John 2:1-12 • Life of the Party

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

 I'm going to ask that you look in God's Word with me at John the second chapter, John the second chapter, as we're going to look at the very first miracle of the Lord Jesus as we are getting to know who He is. We talked about this sermon series being "Meeting Jesus," and what would it mean to meet Jesus? Now, John is explaining that in a context very different than the other gospels.



 The other gospels were written soon after the death and resurrection of Jesus, but John isn't writing until decades later. And as a consequence, he's looking back and not only thinking about the facts, but what they mean. And so he's putting those facts together in such a way that we will see the great themes of the gospel. And just to prove that, if you look at John chapter 2 and this verses 1 through 11 that's describing the miracle of the wedding at Cana, you see the very opening words are "on the third day." And then if you look at the end of this account, which is verse 11, toward the end of verse 11, it says, "Jesus did at Cana in Galilee this miracle and manifested His glory."



 Now, why don't you put the pieces together?



 Last week we got John the Baptist introduction to Jesus and said, "He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. There is the declaration that Jesus will be the Lamb sacrificed, and three days later



 He manifests His glory."



 What is John asking us to remember in this gospel? He's revealed to be the Lamb of God, and three days later He manifests His glory. What are you thinking of? The crucifixion and the resurrection. It's what John is doing. He's putting together the themes so that we will understand what God is communicating. And that's precisely what is happening here in the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus turns the water into wine. It's not just a miracle for "aha," it is a miracle to say, "You're now going to know who He is by what happens here." Let's stand for the reading of God's Word as we honor the Word given to us by the Holy Spirit.



 John chapter 2, verses 1 through 11.



 On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with His disciples.



 Then 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 rites 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 it became wine and did not know where it had come from." Though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "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 the first of His signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. Let's pray together. Father, for Your blessing upon Your Word, we now pray, would You by the same Holy Spirit who gave this Word, open our hearts to receive it.



 We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated.



 Now you have to confess it is an unlikely beginning.



 It's the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, and His first miracle to manifest His glory



 is helping His mom keep a wedding from getting embarrassing.



 I mean, it's not exactly what you expect. I mean, you're waiting for the lightning from heaven or the earthquake on cue. I mean, anything that says, "I am the great and powerful," well, you know, that sort of thing.



 I mean, you at least want to say, "Well, you know, can't you like, you know, turn a couple of fish into a meal for 5,000?" You know, something like that.



 Well, all in good time.



 But right now, something else needing to be done.



 Last week we were introduced to "Who This Jesus Is" by John the Baptist. And if you just kind of think of our normal business interchanges, when you're introduced to someone, there's kind of a next step, and the next step is you exchange business cards.



 The business card is going to say who you are, your person and your product and your purpose, but it's just writ small, an indication of something much larger about who you are and what you do.



 And what this first miracle is about, this sign, is actually a statement of who Jesus is and what He will do, writ small. It's really the business card indicating in much larger terms what is going to happen later on.



 Now if you think about what this business card is indicating, showing Jesus business, it's just first saying to us, "This Jesus, He's in the grace business."



 After all, what He is showing us here is that Jesus provides for people what they cannot provide for themselves, which is the very definition of grace. He's providing what people cannot provide for themselves. And you know all about the account. Remember the situation?



 It's a big fat Jewish wedding.



 It's not what you and I think about. You know, the wedding that will last 20 minutes and the reception last a few hours. I mean, this is a big fat Jewish wedding, which means it's supposed to go on from three to six days.



 And they've run out of wine, which in a culture of hospitality means there is huge embarrassment that's occurring now. That a family is going to feel like we have failed. This is going to be remembered for the rest of our lives, that we did not provide what was necessary for our guests. As you think of the situation, you of course know that we don't know the reason the situation has occurred. Why is there not enough wine?



 Did somebody miscalculate?



 Did uninvited guests come?



 Did the delivery truck take the wrong route? I mean, we don't know the reasons for the problem. All we know is the consequence.



 Somebody is guilty of miscalculation.



 And a family is going to know shame forever because of what has occurred.



 If you're facing guilt and shame, what do you do?



 Ask Jesus.



 That's what they do. I mean, Mary goes right to Jesus and she says, "They're out of wine."



 Now the reason she would ask Jesus is not wrong. After all, she knows who He is. She heard the angels and the shepherds, right?



 Peace on earth, good will to men.



 And Mary and those responsible are thinking, "We need a little of that good will in the form of some good wine right now." And so she asks.



 And as one whose business is grace, Jesus provides what people cannot provide for themselves.



 Now you already know the account.



 What I have to address is what troubles us about the account. I mean, there are various concerns with how Jesus handles the miracle. Verse 3, "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?"



 Now whether you've ever heard a sermon on this or would just go to a commentary afterwards and look, you will recognize that people are troubled by Jesus' insensitivity to His mother at this point.



 He doesn't say, "Mom," or whatever the Aramaic equivalent of Abba for father is, you know, He doesn't address her tenderly. He just says, "Woman, what does this have to do with me?"



 Now you must know that this is not meant to be an insult. I mean, this is not insensitive language on itself. It's formal but not insensitive. The reason that we know that Jesus is not being insensitive is first because of Mary's reaction. She is, after all, a Jewish mother.



 And when He addresses her as woman, she does not say, "How dare you talk to your mother that way?"



 In fact, Jesus will address her that way another time in the gospel of John in great tenderness. Do you remember that account?



 Jesus will be on the cross.



 And recognizing that He will not be with His mother to take care of her in her earthly state, He looks at her and the same one who wrote this gospel, John, and says, "Woman,



 behold your son, and to John, behold your mother."



 There's the tenderness. But why does He address her so formally at this point and even at that point? You get some sense of it in the words that follow, "Woman, what has this to do with me?" Now, as we hear those, it sounds like Jesus is distancing Himself from her need. And there is a sense in which He is distancing Himself from her. If I were to simply tell you the words in Greek that are here, it's an idiom in very kind of cryptic and short phrases. The actual literal translation would be, "What to me and to you?"



 What is this to me and to you? As though He's saying, "We live in separate realms. This is not something that you and I share at this point."



 And that in itself is troubling to us if you ever see where that phrase is used again in the gospels. It is a phrase that is used four or five times in its cryptic nature in the gospel, but always it is put in the mouths of demons, demons when they are addressing Jesus.



 As they are saying to Jesus, "What have we to do with you?"



 Saying, "We are in different realms. We are in different spiritual orders. We are not in the same place." And when Jesus addresses His mother and says, "What has this to do with me?" He's not showing lack of concern for His mother. He is showing greater concern for His Father.



 "I am not to be controlled by earthly priorities.



 I am about my Father's business."



 You see that even in the same passage in John chapter 2 if you'll go to verse 16.



 In verse 16, the history has moved forward. And Jesus is no longer in Cain of Galilee. He is in Jerusalem where He finds that there are those who are in the temple of God who are using their position for profit that is not right. Remember they are selling sacrifices and exchanging money in a way that is inappropriate for actually serving the people of God. And Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple ends with this statement, verse 16, "Take these things away. Do not make my Father's house a house of trade."



 He addresses His mother as woman, but His heavenly Father He addresses as Father.



 It's not the first time He's done that either.



 He in this place is saying, "You cannot make my Father's house a house of trade." You may remember there was another time when He was much younger that Jesus was in His Father's house and reminded His mother that He had to be about His Father's business. Do you remember that? The family has gone to Jerusalem. And for whatever reason, I know it never happened in any of your families that you would leave it a child at the fairgrounds or the gas station. But some reason, the Holy Family goes away and Jesus is back in Jerusalem. And you know, they get somewhere down the road in the caravan and they discover He's not with them. And they come back and they find Jesus in the temple talking with the scribes about religious things. And as the parents begin to question Him, He says, "Why are you surprised? Did you not know that I had to be about what? My Father's business."



 And I remember the words again in Aramaic that I had to be in my Father's house.



 I had to be in His realm doing His things. As Jesus is saying, "It's now the heavenly priorities that must motivate me, not simply earthly ones." And the heavenly priority is plain in the last verse, in the last phrase of verse 4. Jesus says, "What does this have to do with me? My hour is not yet come."



 Now if you were to look through the various accounts of John, you would recognize that that phrase is used repeatedly to indicate one thing.



 I'm going to cite the passages because you may want to look at them later yourself. If you were to look up John 7.30 or 8.20 or 12.23 and 27 or 13.1, every time Jesus refers to my time or my hour, He is referring to His crucifixion, to His death. And He says to Mary, "My priorities are now the heavenly priorities. I cannot do earthly things in such a way that it would prematurely cause my death." If I were to create the earthquake, if I were to bring the lightning down, if I were to do that thing that was too obvious at this point, I would challenge the governing spiritual authorities and they would seek me before I had fulfilled all righteousness, doing all that I must do to be this perfect man living an obedient life before God and therefore the perfect Lamb of God at the right hour.



 Mary, I can't do this yet.



 Now you know what Mary does. It's verse 5, right? She speaks to the servants and she says to them, "Do whatever He tells you."



 Now this really troubles us because we put this conversation in the context of our own family spats, right?



 We kind of hear, you know, Mary saying to Jesus, "Set the table.



 Help me out," right? And Jesus says, "It's not my time."



 And then Mary says, "Ignore what He says, do what He tells you."



 And then Jesus says, "Oh, all right, I'll do it."



 It's the holy family.



 He's the Son of God. This is not what's happening.



 He has just said, "Mary, it's not my hour."



 And Mary gets it.



 She doesn't argue with Him. She doesn't dispute with Him. She simply yields it all to Him. Servants, whatever He says, do it.



 What she is willing to do is ask anything and yield everything.



 I ask you what I need, but I yield to you, Lord, what you know is best.



 Even the mother of Jesus would do that.



 The reason I say that to you is because I think what we do when we approach and meet the King of the universe, the Creator of our world, and the Savior of our souls is we say we better not bother Him with the little stuff. I mean, it's just my family. It's just my job. It's just my disease. It's just our kids who are messing up. I can't go bother Jesus with this.



 And what Mary is teaching us is it's okay.



 What the Apostle Paul would later say, "In everything," not just the big things, "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your request known to God."



 Because as you would ask anything but yield everything, He will do what He knows is best. It's precisely what Jesus does. Even right timing and proportion He does precisely what is needed. You recognize this miracle, though it's recorded in Scripture, is at the time virtually a secret miracle. If you look at verse 9, you'll recognize that. "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, recognized what's being said.



 Only those who were most immediate to the task knew what was going on. Others don't know this is not something ready to be broadcast yet. So the only ones who kind of know about it are the servants," and look at verse 11, who else knows about it?



 The disciples.



 So that they are ready to follow Him. But not the authorities, not even apparently the other guests. It is done in measure and proportion and time just exactly what is right according to the wisdom of God. What Mary does is she asks anything but yields everything to Jesus, saying, "If I'm going to put it into His hand, then I have to trust His hand to do what is right."



 That's a hard thing to do, isn't it? To say, "Lord, I'm going to ask this thing, big or small, whatever it is, but then I'm going to trust You to respond in proportion as the wise, ruler, king of the universe do as You know is best."



 Last weekend, Labor Day weekend, my family got a wonderful opportunity to experience this in a way that we were not expecting at all. Some of you know, though my kids don't like being announced, that my married kids were here in the service last week, and we had a meal afterwards with some friends from a church that was part of our experience three decades ago.



 And we were talking, adults with my children around, about our experiences.



 And the wife in the relationship from three decades ago was talking about her experience. What has it been like to be the mother of a child with mental illness?



 She has been working with me from time to time on a book that she is writing on what it means to be a Christian mother dealing with a child of mental illness. And all the depression and the drugs and the alcohol that goes with some sort of self-medication that might go into such an experience, and how hurt and hard has been life, and at the same time what joy they have found through it by dependence upon God.



 She was talking about part of trying to record that and said a few weeks ago she was, with a little time in the morning, typing way furiously, expressing what she wanted to express, all they had been through, their pain, their difficulty, and just typing furiously for hours, getting it out. She had so much down on paper, and then somehow there was this computer crash and it all disappeared.



 By the way, not just that file, but previous day's file of work as well.



 She called her husband in absolute devastation and tears at work saying, "What can I do? I've lost so much. I've worked so hard. I was pouring out my heart. What do I do?" And, you know, they called some friends who were computer experts. They could not retrieve the files. They could not get it back. The husband said, you know, having heard the terrible pain and the tears on the phone, and he got home from work that night and his wife greeted him saying, "Hello, honey,



 bright and sunny." And he said, "What happened between boo-hoo-hoo and hello, honey?" And I wrote it down, what she said.



 She said, "The way that we have made it through and helped others is by yielding everything to the Lord and being satisfied in Him.



 We know that God could heal our Son, and we have prayed for that, but He has taught us to rest in Him.



 We have found deep happiness and contentment, not in endlessly wrestling to change our circumstances, but in trusting the one who loves us enough to send his Son to die for us."



 She said, "That morning when I was writing so furiously for others, I actually was not writing about Jesus."



 She said, "It was all about me, my pain, my anger, my struggle." And then for those of you who were there with us, she said, "There was this little voice of conscience on my shoulder saying, "This is not what you're supposed to be writing." She said, "I kept brushing him away."



 And then she said, "Finally, God just said, "Enough of this," and God hit the delete button.



 And the boo-hoo-hoo and the hello honey, I found rest in Jesus again.



 And I knew that He was sufficient.



 The one who held me and would hold me forever, He was sufficient, and I yielded to Him again."



 As Kathy and I sat with our guests, including our children and their spouses around the table, we could hardly look at each other for blinking back the tears because what we recognized is we could not have asked for better for our own children, some of whom have struggled seriously with health issues and with infertility issues and have prayed and prayed and need to rest in Jesus.



 And here was one saying something so rich and deep of her own experience of the God that she would now trust, not wrestling to make it happen her way, but willing to ask anything and at the same time yield everything to His wisdom and His power and His timing.



 Why would you do that?



 Why would you yield everything to Jesus?



 Because He's not just in the grace business.



 He's also in the joy business.



 I mean, that's His ultimate end even in this account. You recognize it, don't you? Even though He doesn't answer the way Mary is expecting right off the bat, He does answer to bring joy. And if you will, in the parabolic nature of this account where He's signing in small letters what He's actually going to do in large script later on, you recognize that what is being provided is joy of great quantity and also joy of great quality.



 The quantity is indicated in the fact that there are these six stone water drawers, the gospel writer takes care to say, "Filled to the brim." Twenty or thirty gallons their size, each of them, and they are filled to the brim with water and Jesus turns it all into wine. Now, you know, we're in an evangelical culture so we don't often perceive it from a Jewish perspective. For a Jew, this abundance of wine is a signal of great blessing. I mean, I remember, you know, watching a cooking show one time and the chef trying to justify his use of the wine saying, "This is actually given by God."



 What? "'Cause it says in the Bible," he said, "God gives us bread to make us strong, oil to make our faces shine, and wine to make our hearts glad."



 I said, "That's not in the Bible."



 But it is.



 Now, some of you are thinking right now, "No, it's not."



 And others of you are thinking, "What's he doing watching a cooking show?"



 The message of the account is that God is bringing great blessing to His people.



 But it's not just quantity, it's quality.



 Now, part of that quality being expressed is, of course, the wine master saying that this was the best wine, even though it came at the end of the feast where you expect the people who'd had too much to drink not to notice. And yet the wine steward, this master of the feast, the emcee, is saying, "This is the best stuff."



 But that's not the quality that Jesus is wanting us to see in the business card that's indicating so much more about what will happen. The quality that's actually being expressed is being expressed not in the quality of the wine, but in where it comes from. Remember? They were ritual stone jars for what? For purification rituals. Because in Jewish custom, even at these wedding ceremonies, you had to go through all these purification rituals. Remember, we talked about it last week. But Jesus sometimes got in trouble for not doing, for washing His hands and His disciples' hands before they ate, or washing the pots and pans, or "baptizing the tables." All that language of the Scriptures, they were not doing the ceremonial washings that was being expected. But here at the wedding, all the water is there for the ceremonial washings that were to externally purify.



 And now Jesus takes that water intended for external purification, and He turns it into wine that is going to be taken internally and signifies something far greater. For you will remember that in a few more months, He will say of the wine that He gives, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood that is shed for many for the remission of sins." There is purification that will occur, but the purification that will occur will be through His blood, signified by the swine. God is saying through His Son in this account, "You are looking for external things to make you right. You are looking for external things to make things right between you and God." But ultimately, what God is calling for is that which is internal. He is talking to people who know sin and shame and saying, "What you must trust is not the external things that you think will make you right before God. It is your hearts that must be set right, and that is done by something internal. It is done by something that is through blood, and it is done by this one who is able to take water and turn it into the wine that signifies what He will do to purify humanity forever." We don't remember at times. But if we would ask anything and at the same time yield everything, we would recognize that what we're ultimately asking God to do is make us right on the inside, not so much from the outside.



 Some of you will know that prayer from an unknown Civil War soldier in which he expresses what it would mean to actually not trust the external, but find the internal.



 The prayer, "I ask God for strength that I might achieve.



 I was made weak that I might learn humility.



 I ask God for health that I might do greater things.



 I was given infirmity that I might do better things.



 I asked for power that I might know the praise of men.



 I was given weakness that I might know the heart of God.



 I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.



 I was given His life that I might enjoy all things.



 I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for.



 I sought myself, my prayers were answered.



 I'm among all men most blessed."



 Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, that you sought the other things of the world. You sought the things external that you thought would satisfy, and even having received them, found them empty and futile and vain. And what God was doing was taking you to the end of yourself and saying, "It's not the external things, it's what is inside of you that is going to make you know the happiness and the contentment, and that is ultimately through a relationship with me, not your relationship with the things of the world. It's not the external things that are going to satisfy. It is something inside you need. His life, His provision, His blood that takes away guilt and shame and ultimately tells you that whatever comes because you're with Him now, you can take it, you can face it. Isn't that true? If you knew you were with Jesus, you could face anything. If you were Kenneth B. in prison, if you were Archbishop Kitte kidnapped right at this moment, but you knew Jesus were with you, you could deal with it. But what God is calling you to deal with at this moment sometimes is kids in terrible positions, a marriage in terrible shape, a career that's in shambles, a future that's uncertain and to say, "But if you're with Him, if you're with Him, you can deal with this," because He's not just in the grace business, He is in the joy business, and the way that He brings that ultimate fulfilling joy is by a relationship with Him. And the signification of that is in this account in itself, which is not just telling us that He is in the grace business and not just in the joy business. Ultimately, He's telling us He's in the wedding business.



 It's that union that's being indicated here that is the ultimate fulfillment as Christ is seeking to unite Himself with us. I mean, in all the Orthodox wedding ceremonies, we say that what Jesus did is He sanctified marriage by His presence at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.



 But what I recognize and you should recognize He's doing, He's not just sanctifying that wedding, He is sanctifying His wedding, saying, "What I ultimately desire on this business card with a little writing is the mission in large scope, which is to be united eternally with a people, heart to heart, life to life, eternity with every… I desire to be married to you." It's what God says over and over again in the Scriptures, presenting the people as the bride and Himself as the bridegroom, who is working for a heart unity that enables us to face anything because we are united to Him.



 Now, you may not see that because we don't recognize all that is going on in the way that John is writing, because it's not in English, Western, United States terms.



 But if you were a Jew, you would understand this was the first of the signs that Jesus did to manifest His glory, says John. Now the first of the signs.



 What are the function of signs? If I just tell you some of their sequence in the Gospel of John, you'll get it immediately, okay? When Jesus took the five loaves to feed 5,000, it immediately preceded His teaching that He was the bread of life.



 When He took the man born blind and gave Him His sight, it was immediately preceding the teaching, "I am the light of the world."



 When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was immediately preceding the teaching that I am the what?



 The resurrection and the life.



 The sign carries spiritual significance much broader. And if you were a Jew at the time of this writing of what happened at the wedding feast at Cana, what you are not going to be doing is debating whether or not Jesus should have made water into wine. What you're going to be doing is saying, "I get it! John is telling me who Jesus really is, because He is the fulfillment of prophecy and the foreshadowing of promise according to the Scriptures."



 If you want to think what a Jew would be thinking about when he learned that Jesus turned water into very fine wine, you have to go back to Isaiah 25. Isaiah 25, if you're using the pocket Bibles there in the pews, 586, page 586, Isaiah 25. Isaiah 25 is describing the prophecy of the coming Messiah, to rescue a people who have been in rebellion and are suffering.



 And now God is saying, "When I send the Messiah, there are certain things that are going to identify who He is." Verse 6 of Isaiah 25, "On this mountain that is in the holy city of God, the Lord of Host will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, a rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well-refined."



 Here is the statement of when He comes, He's going to provide feasts, which include this great wine. We say, "Well, okay, maybe." I mean, it's great that Jesus provided wine in that way, but that's not all that Isaiah says in anticipation of the Messiah. If you go on in verse 7 of Isaiah 25, it says, "And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering." Now, that actually is a word for a death shroud.



 He is going to swallow up the death shroud that is cast over all peoples. And He said, "Well, actually, that's not in John 2." True.



 But John isn't finished telling the story.



 If you got your Bibles still open, go to John 4 and verse 46, because in John 4 and verse 46, John records that Jesus goes back to Cana, the very place where the water was turned to wine, very fine wine. And you may remember in John 4 and verse 46 that we are told at that point that Jesus came again to Cana and Galilee where He had made the water wine.



 And you remember what happened there? There was an official who came to Him and said, "My son is dying."



 And Jesus said to him, "Go home.



 Your son will be well."



 And the official goes back home, and on the way home, he meets his servants who are coming to tell him that his son has actually been made well. And when the official says, "At what hour?" When did he get well?



 And the servants say the hour. It was exactly the same hour that Jesus said, "Your son will be saved from death."



 Oh, but you say, "Well, wait a second. Okay, now maybe he took away the death shroud."



 But that's not all it says.



 It says in Isaiah 25.7, "He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples."



 I mean, the swallowing up of death wasn't just supposed to be for Jews anymore.



 You know where I'm going, don't you?



 It was not a Jewish official.



 What kind of official came and asked Jesus for help with His dying son?



 A Roman centurion as the death was being swallowed up, not just for one, but for all peoples.



 Oh, but you say that's not all that Isaiah says.



 Finally, Isaiah says this, "He, this coming Messiah, will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces."



 Oh, John didn't say that in John 2 or John 4, but John hasn't finished telling the story. There is another book in the Bible that John wrote. What is it?



 Revelation. And in the book of Revelation, you may remember that what John tells us is there will be one more great wedding feast. It will be the wedding feast of the Lamb. Where this same Jesus, the one has been declared in this very book to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world will invite all peoples to the wedding feast of the Lamb. And what will happen then? Death will be swallowed up forever. Because John says, "I saw the holy city of God descending from heaven as adorned as a what? A bride for her husband." And at that point, what will happen? God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. This Jesus, this Lamb is going to wed His people forever, and by changing their hearts, their spirits, their souls forever, it will be an eternal swallowing up of death. In our wedding ceremonies we say, "In sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, till death do us part."



 But the wedding supper of the Lamb says, "In sickness or in health, in plenty or in want, in sin or in shame, and never shall death part us."



 This is the promise of the wedding of this one who has presented His business card small so that we will know the plan large. As profound as can be, the joy of a man and a woman made one so is God saying is even more profound what happens when the soul of a man or woman is made one with Jesus by the shedding of blood that takes away guilt and shame so that we are united to an eternal God forever. And that is the plan because He is in the wedding business. And when you know that, when you know that despite health or sickness, plenty or want, sin or shame, you can be one with this Christ, this Jesus, now and forever. The promises of eternity begin to enroad into the present and you say, "As hard as this may be, I still can know joy because I know the future, I know the plan, and I know what is ahead."



 God has made me one with Himself by the work of His Son. That's the wedding that you're being invited to right now.



 Earlier in this service, I actually asked that we sing "Blessed Assurance" written by Fanny Crosby, America's most prolific hymn writer. She wrote over 8,000 hymns, though she was blind.



 Blind at the age of six weeks due to a mistake from a doctor and lived to be 95 years old.



 All that time, blind and writing of the grace and the goodness, how could she do that? Because she said, "I have learned the depth and the wonder of His grace through my blindness." Late in her life, she was asked, "If you could be given your sight, how would that change your life?"



 And her response was simple, "If someone were to offer me my sight, I would not accept it."



 God has done me no harm.



 By taking away my sight, I have been taken away from the distractions of the pleasures of this world, and God has shut me in with Jesus.



 And there I have known such joy of His grace that I would never part of it even for my sight.



 I don't know the challenges you face, the hurt or the pain, but this I know.



 If you could face it with Jesus, you could face anything.



 And that's what He promises.



 Sin, guilt, shame, gone.



 Whether in sickness and health, plenty or want, He is yours forever, and you are His.



 And when you know that, you can face anything.



 Ask Him what you need.



 Trust Him to take care of it.



 He will be with you and take you through it.