Jesus is ... the Miracle Worker
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Best Friend … Teacher … today Jesus is the Miracle Worker
1 You’ll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God’s master stroke, I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy. 2 I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did—Jesus crucified.
There are all kinds of Philosophies out there about Jesus, but you need to believe the descriptions of Jesus from the Bible. We always want to change what the Bible says to fit how we want to live. Trust your Bible.
Today we want to talk about Jesus the Miracle Worker. People are so - so about this because many of us have needed a miracle or wanted a miracle that didn’t happen. Some get discouraged and stop believing that God does miracles anymore. Maybe you think that God isn’t interested in you or that God is hard to please… he does miracles just not for you. There are a lot of ideas about miracles. Today we will set the record straight.
Law of First Mention - go back to the first time it was mentioned and what Jesus had to say about it.
Law of First Mention
Law of First Mention
1 The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”
Weddings were big and expectations are high. Bride and her mom … my perfect day .... don’t you mess it up.
Wedding stories - Wedding delayed an hour while I mediated between the two. Groomsman put an alarm clock in choir loft and it went off when it was time to kiss the bride… mom demon possessed… Groomsmen cut the wick off the unity candle.
The fist miracle Jesus did was in a wedding where the expectations were high.
Most of the places we need a miracle are because we have so many high or unreal expectations. We wanted life to turn out a certain way and it didn’t. I didn’t know they would die that young. I didn’t know my kids would turn out that way. I thought my marriage would be like… I thought my career would be better...
In this story, the wine had run out. In our day, the pressure and attention is on the ceremony....
In Jesus day, the focus was not on the ceremony but on the reception… the feast. Running out of wine was a bad thing.
Jews - Wine symbolized joy. Where there is no wine, there is no joy.
Wine was more than a beverage. Lack of it was a symbol of lost joy.
This message is for anyone who has lost joy. Marriage is not good… health is not good. Life just didn’t turn out the way you hoped. Focus on vs. 3.
3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”
We focus on feelings instead of faith.
We focus on feelings instead of faith.
They focused on the wine being gone. The problem got the attention instead of the spiritual solution. This couple was beginning a life together and everyone was focused on the situation.
How many times have you (like me) found yourself in difficult situations where the situation takes over… and we focus on our feelings instead of our faith. It’s easy to focus on the problem and not what we need to do about that.
my mom. she will be healed or be healed in heaven.
We forget that…
7 For we live by faith, not by sight.
We have to remember we don’t just live in a natural world, but that we follow a God who operates in a different realm with a powerful God.
We take matters into our own hands.
We take matters into our own hands.
I guess I better do something because God isn’t.
When God doesn’t do what we want him to do, we take the problem from God and do something about it. In the story, Jesus mom was trying to solve the problem… it wasn’t even her problem. We take it away from God … it can’t be his and ours at the same time.
15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
This means that we can never have God’s best until you decide that you will change direction to the direction God wants you to go into.
That’s what we do… We don’t want to so things God’s way, we want to do it our way
16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! 17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.” 18 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
horses are a symbol of your own strength.
There may be someone hear and you feel like you are so far from God in your thinking and handling your life yourself... that you can’t even see him. You feel totally away from God.
The response you will get from God when you turn to him is GRACE and COMPASSION. He wants to let you off the hook.
Encourage you today. If you find yourself … hopes dashed… low expectations… need a miracle. Come back to God. Don’t get out there on your own.
We exaggerate the negative.
We exaggerate the negative.
That’s what we do. We look at the problem and its’ the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone. All we do is explain the horrible situation to God.
ILL - people will try to one up each other
We need to learn to tell our problem how big our God is.
They were out of wine.
Instead of focusing on and exaggerating the negative, focus on faith. Instead of focusing on my mom’s decline, we know where she will be...
We have to come to the conclusion
20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
For us it might look like God is not working on your behalf. God is always working. It might look like a NO, but God is at work and his answers are yes. We just don’t understand what he is doing.
That’s why we have to have faith. If we could see what God was doing, we would not need faith.
1 Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. 2 For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die.
We will have a point when we see Jesus and want to ask him, “what were you thinking?” and we have our eyes open.
Instead of hallelujah in heaven we may be hearing people going ahhh… Ohhhh. One day we will see it all.
What dos it take to get a miracle?
What dos it take to get a miracle?
What does it take to get a miracle?
1. Do what Jesus says to do.
1. Do what Jesus says to do.
talk about Mary and fussing about no wine… remembers Jesus is God… tells the crowd he’s about to say something and it may not make sense, but do what he says.
3 The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”
and all of a sudden she remembers… oh yea. He’s God. He’s fixing to tell you something and it might not make sense … I raised him and he is a little different, but do what he says...
5 But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
He told them to do something that didn’t make sense.
Why did she have to say that? God is famous for telling us to do stuff that doesn’t make sense.
8 This plan of mine is not what you would work out, neither are my thoughts the same as yours! 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours.
God does things different that we do.
God is famous for doing things different from us because he knows more than us… see more than us…
But we still say no. I don’t want to do it His way and we think it through. I I wan’t do it until it makes sense.
We want to serve him head to heart instead of heart (faith) to head. We have to get to the point where we trust God… no matter what.
Michael Jordan jumping so high… people said it had to be shoes… no it was MJ
We always want to figure out the miracles… Jesus laid his hands on someone and they could see.… it’s his hands. So some people brought a blind guy to Jesus to be healed… told him that if he lays hands on him, you’re going to see. So Jesus spit and makes a mud pie on the guys eyes. Today we want to figure out natural understanding to super natural events. If you have to understand everything, you will never see miracles.
God is bigger than you. I’m good with it.
2. Focus on what God wants to do in you.
2. Focus on what God wants to do in you.
Anytime you are looking for a miracle from God, we have to focus on what he is doing IN you. God will take a problem, and if he sees an opportunity to teach us something, he will. He will delay the answer to teach us the character issues. He is more concerned about what’s going on inside you that he is in your situation. The external is going to go away… who were are doesn’t.
If we focus on what God wants to do in us, our lives will be the most rewarding they ever have been even during the hardship.
6 Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremonial washing. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons.
Ceremonial Washing Pots - wash hands… strict… water had to drip off of the elbows not the fingers. If it dripped off of the fingers they had to do it again… Dead religion.
Jesus didn’t fill the wine glasses, he filled the ceremonial washing pots. He takes the dead religion and fills it with the Joy … the wine. He got a twofer… do a miracle and teach something at the same time.
He basically said, “I came not just to fill your wine glasses, I came to joy back into your religion… Christianity.”
POINT - If you are going though something difficult and it seems that Jesus is not responding to you right now. It may be because you are always talking to him about the problem instead of asking him what he wants to do in you. What are you trying to teach me?
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
IOW - I want to take this painful experience and develop what’s going on inside of you. I wish this wasn’t the case… I would just as soon go to heaven dumb....
3. Believe in the unbelievable.
3. Believe in the unbelievable.
I want you to be people who trust God for big things… the unbelievable. Trust God for Victory.
8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside
Believe for the miracles. Don’t limit God to the size of your brain. Realize that God does the impossible.
27 Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”
4. Expect the best.
4. Expect the best.
We need to trust the Lord for the best. Do you think it would be exciting if all of us lived our lives expecting the best.
10 “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said. “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!”
20 With God’s power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine.
Pray for those who have no joy… it’s gone. relationship is dead… disease
Put your faith back in God. It would not be faith if it made a lot of sense. Some of us are so far away from God… we run everything through our brain… we need to trust what we don’t understand.
Commitment Prayer -
Thank you for dying on a cross to pay the price for my sins. Come be my Savior… be the Lord of my life. I give you my life.
Pray for those who have lost their joy. Teach us what you want to teach us and do miracles in lives…