Jesus Turns Water into Wine

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS ACCORDING TO JOHN

INTRODUCTION: The Book of John provides us with ten sign, ten miracles that Jesus did that are signs pointing to His deity.

1. Jesus turns water into wine (John 2:1-11)
2. Jesus heals the official’s son (John 4:46-54)
3. Jesus heals a paralyzed man – paralyzed for 38 years (John 5:1-15)
4. Jesus creates food for 5000 people – not counting women and children (John 6:5-14)
5. Jesus walks on water (John 6:16-24)
6. Jesus gives sight to a man blind from birth (John 9:1-7) 7.Jesus raises a man dead for days – Lazarus (John 11:1-45) 8.Jesus is raised from the dead (John 20:1-18)
7. Jesus appears to His disciples (John 20:19-29)
8. Jesus creates breakfast for His disciples (John 21:1-14)

Side note: John 20:30-31 “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples,  which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name”. John 21:25 “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen”.

The book of John is divided into 4 sections:

Section 1: Chapter 1 – verbal testimony from John the Apostle; John the Baptist and the first disciples – Jesus is the Messiah; Jesus is the One spoken of in the Old Testament; Jesus is the Son of God; Jesus is God in human flesh. All these testimonies are made in that first chapter.

Section 2: chapters 2 to 12 – The public ministry of Jesus Christ.

Section 3: Chapters 13 to 17 – The private ministry – Jesus ministry to His Disciples

Section 4: Chapters 18 to 21- Jesus death, resurrection, and post-resurrection appearances.

1. Jesus turns water into wine (John 2:1-11)

When Jesus Steps In

Introduction: Jesus Christ did His first miracle at a wedding meant that weddings are very  important to God. Jesus says in John 9:4 “I must work the works of Him that sent me”. This also emphasizes the sanctity of the marriage covenant. Weddings are important; Public covenant are very important; Wedding ceremony is very important. People, who are just living together, just because they love themselves, are not married. People who are married are people who have made a public covenant before God and before people. You can not have a secret marriage. 1 Peter 3: 7 calls marriage “the grace of life”.

Marriage is an institution created by God, established by God, and ordained by God. Marriage, a bond between a man and a woman is the highest form of grace – common grace from God – not a  saving grace, but common grace. Common grace like sunrise, sunset, rain, good food, healthy, and so on, are example of common grace – whether you believe in God or not, you are a partaker of common grace. Marriage is the highest form of all common graces – falling in love and openly making a public declaration that I will love this one person for the rest of my life.

Any society that honors marriage, that is a covenant union between one man and one woman for life, will be blessed. This society will prosper. It will have both safety, security and crime rate will be minimum. There will be peace within its borders. Now, any society that dishonors marriage, that is a covenant union between one man and one woman for life, will be cursed, will not prosper, it will not be safe, it will not have security,. and it will have high crime rate. Any society that does not honour the marriage covenant, immorality abounds, and the culture is destroyed.

So, Jesus Christ honored marriage by attending and doing His first miracle at a wedding. Now, it’s a wedding, so, there’s a party and everyone was having a good time. Then tragedy – the wine ran out  (John 2: 3 “They have no wine”). Why is this a tragedy? I am glad you asked. Well, the bridegroom had spent the entire yea r working hard to prove to the parents of the bride that he was capable of taking care of their daughter. As parent, this is your greatest fear … is this man able to take care of you? So, this is a catastrophically embarrassing situation.

Let’s talk a little about the wine. Wine was a regular drink in the ancient world. It was made from all kinds of fruits, mostly grapes. Since most of the water in the ancient world was impure, so, to quench your thirst from water was dangerous because water wasn’t pure. Also, since there were no refrigerators, wines become fermented, and to drink fermented wine was dangerous because you would get drunk and drunkenness was a sin. Here’s a dilemma. You don’t want to be sick, and you don’t want to be drunk, so to solve this problem, they diluted the water with wine ratio 1:10 – 1% alcohol and 10% water.

John 2:3 – Why did Mary come to Jesus? I don’t know, the Bible didn’t say, but I have a theory. At this point, Joseph was already dead, and Jesus, being the first born would be in charge of the house, and Jesus, well being Jesus would have never given Mary a bad idea, I mean, Jesus Christ was God in human flesh (John 1: 1), Jesus knows all, several times in the Gospels we read that “Jesus knew their thoughts”.Also, Jesus would know how to solve Mary’s problems, so suffice to say that Mary would go to the only person who, in her experience, knows how to solve problems.

John 2:4 – Jesus said to her, “Woman, w hat does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”. Jesus calling his mother “woman” isn’t rude, but it isn’t intimate. I think, here, Jesus is stepping into His ministry, and He is indirectly saying to Mary that I am done bring your son, and from today, I have to enter into my ministry. From this day, Mary is no longer able to tell Jesus what to do or what not to do. Luke 2:49 – “A nd He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be a bout My Father’s business?” Jesus’ words, “My hour has not yet come,” (John 2:4; John 7:6; John 7:8; John 7:30; John 8:20; but in John 13:1 and John 17:1 – Jesus says “my hour has come”) indicate that He was working on a divine schedule and that He was managing the pace at which people would be confronted with the reality of w ho He was. On this day, at this very time, His mother’s business is over and His Father’s business has begun. And everything Jesus does from now on must be on the Father’s schedule. As it turns out, this miracle is on the Father’s schedule. Guess what, the beginning of His ministry was a miracle for friends and family.

I don’t know w hat Mary was expecting here, but what I do know is that Mary had some form of faith that Jesus would save the day as usual. Yes, Jesus did save the day, but how He did it is just awesome. Watch this, John 2:5-10 … verse 9 – When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine. . . how did this happen? Where were the grapes, where were the seeds, where was the planting, where was photosynthesis? NOTHING!!!. Jesus Christ bypasses all those processes and barn wine, in the perfect ratio. The wine was so good that even the MC (Master of Ceremony) was impressed. I tell you, Jesus is a Chemist and this is one of the reasons I chose to study Chemistry.

John 2: 11 – “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; His disciples believed in Him“.

Conclusion: There are 3 categories and you listening to me today will one of the categories. First category: John 2:11 “This of signs Jesus did in Cana and His  glory; His  disciples  believed  in  Him“. Second category: John  12:37 “But He had done so many them, they did not believe in John 12:42-43 even among the rulers many believed in, Third category: but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.

QUESTION? TO WHICH CATEGORY DO YOU BELONG?