To Live the Life of Blessings
John 2:1-11

Receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and be blessed.
I used to hear that a lot amongst Korean Christians.
Not many will object to being blessed.
Whether they are a believer or not, people do want blessed and happy life.
Why do you work so hard?
Why do you drive your kids so hard?
(Korean parents, both in Korea and in US, are known to drive their kids hard. When an Asian student says he or she failed the test, they ask whether it means real fail or Asian fail. Asian fail is defined as 97 or below.)
We do so because we want good, happy life.

Actually, blessings are something that we, as Christians, should strive for.
First message of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount were the Beatitudes (blessings).
Psalm 1 begins “blessed is the man who…”
When God called Abraham, he promised Abraham blessings.
I hope and pray that we will all be able to enjoy these same blessings in our lives.

And to take it a step further, I hope we can share those blessings with others.
There is a Korean CCM singer, named Jo-Shu-A (조수아).
She sang a response song to one of the more famous Korean CCM song “You Were Born to Be Loved,” called “Expecting Another Fruit.”
This is a part of the lyric: “You were born to be loved, and to share that love. God has chosen you and placed you here, expecting another fruit from your life.”
She also sang a song called, “Love Letter.”
“Lord has sent me into the world as Christ’s letter. I pray that people will be able to read Christ through my life.”
What is the commonality between the two songs?
Both are saying that if you were loved and blessed by God, then do not hoard it, but share it with others.
We need to live the life that brings blessings of God unto others.
When God promised Abraham blessings, not only did God promised to bless him, but for him to be a source of blessings unto others.

Today, we want to look at how we can live such life, through our text.

Today’s passage is very well known passage.
At a wedding in Cana, Jesus turned water into wine.
I actually preached on this back in January 17.
(How many of you remember that message? “It is also a grace and blessing to be forgetful.”)

I told you, as we began the sermon series of John, that it could take years if we were to go through every verse.
Dr. James Boice of the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia has given over 200 sermons, and he actually gave over 10 sermons on today’s passage alone.
Today’s passage is full of God’s grace and truth.
• Moving from the age of the Law to age of Grace.
• Out of the old comes something new.
• Something new is created from emptiness.
• Concept of time – verse 4 “My time has not yet come.”
• When is the Lord’s time? Bible talks about time in two different ways: Chronos and Kairos.
o Chronos – chronology, time that goes by.
o Kairos – appointed time or season.
• God’s abundant blessings – look how much wine is made.
We can think about a lot of different things, and each of those things will give us new challenges.

But I want to focus on how we can live a blessed life.
We can learn the life of blessings through the servants.
What did the servants do?
They obeyed.
When they had run out of wine, Jesus’ mother, Mary, tells the servants to do what Jesus tells them.
And they obeyed, filling up those water jars with water, just as Jesus instructed them.

This was a part of the passage that I often glanced over.
I took an exegesis class on John, and when I was an educational pastor, I even wrote Bible Study materials on John.
And this was one part that I just glanced over.
But one missionary from Nicaragua talked about this part.
How did the servants fill the water in the jar?
Think about it.
It is not like they can just turn on the faucet.
In Nicaragua, they dig wells for clean water, and use automatic pumps to draw water.
Not so during Jesus’ days.

We do not know how many servants there were nor how long it must have taken them.
But they had to go out to the well, draw water, pour it into the jar, and go back out to draw some more.
Where is the well located?
It is often at the outside of the town.
When we look at John 4, when Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman at the well, we understand that it was a big chore to go out and draw water.
But to fill 6 jars, each holding 20~30 gallons of water…it must have taken them awhile.

But they obeyed without any complaints.
They took the water to the master of the party, and the water turned into wine.
And it was even better wine than the first.

This was so important in their culture.
Israel’s wedding often lasted several days, and people enjoyed that time together.
Wine was an important part of the party.
Rabbis often said “if there is no wine, there is no joy.”
If you run out of wine at your party, you might even be sued.
In this context, Jesus was able to provide joy to the groom’s party and gave the best wine to all the guests there, through the obedience of servants.
It was only possible, because they obeyed.
Because they labored, sweating in the hot Middle East days, going back and forth, filling those water jars, people were able enjoy the party, and even those servants grew in faith.
Verse 9 – “When the master of the feast…did not know where it came from (though servants who had drawn the water knew)…”
What do you think was going through the minds of those servants?
They must have been so proud.
They must have been overrun with joy, knowing that they were able to please their master through it.
And that joy was shared with others, in the form of wine.
When the servants obeyed, they were able to be the source of blessings unto others.

Life of a blessing, life of joy, and life that is the source of blessing unto others, all starts with obedience.
Abraham obeyed when God told him to leave his father’s house, Moses obeyed when God told him to hit the Red Sea with his staff, and Joshua obeyed when God told him to circle the Jericho for seven days. When they obeyed, blessings came, but when they disobeyed, hardship and struggle came.

Servants obeyed.
And they obeyed to the fullest, completely.
Verse 7 tells us that they filled the water to the brim.

But what about us?
Why can’t we obey like these servants?
I believe it is because we often calculate, using our own formulas, rather than trusting God.
Rather than trusting the word of God, we often run calculations in our heads and let our knowledge take over.
Often, it seems like I will be losing out if I obey.
Will God really do it as he promised?

What would have happened if the servants started calculating in their heads?
There will not be any wine.
This is why we do not often enjoy the fullest extent of God’s blessings in our lives.
We do not fully trust God and fully rely on him.
We are often unsure, but we need to know this.
Certainty only comes when you commit.
Commitment before certainty.
We do not commit because we are certain, rather we commit and then certainty comes.

How can we commit then?
We ought not to look at ourselves, but we need to look at God.

God tells us to give up everything and commit ourselves to him.
But before God tells us that, God himself as given up everything and committed himself to us.
He gave his one and only begotten Son and committed to us.
Verse 11 – “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”
Glory – John often talks of Jesus’ glory or time for his glory.
John also uses the term “being raised” in relation to glory.

When was Jesus raised to manifest his glory?
He was raised up on the cross.
That is God’s commitment to us.
God committed to loving us and saving us, to the point of nailing his one and only Son upon the cross.
And this God, who gave his Son Jesus to death, who has fully committed everything for us, asks of us to commit and obey just a little bit, how can we not?
When God was willing to break that eternal loving bond of the Holy Trinity in order to love us, asks us to give up just a little bit of our time, resources, comfort, etc., how can we not obey?
I pray that we will be able to fully commit ourselves to the Lord.

I will close with one last story.
A boy had lots of marbles and a girl had lots of dolls.
They were both happy with their own toys.
But soon after, they got bored.
So they agreed to exchange their toys.
The girl gave all her dolls to the boy, and the boy gave his marbles to the girl, but he also kept few of his favorite at home.
The girl went home happy, playing with those marbles.
But there was this lingering question in the boy’s mind.
“Did she really give all of her dolls to me?”

Let us fully trust and obey the Lord, and enjoy the life of blessings.
And let us also be the source of blessings and happiness unto others.
Let us fully trust and obey.