[0:00] So please turn with me to John chapter 2, and as you turn there, I'll give you the outline! for this sermon that we'll be going through. So first is the conflict in verses 1 and 2.!
[0:30] And that's because it's a very good way to understand a narrative in any form. So let's read the passage together, starting in verse 1 through verse 11. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
[0:44] Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me?
[0:55] My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons.
[1:06] Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water, and they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, everyone serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
[1:42] So now that we're all familiar with the passage, let's proceed again to the beginning of the story, beginning with the scene, verses 1 and 2. First, on the third day. If you've been tracking along with us from previous sermons, you may remember that John really likes chronology. And I think this third day lead-in phrase is building on a pattern that John has already set up from the back half of chapter 1. So in the back half of chapter 1, if you'll flip over a page or just look back, he uses a lead-in phrase very similar to this, the next day, three times.
[2:19] So in verse 29, verse 35, and verse 43, each time this phrase is used, the end of that section is a revelation of Jesus' identity being shared, declared, or confessed. So first, in verse 34, corresponding to the next day of verse 25, John the Baptist says, and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. Next, looking at verse 41, corresponding to the next day of verse 35, Andrew says to his brother Simon, about to become Peter, we have found the Messiah. And John adds his own parenthetical clarification, which means Christ.
[3:04] These are big statements to be said about a Jewish man from Nazareth, to be sure. Third, looking at Nathaniel, says in verse 49 of chapter 1, his life-changing interaction with Jesus turned his skepticism in verse 46 to this declaration in verse 49, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. That's an absolute 180-degree turn from can anything good come out of Nazareth, to you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.
[3:36] Both here and in the second examples, we see the disciples specifically making messianic connections to Jesus, though not with perfect understanding. These three passages have been well covered over the last couple weeks, but I wanted to make sure that the pattern that John had set up did not fail.
[3:54] Over and over, the authors of scripture use patterns so that they can be easier for us to remember, and also to draw our attention when something changes. So here the leading phrase is similar, on the third day, but it's not the same.
[4:09] I think we would do well to expect a similar revelation as before, being about Jesus' identity, but not quite the same. Continuing, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee.
[4:20] So a little bit about the location. The group has not traveled far in the last two days, this being the third day. The group has not traveled far since Philip and Nathanael began to follow Jesus.
[4:32] They are still in Galilee, as they were previously in chapter 1, and John 21, 2 identifies Nathanael as of Cana in Galilee. So Cana was most likely Nathanael's hometown or village, so this was likely where he encountered Jesus for the first time.
[4:48] So they've been hanging out here for a couple of days now. Perhaps these new, excited disciples had time to discuss what Philip meant in verse 45, where he said to Nathanael, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.
[5:04] Certainly these men would have been eager to dive into the scriptures to see if these things could really be true. They may know that there is much that they do not know. They refer to Jesus as rabbi, understanding that they need teaching, they need instruction from him.
[5:19] Undoubtedly, they do not know how much Jesus will change their paradigm of who the Messiah will be and what he will do. So still setting the scene, let's talk about the people we know at this wedding.
[5:32] In the back half of verse 1 through verse 2. So first, the mother of Jesus. This is the first mention of Mary in John's gospel. I think it's worthwhile to briefly consider the portrait of Mary in the gospel of Luke, as this will give us additional insight as we read this account of John.
[5:49] So while pregnant with Jesus, Mary sang a song of praise in Luke 1, 46 through 55. A beautiful song. I'll only read the first and close of it, so you can see Mary's reverence of and hope in the Lord.
[6:04] It begins with this first sentence. My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
[6:15] And it ends with this. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our forefathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.
[6:26] There's a wealth of biblical themes that is worth much study to unpack from this song, but we don't have time to unpack all of it here. But I'll summarize to say that Mary is clued in to what God is doing in Israel throughout its history.
[6:40] She seems to think that the Messiah's life could not be more humble than beginning with her. But again, that's part of her not yet perfect understanding of who this Messiah will really be.
[6:52] After Jesus' birth in Luke 2 and the visitation of the shepherds to Mary and Joseph, there is a succinct description of Mary in verse 19 of chapter 2 of Luke. Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
[7:07] My point in going to these texts in Luke is to illustrate that Mary believes in her son, not merely how my mom believes in me as her special boy, but Jesus as Messiah.
[7:19] The angel told her in Luke 1, 32 and 33, this is the angel speaking to Mary, he will be great about Jesus, he will be great and will be called the son of the most high.
[7:30] And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end. A correct understanding that Jesus is the Messiah, but not yet a correct understanding of how Jesus will be the Messiah.
[7:48] Mary likely, likely the same as the disciples, has hoped and believed that this eternal reign of Jesus that's communicated to her by the angel, would be temporal, national, and most importantly, start right then and there.
[8:01] So let's talk about his disciples who were also here, mentioned in verse 2. We know by name there would be at least four from, again, the previous chapter, Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel.
[8:12] And as Nathan argued last week, most likely that other disciple that's not named in the previous chapter that was with Philip is most likely John the Apostle.
[8:24] Let's talk about wedding. So twice, just in these two opening verses, John mentions the wedding in specific, and I don't think that's an accidental repetition by any means.
[8:35] So a few points to derive from that. First, God loves marriage, plain and simple. The Father gave marriage to humanity as a gift to man and woman, so it is no surprise that the son, who is one with the Father, would be in supportive attendance at a wedding.
[8:49] Also important to note, this is not the only wedding about which John writes. This first wedding in John 2 is where Jesus begins his ministry, as we saw in verse 11, the first of his signs.
[9:03] John writes about another wedding on the other side of Jesus' ministry in Revelation 19, 6 through 9. And this is worth reading together, so I'm going to ask you to flip over to Revelation 19, keep your place in John 2, and as you get there, I'm going to take some time to get some water.
[9:27] So this is towards the tail end of John's life, as well as the Revelation. So as a kind of climax before, the new heavens and new earth are created.
[9:39] So Revelation 19, 6 through 9, John writes this of what he sees. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out, Hallelujah!
[9:54] For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
[10:10] And the angel said to me, Write this, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And He said to me, These are the true words of God. At this wedding in Cana, Jesus appears as an average guest.
[10:25] We're about to see Him cause a miracle, but it's known to few at the time, and He does not make Himself the focus. The marriage supper of the Lamb will be different. Jesus Christ will be the center.
[10:36] A few weeks ago, my wife and I had the lovely opportunity to witness the marriage of Gaines and Taylor Kidd. And it was lovely.
[10:47] It was so much fun, lots of great memories, and good times to share. Taylor's father even made me tear up a little bit during his very heartfelt speech during the reception.
[10:59] Very grateful for it. And happy month anniversary. But it wasn't perfect, because it's an earthly wedding. The marriage supper of the Lamb will far exceed all categories we have for a glorious wedding.
[11:12] And we eagerly await that day. Come, Lord Jesus, come. This wedding in Cana was also not perfect. So let's turn our attention back to John 2, continuing in verse 3, considering the conflict.
[11:26] So my first question here, let's read verses 3 through 5 together. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, They have no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what does this have to do with me?
[11:38] My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever He tells you. So my first question here is, why does Mary even care that they ran out of wine? Personally, and you may, this is my more laissez-faire mentality, events run out of supplies, it happens, you know.
[11:54] To me, it's no big deal. For example, at my bride and I's own wedding, just four years ago, recently, we kind of infamously ran out of a lot of food. So, we had a kind of humorous interviews being done by some guests, you know, for jokes.
[12:10] And one of our friend's fathers, when asked what was his least favorite part about the wedding, was, they ran out of meatballs. It was true. We ran out of meatballs. Guilty as charged. So I want to say, it's not that big of a deal.
[12:23] But, this was not the case here about this wine. So looking just after our passage in verse 12, we can see that Jesus' brothers were also in attendance.
[12:33] So from that, we can infer that this may have been a relative or at least a very close family friend. And if that close relationship exists, which it presumably does, Mary may have had some organizational duties, responsibilities.
[12:46] As we will see, she gives instructions to the servants and they listen. Either way, Mary wanted to spare the wedding host severe public embarrassment. This is far more serious than running out of meatballs.
[12:59] This would have been a social scar on this family for the rest of their lives. Possibly even with legal ramifications against the bridegroom and his family. So whatever the exact situation, we can know that this is a great, genuine need for this family.
[13:14] So let's consider this section of the story, the conflict, with three parts. The request, the hour, and the command. So first, the request in verse 3. Reading the text at face value tells us that Mary was not exaggerating.
[13:26] They were out of wine. The wedding feast was a big deal that could be as long as a week. We don't know. Presumably this is day 3 of, you know, 4, 5, 6, 7. So to be out at this point is a big problem.
[13:39] It's also, I'd say, impossible to know for sure what Mary had in mind when she told Jesus that they were out of wine. By his response, we can know that he inferred that she wanted him to fix it.
[13:51] Personally, I do not think that Mary had an ordinary process in mind for how Jesus would fix this. I think if she did, we would have read something about money changing hands.
[14:02] You know, if my mom asked me to go to the store and get something for a party, she's probably going to give me something to that effect. This isn't what happens here. And considering the previous text that we looked at, where we read about Mary's belief in Jesus, specifically the Father working through Jesus, I think Mary is implicitly asking for a miracle.
[14:22] So let's talk about Jesus' answer in verse 4. Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. The first half. Jesus' answer here is not disrespectful, but it is abrupt, and it is a bit startling.
[14:36] It would have been an unusual way to address one's mother, and it would have certainly caught Mary's attention. Jesus seems to be creating or illustrating some distance between himself and his mother, as he is about to be more wholly pursuing his earthly ministry.
[14:53] She, too, needs a bit of correction with her view of the Messiah. Now, I think it's interesting to note that this small, gentle rebuke from Jesus here of Mary is of a very different kind than the rebuke that Peter receives later whenever he is misapplying his understanding of the Messiah.
[15:10] But what about the hour, the end of Jesus' answer, specifically Jesus' hour, my hour has not yet come. This term is used several times throughout the gospel, a few times by John as the narrator, and a few times where Jesus says it explicitly about himself.
[15:29] So here, of course, he's saying it about himself. Let's look at an example where John uses it. So John 7, 30, reads as this, So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.
[15:43] Importantly, John tells us this in the middle of a public debate about Jesus' identity in Jerusalem. Let's look at somewhere where Jesus used it of himself in the high priestly prayer in John 17, 1 through 3.
[15:58] So this is right before the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, and Jesus prays this, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.
[16:10] Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him, and this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
[16:22] This hour, Jesus' hour, is a recurring theme throughout the gospel of John, and it is referring to Christ's crucifixion being handed over to lawless men.
[16:32] This is how the apostle Peter says it in Acts 2, 23 and 24. This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified, speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem, and killed by the hands of lawless men, God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
[16:57] Jesus is working on the divine timetable here. He knows his mission. He knew he was walking a long road to the cross for his beloved, and he knew that here at the wedding in Cana.
[17:13] Moving to the command in verse 5, Mary takes this, turns to the servants, and says, do whatever he tells you. Mary trusts that Jesus will do something. Perhaps she thought this would have been a great time for Jesus to publicly show his power.
[17:27] A few days ago, the new prophet on the block, John the Baptist, said that the Messiah was coming and announced Jesus as the Son of God. Instead, she calls the wedding servants over and trusts that Jesus will do something, even if it's not maybe what she had in mind.
[17:42] But laser focused on his mission, the hour. Jesus does not publicly reveal himself here as the Messiah, but he does take the servants with him. This is a marvelously compassionate action toward the wedding families and Mary.
[17:55] And that takes us to point number three, the solution in verses six through eight. Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
[18:09] Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it. So I want to make two observations about this solution of what Jesus does here.
[18:23] First, it's out of focus. These water jars would have likely been off to the side in a storage room, certainly not in the feast area with everyone else. And Jesus does not make a show of this miracle by trotting out the new wine to the master of the feast himself.
[18:38] Instead, he sends the servant to deliver it as if they found new ordinary stores. Now you may be wondering why it was so important that Jesus does this miracle privately.
[18:50] We've already talked about the hour and that certainly is a part of this. Later in John, we can see two different groups of people that create problems when Jesus does work public miracles. First, the crowds.
[19:02] After Jesus feeds the thousands in John 6, John records this in verse 15. Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
[19:15] This was not the mission that Jesus came to do at the time. He did not come to be a revolutionary leader against Rome. Second, after the final of the seven miraculous signs that John records, the raising of Lazarus, the Pharisees gathered their council and John gives this conclusion of their meeting.
[19:35] So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death. Jesus, therefore, no longer walked openly among the Jews but went from there to the region near the wilderness. The hour was coming closer but not quite yet.
[19:48] So Jesus pulled back his public appearances. All this is to be done, all this is done to be perfectly in step with God's plan, including the timing, for Jesus.
[19:59] Second observation about the solution. Faithful servants. Mary gave the servants a command to do whatever Jesus says. And here, Jesus then gives them two separate instructions and they do it.
[20:13] No questions asked, no deviation, or half-heartedness. The first command, fill the jars with water and their action and they filled them up to the brim. I don't know about you but I do not know if I'd be so inclined to do this unquestioningly after the preparation leading up to this wedding feast, the grueling work of serving for probably a couple days at this point.
[20:35] But they do it. John says that the jars are 20 to 30 gallons so let's just take the middle and say 25. So that's about 200 pounds of water per jar and there are six jars so that's over 1,000 pounds of water that they are drawing and filling up and carrying.
[20:52] That's already a lot of serious work. But on top of that, this is not our modern day with spigots from the city reservoir. They were most likely drawing this water out of a nearby well.
[21:03] So they're lifting all of this water a few times over. This is some serious faithfulness. And no matter how close the well was, there's still a lot of work tied up in that phrase and they filled it up to the brim.
[21:19] That's a lot. It would have been very understandable to me to fill those jars mostly full, maybe three quarters, save yourself a couple hundred pounds and a lot of work. But no, they filled them up to the brim.
[21:31] These are faithful servants. As servants of Christ ourselves, we ought to work diligently. For those of us in Christ, all we do is for the Lord and deserves to be done with earnestness, no corner cutting.
[21:45] It's also good to note the generosity of Jesus here. Using the average, this would have been 150 gallons of wine for the rest of the feast. This was an enormous, plentiful amount for more than the rest of the feast.
[21:59] We see the same abundance when Jesus feeds the thousands. Seven and twelve large baskets full of leftovers there. Similarly here, this is not merely a sufficient, scraping by miracle.
[22:11] It is an abundant blessing. The second command from Jesus, draw some out and take it to the master of their feast. And their simple action, so they took it.
[22:22] Certainly this command was not as much physical work, but it took some boldness and some belief. It is not evident in the text the exact moment when the water became wine.
[22:35] The most we can narrow it down is somewhere between when the cup is filled and when the master of the feast takes a sip. No matter the exact moment, it would be understandable for the servants to let some doubt slip in.
[22:47] Maybe on the way over to the master, they began to smell an aroma from the cup. Even if they could smell it themselves, they could doubt that it was really the wine and maybe it was their tired mind and body playing tricks on them.
[23:01] If they brought the master of the feast water, it would not end well for them. Can't imagine so. It would mean embarrassment for them, maybe even punishment. But despite any fear and doubt, they went.
[23:14] They carried this gift of Jesus from Jesus to someone who had no idea what it cost. They do not do the miraculous transforming work, but they play a vital role and Jesus chose to work alongside their effort.
[23:32] And what did that effort bring? Let's look at the result in verses 9 through 11. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, Everyone serves the good wine first and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine.
[23:54] But you have kept the good wine until now. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.
[24:06] So first, let's talk about who this master of the feast most likely was. This was the servant or employee overseeing the feast, specifically in charge of arranging the tables, tasting the food and the drink before it was served.
[24:20] A couple of English translations that made this idea a little bit more clear in my mind was table master or head waiter. This is the guy. Let's talk about the miracle of the water into wine.
[24:33] So as before, Jesus does not make a big show or do a special dance for this. Rather, he has such power as the creator to simply do it. Yahweh creates the world in Genesis 1 and he does so by his word.
[24:47] Let there be light and there was light. Now, the word become flesh is here at this wedding in Cana and he says, draw some out.
[24:59] When I was younger, I played football. I was very engaged in the sport. I'd go to football practice sometimes twice a day. Dad, don't know how you let me do that. I watched football games, listened to football analysis, played football video games, probably too many of those.
[25:14] And one of the things I learned during that time is that coaches didn't have much tolerance for the gap between what they would say and instruct to the players and what actually happened on the field.
[25:27] On one of my teams, we had a reverse play, which means everybody goes one way, they give the ball and somebody else reverses going the other way. Ideally, the defense is so confused that he, the reversing player, just walks all the way to the end zone and scores a touchdown.
[25:41] That doesn't always happen. So, on my team, the player that needed to give the ball to the reversing player was a little uncomfortable with a handoff, just handing the ball to him, but preferred to do a little toss.
[25:55] The reversing player also preferred to get a little toss than have it handed to him, just made them more comfortable. But the coach said over and over in practice, don't toss it, hand it to him.
[26:05] So, one game, coach calls a timeout, we need a big play, everybody's on the sideline and he calls the reverse play and he reiterates, don't toss it, hand it to him.
[26:16] So, we go out there, everybody's going to the right and then the ball is pitched up, hits the reversing player in the face mask, the ball's lost. The coach was fuming mad and he wasn't mad because he didn't know what to do, he was mad that he didn't have the authority to carry it out, to make the players do it.
[26:37] There is no gap between what Jesus says and what he has the power to do. When he told the servants to draw the water, he was not fretting about the water not transforming into wine.
[26:49] There was no chance that it was going to not transform into wine. The God-man, Jesus Christ, wielded his enormous creative power to transform the water into wine and he used the servants to be the vehicle of delivery.
[27:05] And because this is done by the almighty power of God, it is really wine, good wine, nothing watered down. Both from John's account in verse 9 and from the table master's reaction in verse 10, we can see that this is wine.
[27:19] John speaks to the transformation and the table master speaks to the quality. So first, let's now look at the table master. The table master calls over the bridegroom and he sets the expectation.
[27:31] He's telling him what normally happens. Everyone serves the good wine first and when the people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. In other words, at this point in the celebration, most people dial back the quality of the wine.
[27:43] This would have been a gentleman that's been to many, many weddings, served at many, many weddings. But then he gives the bridegroom this surprise. But you have kept the good wine until now. The bridegroom was most assuredly surprised and grateful to hear this and continue the celebration of his marriage.
[28:03] A brief note on good wine. Before, I had noted Jesus' generosity in the volume of the wine that he was creating. Here, it is worthwhile to note Jesus' generosity in the quality.
[28:16] From the table master's comments, it is clear that this new wine is of a higher quality than what was expected to be the good wine at this wedding. What an unexpected blessing this must have been for the bridegroom.
[28:29] He thought that they had already brought the top shelf stuff out, but yet, this new wine was even better than what came before. So not only did they suddenly have a vast store of wine, but it was even better than what they had before.
[28:44] So continuing with the result, let's consider what else came from this miracle, looking at the first half of verse 11. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory.
[28:57] We see that through this sign, Jesus manifested his glory. John records seven specific signs throughout the first half of his gospel. After this sign, they're healing the official son in chapter 2, healing the invalid in chapter 5, feeding the multitude in chapter 6, walking on water in chapter 6, healing the man born blind in chapter 9, and finally, raising Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11.
[29:22] though this miracle, this sign, was intentionally seen by fewer people at the time, it does show Jesus as the sovereign creator of the universe with the authority to transform and the power to really do it.
[29:37] Let's consider the disciples' faith and his disciples believed in him at the end of verse 11. The disciples that are here, we already talked about who they are, are presumably the same group that were called in the last chapter, and we're calling him Messiah, the king of Israel, the son of God.
[29:54] So why does John record here at the end of verse 11 that the disciples believed in him? First, I'd like to say this phrase does not necessitate that previously none of the disciples really believed in Jesus.
[30:05] It could just as well be the case that the disciples previously thought he was the Christ, the son of God. In John 1.50, Jesus says to Nathanael, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?
[30:19] You will see greater things than these. And I will say, this is a greater thing that they have seen. But I think looking at the rest of verse 11 can help us better understand what to make of this phrase at the end of it.
[30:32] His disciples believed in him. Specifically, Jesus manifested his glory. Let's consider that word glory for a second. Let's look at where this was previously and the only time it's used before this in the gospel of John.
[30:46] in chapter 1, verse 14, John writes, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
[30:59] Jesus speaks several times in John 17 about glory. And verse 5 gives us succinct insight into this term in chapter 2. This is what Jesus prays to the Father.
[31:12] And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. That is the glory that Jesus is manifesting, making visible to the disciples.
[31:27] The glory that he had with the Father before the world existed. The glory not just of a righteous man or great leader, but the glory of God. The glory of the transcendent creator and king of the universe, is made visible in part to these disciples.
[31:45] What else could they do but believe? So, a few closing applications for us today. Application number one, see Jesus' glory as God.
[31:57] This is the first of the signs that John records for us, but no sign is greater than the resurrection. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
[32:12] It is not possible for the glory of God to be held by death. Here, on this third day, Jesus manifests his glory by transforming this water into wine.
[32:27] His glory by resurrecting Jesus at the empty tomb. Our second point of application is to believe in Jesus as king.
[32:39] You've heard today part of Jesus' the account of Jesus' life. I pray that there is clarity in what I've said and what I've read, that Jesus is the second person of the trinity, the word, the logos of God, who became flesh to show the glory of God to us and conquer death.
[32:57] The battle is over. The victor has won, and the right response is to kneel before the king, Jesus. Our sin, our flesh, will be repulsed at giving up idols and submitting to God.
[33:12] Idols that we made, that we found, that we coveted from others. So pray to God that he will give you grace. Pray that he would credit the perfect righteousness of Christ to your account and receive Jesus' substitutionary death, which was the wages, consequences, of all of our sin.
[33:29] And let's not lose sight of the explicit purpose that John gives us in recording these signs in John 20, 30, and 31. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
[33:53] Third point of application, fully and faithfully obey. This life often feels long and we are often tired. I'm sure I'm about to learn a new level of tired as we're expecting our firstborn in just a month or so.
[34:08] So let us be constantly refocusing our efforts to diligently serve our King, not for our own glory, but for his, to make him known to the people that do not yet know him, and to bring him to remembrance, bring him to mind among the people that do know him.
[34:29] As we go, remember the glory of God that we have experienced through the partaking of the word in the Lord's Supper, the singing of the word, the preaching of the word, and the hearing of the word. Jesus was supremely focused on his mission to fulfill God's plan.
[34:44] He did not seek to glorify himself at the improper time. He did not reach out and take what would seem good in many human eyes. He chose to use humble, ordinary, obedient people for his miraculous, transforming work.
[34:58] And all these signs are written so that you would believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. Join me in prayer.
[35:08] prayer.