Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome our Elevation family from all around
Speaker 1: the world joining us today. My name is Larry bry
Speaker 1: Some people call me Larry, some people call me Larry Charles.
Speaker 1: I know him in trouble if I get that one.
Speaker 1: Some people call me lb even if few folks call
Speaker 1: me skinner. But I get the chance to preach God's
Speaker 1: word with you today, and what a privilege it is
Speaker 1: for me to open up God's word. And if I
Speaker 1: haven't had the chance to meet you yet, chances are
Speaker 1: you've probably heard me. The few folks we have inside
Speaker 1: of our balance I location, they're laughing right now because
Speaker 1: if you've watched any of the sermons at Elevation Church,
Speaker 1: you might have heard like a voice in the background
Speaker 1: going like, MMMM, come on, preach it, pastor what other
Speaker 1: stuff do I say? JJ, that's good. So that's me
Speaker 1: true confession, Like I want to apologize all the sound engineers.
Speaker 1: I make your job really hard. But sometimes I just
Speaker 1: got to praise God. God's been too good for me
Speaker 1: to remain silent. And I happen to believe that our
Speaker 1: pastor is anointed for this generation. He is a Joshua
Speaker 1: to this season of our life right now, and he's
Speaker 1: speaking something over the landscape of our world that is needed,
Speaker 1: and it is in season. But I've been he's been
Speaker 1: my pastor for eighteen years. I've been following him. I
Speaker 1: remember the first sermon I ever heard him preach. God
Speaker 1: is great, God is good. I don't remember what he said,
Speaker 1: but I know what God spoke eighteen years ago. God spoke,
Speaker 1: You're creative for more than what you've become. I know.
Speaker 1: A pastor preached last week. He preached about thoughts the
Speaker 1: last two weeks at Elevation Church. Whoo, I'm not what
Speaker 1: I thought following up with thought Baba's Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: because I was sitting in that seat right there when
Speaker 1: God spoke to my spirit through our pastor's words. He said,
Speaker 1: you're addicted to your thoughts LB and he said, your
Speaker 1: anxiety becomes you're addicted to your thoughts. Because the anxiety
Speaker 1: comes because you think everybody sees you the way you
Speaker 1: see yourself, and so I project that you see me
Speaker 1: the way I think about myself. And it's this gap
Speaker 1: of anxiety. And the more I honor you, the greater
Speaker 1: the gap becomes. But now I'm projecting all of my
Speaker 1: dysfunction on you because I think you see and that's
Speaker 1: my anxiety. I was sitting in that seat right there,
Speaker 1: and so when God gave me that key to unlock
Speaker 1: that door that had been holding me, I got to
Speaker 1: praise him. I gotta say thank you, God, thank you
Speaker 1: for what you've done. But it's not just my anxiety
Speaker 1: that I'm addicted to. It's also I'm realizing my frustration
Speaker 1: is coming because I'm addicted to my thoughts. Because I'm
Speaker 1: not just here because I'm a staff member at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: I'm a member of Elevation Pastor. Stephen's my pastor, and
Speaker 1: he's preaching words into my life. And when he preached
Speaker 1: about your thoughts, I realize most of my frustration have
Speaker 1: because I'm addicted to my thoughts, and my frustration is
Speaker 1: you're not doing it like I think. And so when
Speaker 1: I look back and I see where God has brought
Speaker 1: me from. Oh, my soul, I just got to praise him.
Speaker 1: So if I act a little undignified, I do not apologize.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stand up here and not gonna praise God.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna thank my pastor because he is preaching
Speaker 1: the word of God. So let's take a second. Tell
Speaker 1: me thank you past the seamen for that, My Lord,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Jesus. Hey, I'm gonna open up
Speaker 1: the Gospel of John today. I'm gonna be in chapter
Speaker 1: two is where I'm gonna be, says this. This is
Speaker 1: on the third day. A wedding took place in Cana
Speaker 1: in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there and Jesus and his
Speaker 1: disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the
Speaker 1: wine was gone, problem, jesus mother said to him, they
Speaker 1: have no more wine. Woman, why do you involve me?
Speaker 1: Jesus replied, my hour has not yet come. His mother
Speaker 1: said to the servants, do whatever he tells you to do.
Speaker 1: And here's the title for my message today. It's your time.
Speaker 1: Come on. Type it in the comments, say it out
Speaker 1: loud to say it's your time. Hey. For those of
Speaker 1: you at Valentine, you could have a seat, but you're
Speaker 1: probably sitting already at home, and if you are, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're joining us today. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: jump right into this text because this is a story
Speaker 1: that comes out of the Gospel of John. I've been
Speaker 1: reading it for the last couple of months. Actually, I
Speaker 1: was inspired to jump into it by a sermon that
Speaker 1: Pastor Stephen preached. And I'm fascinated by this because you
Speaker 1: see this scene and this is the first miracle that
Speaker 1: Jesus performs. And Mary's at the wedding. She's obviously involved
Speaker 1: somewhere in the wedding planning situation because the plans don't
Speaker 1: work out and to run out of wine would be
Speaker 1: like this huge insult to all of the guests. And
Speaker 1: she's like, oh snap, we've got a problem. As she
Speaker 1: does what all of us good Christians should do whenever
Speaker 1: you have a problem, take it to Jesus. And she's
Speaker 1: looking at Jesus saying, Jesus, it's in short time. Come on, man,
Speaker 1: you are creative for this. Do something about it. And
Speaker 1: that's funny how she takes her problem to Jesus. We
Speaker 1: would do well to follow that pattern. Because it sometimes
Speaker 1: feels like Jesus, rather than being a first option, is
Speaker 1: way more of a last resort. It's so much easier
Speaker 1: to go complain to everybody else, send it out on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and then when it doesn't work out, we just bail
Speaker 1: and we say Jesus, you're my last option. And she's
Speaker 1: taking it to him. That's a good pattern to follow.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if she knew that Jesus was
Speaker 1: going to turn water into wine, because here's what happened.
Speaker 1: Somewhere along the journey. Joseph, Mary's husband, had died, because
Speaker 1: in the scriptures, Jesus goes from being Jesus the son
Speaker 1: of the carpenter to being Jesus the carpenter. You see,
Speaker 1: he was forced to grow up at an early age
Speaker 1: because in that culture, when the father figure in the
Speaker 1: house dies, the oldest son takes over. Jesus was the
Speaker 1: oldest son. We don't know how long he's been living
Speaker 1: in this pattern, but it would have been customary for
Speaker 1: Mary to go to Jesus say, hey, the water pipe
Speaker 1: is broke. Can you fix it? We need some new
Speaker 1: breaks on the car. Can you take care of it?
Speaker 1: We got the bill over there, can you take care
Speaker 1: of it. It would have been the pattern of her
Speaker 1: life because she is used to taking all of her
Speaker 1: problems to Jesus and she's dependent upon him. And it's
Speaker 1: just it blows my mind when Jesus looks at her
Speaker 1: and he's like woman, because you would almost kind of
Speaker 1: be offended by his response to her. And it's funny
Speaker 1: because she just kind of ignores it, and rather than
Speaker 1: being offended, she just tells the servant to do whatever
Speaker 1: he tells you to do. Because it's really hard to
Speaker 1: be used by God when you're easy to be offended,
Speaker 1: and Mary takes a posture that's really hard to be offended.
Speaker 1: But we get in this pattern that we only go
Speaker 1: to Jesus as a last option. Everything else didn't work,
Speaker 1: so I might as well take it to Jesus, And
Speaker 1: now I just end up being here in case of emergency,
Speaker 1: break glass, Jesus, Jesus, I got nothing else what you
Speaker 1: got for me. And if the only time you're calling
Speaker 1: someone is to get something from them, there's not much
Speaker 1: of a relationship. So, ladies, if some dude is only
Speaker 1: calling you late at night to get something from you,
Speaker 1: what do you call that guy? Actually, don't call him
Speaker 1: put him on the do not call lists, and sometimes
Speaker 1: we can do the same thing with Jesus. He just
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do something for you, but he wants
Speaker 1: a relationship with you. So when he looks at Mary
Speaker 1: and he says woman, it's something a little more than
Speaker 1: a correction and a little bit less than a rebuke.
Speaker 1: And he's not correcting her language, but what he is
Speaker 1: saying is I need to give you a new perspective.
Speaker 1: That's what's happening in this moment. So when he says woman,
Speaker 1: it kind of startles her because up until that point,
Speaker 1: all she had seen was her son. What she needs
Speaker 1: to start seeing him as is as her savior. She
Speaker 1: comes to him as mother, but she's gonna walk away
Speaker 1: as a follower. That's what Jesus is starting to do.
Speaker 1: It's the very first public miracle he does on the
Speaker 1: landscape at the Horizon, and it is a pivot point
Speaker 1: in his life that says, now I'm going to show
Speaker 1: my glory and so that you would believe, and so
Speaker 1: whoa Mary. The terms of this relationship are about to change.
Speaker 1: And because Jesus says, my hour has not yet come,
Speaker 1: Jesus hour was when he was going to go to
Speaker 1: the cross and give up his life. That was his hour.
Speaker 1: And he says, this isn't my hour. And he saying,
Speaker 1: this isn't my time, but he gets up and he
Speaker 1: does it anyway. That's where I'm fascinated by the text.
Speaker 1: Pastor a couple of weeks ago preach a sermon I'm
Speaker 1: tired on the inside, amazing sermon. Please go back and
Speaker 1: watch it. But he says, we cannot manipulate God to
Speaker 1: fit our agenda. That's what made me go study this
Speaker 1: whole passage, and it made me study the whole Book
Speaker 1: of John. One word from my pastor causes me to
Speaker 1: study this whole thing. And we've had a couple hundred
Speaker 1: people every morning at seven am in our Matthew's community
Speaker 1: doing a Bible study based upon one thought that Pastor
Speaker 1: Stephen preachs. Tell me, Pastor, what you do doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It making a difference around the world. Thank you, sir
Speaker 1: for doing that. But Jesus said, my hour is not
Speaker 1: yet come. But yet he gets up and he does it.
Speaker 1: Why Jesus said, it's not my time, but it's yours.
Speaker 1: It's your time, Mary, It's your time to start seeing
Speaker 1: me as something different than you've always seen me. He said,
Speaker 1: you need to start seeing me as Jehovah Shira, your protector.
Speaker 1: You need to start seeing me as Jehovah Shabah, the
Speaker 1: god who is your provider and protector. I am Jehovah Nissi,
Speaker 1: the banner over your life. I am Elroy, the god
Speaker 1: who sees you. And he's about to start revealing parts
Speaker 1: of his character to her. But it will happen through relationship.
Speaker 1: It says Jesus, It's not my time, but it is yours.
Speaker 1: But what prompted the whole thing was a problem that
Speaker 1: Mary had. It was the it. What's your it? Some
Speaker 1: of you are like, I got a long list of
Speaker 1: it's man. Some of you are like, I'm married to it.
Speaker 1: I drive to it. I can't get away from it.
Speaker 1: It keeps following me. I thought I paid the bill
Speaker 1: on it, but it keeps showing back up in the mail.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're it is, but I want
Speaker 1: you to see it. And what I want to flip
Speaker 1: your perspective, like Jesus did with Mary, is that problem.
Speaker 1: It becomes an opportunity to see a new perspective. Because
Speaker 1: Jesus solves her problem. He does it, but he does
Speaker 1: not do it for her reasons. He says, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it to solve your problem. I'm doing it to
Speaker 1: give you a new perspective. Everybody is at this wedding,
Speaker 1: hundreds of people. Not a COVID wedding where you have
Speaker 1: four people and everybody else watching. It's not that kind
Speaker 1: of wedding. It's a wedding where there's hundreds of people there.
Speaker 1: Everybody sees it, but only a couple people see it.
Speaker 1: Everybody is there because the scripture says in verse chapter two,
Speaker 1: verse eleven, it says what Jesus did here in cana
Speaker 1: Galilee was the first of the signs through which he
Speaker 1: revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. The
Speaker 1: problem was they ran out of wine. But the motive
Speaker 1: for Jesus doing it is not for people to have wine.
Speaker 1: It's so that people could see him at a deeper
Speaker 1: level and just maybe, just maybe the problem that you're
Speaker 1: facing is an opportunity to upgrade your perspective and see
Speaker 1: a whole new aspect of Jesus. Because Mary's there and
Speaker 1: the disciples of there, and Mary had a relationship with
Speaker 1: Jesus for thirty years. But don't let familiarity be mistaken
Speaker 1: as faith, because you can sometimes be close to something
Speaker 1: you don't see it anymore. And you got Mary who's
Speaker 1: been rolling with him for thirty years, but you got
Speaker 1: the disciples who have just been following him for a
Speaker 1: couple of days. And what I would submit to you
Speaker 1: is maybe some of the you that are brand new
Speaker 1: Christians have it more figured out than some of us
Speaker 1: that have been walking with him for a long season.
Speaker 1: And so do not despise the day of small beginnings.
Speaker 1: And the disciples has just been rolling with him for
Speaker 1: a couple of days. So I want you to put
Speaker 1: a pause on chapter two, and I want to jump
Speaker 1: back to chapter one because it's so that we see
Speaker 1: the genesis of a relationship, because God reveals himself through relationship,
Speaker 1: and God desires to reveal more of himself through you
Speaker 1: to you through the problem that you're facing. But let's
Speaker 1: look back and let's see the genesis of a relationship
Speaker 1: because in chapter one, wait, so happening is two disciples
Speaker 1: Andrew and John. Because when Jesus is at the wedding,
Speaker 1: there's five disciples there, and the first two are Andrew
Speaker 1: and John. And they're just hanging out and they see
Speaker 1: Jesus walking by, like, hey, let's follow him. They don't
Speaker 1: even know why. He's like the lamb of God, like,
Speaker 1: let's follow you. And Jesus turns to them and he
Speaker 1: says the most outlandist statement. He looks at them and
Speaker 1: he says, what do you want? Because some would tell
Speaker 1: you that God doesn't care what you want. That's not
Speaker 1: the God that I know. The God that I know
Speaker 1: cares deeply about what you want. And he's going to
Speaker 1: start there and take you to a deeper revelation of him.
Speaker 1: And they just look at him, says, we just want
Speaker 1: to be with you. He's like, cool, hang with me.
Speaker 1: Let's go. So Andrew and John are follow in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Then the next day that Andrew and gets his brother Peter.
Speaker 1: He's like, Peter, come check this out. So now you
Speaker 1: got three disciples that are following Jesus. Peter and Andrew
Speaker 1: are from a city in Galilee, and they now convinced
Speaker 1: Jesus to go to Galilee, where they get this other
Speaker 1: guy named Philip. God reveals himself through relationship. What you
Speaker 1: see a pattern with the early Disciples. It spread infectiously
Speaker 1: through relationships. God gave you that relationship because His glory
Speaker 1: wants to come through you. That's why you have that relationship.
Speaker 1: H'it share right now, h'it share it right now. Share
Speaker 1: this sermon because somebody needs to come into relationship with Jesus,
Speaker 1: and God's going to use your relationship to bring them
Speaker 1: into relationship. So Philip goes and gets his brother Nathaniel,
Speaker 1: and I want to zoom in on Nathaniel for just
Speaker 1: a second, because this is the embryo of a relationship.
Speaker 1: In verse forty five, it says found Nathaniel and told
Speaker 1: him we have found the one Moses wrote about in
Speaker 1: the Law and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus
Speaker 1: of Nazareth, the son of Joseph Nazareth. Can anything good
Speaker 1: come from there? You're going to evolution church? Can like
Speaker 1: Nazareth talking about practice? Man? Nazareth, where you talking? Because
Speaker 1: he had a box of what the Messiah would look
Speaker 1: like and God was about to boot pop that bubble.
Speaker 1: He was about to just just erode all of that.
Speaker 1: And in Nathaniel, rather than being offended by him, simply says,
Speaker 1: just come and see man, just coming, like that's the
Speaker 1: greatest invitation you could give somebody, just come and see man.
Speaker 1: That's and here's the here's the crazy part about the story.
Speaker 1: When Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said to him, here,
Speaker 1: truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Really,
Speaker 1: he's a human. He's got a lot of deceit. He's
Speaker 1: just like you and me. But it's interesting what Jesus
Speaker 1: calls him and and Nathaniel says, how do you know me?
Speaker 1: Nathaniel answered, or asked. Jesus answered, I saw you while
Speaker 1: you will still under the fig tree before Philip called you. Wow.
Speaker 1: Then you declared, Rabbi, you are the son of God,
Speaker 1: you are the King of Israel. Jesus said, you believe
Speaker 1: because I told you that I saw you under a
Speaker 1: fig tree. You will see even greater things than these.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating story that Jesus says, before you came,
Speaker 1: I saw you. Because Jesus sees the fullness of you.
Speaker 1: He sees all of your good and all of your bad,
Speaker 1: the good, the bad, and the ugly. He sees everything.
Speaker 1: So when he says I saw you underneath the fig tree,
Speaker 1: it makes me think about the fig leaf because In
Speaker 1: the beginning, God created Adam and the If. They had
Speaker 1: complete intimacy, an amazing relationship. There were no barriers, there
Speaker 1: were no boundaries, nothing separating us and God. It was
Speaker 1: perfect relationship. That is Genesis two twenty five. They were
Speaker 1: both naked and they felt no shame. It's not a
Speaker 1: verse about nudity, it's about intimacy. Seven verses later, they're eating,
Speaker 1: their eyes are opened and sin is injected into the
Speaker 1: human DNA, and it has echoed throughout the generation since
Speaker 1: that moment. And so when it says he saw him
Speaker 1: sitting underneath the fig tree, he says, Nathaniel, I saw
Speaker 1: you sitting underneath all of that shame. I saw you
Speaker 1: sitting all underneath all of those decisions you ever did.
Speaker 1: And he said, I still called you, I still chose you.
Speaker 1: You are mine. Come to me. And it's amazing what
Speaker 1: Jesus says to him. He knows he's been living under
Speaker 1: the shadow of shame. And some of you don't want
Speaker 1: to come to Jesus because you don't feel worthy to
Speaker 1: come into his presence. And I'm telling you that's the
Speaker 1: very reason Jesus died is to take that shame from
Speaker 1: you and he sees you in full, but he loves
Speaker 1: you fully. And what's amazing to me is what he
Speaker 1: says to Nathaniel. He knows he's been sitting underneath that shame,
Speaker 1: and he looks at him and says, here's a true
Speaker 1: Israelite in whom there is no He does not identify
Speaker 1: him by his lowest moments. He identifies him by his
Speaker 1: highest potential. And that is the same thing that God
Speaker 1: is doing to you. He is calling you into a
Speaker 1: relationship with himself. And of course Nathaniel's gonna follow him,
Speaker 1: and he invites him into relationship. And it begins by
Speaker 1: seeing who Jesus is. And he had a box that
Speaker 1: Jesus just popped and he blew his perspective of what
Speaker 1: the Messiah should look like. And he says, I want
Speaker 1: to follow you, and he says, you believe because I
Speaker 1: saw you. Dude, You're gonna see even greater things than these.
Speaker 1: And when you hear the word greater, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to think like more square footage, a nicer car,
Speaker 1: or a bigger paycheck. I want you to think deeper,
Speaker 1: because what it is is like, follow me into relationship
Speaker 1: and it's gonna go deeper. Greater means deeper. You're gonna
Speaker 1: see new shades of me who I've always been and
Speaker 1: what you see introduced into the text as a concept
Speaker 1: of progressive revelation. Progressive revelation is this a fancy way
Speaker 1: of saying like evangelical term says you were saved, meaning
Speaker 1: you had a moment where you place your faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: You will be saved meaning one day you will see
Speaker 1: him face to face and you'll be made like him.
Speaker 1: But in between your being saved, it's working out your salvation. Astley.
Speaker 1: Let me tell it to you this way. My wife
Speaker 1: Janet is here in two of my four kids. Dalen
Speaker 1: turns twelve on Wednesday. That's my girl. And then my
Speaker 1: son Corbyn here, he's fourteen. Let me tell you this
Speaker 1: about progressive revelation. He's an amazing young man. I love him.
Speaker 1: I remember taking him to school and he's five years old.
Speaker 1: He wants to like, dad, hold my hand, let's go
Speaker 1: to the classroom. He gots a little backfaft gone, He's like, Daddy,
Speaker 1: I love you. I was like yeah, And then when
Speaker 1: he's like in fifth grade, he's like dad, I love you.
Speaker 1: Now He's like in ninth grade, he's like, Dad, man,
Speaker 1: do I have to say it? Like? You better say
Speaker 1: you love me? Boy, I'll embarrass you in front of all.
Speaker 1: But he's like, he loves his dad. Then one day
Speaker 1: he'll graduate high school and he'll say, Dad, I love you.
Speaker 1: One day he'll get married and he'll say Dad, I
Speaker 1: love you. And one day he'll hold his first born
Speaker 1: and I look at me and say, Dad, I love you.
Speaker 1: He's used the same word his whole life, but his
Speaker 1: understanding has changed over time. That's progressive revelation. And some
Speaker 1: of us are sitting in an outdated revelation of Jesus.
Speaker 1: You're stuck in an old download. It's time you update
Speaker 1: what God has called you to see in this season.
Speaker 1: And the way that he gives you a new revelation
Speaker 1: is through the situation. Whether it's a struggle or a celebration,
Speaker 1: it's all design for you to see it. It is
Speaker 1: not the problem being solved, It is the person of
Speaker 1: Jesus in the problem with you. That's what he wants
Speaker 1: you to see. But what I realized about relationship is
Speaker 1: it's progressive revelation Because when I was sitting in that
Speaker 1: seat and Pastor Steven was preaching, he was talking about
Speaker 1: carrying multiple roles. Look at Jesus carrying all of these
Speaker 1: multiple roles. All he has, all of it because when
Speaker 1: you come to faith in Jesus, you get the fullness
Speaker 1: of Christ, but you don't understand in full. That's the
Speaker 1: progressive revelation. You grow in his character over time. That's
Speaker 1: he reveals it to you. And it's funny. When Pastor
Speaker 1: was preaching about roles, here's the other thing that God
Speaker 1: so spoken to my spirit. Because Corbin, I'm his dad.
Speaker 1: I've been his dad for fourteen years. It's one of
Speaker 1: the greatest privilege of my life to be his dad.
Speaker 1: And I remember being his dad when he's five and
Speaker 1: we'd eat pizza and we'd wrestle and it was awesome.
Speaker 1: And then when he's nine, I had a bunch of
Speaker 1: rules like, hey, clean your room, brush your teeth, go
Speaker 1: to bed. And what God spoke to me says, you're
Speaker 1: still living in a five year old definition of dad.
Speaker 1: And the reason I'm having frustration in the relationship is
Speaker 1: not because he doesn't get it. Because I was looking
Speaker 1: at them. He just doesn't get it. He needs to
Speaker 1: respect his dad more. And what I realized it's about
Speaker 1: my perspective because I have not had a new revelation
Speaker 1: of what Dad is in five years, and I'm still
Speaker 1: treating him like an eight year old. And so we
Speaker 1: had a good talk a couple of weeks ago and said, Corbin,
Speaker 1: I want to apologize for that because I need to
Speaker 1: see you differently, because I need to be something different
Speaker 1: for you. It's a progressive revelation, and I would submit
Speaker 1: to you that wherever you have frustration in a relationship.
Speaker 1: This is going to sound cheesy, but this is the
Speaker 1: way God gave it to me, that frustration is an
Speaker 1: opportunity for a revelation. I just gave somebody, Marri little advice.
Speaker 1: It's like the old couple that's been married fifty years
Speaker 1: and they're talking to the young and the old man
Speaker 1: looks at the young buck, and the young buck says, man,
Speaker 1: how did you show you loved her every day? He goes, well,
Speaker 1: when we married fifty years ago, I told her I
Speaker 1: loved her, and I said if anything changed, I'd let
Speaker 1: her know. Belief in Jesus is not a one time event.
Speaker 1: It is an everyday occurrence. It is growing in your belief.
Speaker 1: And so when we jump back into the text. I
Speaker 1: want you to understand. You've got somebody who's been in
Speaker 1: relationship thirty years, and somebody three days, and all of
Speaker 1: them Jesus wants to reveal himself to them. I don't
Speaker 1: care where you're at on that continuum. I don't care
Speaker 1: if you're brand new at Jesus or you've been following
Speaker 1: him for a long time or year. Wherever Jesus wants
Speaker 1: to reveal himself to you. Verse six a chapter two.
Speaker 1: Nearby stood six six stone water jars, the kind of
Speaker 1: used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding me
Speaker 1: to twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants,
Speaker 1: filled the jars with water. So they filled them to
Speaker 1: the brim. Then they told him, now draw some out
Speaker 1: and take it to the master of the banquet. They
Speaker 1: did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the
Speaker 1: wine that water that had been turned into wine. He
Speaker 1: did not realize where it had come from, though the
Speaker 1: servants who had drawn the water new. Then he called
Speaker 1: the bridegroom aside and said, everyone brings out the choice wine,
Speaker 1: and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had
Speaker 1: too much to drink. But you've saved the best. Tell now,
Speaker 1: what Jesus did here in Kana Galilee was the first
Speaker 1: of the science to which he revealed his glory and
Speaker 1: his disciples believed in him. So the initiation of this
Speaker 1: miracle began with a mother just having a problem. And
Speaker 1: I want to tell you that your problem matters to God,
Speaker 1: and he sees it and he's drawn to it. But
Speaker 1: he's going to do something with it. It might look like,
Speaker 1: might not look like what you thought it would, but
Speaker 1: the opportunity exists for you to see Him in it.
Speaker 1: And some of the miracles you don't see until you
Speaker 1: look back on it. Because in this thing, there's an
Speaker 1: old Testament sacker official system where people had to earn
Speaker 1: the right to be cleaned before God is following these
Speaker 1: rules and doing these rituals, and it's so much easier
Speaker 1: to be a parent with rules rather than a father.
Speaker 1: In relationship, it's so much easier because I can live
Speaker 1: in rules that stay the same for generations and never change.
Speaker 1: But that's not relationship. Relationship is living in a way
Speaker 1: that sees the other person and adjusting with them over time.
Speaker 1: And so Jesus is going to kick over the old
Speaker 1: Testament sacrificial system, and from those ceremonial washing jars, He's
Speaker 1: going to bring forth a new sacrifice that will be
Speaker 1: a new atonement for the forgiveness of sins. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: see that until later, but everybody's at the wedding. Everybody
Speaker 1: sees it, but only a couple people see it. And
Speaker 1: I think there's three groups of people that are sitting
Speaker 1: at this wedding. And as I walk through these three
Speaker 1: layers of people, what I want you to understand this
Speaker 1: is taking it deeper. So when God told Nathaniels you'll
Speaker 1: see even greater things, he would now walk with him
Speaker 1: for three years, miracle after miracle after miracle. And the
Speaker 1: miracle wasn't the feeding of the five thousand. The miracle
Speaker 1: was seeing Jesus in the middle of it. That's what
Speaker 1: the miracle was. Not everybody saw that because some people
Speaker 1: only wanted to eat the food and fill their belly
Speaker 1: and the next day but they were hungry again. I
Speaker 1: got to decide where do I want to be. Do
Speaker 1: I want to be hungry tomorrow or do I want
Speaker 1: to be with Jesus today. That's what God brings us to.
Speaker 1: And so this top layer I think is at the
Speaker 1: wedding is a level of enjoy because Jesus brings out
Speaker 1: the choice wine. I mean, read the text. This isn't
Speaker 1: a pro or against alcohol. It's saying Jesus brought it
Speaker 1: and it was good stuff, and everybody at the wedding
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. And many people woke up with a little
Speaker 1: buzz the next day, but they went right back to
Speaker 1: life as normal and the miracles happening in the moment.
Speaker 1: But some people are only caught up with the wine.
Speaker 1: Maybe we would do well to inspect what is it?
Speaker 1: Do I just want him to solve it? Do I
Speaker 1: just want to enjoy it? But what I want to
Speaker 1: tell you is Jesus always starts with what you want
Speaker 1: to get you to see what you need. There would
Speaker 1: be some that would preach that Jesus doesn't care what
Speaker 1: you want. He doesn't want you happy, he wants you holy.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, he cares about your happiness, he absolutely does.
Speaker 1: But He's got something deeper in mind for you. It's
Speaker 1: the starting place. And I know you're so overwhelmed trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to homeschool your kids, and you're
Speaker 1: so overwhelmed by looking at the images on our TV
Speaker 1: right now, and it makes us give up hope that
Speaker 1: he could ever change. And what Jesus is saying in
Speaker 1: the middle of all that problem, I am in it,
Speaker 1: and if you choose you can see me in it.
Speaker 1: I think there's a second layer, because in verse nine
Speaker 1: it says, and the master of the banquet tasted some
Speaker 1: of the water they've been turned into wine. He did
Speaker 1: not realize where it comes from, though the servants who
Speaker 1: drew the water knew. The second level is no is knowledge.
Speaker 1: It's to know something. So yet everybody enjoying the wine,
Speaker 1: some people knowing where it came from. And there's a
Speaker 1: guy in the Bible named Nicodemus in chapter three of
Speaker 1: John that he's one of the religious leaders. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm the supreme Court of Israel. And he comes to
Speaker 1: Jesus at night and at night speaks of disbelief. And
Speaker 1: he's got a box of knowledge that he has created
Speaker 1: from all of this studies that comes into the presence
Speaker 1: of Jesus and says, who are you? And he says,
Speaker 1: I'm the Messiah, and he says, how could this be?
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense because it does not fit in
Speaker 1: my box. And sometimes the very thing that keeps you
Speaker 1: from believing in Jesus is the knowledge you have. Wow.
Speaker 1: Because Jesus looks at him and says, this can only
Speaker 1: be revealed by the truth, by the spirit. He says,
Speaker 1: how can that be? He said, it won't make sense
Speaker 1: until you have the spirit. How can it be? It's
Speaker 1: because you have a paradigm of what you think God
Speaker 1: is supposed to look like and not look like, what
Speaker 1: you think God should do and should not do. And
Speaker 1: when God doesn't do something you don't think lines up
Speaker 1: with what he should do, you walk away from it.
Speaker 1: Don't forfeit what you believe about God based upon what
Speaker 1: you don't understand. Because every time you come to this
Speaker 1: paradigm to say I don't understand it, you can either
Speaker 1: walk away and reject it, or you will lean into it,
Speaker 1: say God, show me a new revelation of who you are.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus represents this knowledge base that says God should look
Speaker 1: like this. Thus saith the Lord, and he walks away
Speaker 1: from the conversation. But the beauty of our God is
Speaker 1: long suffering, willing that none should perish. So when you
Speaker 1: see Nicodemus later in John, while all the disciples have scattered.
Speaker 1: He's helping take it in Jesus' body off the cross.
Speaker 1: That's how much he loves you, even if your knowledge
Speaker 1: is a roadblock today. I believe that Jesus is going
Speaker 1: to be persistent. He's going to keep bringing things into
Speaker 1: your life. I believe that one day you will bend
Speaker 1: your knee, you will declare him as your Lord and savior.
Speaker 1: But some of us have a not lot of knowledge.
Speaker 1: But the third level is belief. That's what he spoke
Speaker 1: of in verse eleven, that God's glory would be revealed
Speaker 1: and that you would believe. It's fascinating to me that
Speaker 1: we would be included in a sentence with God's glory.
Speaker 1: That alone makes me go, like your glory and my
Speaker 1: belief line to believe, to believe, and I have to believe.
Speaker 1: At this point in the Miracle, Mary forgets about the
Speaker 1: original problem because she sees the person of Jesus and
Speaker 1: she's got an upgraded revelation of who he is. He
Speaker 1: has gone from son to savior. He's gone from just
Speaker 1: I am his mama to now I am his follower.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely amazing, and there's a difference between knowledge and belief.
Speaker 1: I used to teach college classes in sports medicine. So
Speaker 1: I teach college classes about sports nutrition, and I could
Speaker 1: teach you about macronutrients and micronutrients and the value of
Speaker 1: vegetables in your life. And I know a lot about vegetables.
Speaker 1: But do you know how vegetables I eat in a month?
Speaker 1: Probably about zero? Why? Because I don't believe in vegetables.
Speaker 1: Like I know about him, but I don't believe in them.
Speaker 1: Do you believe Jesus or do you just know about him?
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about a list of rules that you
Speaker 1: follow in order to earn his favor. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: a persistent, ongoing relationship that calls you into deeper, that
Speaker 1: calls you into deeper. He's saying, come off the shallow
Speaker 1: end of the pool. I am a deep well, and
Speaker 1: you'll never get to the bottom of it. And Jesus
Speaker 1: is biding you into a deeper relationship with him. And
Speaker 1: we've got to push past the knowledge into the land
Speaker 1: of unbelief. And some of these things are only revealed
Speaker 1: by spirit. And Jesus goes on to record. John records
Speaker 1: six other miracles that Jesus does in this Book of John.
Speaker 1: It is a book of belief, misunderstanding miracles. And what
Speaker 1: you start to see is the whole crowd enjoyed the wine.
Speaker 1: The whole crowd enjoyed the bread. Some people knew, but
Speaker 1: a few believed. It's not a one time event. It's
Speaker 1: a relationship. That's why Jesus did these miracles. But it's funny.
Speaker 1: Jesus did the miracles so that the disciples would believe.
Speaker 1: But did you know that when John wrote this, he
Speaker 1: was thinking of you. Jesus is the miracles for the disciples.
Speaker 1: John wrote this book for you. Let me show you.
Speaker 1: You never knew this, did you. I believe that in
Speaker 1: eternity past, when God thought of what would happen in
Speaker 1: the future, he had you in mind. And that's why
Speaker 1: he had John write this letter. He had him write
Speaker 1: this book. In John twenty, Verses thirty and thirty one,
Speaker 1: it says Jesus performed many other signs in the presence
Speaker 1: of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.
Speaker 1: But they are. But these are written that you, who's
Speaker 1: the you, is your time. John is saying, so that
Speaker 1: you would believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,
Speaker 1: and that by believing in him that you'd have a
Speaker 1: moment that you believe, but you walk out a relationship
Speaker 1: that you progressively keep believing in him that you may
Speaker 1: have life in his name. And I know you're staring
Speaker 1: at some it's there's some big h's and there's some
Speaker 1: big problems, and Jesus saying, I want to meet you
Speaker 1: in it, but I want to show you me in it.
Speaker 1: And all the time he's saying, my hour is not
Speaker 1: yet come. My hour is not yet come. But as
Speaker 1: you get to the end of John, he looks at
Speaker 1: his disciples and he says, my hour has come. His
Speaker 1: assignment when he stepped out of glory, robed himself in
Speaker 1: flesh and made his dwelling amongst us, was to crawl
Speaker 1: upon a cross so that he would suffer a death,
Speaker 1: so that you and I could be forgiven of all
Speaker 1: of our sins. That was his hour. And as he's
Speaker 1: walking with his disciples, they wouldn't understand this until looking
Speaker 1: back on it. And Jesus has to go to the cross,
Speaker 1: and that's his assignment, that's his hour. And while they're
Speaker 1: at the cross, the disciples had dispersed, and here you've
Speaker 1: got Mary, his mother. John, the guy who wrote this book,
Speaker 1: and a few other women, and I just want to
Speaker 1: speak over the ladies you're working so hard, the mom
Speaker 1: who's trying to make it, the single woman who's just
Speaker 1: trying to get ahead, the single mom who doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like I have enough to give to everybody. I want
Speaker 1: to tell you that Jesus sees you, He sees you.
Speaker 1: It says that as Jesus is up on the cross.
Speaker 1: It says when Jesus saw his mother there and the
Speaker 1: disciple whom he loves standing nearby, he said to her woman,
Speaker 1: So pitcher Mary watching her son give up his life.
Speaker 1: She's looking at this situation of despair and she can't
Speaker 1: do anything about it. You want to talk about a
Speaker 1: pain that is deep. She's watching her firstborn, her child die,
Speaker 1: and she's looking up at her savior, and she's filled
Speaker 1: with grief. And picture the scene. The Roman soldiers have
Speaker 1: just cast lots and divided his clothes. The Jewish leaders
Speaker 1: have a righteous indignation, feeling like they have killed the
Speaker 1: one who will put us in power the rest of
Speaker 1: our days. And all of these other people, like we
Speaker 1: don't know what to make of it. But there's a
Speaker 1: couple people who are believing in that point. But yet
Speaker 1: their pain is so immense, and the excruciating pain that
Speaker 1: Jesus is under as he's watching all of this, and
Speaker 1: he looks down and he says, woman, I've heard that before.
Speaker 1: He says, you're looking up and you're seeing me as
Speaker 1: your savior. But he says, woman, here is your son,
Speaker 1: because I'm also your son. And then he looks at John.
Speaker 1: He says, take her home, because it's a son. I
Speaker 1: need to make sure my mom is taken care of.
Speaker 1: Imagine the pain in that moment. Mary's watching the pain
Speaker 1: of her son. And yet on the cross, he sees her,
Speaker 1: and he sees you. He sees the pain, he sees
Speaker 1: the anguish, He cares deeply about the sleepless nights. And
Speaker 1: even on the cross, Jesus is revealing his character to
Speaker 1: his mother because one of the names of God is Elroy.
Speaker 1: It's the God who sees and cares for me. Even
Speaker 1: in his hour. He says, I see you because he
Speaker 1: said my time is your time, My hour is your hour.
Speaker 1: The reason I came is for you. And he sees
Speaker 1: you in your pain, and he's leaning out of glory
Speaker 1: into humanity, and he meets with you and he's calling you.
Speaker 1: And imagine Mary as she hears the words uttered from
Speaker 1: her son. Woman, here is your son, and then she
Speaker 1: is taken care of whatever problem you're facing matters to Jesus.
Speaker 1: But he's using that problem to show you his person.
Speaker 1: And if you have never placed your faith in Jesus,
Speaker 1: this is the moment that God is calling you by name. Nathaniel,
Speaker 1: come here, Josephine, come here, James, come here, Sally come here.
Speaker 1: He's calling you by name. And you've been resisting your
Speaker 1: whole life. You've had a box of what God is
Speaker 1: supposed to do. But God has popped that box and
Speaker 1: you're seeing the person of Jesus. He sees you. He
Speaker 1: is elroyd to you. He's the God who cares, and
Speaker 1: he's calling you into relationship with him. And if you
Speaker 1: have never placed your faith in Jesus, if you've never
Speaker 1: been forgiven of your sins, this is your moment. This
Speaker 1: is your time. All around the world, we're going to
Speaker 1: say a prayer together right now for someone to begin
Speaker 1: that relationship with Jesus. There's a step that all of
Speaker 1: us need to take. Some of you have been staring
Speaker 1: at your problems, but you've not been seeing the person
Speaker 1: of Jesus in it. Some of you, this is the
Speaker 1: genesis of a relationship. Wherever you're at. If you could
Speaker 1: buy your heads, if you could close your eyes. I'm
Speaker 1: going to lead us in a prayer right now. And
Speaker 1: as you say these words with your mouth, if you
Speaker 1: believe them in your heart, the Bible says you will
Speaker 1: be saved. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
Speaker 1: of God who died on the cross and rose from
Speaker 1: the grave to forgive me of all my sins. I
Speaker 1: give you my life, I give you my sin, I
Speaker 1: give you my shame. Forgive me, and I'll spend my
Speaker 1: life following you. Now, if you just prayed that prayer,
Speaker 1: if you just ask Christ into your life, what you
Speaker 1: need to know is that all of Heaven is rejoicing,
Speaker 1: and the few people we have at Balantine or rejoice
Speaker 1: with you. Come on, would you drop it in the
Speaker 1: comments and let us know if you just asked Jesus
Speaker 1: into your heart, greatest decision you'll ever make. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Family of God. I'm so proud of you. Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you
Speaker 1: who give generously to this ministry is because of you
Speaker 1: that this ministry is possible. You can click the link
Speaker 1: in the description to give now or visit Elevation Church
Speaker 1: Slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 1: You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
Speaker 1: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.