Scripture referenced 3 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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John 2:1-12 read aloud by Carl as the sermon's primary text, the wedding at Cana
1 The third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there.
2 Jesus also was invited, with his disciples, to the marriage.
3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine.”
4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do it.”
6 Now there were six water pots of stone set there after the Jews’ way of purifying, containing two or three metretes apiece.
7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the water pots with water.” They filled them up to the brim.
8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the ruler of the feast.” So they took it.
9 When the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and didn’t know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the ruler of the feast called the bridegroom,
10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now!”
11 This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they stayed there a few days.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
Jeremiah 33:3
quoted as a verse Paschal had memorized through Awana: 'Call out to me and I will answer you, and I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know'
3 ‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great and difficult things, which you don’t know.’
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Hebrews 10:19-25
read aloud to show the encouraging nature of assembling together and exhorting one another
19 Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
21 and having a great priest over God’s house,
22 let’s draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water,
23 let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering; for he who promised is faithful.
24 Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good works,
25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as you see the Day approaching.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This message came from John 2:1-12, the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. Pastor Ray walked through the scene geographically and culturally before landing on two simple instructions Mary gave the servants: listen to whatever Jesus says, and do it.
What was said
To get the congregation into the story, Pastor Ray laid out the physical reality of the journey. Jesus and the five new disciples had just walked 75 miles from Bethany beyond the Jordan, gaining 3,000 feet of elevation to reach Cana. To make that tangible, he pointed out that Smoot, Wyoming is almost exactly that far from Jackson. After two days of hiking together, these men knew each other well by the time they arrived at the wedding.
Running out of wine was not a minor inconvenience. It was a serious cultural failure, deeply embarrassing for the host family and especially the groom. That embarrassment is what set up Mary's quiet move: she simply told Jesus the situation and then turned to the servants with two instructions.
Before getting to those instructions, Pastor Ray paused on the word Jesus used when he addressed his mother. His wife Tanya had told him that reading the word "woman" aloud always made Jesus sound harsh or dismissive, and no inflection he tried fixed it. He worked through other places in the Gospels where Jesus used the same word, including when he spoke to the Syrophoenician woman about her great faith and when he spoke from the cross to make provision for Mary, and concluded that the word carried no disrespect. Jesus was not brushing his mother off.
The first of Mary's two instructions to the servants was "whatever he says to you." Pastor Ray stressed the word "whatever" as deliberately open-ended and liberating. Mary did not know what Jesus would do. She had not arranged anything with him in advance. She simply trusted that he would act. That trust, Pastor Ray said, is what faith looks like in practice. He connected this to the ways Jesus speaks today: through the Bible, through the Holy Spirit in quiet moments of prayer, and through other believers. He read from Hebrews 10:19-25 to show that gathering together is not just an obligation but the very means by which believers encourage and communicate with one another.
The second instruction was "do it." Pastor Ray quoted C.S. Lewis directly: "It is simply absurd to say you believe if you do not do anything he tells you." The servants filled the purification jars, which were not meant for drinking, and then drew from them and carried what they knew was water to the head waiter. That was an act of obedience that made no visible sense. But it was through that obedience that Jesus manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him more deeply.
Pastor Ray pointed out that Jesus could have produced wine without any human involvement at all. He chose not to. The obedience of the servants was the means by which the miracle happened, and Pastor Ray drew a straight line from that to how God works today. He has chosen to reveal himself to the world through human agency, and that is not a method his people have any standing to second-guess.
He closed by noting that belief is progressive. Nathaniel had already confessed Jesus as the Son of God, but verse 11 says the disciples "believed in him" as a result of this sign. Knowing Jesus more, and obeying what he says, draws people further into what Pastor Ray called his redemptive plan for the world. The invitation at the end of the sermon was not complicated: ask God what he wants you to do, and when he tells you, do it.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Ray described the 75-mile, 3,000-foot climb the disciples made before arriving at the wedding. How does thinking about that shared journey change the way you picture the relationship between Jesus and those first disciples by the time they arrived at Cana?
- Tanya's reaction to hearing 'Woman' every time Ray read the passage opened up a real conversation between them about what Jesus meant and how tone carries meaning. Has a familiar Bible passage ever struck you differently depending on how it was read or who was reading it? What happened?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 5,174 words
0:01
Speaker 1I'm going ask Carl to stay up here for a minute. I'm setting him up a little bit. Y'all can leave his mic on. The sermon today is, whoo, gracious. Not going be nearly that surprising.
0:17
It's pretty simple. It's just a short blurb. A two point sermon, if you will. It doesn't even make three. I don't have a poem in there anywhere but I do have something I want to share upfront.
0:36
I want to get you into the scene. I want to have you interact with the word and try to feel like you're there. So, I'll go through that quickly at the beginning and then we'll get into our simple two point sermon but before that, I want Carl to read from John, the Gospel of John chapter two verses one through 12. So, Carl's going to read the story of water to wine, the wedding at Cana.
1:01
Speaker 2Okay, here it is. John two verses one through 12. On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana Of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there and both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does And people of
1:32
Speaker 1that.
1:33
Speaker 2And we're custom of purification containing 20 or 30 gallons each. Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water. So they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. So they took it time.
1:55
When the head waiter tasted the water, which had become wine, he did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. The head waiter called to the bridegroom and said to him, every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorest wine. But you have kept the good wine until now. This was the beginning of his signs Jesus did in Canaan and Galilee and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
2:25
After this, he went down to Capernaum and he and his mother and brothers and disciples and they stayed there a few days.
2:33
Speaker 1Thank you, Carl. I said got I a chance to kind of interact with Vernon on the phone a little earlier. Yesterday, when I was talking to him, it was interesting to hear knowing what I was going be preaching on today. It was interesting to hear from him and to hear how excited he was about what God was doing, how he was working in Sudan. Y'all saw probably a video last week of Vernon and that was something we pulled off of the internet to introduce you to what he looks like and he's passionate, very passionate about what he's doing but that's not what he's going to talk about at this.
3:09
He might use it for an example here and here and there but what he's going to be talking about is what in the world is God doing? It's amazing to see how God is working. His redemption through his obedient servants all over the world. So, that's what that's going to be about. The scripture that Carl read.
3:25
I had Carl read that for a reason. But I said, I want to get you into the scene. Maps, great teacher. Where they had been is right here. Bethany beyond the Jordan.
3:43
Almost to the Dead Sea. That is 1,300 feet below sea level. For people who live at 6,300 above, that's something. That's a long long way down. 1,300 feet below sea level.
3:55
Where they were going, is up there up near the top in Galilee to Cana. Cana is about 1,700 feet above sea level. That's 3,000 feet of vertical for those of you who are hikers. 3,000 feet of vertical and how far does that look like it is to you? It's 75 miles.
4:17
75 miles. When they start off on the third day, what's he counting from? Last week, when we talked about Nathaniel, Jesus calling Nathaniel. He knew where he had been. He knew who he was and he knew what he could be.
4:29
He knew that Nathaniel was going to be walking with him over the next two days and the third day, there was a wedding in Cana. So, they covered 75 miles and 3,000 vertical feet. I wanted you to get into this seat. Do y'all know where Smoot Wyoming is? Smoot Wyoming is 75.
4:47
Four miles from here, okay? And it's higher in elevation than it is here. Granted, you do have to walk down into the canyon and come back up but this is a walk. This is a hike. So, those five new disciples of Jesus and Jesus were walking together 75 miles hiking.
5:06
Guys, do you interact when you hike gals too? Gals probably hike more than guys around here. Yes, you interact. If you're here with six people, you're going to know those people pretty well after 75 miles but this story takes place after that. So, Jesus and John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel walking from Judea in the South.
5:27
Probably along the Jordan River Valley because that's the flattest way. We'll see in a couple of chapters that Jesus says he had to go through Samaria but that was not the normal route for Jews. Probably, they went up the Jordan River Valley up towards the Sea Of Galilee before turning across towards Nazareth, Jesus's hometown, Nazareth sits twelve fifty feet above the valley floor just like Snow King. So, they hiked up the Nazareth Ridge and then over to Cana probably which is eight miles away from Jesus' hometown and we find out later that Nathaniel's hometown is Cana. It makes sense that all these guys would have been invited to this wedding.
6:06
I just want to put you in the scene. Now, as he read on, there was one huge cultural faux pas that happened at this wedding and that was that they had run out of wine. Big deal for us, right? I was 19 before I went to a wedding that had anyone and I grew up in Georgia. So, that's that's abnormal for me and the water to wine story in a Southern Baptist Church always seemed a little odd.
6:35
Well, the cultural faux pie was, these things would last for days and it was expected that you would have supply for your guests while they were there. They mixed wine with water to purify the water. They mixed water with wine to less the alcoholic effects but you can only water down wine so much before it doesn't, it's not wine anymore. They had run out and this was a horrible, horrible cultural faux pas, extremely embarrassing for both family especially for the groom. So, but the main cultural tidbit that I want to say is not geographical.
7:13
It's not it doesn't have to do with hospitality. The main cultural tidbit and the reason that I had Carl read instead of me reading. Is what Jesus had to say back to Mary. So, as I was going over this sermon with Tanya, I was reading through. I said, well, this is what this is what it says and I said it and she said, stop it and I said, what do you mean?
7:36
Stop it. She said, every time that you have read that, since we've been married, it actually made me mad and I said, what in the world? I I I didn't know. She says, when you say woman like that, it makes Jesus sound sexist. Well, we know he was without sin so it couldn't be that.
7:53
She said, well, then it makes me mad at you because you're reading it into him. I said, okay. Well, I'll figure this out. I said, so how should I read it? Would you give me the inflection?
8:03
You know, I tried it. I tried it rising. Woman, I tried tried it falling, woman. Mumbling through it. And lilting over it and nothing worked.
8:16
It just made her mad. I could not keep it from sounding sinful in some way. I think that's more about our times than it is about Jesus' time and I think I have adequate. I'll I'll throw out a few. It's proven again and again in the gospels but we here in the twenty first century in The US Of AR on the backside of a lot of equal rights legislation but we all kind of know that it's still not there.
8:42
We all have that feeling and if somebody says anything to denigrate women, it it it kind of aggravates. It aggravates me too. So, I didn't want to do that. So, I let Carl do it. Thanks, Carl.
8:57
I appreciate that. As far as language goes, that term is and that's the term we get our work gynecologist from. It means woman. That's what it means. It doesn't mean mom sometimes.
9:12
It doesn't mean peanut butter. Sometimes, it means woman. There's one title for this. We couldn't get around it in translation. I tried all of em.
9:23
But I did find this. Do you remember the Syrophoenician woman that came to Jesus? He was there with his disciples and she asked for him to heal her daughter. And she was persistent and he said, oh but I was sent only to the children of Israel because he's here with his disciples, mostly Jewish and she said, oh yes, but even even the dogs eat from the crumbs of master's table and Jesus, I know, was playing with his disciples. He was not mean to that woman.
9:52
He was sweet to her. Like I said last week, he had a smile on his face and he said, oh woman, great is thy faith. It has been done as you have asked. He healed that daughter because of that woman's great faith. When he looked down from the cross on John, the eyewitness, and Mary, his mother.
10:12
He said, woman, behold your son. And he said, be behold that mother to John. He was making sure there was provision for Mary. He loved her. He did not have any sharp brusque tone with her.
10:28
It was not an ugly thing. He loved his mama. Now, there are those who do suggest and there are bunch of fairly well known guys that suggest that there might have been some sort of a break, some sort of a brusque tone, some disjunction with family. So as to say, that nobody has a way in with Jesus except by faith. It's not about family relationship.
10:51
It's not about status. Whether rich or poor. There's no preference for poor. There's no preference for rich and there's no preference for family. There are people that say that.
11:02
Maybe you can read that in. I know that it's true but I also know that when Mary spoke, she spoke out of faith. She spoke in faith that he would act and that's what my two points are going to be based on is what Mary's response was. So, Jesus was not showing any disrespect and he also wasn't going when he says my hour has not yet come. He also was not going, mom, do I have to?
11:32
He wasn't doing that. I believe this. I believe that every believer can see dramatic change for the better by following Mary's two simple instructions to those servants. Really, the command she had one command but there were two things that it involved. There are two principles at work and that's where I want to go today.
12:02
Now that you're oriented culturally, geographically, and you figured this out. Instruction number servants was whatever he says to you. She was saying basically, listen, be attentive. Be attentive to what it is that he has to say. Whatever he says to you, I can't help it.
12:34
I break things down. The whatever and whatever he says to you is liberating. Whatever. That could be absolutely anything and Mary did not know what it was going to be. They hadn't prearranged this.
12:48
According to the verbiage there, it looks like Mary was there already at the wedding when they got there. Whatever he says to you, that is faith. That is Mary's faith that her son would act, that God's son would act. She didn't know what it would be super naturally. She had grown, he had grown up with her and she had seen him growing up and she knew that God was in his life.
13:11
She knew that he was God and could make change. Whatever he says. Whatever is liberating. I know a guy in Mexico that in obedience to God, what he does for a living is sell tacos during the week and he preaches on Sundays. That's normal for him.
13:33
Fidel is his name. Faithful is his name and he sells tacos off of a bicycle all week long. And he preaches on Sundays. I know another guy who sells tacos for a living. In Tunisia, whatever he says to you, whatever.
13:50
I want you to move to Tunisia to sell tacos. That's unusual. Help that guy. Fix that flat. Whatever it is that he says to you.
14:04
Whatever. It's liberating. I'll come back to that in a minute when I get to the two you part. He says, this is where the listen comes in. Whatever he says.
14:17
We've been talking about interacting the first point kind of the sub point on under that interact is interact with the word. One of the ways that Jesus speaks today is through his word, through the Bible. If you feel like it's a dry time and you're not getting any kind of direct direct, this is what I need to do. This is what you need to do. This is what I want you to do.
14:37
You can always find the truth right here. Interact with his word. See what it is that he's trying to tell you through his word. Listen to what this says. You can start with the 10 commandments.
14:48
You can start with forgive one another. You can start with love one another. Those are all in here. They're all true. They're always going to be true.
14:56
They may seem general but they're always true. You can listen to those. Another way that he speaks today is through his Holy Spirit. If you're open to his spirit, you've asked Jesus into your life. The Holy Spirit lives within you.
15:12
He's speaking in a still small voice. The more that you listen to that voice and obey, the clearer it becomes to you. Many times when the Holy Spirit speaks to you, it will be in the quiet moments of prayer. I say quiet moments of prayer. I'm not talking about the times where we're going.
15:33
Please, oh, please, oh, please, oh, oh, please. But the time that we say, nothing and wait for his response. God speaks to us in the quiet moments of prayer. Sometimes, it's in the asking phase. Sometimes, it's when we're waiting for response.
15:52
Paschal's favorite verse lately. Actually, it's one of the first ones that she's memorized and it's because of Awana, somebody is listening in Awana. It's Jeremiah thirty three three. Call out to me and I will answer you. And I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know.
16:10
The whatever might come up during that time after you've called out to God and he's showing you those great and mighty things. He even speaks today through our godly friends and our acquaintances. The second part of that interact, the second subtitle there interact with his word, with God's word, and with his people. It may surprise you how often if you're interacting with his people, how often God communicates through you to them or through them to you. I think that's one of the main reasons why Hebrews 10.
16:47
I was just telling somebody before the service started. My grandmother occasionally would fall into the, we missed you in church last Sunday. Invariably, they would come up with this quote and it would be, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as if to say, you need to be there. Come on. Get with us.
17:06
That Hebrews ten twenty five actually is a lot more encouraging than discouraging. If I can find it. Hebrews ten nineteen through 25. Listen to how encouraging this is and how it says we should be interacting. 19 through 25 says, therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
17:46
No, there's there's no condemnation there. And our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider one another. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works and then it goes into not forsaking the assembling of our together. As is the manner of some but exhorting one another, that's the communicating, the listening to God through each other that I'm talking about.
18:18
Exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. So, interaction with his word. Interact with his people because that's the way that he speaks to us. So, so far, we've gotten through whatever. Could be anything.
18:35
He says, let's listen to him and then to you, the to you and the whatever go together. It could be anything that he says to you like Fidel, tacos. That's the way he's going to be able to preach. Tacos in Tunisia is the way the other guy is going to be able to live out his faith. That guy's wife made great tamales.
19:00
In Mexico, that's what they did for a living. He was a singer, kind of a Norteno singer, regionally. It's kind of like what Scott does for a living. And he, for some reason, felt an inclination that he should go to North Africa of all places. It's not common for Mexicans to travel outside of the country.
19:22
It's fairly rare and he says, he had never been on a plane before, had never been anywhere before but his wife made great tamales. And God is doing a crazy work among Muslims because there's this Christian who is willing to just do what God told him to do. It's that simple. Now, he didn't have handwriting on the wall that explained it but when he got over there, he really liked the place and he felt like God was saying, this is where I want you to be. I felt that before.
19:51
That's amazing thing. When God puts before you something that you need to step out on faith and he'll put something up under your feet. So, the two you, it's an individual thing. Mary said it to the servant. She had no idea what he would be saying.
20:09
But they listened to her. In that, when Jesus spoke, they did exactly what he told them to do. He doesn't give us all the same assignments. Carl and I are wired totally differently. We just had a road trip together and we figured that out even more but we love each other and he's been called and I've been called and we have no doubt about it but before you sit out there and start thinking, yeah, but y'all are ministers, I kind of fall into a trap if I say, Carl and I are wired differently because we're in ministry and we're supposed to be wired in a certain way.
20:43
No, all of us are ministers. I was a carpenter until six months ago. So, I should be saying that if you are trained as a lawyer or as a contractor, doing whatever God commands to you is very personal. It might end up if you're a lawyer that you're doing some pro bono case. Yeah, that would make perfect sense but it might be that he'd ask you to fix somebody's flat like I alluded to earlier.
21:11
It might be that he would ask you to give to a family or an organization. Adopt a foster child. Start a book club. Something that doesn't make any sense necessarily but if it's specifically to you, it didn't make any sense when they're saying, we're out of wine to fill up water pots. Those water pots weren't even for drinking.
21:37
The water part pots it says were for the purification rituals. They had done the purification at the beginning part of the wedding to be able to be a part of it. They had gone through the purification stuff. That was just leftovers. You can go lots of different ways with this sermon but those purification pots were not to be drunk out of.
21:58
It would be like, say, Jesus say unto you, okay, go fill up the bathtub. We said, wait a minute, she said there was no wine and you want me to go fill up the bathtub with something that's not wine? Yeah. That's what he asked. But they did it.
22:16
Then, he said, now draw some of it out. Now, they just put it in there and they knew what it was and take it to the head waiter. Oh my goodness, what's he going to say? I'm going to take him dirty water out of a bathtub. But they did it because whatever he says to you, the next part, the next step.
22:40
Instruction number two, do it. Whatever he says to you, do it. It's obey. Listen and obey. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what that means.
22:58
Whatever he says to you, do it and what's cool is, they did it. They didn't say, I'm not listening to that woman. They just did it. Whatever he says to you, do it. Obey what he commands.
23:16
Only as we are totally obedient. Is the actual truth of our own failure completely released. That groom's failure was completely released from him because those servants did exactly as Jesus had said. Only as we are totally obedient is the actual truth of our failure completely released and only as we are totally obedient is the fullness of God of God and the glory of our savior revealed. Tanya and I are not perfect by any means but we have tasted we have seen that God is good.
23:55
We have tasted of that first part. Whatever he says, we've seen that. We've seen it seem kind of strange actually. But we've seen him himself when we did it. And so we're speaking him from a place of knowing that this is true.
24:13
There have been times that we've heard clearly and we have disobeyed. So I could give you some examples of the negative two where we knew this is something that we ought to do. And we didn't do it. But just like Peter, when he denied Jesus, after Jesus told him he would, after he was restored, God used it all redemptively. I'll go back to last week's lesson.
24:35
He knows where you've been. He knows the mistakes you've made. He understands you and he knows who you are today and he knows what you can be. So, I rather concentrate on the times where we did follow through with what it was that he said. I want to go to a quote from CS Lewis here.
24:59
A lot of what we talk about is about believing and a lot of what we put our emphasis on especially in the church and the evangelical church is what you believe and that matters. What you believe makes a huge difference and we say, if you will just believe in Jesus, if you will just put your faith in Jesus, if you'll just trust in Jesus and we it over and over and over and over again and I am totally, totally, totally convinced that salvation is by faith alone. It is not by works but in this passage, what we're focusing on is listening and obeying. I want to read something from CS Lewis that he said. Instead of asking yourself whether you believe it or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because he said, do it or even once abstained because he said, do not do it.
25:53
It is simply absurd to say you believe. If you do not do anything he tells you. That was harsh. For me last night when I was looking at that, again, it was harsh. It's simply absurd to say you believed if you don't do anything he tells you.
26:14
I'm glad CS Lewis said it and I didn't have to. Think about this. Jesus could've done it any way that he wanted to. He could've just said, ping and there's wine. He could could have had Martini and Rossi in the bottle immediately, right there because he had the power to do that.
26:36
He's conquering time and space. He's conquering nature. He's going from water to wine. He can do that. But he chose to manifest his glory and that's what he says he did.
26:50
In verse 11, it talks about the results. He chose to his glory by using human agency. Oh my goodness. When we're talking about missions, how does God choose to reveal himself to the world today? It's through human agency.
27:07
That's the way he's chosen to do it. We as created beings have no right to look at our creator and say, nope, that's not the way we're going to do this. This is the way that he's made. To communicate the gospel, he's chose to use human agency. The obedience of the servants in the story was the means by which he manifested his glory.
27:26
It was also the means by which his disciples believed. If we look at verse the results in verse 11 Verse 11 says, this beginning of his signs, Jesus did in Cana Of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. Now, they were already, they already walked 75 miles with him. At this point, Nathaniel had already confessed he was the son of God and the king of Israel. There is something progressive about belief.
28:02
The more that you know him, the more that you taste and see that the Lord is good, the closer you get drawn into his redemptive plan for the rest of the world. It feels a little heavy. Y'all are looking like this is a little heavy for you. Is it heavy? Is this is this too much?
28:18
It's good. Okay. I I don't want for it to be, I don't want for it to contain any shame at all. If you are a believer in Jesus, then, this is something that should be exciting to us that we are pulling this, we are pulled into his redemptive plan for the world. Now, if you don't know who Jesus is, these servants did not know.
28:39
They listened to Mary, his mom and they saw great things happen. It says that the master of the banquet did not know where it had come from and was just raving about it. We'll, you know, let's go back and read that for a second. When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine and did not know where it came from but the servants who had drawn the water knew. The headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, every man serves the good wine first and when the people have drunk freely, he serves the poor but you have kept the good wine until now.
29:10
Jesus did a miracle and didn't ring a bell. He didn't say, hey, this is me. When he said my hour has not yet come, he did a sneaky miracle. He did a sneaky miracle. The only people that knew any knew about it were his disciples and what did they do?
29:28
They believed in him. He manifested his glory but he did it in a limited fashion. Those servants know. It does not tell us whether they went on to believe. The wedding guests were just drinking wine.
29:40
They didn't know what happened but he accomplished his purpose. He gave greater faith, greater belief to those who had believed and were following him. For those of you who have believed in him, I'm asking you to listen to what Mary says. I'm agreeing with her. I'm saying, whatever he says There it is.
30:06
Somewhere up here it is. Whatever he says to you. Just do it. Carl, y'all want to come on back up? Every believer can see dramatic change for the better by just following those two simple things.
30:29
Whatever he says to you, do it. So, we're going to sing a closing hymn, hymn, praise song. But if God is is working on you today, if there's anything that you've been thinking, I don't know why in the world I keep having this feeling that I ought to do blah, whatever it is. I'm not sure what it is but I feel like I ought to blah, whatever it is. Last week, when people came forward, one of the folks that came afterwards said, I've been feeling like I needed to do this for some time and I just was not sure until today where that was coming from.
31:07
I'm asking for you to open it up to God to show you if that's what he's trying to get you to do. So, when you pray today, just ask God what it is that he would have you to do and then when he tells you, just do it. Paul.
31:22
Speaker 2Let's stand for this last song. This is a it's a story. It's about Jesus' life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and his return. But what do we do in the meantime? Ray just told us.
31:36
The scripture just told us. We listen, we obey. We listen, we obey. Let's sing together.
35:54
Speaker 1Praise God. Thank you lord that there is a glorious day coming. I pray lord that we'll be a part of bringing many on that day that we can just throw crowns at your feet, lord. We love you and we're thankful for you. You fill us with joy.
36:10
Abundant life, and we love you for it. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
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