Surrender and the Fullness of Joy: The Wedding at Cana

Well, welcome friends. Hey, if we've not had the privilege to meet, I'll just introduce myself. My name is Pastor Keith. I'm the founding and lead pastor here at Journey Church, and I would love to meet you. And I just truly believe we are better together, and I'm so honored that we get to spend some time together today. It is a good day to be in the house of the Lord. You could be anywhere today after nine months of winter. We're just getting a little glimpse of some spring. So, uh, I really I count it as an honor for those of you who are here in the house today and for those of you joining us online and around the world. We're honored that you are spending some time with us as well. So, God bless you and thank you for being here wherever you are on your journey of faith because we're all at different places on our journey of faith. Some of you are are new to church. Some of you have been going to church a long time. Wherever

you are on your journey of faith, I just have one agenda today. I want to point you to Jesus Christ. Because Jesus changes everything. I'm not here to convince you of something or or to even teach you information. I I just want to point you to Jesus because Jesus changes everything. Jesus transforms. He He doesn't leave us the same. And so my hope today is that we'll get even closer to Jesus than we were before we we started our our time together. We're in a study, a series called fullness. Everyone shout fullness. Fullness. Because God does not want you to experience some of who he is. God does not want you to sometimes know that he's God. God doesn't want you to have a mediocre faith. He doesn't want you to stay stuck. The Lord does not want you to be empty in your life. God wants you

to know the height, the depth, the the width, the length of his love. God wants you to be filled with the fullness of who he is. And so if there's something stopping you from experiencing the fullness of God, we want to say, "Lord, I want more of you. I cannot I will not stay where I am. You are not designed for a mediocre faith. You are not designed to go to church and stay the same. So if that happens, something's wrong. We are meant to experience more of God." So the first week in this series, we looked at keys. Keys. Keys of the kingdom. Jesus said, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom." Now keys represent precepts,

which means truths. Keys represent promises. Jesus said, "I'm giving you the promise. I'm giving you the truth. I'm giving you everything you need for the kingdom." God did not leave us to wander in this world. God doesn't want you to stumble around the blind leading the blind. Jesus says, "I'm giving you the keys of the kingdom, and I will build my church, but he wants you to be involved. He wants you to use those keys." And so many of us are walking around operating as if we don't know what's going to happen. God has given you everything you need in his word, but we've got to get in the word. We've got to use the keys of the kingdom. Then last week, we looked at oil. An engine can only go so far before it burns out if it doesn't have oil. I shared with you last week, I just don't

know how engines work. And I let that happen only once in my life. Without oil, you'll be burned up. You can go for a while, but if you don't have oil, it's not going to end up well. And oil in the scriptures represents the Holy Spirit that you need oil. And it's a picture of anointing. Anointing I defined as we read in the scriptures is the power of the Holy Spirit. That is that God wants to work in you and through you that which you could not and cannot do on your own. So, so you can have the keys, you can have the promises of God, but are you operating in the anointing? Are you operating with the oil? This week we're going to talk about wine.

So, we've talked about keys, we've talked about oil. This week we're going to talk about wine. And I'm pretty sure last week I I gave it the longest sermon title I've ever given a sermon. The title was how to operate in the authority of the kingdom. The anointing is the difference. I know that's a long title and you all remembered it, but this week I'm going to give you a much shorter, a little more simple title to remember. There's just one word to the title of today's sermon. It's the word surrender. Everyone shout surrender. surrender. I know it sounds simple, but it's anything but. Sometimes simple things are are the most complicated things. Some sometimes simple can be profound. It can even be supernatural. Today I want to talk about

surrender because if you do not surrender, you're going to stay right where you are. You you can know Jesus. You can know his ways. You you you can know so many truths you can even know of God, but but until you surrender, you're going to stay the same. And today, if by any chance you are empty, I believe God's going to fill you up. If you need a miracle in any place in your life, and I mean any place, if you need a miracle, we have a miracle working God. But God will only work to the level of your expectation.

So if if if you believe you have a miracle working God and you're not asking God for miracles, why would he give it to you? If you believe God can do anything, but you're not operating that way, why would God give you a a massive breakthrough just because you woke up today? God actually wants to get the glory so you've got to trust him to do what you couldn't do on your own. So that you can see him work in your life so that he gets all the glory and you're persistent in prayer. You put into practice his promises. You're willing to take God at his word that if he says it, you're going to do it. You're going to believe him.

And like we looked at last week with anointing that if you ask God for it, he's going to give it to you. Many times we're waiting on God to work. Where's God? Where's God? Where is God? And the reality is God's just waiting on you. He He's waiting on you to step out on this wild adventure that we call faith. Faith is not having it figured out. Faith is not having a perfect plan. Man, faith isn't what you can see. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. You don't have it yet. It's the conviction, the evidence, the substance of things not seen, but my faith is so great, I'm going to walk by faith. I can't see it. I don't even have a clue

how God's going to do it, but I'm still going to believe it. So, if we're going to get that breakthrough, if we're going to see that miracle, we've got to go to God and we've got to believe he's actually able to do it. Jesus was raised in a a town called Nazareth. And it was in Nazareth that he could hardly do any miracles because they knew who Jesus was. May I just warn you today? If you think you have Jesus figured out, he's probably not going to do that much work in your life. They thought they had Jesus figured out. So, Matthew 13:58 says, "And Jesus did did and Jesus did not do many mighty works there." He he could have, but he did not because of their unbelief.

There are so many of us today that that we just think we have God figured out. We've put him in this box that if you go to church and you learn or you do this or you do that or if you ask God this, he's going to show up and do it this way or do it that way. And Jesus's like, you know, I'm not sure I want to work with you on this one. I just want you to believe that my ways are better than your ways. My ways are higher than your ways. And when you trust me, I'm going to show up and do exceedingly and abundantly more than you could ask. So you believe in me, we'll be a great team. You don't believe in me, Jesus isn't going to force you to follow him. He's not going to force you to see his miracle. He He's just going to move on to the next place that actually does believe he can do it. And he will, by the way, he he he will work with those who believe. So, we turn our attention

now to a true story. It's found in the book of John. It's in the second chapter. John is a disciple of Jesus, which means he's a student of Jesus. He gave up his whole life to follow Jesus. He believed that Jesus was worth following. And he he became a disciple of Jesus, which means he's a student of Jesus. Jesus is the teacher. In the ancient terms, he's the rabbi. A disciple would go wherever the rabbi would go. The disciple would learn from the rabbi. And the ultimate goal of a disciple to the rabbi is to live like the rabbi. I want to be like him. So what he does, I'm going to do. That was John. He walked with Jesus. He talked with Jesus. He touched Jesus. He was there at Jesus teaching. He got to witness the miracles of Jesus. And he

records for us the life of Jesus found in the book of John. So that you would see Jesus is worth giving up your whole life to follow him. That it's not the same if you take Jesus serious. John records this not for anformational book that you would read in school, but a transformation transformational book that if you take Jesus serious, it will change everything. But you cannot stay the same. You've got to surrender it all. John did not write this for you to read this and say, "That was a good story." Somewhere in here, you've got to take Jesus so serious that that you're going to do something maybe you've never done before, which is called faith,

and you're just going to surrender it all. So, I want you to step into this story with me. I I would like to read the whole story just so we can read it in context. John records in the life of Jesus a number of miracles, but he doesn't call them miracles. He calls them signs. Are you looking for proof that you should follow Jesus? John says, "Then look at the signs." Not the the witchcraft of this world, the signs in the stars or your zodiac sign, astrology. Some of you are say, "I God, just give me a sign." Get into the book of John and you're going to find the sign, the miracle. So, when you read the when you hear the word sign, it's it's the miracle of what God's able to do in you and through you beyond what you can imagine. Let's read this story. It's so good. We dive in.

It's only the second chapter starting with verse one. On the third day, there was a wedding at Canaa in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 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." Now, there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rights of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them,

"Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone who serves the good w everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now." This is the first of his signs Jesus did at Canaa in Galilee and manifested his glory. It it shows you the potential of what Jesus is able to manifested his glory and his disciples were told believed

in him. I love this story. What a wonderful way for us to learn about who Jesus is. He was at a wedding. Now, weddings in the days of old in the Middle East were nothing like weddings today. Today, we have wedding ceremonies that last a few minutes and then we go to a reception which might last a few hours, then everyone goes home. That's not the way it was in the days of Jesus. In the days of Jesus, it was much more formal and there was this this waiting process of of engagement and betrothel and this this leaning into this time of of a wedding. A wedding wouldn't last one day. It would last several days, upwards of a week.

And you would not just invite some people to your wedding. It would include everyone. Your entire town, your village. It would include those who would see who you are. They would be a part of this. So if you were getting married in this church, everyone would be a part of this. They they would all get to participate in the wedding. You would not go to work for a week. You would celebrate. You would celebrate the union of marriage and love. It would be taken so seriously. You would save up for years. This would be a part of a family's plan for this this wedding time. This was a true celebration. Unless you think because we're reading a Bible story, it was boring. There was a lot of wine.

There was feasting, good food, there was dancing. And John notes that not only is Mary at this wedding, but Jesus is there as well. This happened at a place called Kaa. Kaa's almost 10 miles northeast of Nazareth where Jesus grew up. We know about Kaa because Nathaniel's from Kaa. Now, Nathaniel was found in John chapter 1. When Philip met Jesus, he was so stoked. He was like, I got to tell everyone about Jesus. And he Philip goes to Nathaniel says, I found him. I think I found the Christ, the Messiah, the one God would send to save the world.

Nathaniel, you've got to come meet Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathaniel from Canaa says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" You see, when there's a town close by you, you know your rivals. You know that like the the the the Naz the Nazarene uh Broncos played the the the Kaa kangaroos. Thank you. Totally forgot what their mascot was for a second. But the Ka Kangaroos, they hated the Nazerite Broncos. They they just couldn't stand them. They they were rivals. But the truth is that Nazareth was they was they was just down there. Now Kaa is like a

mountain town. people would want to come visit Kaa, but it's in Galilee, too. It's not down in Judea, Jerusalem, where the holy places are, where the city is. Kaa is just it's a village up in up in the hills, up in the mountains. I was traveling last week. I was in the south, uh, Alabama, Tennessee. I would tell people I'm from Oregon. You know what the first thing people say when they think of Oregon? Oh, it rains there. Meanwhile, the whole time I was in Alabama, it rained. That whole place is greener than green than green can be. Looked up 57 inches of rain a year in Alabama. Ben gets 11 in of rain.

People come to their own conclusions what what some place is like. You mentioned Bend, Oregon. They never even heard of Portland. You near Portland? No, we're not near Portland. That place is too weird. We're going to stay on this side of the mountain. We got our own thing going on. Bend, Oregon. People, I never heard of Bend, Oregon. Listen, you never heard of Kaa until Jesus did something great there. Seriously, some of us suspect that God only works in some pockets of the world. He will work wherever he's welcome. It's time to start inviting him into your life. But you think you got him figured out. You think you got church figured out. He's not going to work because of your unbelief.

He shows up in the mountain town to do some work. And I'm saying, "Jesus, you are welcome in this place. I don't care what anybody else thinks of it. I want them to remember this is the place where you did signs and miracles. I want them to remember what you're able to do." And isn't it awesome that Jesus was invited to this place? He's from Nazareth, but he was invited to Canaan of Galilee. That's pretty cool. That means he was likable. I think it's time for us to start bringing the likable Jesus back. I'm talking about the Jesus you want over at your house. This is the Jesus that would step into the sinner's house and all the religious be like, "What's Jesus doing there?" This is the Jesus that would hang out with anyone.

This is the Jesus that would tell stories to say, "This is why I'm here. I'm not here for those that think they're well. I'm here to heal those that are sick. I will go anywhere that I'm welcome." And we read here a story that Jesus is at this wedding. He brought with him his disciples. I want to show you guys how to party. You don't have to get drunk. You don't have to participate in the sin. So when you come to a celebration, you actually be a light in a dark place. Don't don't get dark. Don't conform to the world. You be transformed by the renewing of your mind that when you step into a room, you're a leader. You know what a leader is. You learn this at Growth Track. You should you should go through Growth Track. Leadership is influence.

Anyone could be a leader. You follow Jesus, you're a leader. He brings his disciples with him. I'm going to show you how to celebrate. We're not going to look like the world. We're not we're not going to do things like the world. We're going to give God our best. And he shows up at this particular wedding in in Canaa of Galilee. And we start to see this is the Jesus we want to surrender our lives to. I think it's significant that the world would see that Jesus is able to do for us what needs to be done. He's going to meet you right where you are. His his mother comes to him and says, "Listen, Jesus, we've got a problem. We're running out of wine quickly now. Now, today we we think of this as almost an afterthought that, you know,

wine is at the wedding. Some some weddings don't have alcohol. And this day, this was so significant because wine it was not what we would suspect. It had a deep symbolic meaning to to run out of wine would have meant the family that's hosting this feast, this festival, they would forever be stamped with shame. You would be the ones that weren't prepared. Last week, we looked at the story of 10 virgins, five foolish and five wise. If you weren't here and you're like, "That sounds weird. You need to go watch the message. It's in Matthew 25.

Jesus sometimes said some weird stuff, but he always had a purpose. It's a fictional story to say, "Be prepared. Be prepared. Jesus is real. He's got the authority of Almighty God. He came the first time like he said he will. He's coming again. Be prepared." So to to run out of wine at a wedding would mean you were unprepared for your guests. And everywhere you went for the rest of your life, people would talk about you. Oh yeah, they're the ones that ran out of wine. Maybe we shouldn't have invited them to our wedding. I mean, you would be defined as as one that was unprepared. So when Jesus is is brought forth this problem, his mother wants him to bring about a practical solution so that this couple

would not start their wedding with complete emptiness before it even starts. You know, a lot of a lot of marriages start that way. Maybe if we get married, this will fix the problem. No, it won't. You need Jesus. Amen. Mary comes to Jesus and says they're they're running out of wine. Wine in the Bible woven throughout the Old Testament scriptures and the New Testament uh most of the time it represents joy, celebration, blessing. So wine in the Bible is is not a bad thing. It's actually it's it's blessing. And and the word blessing is actually a deep happiness that has nothing to do with circumstances or things. We live in a

world where blessings are circumstances and things. They're driving a nice car. Bless. They've got cute kids. They're blessed. I I get to go on a great vacation. You're blessed. We We count blessing as something we do or something we have. But Jesus said, "Blessed are." And he teaches us that blessing is actually found in the character of your soul. What are you living for? That you can actually have a deep happiness, a sustenance of deep inside of you. What we're going to call unending joy. That's what wine is. Wine represents a joy that doesn't run out. So at this wedding, it was running out of wine. That's actually saying they're running out of joy. What a awful way to start your marriage.

You don't even have joy going into the first day. So, I imagine when Mary brings this to her son Jesus, I imagine he's so creative. He's the creator embodied in the flesh. He's 100% man, 100% God. I mean, he's pretty creative. Y'all seen a giraffe lately? And then those hippos that are unicorns, what are those called? Rhinos. What a creative God. Seriously, look in the mirror and realize there's no one else like you. You could try to change your shape, your color, whatever you want to do. I see a lot of people now with big lips, you

know, like you try to change that. You You could try to change it. It's just not the way the designer made you. You all have seen them, too. We should just tell everybody it doesn't look good. Just doesn't look natural. If God made you with big lips, praise God. But if he made you with little lips like mine, don't go change it. So Mary's coming to Jesus, the one that made us all. He made you and say, "Could you do something about this?" I imagine she's thinking, "You're innovative. You've got these students with you. Could you send your students to the next town, grab some wine, bring it?" We don't know what her expectation was of Jesus, but we do know that he's so creative. He could probably come up with a solution.

So, we read this story and we say, "Man, she knew that he would do a miracle." No, no, it does not imply that she knew what he would do. She just brings the problem to Jesus. And I'm here to tell you today, we need to start learning from Mary and bring our problems to Jesus. You may not have the solution. You may not know how he's going to fix it. There's two types of people here today. There's one that you are the empty one. You're the one that's run out of wine. You have no joy. You're empty spiritually, emotionally, relationally, financially. You're empty somewhere in your life. You're stuck. You are empty. The second type of a person is a person that knows someone that's empty. It's your kids. It's your spouse. It's your co-worker. It's your parents.

Someone in your life is empty. And we need to be like Mary and intercede for those who are hurting right now. Mary could have said, "Hey, Jesus, we got to get out of here quick. They're running out of wine. This is a party's going We don't want to be known for being at this party. Failure of the year. This is like going through a pandemic. This is awful. We don't want to go through this. We don't want to live through this. But Mary instead presents the problem to Jesus, interceding on behalf of a couple that did not ask her. They did not know they needed Jesus. Do you know that God is there at the party and people don't even know it? How many times is Jesus working in your life, but you don't even know it? He's able to do for you what you don't even know you need. Meanwhile, you're out getting drunk, wasting away your

life. He's over here to fix it, but people don't even know that. It seems like a nice guy. I'll go check it out. Jesus in answering woman, what does this have to do with me? It's in our English, it sounds so rude, but we've got to understand the cultural context, the language at the time. And Jesus uses that word woman on more occasions than not. But what he's actually just clarifying, it's not rude at all. It's like saying ma'am or or it's just it's actually a respectful or endearing term but not not in the same way he he's separating the fact that you're my mom and he he he's putting her on the same playing field as we are saying this is not yet my hour meaning I'm not going to expose to the whole world who I am yet he has a perfect plan he has a plan he's going to reveal his

glory because he is a glorious God that can absolutely do anything he holds everything together created all things is is by him and for him and to him are all things. He's like not this isn't exactly the place that I thought I would do this at a party. So he tells her, I'm not going to expose to the world who I am yet, but Mary, knowing full well who Jesus is, says whatever he says to do, do it. I'm telling you, we can learn a lot from Mary. I will tell you this today. Whatever Jesus tells you to do, you should do it. And when the Bible says they were running out of wine, this this is symbolic here. This is symbolic to some of your lives right now. You you've run out. You are absolutely empty. And that is not the life that God has planned for you. He wants you to experience the fullness.

In Psalm chapter 4, we we see this imagery. It says, "You, the poet, the poet says, you have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound." I mean I am so satisfied with the joy God you give me than any great big party with the biggest feast with more food with more wine when someone has everything I've got everything I need because the joy that our God's given me and there's a comparison here to wine because wine symbolizes joy that the things of this world cannot compare to what God actually has given me. See, we all want joy, but we we want joy and but we seek it in the wrong places with the wrong people.

The joy the psalmist is talking about, he's poetically saying it can only come from God. But when we try to find it in things, we miss out. In the book of Proverbs, it's a book full of wisdom. We we read this when it comes to our finances. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Honor the Lord with your money, with the first fruits of all your produce. Give God the best. Then it says in verse 10, "Your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with what? Wine." This is not literal here. This is metaphor to if you trust God with your life, he's going to do more than you can imagine. What is God going to give you? Joy. Some of you think if I just had more money, if I could only get out of debt, if I only had the right career, if I only had fill in the blank, if I only

had a bigger bank account, if my retirement was more significant. No, no. Start honoring God with everything. I don't know if you know this or not, but everything's actually his. The air you're breathing totally on loan from God. Your money is not actually yours. It's God's. He's just allowed you to be a steward of it. And the wisdom of Proverbs says that if you would be a great steward of it, you're actually going to get the very thing you're designed to experience, which is joy. And with Jesus, you actually get joy because God works in you and through you. That's the oil. The oil represents what again? The Holy Spirit. Oil represents the Holy Spirit. It's the anointing power of God that with Jesus, you get the Holy Spirit. And with the Holy Spirit, God

will do in you what you could never, ever, ever do on your own. This is a promise of God. That what you didn't think was possible, God's going to do in and through you because it's not you, it's the Holy Spirit. That's what surrender is. That Jesus, I'm giving you my life. And you know what God will do? He'll start changing you. People will look at you and say, "You're not the same person." That's right. I've got the Holy Spirit. Paul puts it this way. He says, "There's fruit that's coming out of you. Something's different about you. There's fruit. There's fruit. There's fruit." He he calls that the fruit of the spirit. Galatians 5, the writer says it this way. But the fruit of the spirit. That's God. When God works in you and through you, something different comes out of your life. The fruit of the spirit is love because God is love. And what else? Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

You notice that's the last fruit. God's got to do a lot of work before you get that self-control thing figured out. You've got to surrender your life to Jesus Christ. Now, the Holy Spirit starts working in you and through you. And what comes out of you is not natural. You didn't get that from your mama. You didn't get that from the schools. You didn't get that from the government. You got it from Jesus Christ. He gives you the power of the anointing. The Holy Spirit's working through you. And now all of a sudden, you've got something to live for. You quit, you quit comparing your life to other people. You quit looking at what you don't have, but you give all of it back to God.

But so many of us do like what happens at this party. Do you remember what the master of the feast said? He says, "Listen, most parties you start with the good wine. Then when people are a little tipsy, you bring out the bad stuff. There's a pattern there. That, by the way, that's a scheme of the devil. He does the exact same thing in our lives. Sin always starts off great. It looks good and then it just runs out. It starts off good. You go to the party, you get with that guy or that girl, you go after that. You You begin to fill in the blank. The devil wants you to think that you got the good stuff and then eventually just runs out.

It doesn't make you happy. Instead, you're horrible because you don't have anything. It was a false joy. You thought you were happy because you were happy for like a moment. Nobody Nobody as a child says, "Man, one day I hope to be an addict. I want to be an alcoholic. I I want to do this. I want to do no one. But that first puff, that first pill, that first sip, there's just something about it. Oh, this took care of my problems. Th this covered my issues. This made me feel better for a moment, but it's not the kingdom of God. That's not the keys. That's not the promise.

That's not the precepts. that that is not the anointing. In fact, don't get drunk on wine. Get filled with the spirit. And so, so Paul says this. He says, "Now the works of the flesh, you want to know what the fruit of you is." Did I say that grammatically correct? You know what your fruit is? Now, the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality. Do you know sex is actually good and designed by God, but the enemy loves to pervert it? Just try a different way. Try it with different people. I just totally go outside of my plan. That's the works of the flesh. And it's going to sound good. It's going to look good at first. Hollywood's great at deceiving everyone to make it look like it's something it's not. It's sexual immoralities, impurity, sensuality. I just described most of Hollywood right there. It's idolatry.

Idolatry is giving your energy, your finances, your time, your talent, your treasures to anything other than God. Sorcery. Sorcery comes in many different forms. I've mentioned it today. It's when you put your hope in horoscopes. It's reading the stars. Is it's going after something contrary to what's in the promises of God. Another way to put it is witchcraft. But we we don't like that in the American culture today. But sorcery is all around us. It's getting your kids a Ouija board. That's sorcery. It's demonic. Anything outside of the Holy Spirit. We we we've got enmity, strife, jealousy. All of those things are in the church. It's division. It happens so easily. It starts off good. You ever gone on a date with someone you love and then you left the restaurant not talking?

Some of y'all are going to leave me hanging there. Just need one hand to be like, "Me too, bro." Okay. Thank you. I tell you, the devil, he likes to start off. This is going to be great. It's date night. Then you leave with all kinds of enmity, division, strife. What happened there? Or or you you keep keep reading here. Fits of anger. We've got an issue today with fits of anger because we don't talk about it. Most of you all have it. You're blaming your spouse. You're you're blaming the times we live in. You're you're putting it out on your kids. I only know it because it's easy. will slip into your life. If you're not allowing the Holy Spirit to change you, what will come out of you is what's already in you.

You wanted joy, but now you're ending up with emptiness, fits of anger. And my friends, it's not the other person that needs to change. You need Jesus to change you. You need the Holy Spirit to do the transforming work. And and by the way, it's absolutely possible. This is what we're looking at today. There's rivalries, dissensions, divisions. Verse 21, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and and by the way, in case you said, "Well, I'm not in this list." He says, "And things like these." This was not an exhaustive list, but if there's something that's not good, it's not of God. It's a a quick litmus test. You're wondering like, is this of God? If it's not good, it's not of God. So, he says, I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

What he's saying is you will end up empty. You'll be like the wedding. You'll be full of shame instead of your identity being the right place. You'll end up with no joy. You'll end up in a place that you don't want to be. The things of the world, they start off so great. A laugh with your friends, a night out. And you have that joy. You think you'll be happy, but you end up empty. And it's in this place that Jesus is presented with a problem. It's in this place that he would tell the servants there, "Go, go fill these jars up with water." And they've got a choice here. We don't know you. Wait, are you from Nazareth?

Oh, he's a Bronco. Don't Don't you do what he says. We don't know who you are. You're not a part of this family. They could have. Some of you have said the same things. I'm not going to do this. Jesus said right before he went to the cross, he left us some great teaching that if we take serious and we surrender our lives to it will change everything. Jesus says, "If you keep my commandments, so if you would keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. We'll be connected in love just as I have kept the father's commandments and abide in his love." Jesus said, "I I didn't do anything that the father didn't tell me to do because Jesus and the father are one. There's one God and three persons. The father, the son, and the holy spirit." So when you do what

Jesus says to do, you are now connected with one God, a God of love. But you got to keep his commandments. You got to use the keys. Look at verse 11. These things Jesus said, "I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full." God doesn't want you to have some joy. He wants you to have the fullness of joy. Some of you are thinking, "Well, it's too late for me. My body aches and I'm no longer with somebody or uh you can make some excuse to think this promise is not for you." I'm here to tell you today, it's never too late with God. He can restore what the enemy has devoured. You start to honor him. You start to do what he says. All of a sudden, that joy starts getting full. And guess what you're going to do? You're going to fill it to the brim.

You just do whatever he says to do. And you fill it to the brim. He says, you're going to have joy and it's going to be full. He says this. And by the way, you're wondering, well, what are the commandments of God? Is that religious or is that legalism? Do I have to dress differently? Like, what are the commandments of God? He explains it. Look at verse 12. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Aren't you glad that Jesus didn't make it complicated? He He didn't like go back to Leviticus and say, "By the way, don't have cotton mixed with the wrong type of fat. Hey, don't eat this." He doesn't do that. Let me just simplify this for you. Could you just love people? Amen. I mean, this sounds like it's easy, but if this was easy, the church would be changing the world. We would be the most joyfilled people because Jesus said, "If you love people, now you have joy." We're wondering, "Why is the world so angry?"

You ever been to a church that was empty? I'm not saying people. I've been to a lot of churches, especially the last year. I visit a lot of churches. I found myself recently sitting down listening to a preacher and I'm so stirred up inside of me. I just want to stand up like a prophet and yell at the top of my lungs like, "Do you read the Bible? Jesus is alive." But sometimes it's like I'm sitting at a funeral service. I'm like, "This word is active and alive, but you're acting like it's a possome dead. This it should speak to your hearts.

The word of God is like a sword. It it's literally going to circumcise your heart." The Bible says in Galatians, it's like, "That's a visual. You got some stuff in your heart that shouldn't be there. God's going to cut it out. This is surrender. This is It's not my will. It's your will be done. But when I love people, now listen. Jesus never said there's an asterk there. Lawyer or frying prayer. No. If they treat you like crap, don't do it. No. He said you pray for your enemies. You love your enemies. You forgive because I've forgiven you. And if you don't forgive, it's not a sign of my fruit. Because when you have me in you, you're going to love. You're going to have joy. You're going to have peace. You're going to have patience. You're going to have kindness. You're going to have goodness. You're going to have faithfulness.

You're not going to act like you used to act. For some of you today, your joy has run out. And maybe the joy is out of your family. Maybe the joy is out of your life. When this happened, we bring it to Jesus. And he he says to the servants, I want you to fill those jars with water. Look at verse six. Chapter 2 verse 6 says, "Now there were six stone waters." I believe this is on purpose that John tells us there were six. He could have said there were some jars there. He could have said there there was a few. He could have said there were a lot, but he says there were six. John wrote the last book of the Bible, which is called Revelation. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, if you read Revelation, you've got to go through it through the lens of study. You just can't read it like any book or you'll be like totally tripped out. Like, was this guy on

drugs? there's dragons and what's going on here? He uses uh he uses a language that's that's common in the Old Testament in the prophetic books and he uses a lot of symbolisms and uh metaphors and imagery and numbers are one of those things. For example, the number seven is is the number of perfection is completion. The number three is similar. It's it's a holy number. It's it's complete. It can't be more complete than three. We have a triune God. And uh as we look at numbers, if seven is the number of perfection, well then the number of six is the number of imperfection. It's the number of man. So if God represents seven, the seven spirits, the perfect God, the number six represents man. And the mark of the beast, which is the antichrist that goes counter to God's

ways, is the number six six6. It's it's it's three sixes. So perfectly incomplete. uh man falls short of the glory of God. And so if we do things opposite of God, we're doing things the way of the devil. Here there are six jars. I believe it represents man. I heard one preacher say it represents denominations and that you know there are many different churches. We wonder why is there so many different churches. Listen, there's only one church that's the church of Jesus. But they come in different pots. Uh some like to sing out of books and be a little more formal and some like to sing loud with lights. And listen, that's not what makes the church. It's Jesus that makes the church. So there are six pots and it represents this diversity and they they they take this water and they do what Jesus says and they they fill it to the brim. Now it says these these were used for the rights of purification. What

that means is these are handwashing stations. Are you tracking with me? The Jewish people, they had these rights of purification. God set up a standard and a law so they wouldn't get sick when they eat food, that they wouldn't uh treat treat their lives like pagans. God set a standard. And so they would wash their hands in these large jars before they would go touch all the food. These are handwashing pots, old stone jars that you would put your hands in and wash. Jesus says, "I want you to fill that." Didn't say, "Go pick a whole cluster of grapes and watch what I can do. I will expedite the process." That's not what he said. That would have made total sense. That's a miracle. He made good wine out of grapes. Wow.

Usually takes years. No, no, no. Go get the bathtub filled up. Filled up. Filled up. 20 to 30 gallons per pot. Do the math here. Just go on the low end of the number. John says 20 gallons times six. That's 120 gallons. That's 450 L. That's a lot of wine. He said, "You you fill those up." They filled them to the brim. Jesus said, "Fill the jars." And they did it. I wonder today what you're doing in your life. Are you doing what Jesus has told you to do? Because at this point, Jesus did not explain what would happen. You want a major miracle? I'm just telling you, just obey God's word. You believe that God's able to do it.

It's not up to you to figure it out because he might say, "Fill up the bathtub. I'm about to do something great." If you knew what Jesus was gonna do, you'd probably be like, "Not that way, Jesus. My kids took a bath last night. Jesus, did you see Fred's hands when he washed his hands in there?" Like, we've been here for a week. I'm not sure that's the place we want to do this miracle. Have you ever tried to talk God out of his plans? If you do, you won't you won't experience what he's about to do. You want a miracle, you better expect it's not going to happen the way you expected. But you got to fill your life to the brim. What does fill your life to the brim means? It means you're going to meet Jesus right where you are, and it will not make sense. Do you think it

made sense for Peter to step out on the water and walk to Jesus? No, it didn't. He was living life filled to the brim. There were still 11 other people in the boat that didn't believe. How about the woman that was bleeding for 12 years that crawled on her hands and feet that she could have gotten in trouble. She could have been put to death, but she did everything she could because she was filled to the brim believing in Jesus if I just touched the hem of his garment. She didn't know what was going to happen. There was a man named Barardemus. When Jesus was walking through Jericho, he heard Jesus was coming. He says, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me." Everybody shut him up. You be quiet. You're blind. You can't do this. You're just know what he's going to do, but I just know I need Jesus. I'm going to bring my problem. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

When you're filled to the brim, it just doesn't make sense. You just fill that jar. You say, "But I'm an old jar with lots of cracks in No, you just keep filling it. You just keep filling it. You just keep filling it." It's not up to you to figure out how Jesus is going to do the miracle. You just have to be obedient to Jesus. And when you do, something spectacular is gonna happen. He's gonna take something ordinary like water. I mean, water is bland. This water, this water might cost $3, but but I'll tell you, it's got zero calories. There's no sustenance in this water. This This water is bland. This water is simple. This this water this just represents ordinary.

But I'll tell you, Jesus didn't give them water. He He transformed this into wine. This a $300 bottle of wine here. Yeah. I got this from my seller. This is a 1986 Shiraz from Italy. I'm totally lying. This is from Trader Joe's. I asked my wife to pick it up last night for me. But it is wine. It's real wine. I wasn't going to cheat you and get some of that sparkling cider stuff. This is wine. This has sustenance. This took time. There was a process. There was a transformation from crushing of the grapes. Your life has been filled with crushing and you've

been wondering why. I'm telling you, God is getting ready to give you unending joy. The world wants you to walk away from God when you're empty. Jesus just says, "I want you to just give me your problem. I'll take care of the rest. I'm not even asking you to get me the grapes. Just give me the dirty pot. Give me the mess. You give me the dirt. I'm going to do something with it." And all of a sudden, we get to see Jesus. What happens when you surrender? Now take it to the master of the feast. In the King James version, it says give it to the governor. You see, when you had a wedding in your town, you would invite the dignitaries and they would be

the master of the ceremonies. They would have nothing to do with providing the food or the wine. They were just there to give a thumbs up or a when you invited a master to your to your wedding, this was the person that you really wanted to please. Because if this person walked away saying that was a wedding like no other, that was good dancing, that was good food, and that was good wine. They bring this this water. Now, we're not told when the transformation happens, but there was a place of of faith. There was a place of pouring out. There was a place of believing that if Jesus said it, could you imagine that servant bringing this cup of bathwater to the master? That took some faith.

I want to just say in all serious for some of you just stepping into church took faith. It took faith. People joke about it all the time, but there's just truth. If I went to church, the walls would fall down on me. What they're just saying is, I feel like I'm ashamed. I feel like I'm going to get condemned. I feel like I'm not going to understand what's going on. It took courage for you to come to church. Jesus is going to bless that and transform your life. For some of you, you're sticking with it somewhere in your life that you shouldn't have stuck with it. That took courage. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you. The enemy would have said, "Run, leave. You're not good enough. You messed up. You're empty. This is who you are. This is who you'll forever be. Not in the hands of Jesus. You're about to be transformed."

My friends, water is cheap. Wine is expensive. God doesn't want to give you a cheap life. He wants you to see your value today. He wants to give you joy and he wants to give it abundantly. Amen. He wants to take where you've been. He wants to take what you've been through. He wants to take the ordinary and he wants to do awesome. He wants to take the handwashing and turn it into holy wine. He wants to take your shame to show you his glory. Isn't that what John said? This was the first sign to manifest his glory. This was not for himself. This was not for them. This was to give all glory to God. So that when you walk around with joy, people say, "What's different about you, Jesus?" He gets the glory. Well, can you explain this? No.

I was empty. I was dirty. But he did something with me. You give the world the good wine that God's put inside of you. I'll tell you today, you may have said you've tried it all and you've ended up empty. But all it takes with God is just a moment. May I just warn you and I'm going to bring this to a close and I want to ask you today, have you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? Do not make the mistakes that the religious did in Jesus day where they demanded a sign of Jesus. So many of us do the same thing. Give me a miracle, then I'll follow you. That's not how it works. I know in your mind it might be how you think God works, but he doesn't work the way we work. The Pharisees, this is my closing scripture. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, these are all the religious leaders of Jesus day. They came to Jesus to test him and they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. They wanted to see a miracle.

Prove it to us we should follow you. Prove it to us that you're worth listening to. Prove it to us. But Jesus answered them. Verse two, when it's evening, you say it'll be fair weather, for the sky is red. In the morning, you say, "It's stormy day today, for the sky is red and threatening." You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. Meaning, God is working right now, but if you're not looking, you're not going to see it. An evil, he says, an evil and an adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. He was pointing to his death, his burial, and his resurrection. So, he left them and departed. They missed the miracle working God because they only wanted the miracle, not the God.

They only wanted proof. They didn't want to put it Jesus teaching into practice. When I talk about surrender today, I'm talking about just giving it all to Jesus. I am not talking about having it figured out. The religious thought they had it figured out. If you have Jesus figured out, start over again. Just start over. Jesus said, "Be like a child. You can't figure him out. We're spend eternity realizing this is unending joy." This isn't wine we're talking about here. That this is something greater. Just right where you are, if you just close your eyes, I want to ask you, do you want Jesus today? Do you want to surrender your full life to Jesus Christ?

Maybe you've even backsliden in your life where where you're empty and you know that Jesus can do for you what needs to be done, but you're not living it right now. Some of you, you're brand new to church and God just spoke to you today and said, "This is what you've been looking for. It's found in Jesus Christ. He loves you. He's got a great plan for you." And if that's you today, I want to pray with you. I want to know who I'm praying with. Would you just have courage right now with eyes closed? Would you just raise your hand up in the air right now? Say, "Yes, I want Jesus. I want to surrender my life to Jesus." Praise God. Someone else here today. Yes. Praise God. So proud of you. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. It's never too late. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. You're going to take this serious. Praise God. You're never too young and you're never too old, but you cannot keep playing games. You can put your hands down. Listen, you're you're struggling with alcohol. You You might need to take Jesus so serious. You you you go get rid of all of it.

Maybe you need to flush something down the toilet. Maybe you need to throw something out. Maybe you need to get rid of something. You take Jesus seriously. I'm telling you, he's going to seriously transform your world. There's going to be healing. There's going to be restoration. There's going to be so much change. Church, can we pray with those making this decision for the first time together out loud together? Lord Jesus, I trust you. I believe in you. Forgive me of my sins. I follow you. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Thank you for salvation. Thank you for wine in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Come on. I've I've never prayed. I thank you for wine, but now we know today we're talking about joy. We're talking about joy. We're talking about joy. We're

talking about joy. Have you been filled up today? Have you been filled up? Because you got to keep coming back. You got to keep getting filled with the spirit. You cannot stop here. You got to get into the word of God so God's word would get into you and do what it says. That's it. Just do what it says. If you need prayer today, we're going to have a prayer team on both sides of these platforms. If you said yes to Jesus, you want prayer for some area of your life, you want to see a miracle, you want to see a breakthrough, God's not done yet. Just give it to him. Bring the problem to Jesus and let's see what God will do. Would you stand to your feet as we sing this last song? prayer team can take your places. If you want prayer, just come on forward during this song and receive prayer today in the name of Jesus Christ.