Sermon Tone Analysis

Knowing Jesus

John 2:1-11

Every person can understand Jesus better by learning some lessons about him from this passage.

Introduction: 

     In 1900 the Ladies Home Journal made a number of predictions of what life would be like in the year 2000.

I will pass along some of the more humorous and unusual ones.

·         There will be no more flies or mosquitos.

By the time 2000 roled around there would be no more horses doing farming so the flies and mosquitos would be gone.

·         Automobiles will be cheaper than horses.

Farmers will have automobiles to do all of the work their horses do.

·         Air travel will be common, but it will never compete with ground travel.

·         Warefare will take to the air and forts on wheels will come.

Guns will be able to shoot 25 miles.

·         Photographs will be telegraphed all over the globe.

·         Man will be able to see around the world.

They will be able to see through cameras and screens.

·         Peas and beans will be as large as beats.

There will be no need of surgar beats.

·         Telephones will be common around the world.

·         Hot and cold air spigots will be in every house, much like hot and cold water spigots.

·         Pneumatic tubes will deliver items to homes, rather than delivery wagons.

·         Electricity in the ground will allow vegetables to grow year round.

·         Oranges will be allowed to be grown in Philadelphia.

·         Medicines will be applied directly to the organ that needs it.

No more pills.

·         No wild animals.

Rats and mice will be exterminated.

·         Ships will be able to transport people to England in two days or less.

They will be electric.

It is interesting to think of the predictions people made and to realize that some of our predictions could be just a foolish.

Somewtimes we can be very wrong about our ideas of how things will turn out.

Just as people were very wrong in their ideas about who Jesus was.

Therefore we need to be constantly make sure we are accurate in our thinking about who Jesus is.

Lesson I.

He had fun

A.  It seems sort of strange to think of Jesus as a guy hanging out at a party.

He was at a wedding, there might have been some dancing going on, and there was wine present.

It would definitely appear that Jesus was having a good time with these people.

A lot of times we probably have a picture in our mind of a Jesus who is talking with the Theologians in the synagogue.

Maybe we picture him on a hillside preaching to a mass of people.

We can also see him healing people and performing miracles.

Some of what we miss about Jesus is the times when he had fun.

I think when he was alone with his disciples there were a lot of times when they just had fun.

It was not all of the business stuff.

It was about having fun.

Jesus was a man who had fun along with the other things that he did.

B.

Perhaps part of the reason this was included in the book of John was to give us a glimpse of a human being.

We get to see someone who was not all business.

He was also someone who involved himself in the common things of life.

He attended a wedding.

He might have even had a drink of wine.

He was not someone who did not know how to have fun, nor was he the kind of person who refused to have fun.

He participated.

I think that part of the reason that he was there was because there were pagans there who needed to get closer to God.

He could not have an impact on this if he did not do things that they were doing.

C.

I would like to tell you a little secret about me.

Sometimes I go to family gatherings and I get nervous because some of my relatives do things and talk about things that make me uncomfortable.

They are not robbing banks and that sort of stuff, but they are things that I would not do.

It makes me a little uncomfortable to be around them.

I go because they are my family.

Maybe by me being there, they might get brought a little closer to a right relationship with God.

So I let myself get uncomfortable because of the possible impact I can have on them.

I think that is part of the reason we see Jesus at a wedding feast.

Some of us have become so isolated in our Christian life we don’t let ourselves get around pagan people.

Most of us are probably secure enough in our faith that it would not hurt us to get a little uncomfortable.

Lesson II.

He was directed by God

A.  When they run out of wine at this gathering Mary finds out about it and asks Jesus to do something.

This would have been a huge social mistake for the host and hostess of the party.

So Mary looks to Jesus.

I can sense a mother and son bond here.

She does not even need to tell Jesus what she is thinking, and it does not look like Jesus is communicating complete thoughts either.

They were family and they were communicating like a family.

Mary wanted Jesus to fix the problem and Jesus wanted her to know that he was no longer under her authority.

He did it anyway.

B.

Jesus tells his mother, “"My time has not yet come."

He had not yet officially begun his public ministry.

Plus it seems that just like any young man goes from a time where he lives under the direction of his parents to a time when he has freedom to make decisions for himself.

Jesus had gone beyond being under the direction of his parents, and now he had freedom to make his own decisions.

Unlike other people this meant that Jesus was being directed by God.

It is like what we see later in John 5, “Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

(Joh 5:19 NIVUS)  Jesus was not being disrespectful to his mother.

He was simply stating what he life was about at this point.

He was doing what God wanted him to do.

It was more about pleasing God than it was about pleasing his family at this point in his life.

C.  Jesus makes decisions and he follows leads based on what God would have him do.

Jesus is our example of how we should live in the world.

We need to allow God to be involved in our lives.

He needs to be the one who is directing us.

It should be our goal to say like Jesus said, I can do nothing by myself, I can only do what I see God doing.

In order to do that we need to know God.

We need to have a personal relationship with him by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

We need to know him by studying him in the Bible.

We need to spend time with him.

There are a lot of times when I might offer something to my children and I know even before I ask what their response will be.

I can do this because I have spent time with my children and I know them.

We need to work at knowing God like this.