come and see."
And what's cool is there's a parallel a few verses before that.
Jesus is actually the one who says, "Come and you will see."
And, and, and this idea of come and see I think is so powerful and so
valuable, and I think for our church context and where our church is at, is
so needed, to come and see Jesus in a new and exciting and refreshing way.
Amen.
Who wants to see Jesus in a new and exciting and refreshing way?
Don't we all want to?
Yeah.
Yes.
Whether you've been a Christian for a day or a Christian for
many years, we constantly want to see Jesus in a refreshing way.
Amen.
And so I'm really excited to get into the, the lesson today.
Actually, I had the scripture up there.
Look at that.
Um, but the heart really behind this series is to discover more about Jesus.
And so today we're gonna be jumping in to our lesson called Come and See the Divine.
Come and see the divine.
And what's really cool about this message is in chapter two of John, you
can turn your Bibles to John chapter two, what we're gonna find out that I
love is there's some cool imagery and there's some cool things taking place.
The first thing we're gonna really focus on, or the main thing I'll say
we're gonna focus on, is the word sign appears three different times.
And for a second, I wanna just set this up.
Imagine, who here's ever been to the Grand Canyon?
Woo.
Okay.
Grand Canyon's amazing.
Okay, who's been to maybe Yellowstone?
Okay, Niagara Falls?
Uh, what am I missing?
Zion?
Yeah.
All right, all right.
Uh, Yosemite?
Yeah.
All right.
Okay, so we've been to some of these beautiful places, right?
And if you haven't, I wanna encourage you, try to take some time and go.
When I went to the Grand Canyon for the very first time, my mind was blown.
Just the vastness, the, the, the power, the size, the just, oh my
gosh, you get there and you're just like, "I'm looking at a picture."
Like it doesn't feel real.
But I want us for a second to imagine we're driving to one of those places.
Let's just say the Grand Canyon.
We're driving to the Grand Canyon and along the way we see about
10 miles out a sign that says, "Grand Canyon 10 miles away."
And wouldn't it, wouldn't it be weird if we all got out of our cars, "Hey,
let's go take a picture next to that sign that says Grand Canyon 10 miles away."
We're, we're, we made it to the sign that says 10 miles away from the Grand Canyon.
That'd be weird, right?
I mean, maybe you wanna take a picture 'cause you're on a road trip
and you're doing, okay, fun, cool.
But the purpose of the sign is not the destination, right?
Right.
The purpose of the sign is to point you towards what's to come.
And so we're gonna see that parallel throughout this chapter today, and
honestly, throughout many of the next coming chapters, the book of signs as
we see many different miracles that Jesus does pointing to his divinity.
Amen?
So let's look, uh, in John chapter two.
I'm gonna say a prayer and we're gonna dive into the scripture.
Father, thank you so much for this morning and this time to worship you.
Lord, we are so grateful for Jesus.
We are so grateful for the beautiful name of Jesus, the,
the name above every other name.
Father, we're so thankful that you have sent your Son to die
for us, that we don't deserve-
the sacrifice of Jesus.
I pray that as we get into your Word this morning, that there would just be a
reverence, a posture of humility, and a desire to just see you and allow your Holy
Spirit through your Word to speak to us.
We love you, Father.
We thank you.
In Jesus' name, amen.
John 2:1
Says, "On the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee.
Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also
been invited to the wedding.
When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, 'They have no more wine.'
'Woman, why do you involve me?'
Jesus replied, 'My hour has not yet come.'
His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.'
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews
for ceremonial washing, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water,' so
they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of
the banquet,' and they did so.
And the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine.
He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants
who had drawn the water knew.
Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, 'Everyone brings out the choice
wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink,
but you have saved the best till now.'
What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs
through which he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples.
There they stayed for a few days."
So we're gonna s- take a pause here.
Let's set the scene.
So Jesus gets invited to a wedding.
Who here has been to a wedding?
Weddings are awesome.
We've got, uh, Angela and Lorena are gonna be getting married soon.
Amen.
Really excited for them.
Yeah.
Marry- getting married is a, is a great victory, and
going to weddings are awesome.
But at this wedding, something vital takes place and, and unfortunately happens.
They run out of wine.
All right, now for us, maybe we don't fully grasp the context completely, but
in that time, these wedding celebrations went weeks sometimes and were very long.
It wasn't just like, "Hey, we have the reception, and then we have a
two or three hour," you know, or, or, "We have the ceremony, then
a two or three-hour reception."
That's not…
That's, that's modern America.
That's how we do it, right?
But these guys, they celebrate a long time, and so if the wine runs out, uh-oh.
Oh, yeah.
Uh-oh.
Rusty.
You know, this would have been embarrassing and humiliating
for the family, uh, hosting this wedding if the wine completely ran
out, in which this case it did.
And so what do we see take place?
We see Mary, the mother of Jesus, brings the problem to who?
To her son, Jesus.
She brings it to him.
She doesn't necessarily expect anything.
She's not necessarily trying to control him or tell him what to do.
She simply says, "Here's the problem: we've run out of wine."
And Jesus goes, "Woman, why do you involve me?"
Like, "It's not my problem."
At least that's what I'd be thinking.
Maybe Jesus wasn't thinking that, but I'd be feeling like, "Okay,
like, that's not my problem."
But what I love here is Mary immediately then tu- turns to the
servants, and what does she say?
She says, "Do whatever he tells you."
Do whatever Jesus says, just do it.
Just, I promise, just trust him.
Do whatever he says.
So what's the posture of Mary there?
The posture of Mary is, "He's got this.
Jesus has got this.
I'm gonna trust my son with this.
I'm gonna trust Jesus to handle this."
And of course, what I love here is that Mary doesn't know
necessarily what he's gonna do.
It's not like she planned for him to create all this wine, right?
But she just said, "So please, Jesus, here's my problem.
I'm putting it at your feet."
What's the, the parallel to us?
Don't we have problems sometimes?
Who are we turning to with our problems, right?
What are we turning to with our problems?
Are we entrusting our problems with Jesus?
You know, Jesus then honors his mother, and what does he do?
He works a miracle.
And what I love about this is Jesus sees his mom and goes, "I'm gonna honor you."
And we live in a cu- culture today, we don't really honor people
the way that we should, right?
Unfortunately, we see on the news, we see on social media, we
see in younger generations just a disrespect towards other humans.
Jesus displays the humility and the honor deserving of his mom.
Let's be men and women who honor our parents.
Amen?
But nearby stood six stone jars.
They're these big jars used for ceremonial washing is what it says.
And these big six stone jars hold about 20 to 30 gallons of water.
And in this time, these jars represented Israel's practice of purification.
They were used for ceremonial washing is what the scripture says.
And those practices, they had a purpose.
They were, they were useful in that time.
But now what we see is the one, Jesus, who can truly cleanse
people standing beside them.
The one who truly purifies us is now present.
The one who is pure is present, and Jesus uses the ceremonial
washing jars to work his miracle.
He says, "Fill the jars with water to the brims."
And then they started drawing the water out, and then what did the water become?
It became wine.
It says somewhere around 150 gallons if you do the math.
That's a lot of wine.
A lot of wine.
Those are big jars, I mean 20 to 30 gallons, 150 gallons total.
You know, Greg told me to share this joke, so I will, all right?
So if you don't like it, it's on Greg.
But why did Jesus use six jars to make the wine?
He wanted to make the first six-pack.
Hey, thank you Greg.
Thank you.
So why so much wine?
You know, as I was reading, I was like, "Why, why so much wine, Jesus?
Like, you, you just made so much, it doesn't make sense.
Are we ever gonna actually use all that?"
No, I don't know.
But why so much wine?
Well, in the commentary that we've been, uh, reading, Raymond Brown shares
here that the prophets had foretold an abundance of wine in Messianic days, and
the abundance of wine at Cana would bring these prophecies to mind and point to
the Messianic nature of Jesus's mission.
You know, in the Book of Amos, it describes a coming day when new
wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills.
So Jesus is not simply helping a family out of an embarrassing
situation or a humiliating moment.
What is Jesus doing?
He is bringing the new covenant.
Yes.
This is a sign that the Messiah has come.
This is his first miracle, the sign of his arrival, and that
is fulfillment of the law.
You know, the jars could hold water for ceremonial washing,
but what does Jesus do?
Jesus comes to provide new life, new cleansing in our lives today.
Amen?
Amen.
He washes us.
We're washed by the water, the waters of baptism.
We die to our lives and buried under the water.
We resurrect to a new life, and are cleansed, and our sins are forgiven, and
we're raised to a new life with Christ.
Amen.
You know, one of the things I love about this scripture is I love that
Jesus, it says, makes the best wine.
Yeah.
The best wine.
And why, why, why do I like that?
I like that because Jesus gave his best.
Yeah.
He coulda easily just made wine that was as good as the other one, right?
Jesus said, "No, no, no.
I'm gonna give my best.
I'm gonna make it excellent."
I think that's a call for us.
Let's give our best.
We don't need to be perfect.
We don't need to, to, to be the, the most effective and excellent
people, but we need to give our best because that's what Jesus did.
Amen?
Amen.
Let's give our best in everything we do.
Not for our glory, but for his.
Amen.
Verse 11, it says that, "Through this sign, Jesus revealed his glory
and his disciples believed in him."
You know, another part of the commentary is, a further lesson
for Jesus' ministry is that he, he replaces the Jewish purifications with
something better, and that's himself
The miracle in this story met a real need, a serious need, but that was not its
greatest purpose, brothers and sisters.
Turning water into wine, growing up hearing that story,
I thought, "That's so cool.
That's amazing."
And it is.
The sign and the miracle is, but what it points to is even greater.
The sign and the miracle points to the glory of Jesus, the divinity of Jesus.
Amen?
Amen.
Let's keep reading.
At the end, I'm gonna share some application to us, so we're gonna
come back to this story, but let's keep reading in John chapter 2.
Verse 13, "When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple courts He found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and
others sitting at tables exchanging money.
So He made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts,
both sheep and cattle; He scattered the coins of the money changers
and He overturned their tables.
To those who sold doves He said, 'Get these out of here.
Stop turning my Father's house into a market.'
His disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for
your house will consume me.
The Jews then responded to Him, 'What sign can you show us to prove
your authority to do all this?'
Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.'
They replied, 'It's taken 46 years to build this temple, and you're
gonna raise it in three days?'
But the temple He had spoken of was His body.
After He was raised from the dead, His disciples recalled what He had said.
Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Now while He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many
people saw the signs He was performing and believed in His name.
But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them, for He knew all people.
He did not need any testimony about mankind, for He knew
what was in each person."
All right.
So again, we have this scene.
He goes from this miracle in Cana, turning water into wine.
Now He's in Capernaum, and what does He do?
He steps into the temple courts.
He sees the temple, which is meant to be holy and reverent
and designed to worship God.
It's the place where you can go and actually connect with Him.
And what does He see taking place?
He sees commerce and consumerism, and He sees them selling things and
trying to, to create this environment that is not holy and reverent
You know, Jesus, in this moment, had some conviction.
And when we study out Jesus's life, we love the, the grace-filled Jesus.
We love the Jesus that is a shepherd.
We love the Jesus that's kind, and we need to be just like Jesus in those areas.
But we also need to imitate the indignance of Jesus.
Right.
The spirit of zealousness for righteousness.
We live in a corrupt time, in a corrupt culture, in a world that's evil and dark.
I cannot stand listening to the news, being on social media.
Anytime it comes up, I just…
I, I don't wanna hear about it.
It's evil.
It's dark.
We need to stand up for righteousness.
Yeah.
We need to be holy in a unholy world- Yeah
just like Jesus.
And what I love about Jesus is he's not necessarily angry in a sinful way.
He's angry in an indignant way, a righteous anger.
I can't believe this is happening.
And he starts turning things over.
It says he goes and he makes a whip.
Like, he is intense about this.
Why?
'Cause he's standing up for a holy God.
All right.
A righteous- All right … holy, reverent God So my question is,
are we imitating Christ's example?
Do we stand up for holy things?
Do we imitate His example of standing up for righteousness, or do we get
complacent and comfortable sometimes with the sin of our culture?
Do we get com- comfortable?
Do we just get, uh, immune to it or numb to it?
Desensitized?
Or are we seeing the severity of a lost world and how we need to bring
Jesus to this lost world, and an intensity upholding righteousness?
You know, our culture can be just like these temple courts.
Are we zealous enough for God and desire to please Him more than people?
And I think that's what the struggle is sometimes, right, church?
That sometimes in this culture we're like, "I don't really wanna be that
zealous, or I don't really wanna stand up for this because I don't know how
it's gonna make people think of me."
Right?
Is that relatable?
I, I, I feel that a lot.
Like, "Ah, I don't want it to mess my reputation up," or, "I
don't wanna be viewed as just the, the righteous truth-teller
with no love and forgiveness."
I think that's a real fear and insecurity sometimes.
We have to trust that God's grace is so big and great and
vast, and His grace is amazing.
But we cannot compromise the truth of His Word.
We cannot compromise the convictions that He shows, the
indignance here of, "This is wrong.
I must stand for something that's holy and righteous."
But there's something even deeper that happens here and, you know,
I really wanna get into that.
And in the commentary, one of the things that he says is, in attacking
this commerce, Jesus is doing more than purging an abuse, right?
Now, the animals and the coins were absolutely necessary for temple worship.
So He's doing more than just flipping tables and throwing things out and saying,
"This is wrong," and standing up for righteousness, and sometimes I think we
can distill this down to simply just that.
It's more than that.
It's part of it, but it's more.
And I think what it is is that Jesus' actions are challenging the very
fabric of the temple system because the one to whom the temple pointed
to is there, and that's Jesus.
The temple system was designed for what?
To go and connect with God.
But who is there in their presence?
God in the flesh.
And so He's trying to show something different, and in the commentary
it says, "The glorious presence of God, once confined to the temple,
has now become flesh in Jesus."
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah.
It's now flesh in Jesus.
Jesus says, "Stop turning my Father's house into a market."
And notice the authority of that type of statement.
"Stop turning my Father's house into a market."
He calls it my father's house, and I love the intimacy Jesus
has there to say his father.
You know, he's not acting like some outsider with an opinion.
Who is he?
He is the Son of God.
He's the son in his father's house.
Like any of you who step into your father's house or mother's house or
family's house and you see things are not right and people are abusing it…
Who saw The Odyssey?
I don't wanna spoil it, but when you, when you watched The
Odyssey, what was going on?
Odyssey's house was being abused, right?
Yeah.
Sorry, I'm spoiling it, but it's…
I'm not really spoiling it.
It's, like, the second oldest book ever, so there you go.
And you just see what's taking place for years while Odysseus is gone.
They're just abusing the father's house, taking things from…
You guys with me?
Yeah.
How would you feel?
You would probably feel like Tom Holland, the little guppy in that movie, right?
Yeah.
Sorry, I say that 'cause I'm just like, dude, you could've…
I wish you was just a little bit more, right?
But amen.
Bottom line is Jesus was in his father's house and he was not
pleased with what was taking place.
You know, the leaders understand that he is claiming authority, so
what do they begin to do to him?
They question him.
They ask him to prove his authority.
"By what authority are you doing this?
What sign can you show us?"
What is his answer?
"Destroy this temple, I will raise it in three days.
Destroy it and I'll raise it in three days."
And they're like, "What?
What are you talking about?
It took 46 years for us to build this temple."
Notice that Jesus does not say, "I will destroy this temple in three days."
Later on in the crucifixion account, that's actually the accusation used
falsely to crucify Jesus, is they say, "You said you will destroy this temple."
Here it is.
He didn't say that.
He says, "You will destroy this temple."
And they immediately think about what?
The actual structure of the temple, the actual building.
It had taken 46 years to construct it, so they can't even begin to fathom or
imagine what Jesus means by destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.
But John tells us that Jesus was speaking about what?
Himself, His body.
The temple, His body.
And they're standing in the temple looking at Jesus, but they do not
understand the true presence of God is standing right in front of them.
They can see the building, but they cannot yet see who Jesus truly is.
What's the parallel for us sometimes?
Man, we don't always know what Jesus is doing, and sometimes we don't even see
Him working in our situations, and we sometimes only see the physical, right?
We only see what we can grasp.
Jesus is moving.
Jesus is doing things that are out of our scope.
We don't always see it, but He's working and He's present,
and His presence is everywhere.
And so the temple represented sacrifice, it represented forgiveness,
worship, and God's presence.
But Jesus, in this moment, is saying that all of that now centers
on Him, His temple, His body.
And His body will be given as a sacrifice.
He will make forgiveness possible, and when His body is
destroyed, it will rise again.
Amen?
Amen.
So what does all this mean?
Well, I've got a few things I wanna share with us this morning, all right?
A few things that I think we as the OC Church can apply
and consider in our lives.
You know, the first thing here is we see, I mentioned earlier, that the
word sign appears three different times in the chapter, and signs
point to something else, right?
They point to God and, and the divinity of Jesus.
And so when this, this word sign comes up, some interesting
things, I think, happen here.
But before I jump into it, let me share a story.
This is my wedding day.
Uh, one of my favorite days of my life.
That's my wife Jasmine and I.
We're f- we're celebrating and excited.
You know, one, one interesting thing, uh, that I've actually never
shared is that for years, you know, I used the, the, uh, initials JIL
in sort of everything that I did.
All right?
I'm gonna expose myself here, but, like, all my passwords have JIL in
it, so don't steal my identity, okay?
But JIL stood for Jesus Is Lord.
All right?
JIL.
Jesus Is Lord, 'cause He's my Lord, and so I wanted to constantly remind me that.
It's even my Wi-Fi password at home, so whenever you come over, there you go.
But when I was thinking about marrying Jasmine, I started realizing something.
You know, her name is Jasmine Isabelle Ramirez
But if we got married, she'd become Jasmine Isabelle Lounsbury
And I remember thinking, "God, i- is this a sign?"
"Is this a sign you're showing me here?"
Yeah.
The connection, right?
Jesus, you're, you're first.
Jesus is Lord, but wow, JIL also works, Jasmine Isabelle Lounsbury.
You know, we love signs, right?
And signs, I think, are special and are great, and I'm sure you
maybe have thought in your life or experienced a sign at some point.
But the reality is that sign was not like the, the, the crux or
the, the main focus of my marriage or my love for Jasmine, right?
It simply just pointed me to something greater, which is marriage
and a future and love with my wife.
And so what's cool is these signs that we see in chapter two, they
point to such amazing things.
They point to the cross.
They point to the divinity of Jesus.
They point to Him bringing the new covenant.
And so the question though I think that they point us back
to is simply is Jesus Lord?
Is Jesus Lord of our lives?
Because I believe Jesus really is Lord.
Amen.
So the first time it appears is in verse 11.
"What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs
through which He revealed His glory, and His disciples believed in Him."
All right, so the sign reveals Jesus' glory, and the disciples believe.
This is in Cana.
This is right after He turns water into wine.
This is that situation.
So what's the application?
Well, I think something we can consider is we often want Jesus in our life
because we simply have run out of wine.
Sometimes when the wine runs out and we need a miracle,
that's when we turn to Jesus.
Yep.
And I'm not saying that's wrong, but that can't be the only time we turn
to Jesus Or, or only in times of need.
I remember in college I would, you know, before a midterm or final I would
just, "All right, I need to pray now.
God, just help me ace this final," even though I didn't study one
hour on it or one bit on it, right?
Anybody relate?
We can't only turn to Him in times of need or when times where our strength
has run out or we're exhausted, or times when we're, our patience has run out.
Jesus does care about our needs though, amen?
And Cana shows us that He's compassionate toward our ordinary problems.
But He does not want to simply just improve our circumstances.
That's not the point of this.
Jesus is not designed and not trying to just take suffering away from our lives.
That's not His purpose.
Rather, He wants to reveal His glory to us.
Jesus wants to reveal who He truly is to us in the midst
of our tough circumstances, in the midst of our struggle.
And we live in a culture, and I mentioned this earlier, full of
false gods, full of consumerism, full of things that really push us and
influence us towards comfortability.
And I believe we need to humble ourselves to Jesus and truly trust
Him even when life's uncomfortable, even when our circumstance is like,
"Oh, what are you doing here, Father?"
Even when we run out of wine at the wedding.
You guys with me?
And instead of asking Jesus to just improve the circumstance or
work a little miracle or eliminate the suffering, I think we need
to ask Him to reveal His glory.
Lord, what are you trying to reveal to me?
Show me what you're trying to do here.
Teach me something new.
Help me to mature.
Help me to grow.
Help me to learn what you're trying to, to make me learn.
And so the question I think we should ask ourselves is do you wanna know Jesus, or
do you just want Him to fix your life?
You see, we want Him to fix our life, and we need Him to.
Let's just s- get that out of the way.
But if that's just what we're looking for- You can go to any other self-help place.
You can go get a life coach.
Nothing wrong with life coaches, let me just say that.
But what I'm saying is Jesus has to be more.
Amen?
Amen.
So do you truly want to know Him and have His glory revealed to you?
The second sign we see, the second time it appears is in verse 18.
"The Jews then responded to Him, 'What sign can You show us to prove
Your authority to do all this?'"
This is when they're questioning Him, and the leaders are demanding
a sign while resisting His, what?
Authority.
The Pharisees resisted His authority, and they wanted a sign to prove it.
You know, I think we can like the idea of Jesus.
We can like the idea sometimes of authority, 'cause we need b- guardrails
and boundaries and s- sort of rules for our life and church community, but
I think sometimes we resist His cosmic authority in our lives, that He is Lord.
He is God.
He is divine.
And sometimes I think we distill Him down a little bit, and we go, "Ah,
can He just be a part of my life?
Can He just have maybe a little say in my schedule?
Or can He maybe just have a little bit of influence of where my money
is spent or how my finances work?"
Rather than going, "Jesus, You have all authority in my life, because
God has given You all authority.
You are divine.
You have all the authority."
You see, the temple leaders knew the system.
They knew the traditions.
They knew the building.
But when Jesus arrived, they asked Him to prove Himself to them But what happens?
He turns over the tables.
He, he, you know, he, he's preaching this message.
Well, what happens when Jesus overturns the tables in our lives?
The different things that maybe we're wrestling with, or maybe the
complacency we're going through.
What happens when Jesus confronts things in our lives?
Maybe it's our hidden compromises.
Maybe it's our need for control over certain things.
Or maybe it's our use of church and religion and Christianity and,
and attending, and the cultural aspect of it to protect ourselves
or shield ourselves, make ourselves look better, or make ourselves
look a certain way in our society.
You see, at Cana, Jesus created what was not.
He turned water into wine.
But what happened at the temple?
He overturned what was corrupt, what was wrong.
He overturned it, and he established a new way.
He established he was divine, and Jesus had authority to turn water into wine
and authority to turn over the tables.
Oh, God.
Are we giving him authority in our life?
And I think the question we can ask is what table in your life are you
refusing to let Jesus turn over?
What's the table maybe you're holding onto?
What's the thing you're like, "I don't really wanna talk
about that part of my life."
What's the part where it's like, "Lord, I've worked on this for
years, and I still need help"?
Let's surrender it to Jesus.
Amen?
Let's surrender it to Jesus so he can reveal his glory and help us heal.
The third time the sign comes up.
You guys still with me?
Yeah.
We're almost done.
John 2:23, "Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival,
many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name."
Amen.
Well, later on, what does Jesus say?
He says that he doesn't entrust himself to them.
He doesn't trust it.
Why?
Because he knew what was already going on in their hearts.
You see, the crowds believed Jesus because of what?
Because they see miracles, because they see signs.
Amen.
But Jesus does not entrust himself to them.
So what i- wha- what's the, the, the, the draw that we can get from that?
Guys, I think, and this is something I wrestled with being a kingdom kid,
growing up in church my whole life, it's possible to love what Jesus
can do Without loving Jesus himself.
Isn't that true?
We love what Jesus can do.
And amen, we, we need the miracles in our lives.
That's awesome.
But we may want Jesus the problem-solver, or Jesus the provider, or Jesus the
miracle worker, or Jesus the good teacher, or Jesus the life coach, whatever.
And that's awesome, but what about Jesus the Lord, Jesus the purifier,
Jesus the King, Jesus the one who influences our schedule, our
time, our decisions, our finances?
It's possible to love what Jesus can do without loving Jesus himself.
But Jesus, being God, knows what's in all of us.
Amen.
And he knows our hearts, and that truth is sobering, but it's also comforting.
The one who knows us is complete- completely is the one
who went to the cross for us.
Jesus loves us, and he died for us.
So what does that mean?
We don't have to fake it.
We don't have to perform.
You don't need to show up here acting like something you're not.
You can just come before Jesus your authentic self, and he can help you.
He can restore you.
He can teach you.
You don't have to ask him, "Jesus, prove yourself to me.
Show me the sign."
You don't have to.
You can simply come before him and say, "Jesus, teach me.
Jesus, help me."
Let's not fall in love with the miracles of Jesus or the signs of Jesus.
Let's fall in love with who they point us to.
It's Jesus himself.
And so the question we can ask here is: Are you following Jesus because he is
Lord or because he's been useful to you?
Amen.
Come on.
So why these signs?
To reveal who truly Jesus is.
It's to show us that he is divine.
And these signs also point to his sacrifice on the cross.
And we're, in a minute here, we're gonna take communion, but I
wanna share a parallel that kind of echoes through this chapter.
This isn't the main point of this chapter, so don't get me wrong, but it's an echo.
Jesus turns water into what?
Wine.
What does wine represent with the crucifixion?
Represents the blood of Christ.
Jesus is in the temple, and he turns over the tables, and he
references his temple as what?
His body.
You see the echo?
The wine and the body.
Everything points to the cross.
Everything points to Jesus.
Amen.
So in a moment, we're gonna take communion, and we're gonna take the
wine that now represents the blood of Christ, and the temple that now res-
represents the body of Christ, the bread.
Let's go ahead and say a prayer, and let's take communion with one another.
Father, thank you so much
For Jesus
Father, thank you so much that just in chapter two of John, we're
already seeing echoes of the cross.
We're already seeing the greatest sacrifice, the greatest act of love
that is so dear and special to us.
And God, I pray that as we take communion, that we would do it
with reverence and holiness.
That this would not simply be a ritual we do weekly or a custom or
some habitual habit, but that this is truly us reflecting on the body
that was broken, the blood that was shed, so we could be purified and
cleansed, that we could be viewed by you, Lord, the way you view Jesus.
We love you, we thank you.
In Jesus' name, amen