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Who is this man Jesus? Who is He—and why should I care? Does it really matter?

This is what Nicodemus wanted to know—and, unlike most of us, he did the smart thing. He went directly to Jesus. He didn’t go around asking his fellow Pharisees who they thought Jesus was or if they agreed with what Jesus was saying. He went to Jesus and asked his questions directly. Some people criticize the fact that he went at night, but does it really matter? At least he went.

And as we begin this morning with what is probably the best known, and certainly the best loved, passage in all of Scripture, it’s important to remember that this is part of that conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus. It was to Nicodemus that Jesus said: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

So I’d like to briefly recap what we talked about last week. Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews—he thinks he’s been doing everything right.  He was trying to do everything right. But when he shows up in the dark of night wanting to know who Jesus really is, Jesus tells him that he’s been doing everything wrong—He tells him that he has to be born again in order to see the kingdom of God. He tells him that anyone who wants to see the kingdom of God must be born again. And we can’t make this happen—only God can.

Nicodemus was an expert in the Law. He knew the Old Testament Scriptures better than almost anybody and right up until that conversation with Jesus, he thought he knew exactly who was in and who was out where God’s kingdom was concerned. He’d been sure that he was in.

And now Jesus is telling him that all this effort on his part isn’t what matters. What matters is whether he believes in the “Son of Man, who will be lifted up.”

Jesus refers back to that Old Testament story about Moses: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Numbers 21).  Nicodemus certainly knew this story about the time when God got so tired of the complaints of the Israelite people against Him and Moses that He sent poisonous snakes to bite them. People started dying—lots of people. So they came to Moses and confessed their sin and asked him to pray to God to take away the snakes. And God told Moses to make a “fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live” (Moses 21:8).

Moses made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole. It probably looked a lot like the purple cloth that we have hanging on the cross. When people were dying from snake bites, if they looked to the snake on the pole, they would live.

Nicodemus knew the story but he didn’t know anything about a crucified Savior. He didn’t know that the Son of God would be lifted up on a cross and that it was only by looking to Him, by believing in Him, that anyone could live.

He was confused—but he was also trying to understand.

And that’s when Jesus told him, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:16-18).

We’re so familiar with these words that it’s hard for us to understand just how stunning they would have been to Nicodemus. Had Jesus really said, “For God so loved the world …” The world? Surely that couldn’t be right. Surely Jesus meant “For God so loved the Jews.” But five times in four verses, Jesus uses the word world.

Nicodemus’ world is totally rocked. All his life he had believed certain things. He had believed that God was the God of the Jews, the Israelite people—if God did love anyone else, He loved them far less than He loved the Jewish people. Or He loved them only after they became a part of the Jewish people. They were the chosen ones—and surely chosen also meant favorite.

Nicodemus had always believed that the way to be a part of the kingdom of God was to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses—to keep the Ten Commandments. Everybody believed that.

And now Jesus is saying that none of that matters—that the whole world can be saved if they will only believe in the Son of God. The whole world? Why … that would include even the Samaritans. It would include the Roman soldiers and King Herod and all the rest of the Roman government officials. It would include the tax collectors and the prostitutes.

Was Jesus right? Could Nicodemus believe what he was hearing? He’d come wanting to know if this Jesus really was the long-awaited Messiah—and if He was, then He must be speaking truth.

While it may not have happened instantly in that moment, it certainly appears that Nicodemus did come to believe Jesus.  Later, in chapter 7 of John’s gospel, when there is “division among the people” about who Jesus is, when the chief priests want to arrest Him, Nicodemus defends Jesus. And in chapter 19, after Jesus has died on the cross, John tells us that it’s Nicodemus who helped Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus’ body down from the cross—it’s Nicodemus who brings the 75 pounds of spices that he and Joseph use to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. It’s Nicodemus who helps Joseph place the body in Joseph’s tomb.

Nicodemus listened to Jesus; surely he studied the Old Testament Scriptures for verification; probably he prayed about all these things—and he came to believe in Jesus. He came to know Jesus, to know that He was truly the Son of God.

What about you? Have you ever been faced with a truth that was contrary to what you’ve always believed? About Jesus? About the kingdom of God? About salvation?

Do you even know for sure what you believe?

In 2016, LifeWay Research conducted a survey for Ligonier Ministries in which they interviewed 3000 people about their beliefs. While 70% of those surveyed agreed that there’s only one true God, 64% also thought that God accepts the worship of all religions, including those that believe in many gods.

2/3 of respondents believe that, while everyone sins at least a little bit, people are basically good. This despite the fact that the apostle Paul tells us in Romans 3:23 – “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

That God tells Jeremiah in Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick—who can understand it?”

74% believe that God doesn’t care about “small” sins—and most thought that their sins were those that God included in the “small” category. Sins that He’s OK with, that He understands.

Yet 1 John 1:8-10 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. … If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

60% agree that eventually everyone will go to heaven, even though half of those also said that “only those who believe in Jesus will be saved.”

586 of the survey takers “called the Bible their highest authority, said personal evangelism is important, and indicated that trusting in Jesus’ death on the cross is the only way of salvation.” Yet 56% of these believe that while the Holy Spirit is a divine force, He is not a personal being. Nearly half of these agreed that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” 2/3 of them believe that everyone will go to heaven.

The most astonishing thing about the survey was how many respondents apparently see no contradiction between their casual universalism and the evangelical understanding that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone.

It’s clear that many of us are just as confused as Nicodemus. In the wake of the tragic school shooting in Florida, people have been posting lots of things about God on social media—messages about our need for more God in our lives, for more prayer, for more calling out to God. And yet some of these people, some of those that I know personally, never go to church, they’ve never read the Bible—but they think they know God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, these words of Jesus that “God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” are directly connected to his words “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3). And “Unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (3:5)—they’re part of the same conversation.

What Jesus is saying is that there’s more to believing in Him than just saying, “Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Yes, I believe that Jesus died for my sins.”

What Jesus is saying is that if we really believe in Him, if we really believe “in the name of the only Son of God” (3:18), we’ll be reborn. We’ll look different than the rest of the world. We’ll act different—all the time. Every day—not just when tragedy strikes. Because we’ve been reborn, we’ve received a new heart.

And yet, for many of us, like Nicodemus, this is totally contrary to what we’ve always believed. Maybe even to what we’ve been taught. Because some of us have always believed that we need to earn our way to heaven—that it’s good works that get us there.

Others of us have taken this verse, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” taken it all by itself as a great promise that God sent His only Son into the world to be nailed to a cross so that we could be saved. That this is a God who is all about forgiveness, all about grace—a God who really doesn’t care about our sins as long as we believe in Jesus.

“Wait a minute,” you might be thinking. “Jesus said that ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ Doesn’t that prove that everyone will be saved? It doesn’t say anything about anything else, nothing about turning away from sin, nothing about living differently.”

Not in that verse it doesn’t. That’s why you have to look at it in context. Look at it and understand what an amazing gift we have been offered in Jesus. God does love the world—He loves every single one of us. He loves Nicholas Cruz, who went into that Florida school and killed 17 people and injured many more. He loves him—but unless Nicholas Cruz comes to Jesus in true and total repentance for his sin, he’ll never see the kingdom of God.

We may not think that our sins are anywhere close to the sin of this young man, but God clearly thinks differently. John, from the very beginning of his gospel, is making it clear that we are sinners—every single one of us—sinners in desperate need of forgiveness. And that our greatest sin is the one that goes all the way back to our first parents, Adam and Eve—the sin of turning away from God.

Right at the very beginning of his gospel, John tells us:

• “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” (1:9-10)
• “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (1:11)
• 2:24 says “Jesus … did not entrust himself to them … because he knew all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

Jesus knew, God the Father knew, just how sinful every one of us is. John is abundantly clear about this. I John 3:19 says, “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

John wants us to understand that Jesus didn’t come because we deserve to be forgiven for our sins. He wants us to recognize that it was in spite of our sinfulness, in spite of our hearts that are ever seeking evil, that Jesus came. The Father sent Him anyway. Jesus came so that every single one of us—everyone who has ever lived in this world—every single one of us might have an opportunity to be saved through Him. He told Nicodemus, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” (3:18-21).

Just as the Israelites bitten by snakes in the wilderness could be saved only by looking to the snake on the pole, we can be saved only by looking to Christ on the cross. And just as it must have seemed silly to many of those ancient people that a snake on a stick could save them, so too do many today seem to think it silly that a dead man on a cross can save them.

Jesus didn’t say we had to believe in Him. He offers us the opportunity. He came not just for some, but for the world. He came not to save some and condemn others, but solely for salvation. Nevertheless, condemnation does take place—not through God’s rejection of some, but through their rejection of Him (v 18).

It’s frightening how many people reject Jesus—people who mock those who pray. People like the television personality who said that Vice President Mike Pence is mentally ill because he believes that God speaks to him in prayer.

Jesus comes and shines light on all things—and He Himself said that many of us don’t like that. Many of us like our sins—we don’t want to give them up. We don’t want to hear that they’re wrong. Some of us have convinced ourselves that we don’t sin. We just make mistakes, we accidentally slip a little.

Until Nicodemus met Jesus he believed that the message was, “Do this to become part of the kingdom of God”—keep the rules. What Jesus told him was, “If you are part of the kingdom, this is what you will look like.” That’s what Jesus is saying in verses 20-21, when He says, “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

These are Jesus’ final words to Nicodemus: “This is what you’ll look like if you’re born again. You’ll look more and more like God. God, who loves everyone, who loves the world—so much that He sent His only Son, sent Him into a world filthy with sin, a world in which no one, not a single person, deserves to be saved. Sent Him anyway, “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

This is our God. Is He the God that you know? Or is this a God you’ve never met before? If so, are you prepared to receive something new? Are you prepared to really get to know this Jesus who came into the world to show us who God is? Are you prepared to believe in Him and follow Him? To turn away from darkness and come to the light?

The rest of our gospel passage shows us what it looks like to believe in Jesus—we see John the Baptist, faithfully doing the work that God has called him to do. Jesus has come and is Himself baptizing people, but John doesn’t take this as a sign that he can retire. He keeps preaching repentance, keeps baptizing, keeps speaking truth, rejoicing in Jesus. Telling his disciples when they complain about the fact that some of John’s followers are now following Jesus, that “He must increase, but I must decrease” (3:30).

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is what happens when we’re born again. Jesus grows—in our lives, in our desires, in our decisions, in our actions. His will becomes more important than our will. His truth becomes more important than our truth. His Word becomes more important that our ideas or plans or beliefs. Everything about Jesus increases in our lives, even as we decrease.

This is not a once-for-all happening. It’s a daily decision. Once we become a part of the kingdom of God, once we’ve been born again, we must decide every single day to follow Jesus. To put His will and His plans ahead of ours. We will continue to battle with our sinful flesh every day that we live on this earth—but we have the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, ready and willing to help—and John 3:34 says “he gives the Spirit without measure” to those who believe.

And in the final verse, we’re told that “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (3:36). Believing and obeying go hand in hand. As we go through this Lenten season, ask God to help your unbelief, to grow your relationship. And then take the time each day to make that happen. Read your Bible, talk to God. And may each one of you come to truly know this “God who so loves the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal live.”

Let us pray.

A year ago I wrote in my annual report that God had answered our prayer that He “enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitation be stretched out; do not hold back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left” (Isaiah 54:2-3). He had given us a daycare; our bread ministry was expanding in terms of usage; we had a new YMT and we were partnering with Wings of Refuge in a major project.

It was exciting! A year later, however, it seems that the excitement has faded. While we’re making progress with our daycare, it’s a lot harder than we thought it would be. It’s a lot of work and it didn’t turn into a huge overnight success story. Our bread ministry continues to grow in terms of numbers of people using it, but it’s become harder to find committed people to go and get the bread. We have once again had turnover in church staff and it’s been hard to find people willing to help out in the office or with cleaning.

What does all this mean? I was somewhat shocked to discover that some of you, in the questionnaires that you filled out, think that the church is dying. Some of you think that our resources are too limited for us to be able to do mission adequately. Some of you think that our problem is not enough people. And some of you think that you’ve done enough. You want a break—you want someone else to step up and do the work.

The Nominating Committee has struggled to fill the ballot—for the first time in years. Two years ago, I wrote in my annual report that the ballot had been filled more than a month before the report was prepared.

We’ll get back to our journey through the gospel of John next week—today we need to address this issue. What exactly does God expect? Are we a church in decline? Should we be looking ahead to the closing of our doors? What is the church supposed to look like? To act like? Is our purpose, as one of you wrote, “to thank God for His amazing love”? Because that doesn’t sound very hard. All we have to do is show up on Sunday morning to do that. And some of you think that when we’re doing God’s will,  everything should just fall into place and it should all be easy?

Is this what Scripture says? Let’s take a look. Open your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6. Let’s back up for a moment to chapter 5. A synagogue official named Jairus had come to Jesus and asked Him to come and heal his young daughter, who was very ill. Jesus was delayed when He stopped to talk to a woman who had been healed just by touching Him and by the time He got to Jairus’ house, the little girl was dead.

Too late—right? That’s what they all thought. It looked hopeless—the child was dead. But Jesus went in and raised that little girl right up. Because God is always on time—He’s never late. No matter how much His timing might seem wrong to us, no matter how much we might think that it’s too late, His timing is  always perfect.

Then, at the beginning of chapter 6, we find Jesus going home to preach in His hometown of Nazareth—where the people “took offense at him” (Mark 6:3). “Who does He think He is?” The Son of God comes into their midst and they rejected Him. Rejected by His own friends and neighbors—even by His own family.

Does that sound like doing God’s will is always easy?

Then He sends the twelve apostles on a short-term mission trip. And they do great things—they cast out demons, heal the sick, and preach repentance. They come back excited! It reminds me of the short-term mission trips I’ve been on. Amazing things always happen and we always come back excited.

But then Mark tells us that John the Baptist has been thrown into prison for telling King Herod that he needs to repent—and then he gets his head chopped off. Have you ever wondered why this story is placed right between the exciting short-term mission trip of the disciples and the feeding of the 5000? The story where Jesus uses five small loaves of bread and two fish to feed an enormous crowd.

Notice that the story begins, in verse 33, with the words “The people saw them going and many recognized them, and ran there together on foot from all the cities and got there ahead of them.” It doesn’t say, “the people recognized Jesus,” but “recognized them”—recognized the disciples. Recognized them from their mission trip. Recognized them and wanted more time with them.  In Mark’s gospel, this is the biggest crowd we’ve seen so far—and they’re not there because of Jesus, but because of His disciples.

Jesus “felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd and He began to teach them many things”—and then He told His disciples to give them something to eat. 5000 men plus women and children—at least 10,000 people.

And the disciples talk about not having enough money.

Not enough money? They just got through performing all those miracles and now it doesn’t even seem to occur to them to ask God for food. They’re good Jewish men—they know the Scriptures. They know how God provided manna in the wilderness. And here they are—in “a desolate place.” In the wilderness! So what’s going on?

Well… let’s consider John the Baptist. Was he a failure because he lost his head? What exactly is the evidence of success in this upside-down kingdom of God? Matthew 11:11 records Jesus telling His disciples that “among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.” He said this while John was already in prison but before he was beheaded. Is he now less great because his head was served up on a platter?

Doesn’t seem to be. It does, however, seem to be a picture of what might happen to Jesus’ disciples—to us–if we do our job well enough.

And so maybe when Jesus tells the disciples to give all these people something to eat they’re having second thoughts. Because when Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest, He also said that “the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). Maybe they’re wondering what might happen to one who is greater than John? Maybe they’re not sure they want to be that great.

Following Jesus sounded great in the beginning. But it was turning out to be a lot harder than they thought it would be. Can you relate? I can. Did you think it was only in the 21^st century that it was hard to follow Him? Harder than we ever imagined it could be? So hard that we start to think it’s time for a break. We even start to think that we deserve a break.

Peter had the same idea 2000 years ago. He’d been on a long-term mission trip—three years with Jesus. But Jesus had died on the cross—He’d risen from the dead and the resurrected Jesus had shown up twice, but He wasn’t there walking around with them every day, telling them what to do. And then of course Peter had denied Jesus—three times. He figured that maybe the best thing to do was go back—back to what he knew, back to where things weren’t so hard, back to where he was comfortable. So he got out the boat and went fishing—some of the other disciples joined him. They went out—but they caught nothing—nothing at all until Jesus showed up. Then they caught more fish than they could handle—“153 large fish.”

Sometimes object lessons work best. Without Jesus—they had nothing. With Jesus—they had more than enough.

Peter still didn’t get it. He was elated at Jesus’ appearance and clearly he recognized that Jesus was responsible for the huge catch of fish. But it was only when Jesus asked him three times if he loved Him that Peter began to understand.

“Do you love me more than these?” What’s these? We don’t know. Maybe it’s the fish, maybe it’s the other disciples, maybe it’s his old life, maybe it’s everything that’s not Jesus.

How about you? Do you love Jesus more than these? More than your hobbies or your job or your home or your money or your reputation? More than your family? More than your life?

Two more times, Jesus asks Peter: “Do you love me?”

And Jesus says, “If you love me, care for my sheep.” “Feed my lambs.” “Tend my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” Then he says, “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry where you do not want to do.” “Follow me, Peter, look after my sheep—it’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be really hard, and then you’ll die a painful martyr’s death. But if you love me, you know that I’m worth it.” That’s what Jesus is really saying when He says, “Follow me!”

And Peter does—because, for him, Jesus is worth it.

What is Jesus worth to you? Is He that pearl of great value that Jesus talks about, that pearl for which you’re willing to give up everything else?

Jesus says, “Count the cost.” Have you counted it and decided that He’s not worth it?

Matthew 10:37, Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

People say that they can’t give it all to Jesus because they need to focus on their children or their grandchildren. People ask me, “How can you bear to be so far away from your grandchildren?”

And I have to admit that when God called me here, I wondered about that. I wondered if it was worth it. But God said, “Feed my sheep.” And I thought, “Really? Me? Almighty God is inviting me to be one of His disciples? To follow Him? To serve Him? To draw close to Him?”

And I realized that nothing is more important. Not my children. Not my grandchildren. I also realized that putting God first in my life—and letting them know that He’s first–is the best thing I can do for them. God reminded me that I will have all eternity with my children and grandchildren. When I gave my life to Jesus, He gave my children great spouses who would be great parents to my grandchildren. And even now, He always works things out so that I can be there when I need to.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, serving Jesus is what matters—it’s what has eternal value. Jesus doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need me. Jesus can run this church without any of us if that’s what He wants to do. He doesn’t need a church council, He doesn’t need our offering—He already owns everything. How can anyone even begin to think that we’re lacking the resources we need to go and make disciples when we have Jesus?

Peter and the others caught nothing without Jesus—with Jesus, they caught so many fish that they couldn’t even haul them all in.

Jesus doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need me. But He invites us to be a part of His kingdom work here on earth. He offers us the great privilege of being a part of the greatest story ever told. Of knowing the joy of serving Him, of being a part of His people.

Serving Jesus can be exhausting—it can be physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausting. It can be really hard. It can be dangerous. But it’s also the most rewarding thing you can ever do.

But some of us are so busy living in the here and now that we miss this entirely. We can only see what’s right in front of us—when God calls us to fix our eyes on Him.

Some of us think that we can follow Jesus just fine without the church—we can just do our own thing and He’s fine with that. We’re so confused about what it means to follow Him.

When Jesus was here living among us, it was easy to know whether you were following Him.  Because to follow Him was to remain in close proximity to His physical body. It was to literally be with Jesus, to follow Him around and be in relationship with Him. After He ascended into heaven, this didn’t change—even though somehow we seem to think it did. To follow Jesus is still to remain in close proximity to His body—but now His body is the Church.

As we saw last week, when Jesus introduced that new wine into the wedding celebration, the only people who got to taste it were those who were a part of the community—those who were part of the family. Those who were connected.

That hasn’t changed.

Some of us think that Jesus wants us to be doing something in the church—and that if we decide that our contribution is to put an offering in the plate every Sunday, He’s fine with that. Or if we decide on a job that seems comfortable to us, He’s fine with that, too. Some of us even think that He’s fine with us choosing one or the other—I’ll give my money or I’ll give my time.

Some of you think that if God wants you to hold an office or be more involved in the mission of this church, He’ll tell you that in an unmistakable way. He already has. “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).

Matthew 16:24-27 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of His Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.”

Some of us think that God shouldn’t expect more of us than He expects of someone else. Matthew 25:14-15 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.”

To those whom God gave greater ability, God expects more.

Peter, when Jesus told Him to follow Him, looked at John and asked, “What about him?” And Jesus said, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!”

“Don’t worry about what everybody else is doing. You do what I want you to do!”

“The tree is known by its fruit.” Matthew 12:33

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Christianity isn’t about being good or comfortable. It’s about being in or out. In the family or out of the family. If we’re really in, our fruit will be good—we’ll hear and obey.

“But I prayed and God didn’t say ‘yes’.”

Did He say, “No”? Because He’s already called us to be at work in His kingdom—and so unless He says, “no, this isn’t what I have in mind for you,” He’s already said yes. And if this isn’t what He has in mind for you, He’ll let you know what He does have in mind.

Because Scripture is clear that doing nothing isn’t anything that anyone in the kingdom of God is going to be about.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, when we decide to look to our own interests first, when we decide that it’s time for someone else to step up and do something, we’re only hurting ourselves. When we think that something or someone is more important that Jesus, we’re deceiving ourselves.

God has given us this great opportunity. He’s invited us to be a part of His family, to taste the good wine. Another object lesson: the Jesus who can turn water into wine can surely turn people into disciples. Can surely grow us into men and women who love Him above all else, who long to serve Him above all else. Are you willing to answer His call, to receive the great gift He offers? Will you finish the race with the same assurance of the apostle Paul? Will you come to the end of your life certain that when you meet Jesus, you’ll hear His words, “Well done, good and faithful servant?”

Has anyone ever shown us a better way than the crucified carpenter? Than the One alone who gives hope?

Let’s join Him right now today—with all our mind and all our heart and all our soul and all our strength. What could possibly be better?

This morning we have the story of a wedding. Who doesn’t love weddings? And what could be more about relationship than a wedding? Who gets invited to weddings? Family—family and close friends. We don’t invite strangers. The bride and groom invite the people closest to them to share their special day, to witness their vows to one another, their promises to be committed to one another for the rest of their lives.

Family wedding

Everything changes when a wedding occurs. Prior to the wedding, the bride and groom are individuals; at the completion of the ceremony, they’re a couple. And when they’re married in a church before God, they make a covenant agreement with God that the two shall now be one. For better for worse, for richer for poorer—whatever life might bring, they’ll face it together.

John began his gospel by introducing Jesus as Son of God and Word of God. Then he took us to the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, who recognized Him as the Messiah when the Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. Twice John says, “I myself did not know him”—John the Baptist is related to Jesus and has almost certainly known Him all his life. So he’s not literally saying that he didn’t know Jesus—he’s saying that he didn’t recognize who Jesus really was, he didn’t recognize Him as Son of God until that moment in the river.

And almost immediately, people begin to follow Jesus. Andrew and John not only follow Him, they invite others to join them. Then Jesus invites Philip to join the group—we’re told that “Philip is from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter” (John 1:44)—so he probably already knew them. Philip invites Nathanael to come.

Already a community is being formed—a community in which most are already connected in some way. Jesus doesn’t begin with a group of total strangers, but with family members and their friends.

John wants us to recognize that something new is happening—something big. Everything is changing—human history is at the dawn of a new creation, even if no one quite realizes it yet.

And then there’s a wedding—a wedding in Cana. Jesus is invited, along with His disciples. We’re not told whose wedding it is, but it might well have been a family wedding, as Jesus’ mother Mary seems to be more than just a guest.

And weddings come with expectations. Most American weddings begin with the wedding ceremony itself and then are followed by a reception—a reception that almost always includes food and dancing.

Billy

First century Jewish weddings also came with expectations—they were a really big deal and usually lasted for at least several days. Eating, drinking and gift giving were huge—and unlike our weddings, it was the responsibility of the groom to provide enough of everything. To run short of either wine or food was far more than an embarrassment to the groom—it was a total disgrace to the family. Lawsuits were not unknown when this happened.

Like our weddings, however, Jewish weddings were also about relationship. And so, after clearly establishing Jesus as the Son of God, John now gives us the wedding at Cana. He wants us to see the human side of Jesus. And he wants us to understand that Jesus came not just to die—He came to be in relationship with people, ordinary people like you and me.

He came to live among us. John is reminding us of the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Immanuel – God with us. In the wedding at Cana, John is giving us Immanuel, this God with us. No longer do we have to go to the temple in Jerusalem to be in God’s presence—now He’s here, right here, in the midst of our daily lives. We see God not only attending a wedding but interacting with family and friends and servants. And he’s giving us a sign. Isaiah wrote “The Lord himself will give you a sign”—and John writes at the end of this story, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And all his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11).

But then, in the midst of this wedding, the wine runs out. And Mary “the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’” Clearly she’s expecting Him to do something about it. Clearly she believes that He can do something about it.

“And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you’” (John 2:4-5).

And in this brief conversation, we discover several important things. First, we see in Mary’s words a model for prayer: she simply presents the problem to Jesus—“They have no wine.” She doesn’t try to tell Him what He should do or how He should do it. She doesn’t appear to be upset or anxious. She doesn’t start pointing fingers and blaming people. She doesn’t say, “Why can’t anybody do anything right around here?” Or, “This is all my fault. If only I hadn’t messed up, this wouldn’t be happening.” She just says, “They have no wine.”

She just laid the problem before Him and trusted that He would take care of it. And notice that she took the problem to Him before she took it to anyone else. It doesn’t say that only after she checked with all the local liquor stores and discovered that they couldn’t deliver enough wine in a hurry or that she consulted with all her friends to see what they thought she should do. She just brought the problem to Jesus.

Is that what you do when you have a problem? A seemingly insurmountable problem? Just lay it before Jesus and then let it go, confident that He’ll deal with it?

Why don’t we do this? Just turn to Him with whatever we’re struggling with? Sometimes we’ve decided that we don’t need anybody’s help—not even God’s. We don’t need anybody. “I can do it myself” is our motto.

Other times we might think that we don’t deserve to have anyone help us. If we’ve got a mess, it’s because we deserve a mess—it’s because we deserve to suffer. And we tell ourselves, “Jesus doesn’t want to hear my problems. Sure, Mary can tell Him she needs more wine—she’s His mother. But I’m not important. And He’s got ISIS and world hunger and human trafficking to deal with. He doesn’t care about my little problems.”

Really? Jesus’ response to Mary was, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come?” (John 2:4).

One of the problems we have with Jesus is that He rarely gives us a direct answer—and already in his gospel, John has shown us that this isn’t a new problem. He always did this. When John and Andrew began to follow Jesus, He turned around and said, “What are you seeking?” Now He says to Mary, “Woman, what does this have to do with me?”

We read His words and think, “What’s He talking about?” In this wedding story, John is showing us who this Son of God is. By referring to Mary as woman instead of mother, Jesus is making it clear that things are changing. Until His baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus’ primary role had been to be Mary’s son and the brother of His sisters and brothers. Now He’s making it clear that He’s beginning His ministry as Son of God and that service to His Father in heaven will be first in His life. Although “His hour has not yet come,” the hour when He would go to the cross, all previous relationships are changing.

Everyone is invited to be a part of the new creation that is being established—but no one is automatically included because of family relationship. James and John have already gone from being cousins to being disciples—and the rest of Jesus’ family is invited to join them.

Mary seems to somehow understand this because she doesn’t argue. She simply tells the servants to “do whatever He tells you.” Trusting that whatever He does will solve the problem.

And this is where things get really interesting. This is where we discover that Jesus will take care of everything if we just do exactly that: if we “do whatever He tells you.”

“Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’” (John 2:7). These were huge stone water jars, each one holding twenty or thirty gallons—six of them.

And they did—“they filled them up to the brim.” At least 120 gallons, maybe as much as 180 gallons.

Jesus said, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” And they did.

“Do whatever he tells you.”

Would you have done that? Because it doesn’t say that Jesus told them to take this new wine to the master of the feast. It says that He told them to fill the jars with water and then to take some of the water to the master. How was that going to solve the problem? What would the master of the feast say when they gave him a cup of water?

It didn’t make any sense—but they did it anyway. And then the water became wine—only after they obeyed. What if they had refused?

This is really important. “Do whatever he tells you.” Somehow the servants needed to participate in this miracle, this sign. One of the things that we discover in this story of the wedding at Cana is that Jesus can take care of everything if we just do whatever He tells us to do.

What if you refuse? What if you see a problem and tell Jesus about it and then refuse to do what He says? What if you decide that because what He tells you doesn’t make any sense to you, that you’re not going to do it?

How many problems have we brought to Jesus that have never been solved because we refused to “do whatever he tells you.”

God tells us to give, but some people say, “Well, the church has plenty of money—and I can’t really afford it.” Is God telling you to give because His church needs money? Or could there be another reason? Could it be about what He wants you to learn?

God tells you to forgive that person who’s really offended you—but you don’t want to.

God tells you to go across the street and offer to help that neighbor that you’ve never liked—and you don’t want to.

In all these cases, all God is really asking you to do is listen to what He says, identify the problem, and present it to Jesus. Then just do what He says—no matter how crazy it might seem to you. No matter how sure you are that whatever He tells you will never solve the problem.

And another thing—in this wedding story, only the servants realize what has happened. How often does this happen in our own lives? Jesus’ presence, God’s grace, constantly surrounds us—His love is ever active in our lives. Yet we often fail to realize that, to recognize His presence, His work in our lives, His answer to our prayers. Instead, we see only the hands of those who give us the wine, never realizing where it comes from or the grace that it represents.

But this story isn’t just about trusting Jesus for provision. The bigger story, again, is that God has come down from heaven to live among us. Everything has changed.

And in the “new wine” we discover a sign that the new kingdom brought by Jesus is vastly superior to the old wine of Judaism. Jesus changes the water of Judaism into the wine of Christianity—right here at the very beginning of His ministry.

1:17-18, John says, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” The Word heard and preserved through all those long centuries in Israel has been superseded and the fulfillment has begun. We find in the waters of the River Jordan and now here at the wedding in Cana, that the one Moses wrote about in the Law, the one about whom the prophets wrote, has come. He’s appeared among us and the Word has been made flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26-28 says, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to talk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Everything is changing. All we need to do is do whatever He tells us.

The living Christ still has two hands, one to point the way and the other held out to help us along. So the Christian life lies before us not as some remote and frightening mountain peak like Everest that we must somehow figure out how to scale by our own skill and endurance, but a road on which we may walk with Jesus as our guide and friend.

The one requirement, John is telling us here, is that we be a part of the group, a part of the family.

The work of the Holy Spirit isn’t just something that happens to us individually. It requires that the whole Body of Christ work together. The Holy Spirit equips individual members to serve one another—that’s the whole point of the gifts. First, every member has at least one gift of grace by which he or she ministers to the Body of Christ. Then individual members are enabled to offer different kinds if service to the Church. Some of us can be trustees and maintain the church property and finances, some of us can teach the children. Others can serve the spiritual needs of the members, while others have the gift of mercy or helps—they’re the ones we want when we need a hot meal or someone to help out in the church kitchen or drive someone to an appointment. Some have the gift of working with small children and bless us through their work at the daycare. And all of these require spiritual power to be done as God wants them to be done. Even the member who cleans the bathrooms is using God’s gifts for the glory of the body.

The point is that there is unity in diversity. All of these gifts come from the same Spirit. And all of them are for the same purpose—“to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (I Corinthians 12:7).

Haven’t figured out yet what your gift is? Interestingly, Paul gives no instruction for determining our own gifts. He tells us to seek the Giver, not the gift; focus on being the person God intended you to be, and love and serve one another. And in the process, our giftedness will become evident—not just to us, but to all.

Think about it: we know who the people are who are good at working in the kitchen, we know who to ask to be on the audit committee and whose gift is clearly working with children.

Jesus wants us to be in relationship—with Him and with one another. He wants us to enjoy Him together, to enjoy His blessings, to listen to Him and to work together to bring others into this new creation. He wants us to recognize that He’s with us always, in the everyday events of life.

John is saying that In order to enjoy the wine, you have to be part of the group. That’s why he makes sure we know that not only Jesus is at the wedding, but His disciples are there, too. And His mother. And apparently His brothers, because the next verse after the story says that “After this, he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. ”The new family, getting to know one another. Building relationship. Doing whatever he tells you.

The new creation, the kingdom of heaven has begun—we’ve been invited. Let’s do whatever He tells us.

Let us pray.