Turn with me in your Bibles this evening to the Gospel of John, Chapter 2. This evening we're going to consider the entire chapter, so I will be reading the whole chapter. So let us give ear to the word of the Lord. On the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, They have no more wine. Dear women, dear woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, My time has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water. So they filled them to the brim. And he told them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so, 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 and said, everyone brings out the choice wine first, and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But you have saved the best till now. This the first of his miraculous signs Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, Get these out of here, how dare you turn my father's house into a market. His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. Then the Jews demanded of him, what miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days. The Jews replied, it has taken 46 years to build this temple and are you going to raise it in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many people saw the miraculous signs that he was doing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man. Thus far is the reading of God's word. May he bless it to our hearts this evening. Now, beloved in the Lord, when I was young, a young child, one of my favorite things to do was to go to Disneyland. And every time I got the opportunity to go to Disneyland, I would be very excited. But I would be really excited when we were on the freeway and we were approaching Disneyland and I would see the sign on the side of the road that said, Disneyland, next exit. That is when my sister and I would start getting very excited, screaming, jumping up and down in our seats with our seatbelts on, of course. But we knew that Disneyland was very near. Now, why, may you ask, was my sister and I getting all excited about a green piece of sheet metal on the side of the road with white lettering on it? Well, of course, we weren't getting excited about the sheet metal on the side of the road, the sign itself. But we were getting excited about what the sign was pointing to. Because we knew that when we saw that sign on the side of the road, we would very soon be in the happiest place on earth. Now, this portion of John's Gospel, which we're considering this morning, begins a section of John's Gospel, what many scholars term, the Book of Signs. Now, this first half of John's Gospel, the Book of Signs, is where John lays out seven miraculous events that Christ performs that he terms signs. In your Bible, it's translated miraculous sign. Now, the point, the reason why John calls these signs and not just miracles is because they serve a specific function. These are not just magic tricks that Christ performs for entertainment value. This isn't something that Christ is doing to gain popularity or notoriety. Oh, look at this guy. He knows how to work magic. Rather, Christ did these miracles for specific purposes, to point to specific things, namely to validate his message, to show that he was indeed who he claimed to be, and also to teach specific things about his ministry. Now this evening, we consider our first point, the sign, and I call it the sign because it is Christ's first sign, as John tells us, after he turns the water into wine. Now, where does this take place? Well, this takes place at a wedding. And weddings in the ancient world, especially among the Jews of the time, were huge social events. There were large gatherings where you would invite as many people as you possibly could. And it was up to the hosts of the wedding to provide the wine for the celebration. And you say, well, not simple enough. Well, some of these celebrations would last up to seven days. They would take an entire week. Some of you may have gone to a long wedding, but I doubt any of you have gone to a wedding that long. Seven days. Now, as I mentioned, it was up to the hosts of the wedding to provide wine for everybody, for the festivities, for the entire seven days. And if you ran out of wine, that was a huge social faux pas. You were not supposed to do that. And if you did that, if you were that guy who didn't have enough wine for the festivities at the wedding, you would be ridiculed until the day you died. You'd always be known as that one guy who didn't have enough wine for the festivities. People weren't able to enjoy themselves for the entire seven-day stretch. Well, this very thing happened at a wedding that Christ was at. They ran out of wine. Now, Christ's mother was there, Mary, and she found out before word spread. she found out early on that they had run out of wine, and she wanted to spare these people of the embarrassment that they would incur if this had happened. So what does she do? Well, she goes to her eldest son, Jesus, and she tells him they have run out of wine. Now, I don't know if we can be completely sure if Mary expected a miracle here. John tells us that this is Jesus' first sign, and although the beginning of Christ's life, the infancy narratives, which I'm sure we all just considered over Christmas. Even though those things surrounded his life, many miraculous things happened then. There's no reason for us to believe that for the most of Jesus' life, he lived an ordinary life. And he probably didn't work many miracles. John tells us this is his first miracle. This is the first one he performs in his ministry. So I don't know if Mary necessarily expected a miracle. Perhaps she was just telling her oldest son, her faithful son, who was able to get things done, they've ran out of wine. She had no one else to go to. Now, Jesus' response may strike us as a bit odd, to say the least. Perhaps even rude. But let me encourage you this evening that Jesus was not being rude to his mother. This does not give you the license to be rude to your mom. Jesus is not dismissing his mother. He is not ignoring what she thinks as important per se. Look what he says to her. He says, dear woman, why do you involve me? Literally in the Greek it is, what is it to me and what is it to you? And it is a way of sort of distancing himself from his mother. And even in the way he calls her, he calls her dear woman. This, although polite and not rude, is not a typical way you address your mom. You don't usually call your mother woman. But Jesus is sort of distancing himself from his mother at the beginning here of his ministry. And he is also speaking past her. Mary comes to him with what she feels is very important. They've run out of wine. Jesus, on the other hand, in his response, speaks past her. What does he say? In verse 4, he says, My time has not yet come. Now, this time of Jesus, or his hour, as it is in some other translations, is spoken of throughout the Gospel of John, and you really don't know what exactly Jesus is referring to early on. But later, after reading the entire Gospel, you see that the time of Christ, his hour, as it were, is the hour or time of his glorification. You see later in John chapter 17, he says, Now is the time, now is the hour where you will glorify me, praying to the Father. But ironically, we see in John's Gospel that the hour of Christ's glorification is actually the hour of his death. It is his crucifixion where Christ is glorified. So rather than it being the defeat of Christ, rather than him suffering a martyr's death, a tragic end, it is actually the road to glory, it is the way in which he is glorified. And so therefore it is his hour of glorification. But Christ is telling us it is not yet. I have many things to do before that. And so even though John tells us in verse 11 that Christ reveals his glory, he manifests his glory to his disciples, he does so in a veiled way. So much so that this miracle, the turning of water into wine, is done in secret. Really, only his disciples and the waiters, the ones who are serving the wine, really know what's going on. You were not necessarily led to believe that word actually spread, that everyone found out that a miracle had happened, but rather it was kept in secret, and he does so in a veiled manner. Well, what is the result of this miracle? Jesus tells these servants, there's these stone jars sitting here, it ran out of wine, He tells them, pour water into these stone jars. And as they do so, we don't know if it happened when they're pouring or when they drew out, but at some point, Jesus, through an act of recreation, through sheer power only God possesses, he is able to turn this ordinary water into wine. And not just any wine, but as we see from the response of the master of the banquet, it is the best wine he's ever tasted. This is not this two-buck chuck that you can pick up at Trader Joe's. It is not a cheap two-gallon jug of burgundy. This is the finest wine that has ever placed itself on human lips. And we see from this response of the master of the banquet, it's kind of funny. He says, you know, most people, they reserve the cheap stuff when everyone's discretion has lowered a bit. You know, you give the good wine when everyone's palate is fresh and they can taste it. But after a while, you know, when it doesn't really matter, that's being some of the cheap stuff. But now, he's tasting the best wine he's ever tasted. So this miracle is a pretty simple miracle. It's not necessarily difficult to understand what happened, the facts. But another question remains, why? Why would Jesus do this? Especially for his first miracle, John tells us. So in other words, we are considering the miracle, but let us consider the sign aspect. John calls this not just a miracle, but it's a sign. So let us ask the question, what is the sign pointing to? Well, wine in Scripture, throughout the Old and New Testament, is spoken of as a blessing of God to his people. Psalm 104, verse 15 says, You have given wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man's heart. In the book of Kings, 1 Kings chapter 4, speaking of the prosperity that the children of Israel experienced under the reign of Solomon, it says, And Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beersheba, every man under his vine, that's a reference to wine, and under his fig tree all the days of Solomon. The prophets as well, in their language, they pick up this idea of wine as a blessing of God. Isaiah chapter 25, for example, says, On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And Amos, in the last chapter of his book, says, I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. So we see the prophets pick up this language of wine as a blessing of God, typifying the future salvation that God will perform. And of course, in Matthew chapter 26, the words of institution, Christ tells us, I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. So beloved, wine is not only an earthly blessing, but it is a heavenly blessing, something that pictures the blessings of heaven, something that we will partake of with Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb at the last day when he returns. So with this miracle, with this sign, Christ is pointing to the fact that he is the one who brings the blessings of God, indeed heaven itself. Christ is the one who brings heaven. He's the one who gives to us the kingdom of God and all of its blessings and all of the rejoicing that comes along with it. That is what Christ is pointing to with this miracle. And so we can look at the response of the disciples, the ones who saw this miracle, the ones who realized its significance. And what did they do? Well, we see at the end, after Christ had revealed his glory, in verse 11, it says, they put their faith in Jesus. And that is always the proper response to an act of Christ. Whatever Christ does, we should respond in faith. Now, I mentioned in John's book, we're considering this first half of his book is known as the Book of Signs. And I mentioned that there are seven signs in particular that John outlays. But there are also many other acts of Jesus and other statements of Christ that are symbolic as well and serve almost the same function as a sign. Which brings us to our second point this evening, the sacrilege. And this is going to be in verses 12 through 22 of the sacrilege. Now this takes place during the Feast of Passover. The Feast of Passover was a feast that commemorated the exodus of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery. And this feast was held every year, and every year during Passover, all Jewish males, no matter where they lived in the ancient world, were required to come to Jerusalem. They were required to come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices and to keep the Passover meal. And Christ, as he did every year, came to Jerusalem with his family. Now, Jerusalem, as you can imagine, during Passover time, was teeming. The population would swell dramatically. And this really became, for many merchants and people who had inns and other things like that, in the hospitality business, this really became a money-making opportunity. If the population of Jerusalem is going to increase five times, let's say, there's going to be a lot of opportunity for people to be making money. And the temple, those who were in charge of the temple at the time, they were well aware of this. You can just imagine the convenience if you have to travel from, let's say, what is modern-day Turkey, all the way down to Jerusalem to keep the feast, how convenient would it be to not have to bring any animals? You don't have to bring the Passover lamb. You don't have to bring that ram you were going to offer for the sacrifice. You could travel lightly, and then once you make it to Jerusalem, once you've completed your journey, then you can purchase the necessary sacrificial animals. You can get the lamb for Passover and things of that nature. So the temple authorities knew about that, and they were able to offer this convenience. Also, all Jewish males were required to pay a tax. This was a temple tax. The thing is, the temple only accepted a certain type of coin. They were not going to take an unclean Roman coin or any other type of currency that was flowing around in the day. Rather, they accepted only a certain type of coin. Therefore, there is the need for the money changers. These are people that you can bring whatever coin you have and get in return the proper coin so you can pay your tax to the temple. Now, what is the problem here? Well, the problem is that they were setting this whole enterprise up inside the temple precincts. Furthermore, they were exploiting the worshippers of God. In the other passages where we read of this story, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we read Christ calling this area, this whole enterprise, a den of thieves. That alludes to the fact that these people were using this as an opportunity to line their pockets and to exploit the people of God and to make money off of the worship of God. And they were thwarting the true purpose of the temple. They were twisting the true idea that was supposed to be conveyed, which is worshiping God and drawing near to him. That is the true purpose of the temple. From the very establishment of the tabernacle during the Exodus, all the way through to all Christ, the temple, the tabernacle, and then the temple later, was supposed to be a place where people were to come, draw near to God, and to worship him. And the temple authorities, during the life of Christ, had twisted it and made it a money-making opportunity and were exploiting the people of God. So what does Christ do in response? Well, he gets furious. He makes a whip. He drives out all the animals. He turns over the tables and he makes a complete ruckus. It's utter chaos. And he drives all these people out. Now, as he's doing this, the disciples remember a verse. A verse comes to their mind. And the verse that they remember is verse 9 of Psalm 69. It is actually the psalm which we sung earlier. How convenient. And in that verse, the verse that they remembered, the verse actually says in the Old Testament, it says, For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Now this psalm, Psalm 69, is a psalm of David, And it really is a psalm where he cries out to God for deliverance from his enemies. It is a psalm of the righteous sufferer. Christ tells us, remember, blessed are you when you are persecuted, and blessed are you when you suffer for righteousness' sake. Well, this is exactly that sentiment. This is a psalm of David crying out for deliverance from his enemies for his righteous suffering. But you may have noticed that John, when he quotes this verse, he actually changes it. You remember what I said when I quoted it? I said, zeal for your house has consumed me. That's past tense. Zeal for your house has consumed me. But what does John say? John says, zeal for your house will consume me. He changes it from the past tense to the future tense. And we say, well, what's the significance of that? What are you trying to say, John? What John is doing is he's pointing forward to the cross. He's saying that the zeal that Christ has for the house of God, the temple, is ultimately going to lead to his death. It is pointing forward to the hour of his glorification, that is, the cross. And we can see this in the parallel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This event, actually, in their accounts, takes place at the beginning of Holy Week. That is, the week where Christ died. And really, this event, the purging of the temple, the cleansing of the temple, is really the straw that broke the camel's back in the mind of his accusers, in the mind of the authorities. And when he did this, it solidified in their mind that this guy has to die. And ultimately, this act led to his death in a fulfillment of Psalm 69. But once again, we're faced with the question, if this is a sign or like a sign, what is the sign pointing to? What is the point of Jesus purging the temple? Now, some of us may want to think, well, you know, if they've distorted the purpose of the temple with all these animals and the whole marketplace thing, and Christ purges the temple of all that going on, isn't Christ wanting the Jews of his day to restore the purpose of the temple? Perhaps issue a moral reform. Get these people to get their act together and get the temple up and going again and have it being as it should always be. Is that what Christ is wanting to convey by this act? No, that is not what he ultimately wanted to accomplish. But rather, by this act, Jesus is rejecting the temple and the entire sacrificial system as no longer being valid. By this act, I'll say that again, Jesus rejects the temple and the entire sacrificial system as no longer valid. Look with me as he answers his accusers. His accusers come to him and they demand a sign of Christ. They demand him to perform a miracle to justify his action. But Christ never performed miracles or did signs in response to his accusers. Rather, what he does is he mentions his resurrection. He says, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But rather, they misunderstand him. They think he's talking about the temple itself. They think when Christ says, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up, they were thinking they took him literally. Herod the Great had actually started refurbishing the temple some 15 to 20 years before Christ was even born. And it actually didn't even get finished. They weren't even putting the final touches on it until AD 60, or AD 64, six short years before it was ultimately destroyed by the Romans. So they misunderstood Christ to think that he was talking about the temple itself. But what was Christ talking about? John tells us that he was talking about the temple of his body. So here Christ declares, he first of all rejects the temple as no longer valid. And then he declares that he himself is the true temple of God, which the temple, the physical temple, and the altar, and the high priest, and the whole sacrificial system, which all of that ultimately pointed to. Christ himself is the fulfillment of all these things. Christ is the true high priest. He is the true sacrificial victim. He is the true temple. And he is the substance, and those are the shadowy things. That is what the book of Hebrews tells us, especially in chapter 9, where the author says, But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once and for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, Thus securing an eternal redemption for if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Beloved, the gospel for you this evening is that Christ is the fulfillment of the temple. He is the one who fulfills the true purpose of the temple. He is the one who offered himself for you in your place and cleansed you, not only your physical body, but your conscience as well, and enabled us to draw near to God and to worship him because of his sacrifice. So once again we are faced, once again we see the response of the disciples. After this act where he had purged the temple, where he said it's no longer valid and I am the fulfillment of that. His disciples, and it wasn't until after he rose from the dead, John tells us. But his disciples remembered that event. And what was their response? Well, once again in verse 22, we see that they believed. Once again, they placed their faith in Christ. Now, John mentions others who believed in his name, and we see this in verse 23, our final point this evening, the sinners. John says, now, while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. But interestingly enough, look in verse 24, it says, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them. So literally it says, you know, these people believed on the name of Jesus. But Jesus didn't believe in them. They had faith in Jesus, a so-called faith, but Christ didn't place his faith in them. Well, why is that? Well, obviously we want to say that these people, the people that I'm calling sinners, really only had a superficial belief. Really they only had a nominal faith. Based upon the extraordinary events that Christ was accomplishing. So in a sense, to continue our theme this evening, they were able to see the sign, but they failed to grasp what the sign points to. All they were seeing were miracles. They looked at Christ and they saw a miracle worker. And they were fascinated. And they thought, oh, this guy's interesting. Let's follow this guy around. See what this guy's going to do next. But unlike the disciples, they failed to see what the sign pointed to. They failed to see the significance. And their hearts were not changed. They did not believe as they should. They did not discern the true meaning of the signs. They failed to see its object. And Jesus knew that. He, being eternal God, was able to peer into their hearts. He was able to see their depravity and their sinfulness. And he did not need, John tells us, anyone to tell him about that. He did not need any convincing of the doctrine of total depravity. He knew it all too well, because he was able to look into their hearts and see only their nominal belief, unlike the disciples. So this evening, let us respond with true hearts of faith in all the things that Christ has done for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.