Jesus' Second Sign in John by John

Jesus’s Second Sign in John.
John 4:43-54

1. This is the climactic event in chapters 2-4.
2. There are 6 gifts for human beings that the coming of Jesus makes in these two chapters. They are:
(1) 2:1-12, A NEW Joy!
(2) 2:13--25, A NEW Worship.
(3) 3:1-21, A NEW Birth.
(4) 3:22-26, A NEW Master.
(5) 4:1-42, A NEW Fellowship.
(6) 4:43-54, A NEW Life.
3. When you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, all of these become yours! You have NEW joy, NEW worship, the NEW Master, NEW Fellowship, and NEW LIFE!
4. This morning we are looking at the unique way Jesus introduced all of these gifts of God I’ve just listed.

I. In this section, Jesus changed directions.

1. He had been to Judah and Jerusalem in particular.
(1) This was His native land.
(2) He was born in Bethlehem due south of Jerusalem.
(3) He had performed his first miracle in Cana of Galilee which is far north of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is west of the northern tip of the Dead Sea, and Cana is west of the Lake of Geneseret, or the Sea of Galilee. They are about 80 miles apart as the crow flies.
2. In each of these six things Jesus did, He showed the Jews that they had been practicing their religion incorrectly all these hundreds of years.
3. It was time for them to make a change, and they would have to change or they could not accept Christ as their Messiah!
4. As John began to write, in 1:11,12, “ “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”
5. John knew when he wrote that they refused Him, and He turned toward Galilee and the Gentiles!

II. Let’s look at each of the instances we mentioned.

1. When He turned the water to wine in 2:1-12, it brought joy to the people.
(1) Joy was not unknown in Judaism.
A. In Psalms 98:4, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise.”
B. They had every reason to rejoice, but disobedience takes joy away. They disobeyed the Lord and lost their joy!
(2) By the time Jesus came, joy was largely unknown in Jewish religion.
(3) God’s first gift in Jesus was a new joy! He is the Savior of the whole world!
2. John 2:13-22, When He chased the money changers out of the temple, He showed them their worship practices were not God’s!
(1) God’s House is not a place to make money!
A. In Mt. 21:12, Jesus overthrew the money-changers tables and drove them out again at the end of His ministry. This time He quoted Isaiah 56:7, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all people,” and Jeremiah 7:11, “Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.”
B. Even hundreds of years before Christ came to earth, the Jews were already using worship as a means of making money!
(2) The coming of Jesus heralded the return to godly worship.
(3) In John 4:23,24, Jesus told the woman at the well, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
(4) The general churchgoer then and now do not please God. Jesus brought us the ability to worship God as He wants us to.
3. John 3:1-21 tells of the new birth every person needs.
(1) We live in a world that teaches us that we can change ourselves. Even psychologists and psychiatrists tell us that we can.
(2) Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again or he could not even see the Kingdom of God.
(3) That was totally incomprehensible to Nicodemus.
(4) When Jesus told him, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” I think Nicodemus got an inkling of the truth.
A. He is mentioned again in 7:50,51 asking, “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?”
B. In John 19:39,40, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus buried the body of Jesus and anointed His body with a mixture of myrrh and aloes. That’s when I think Nicodemus was convinced that he needed to be born again.
(5) What was true for Nicodemus is true for us. We cannot even see the kingdom of God without being born again!
4. John 3:22-26, 30 relates that we must make Jesus our Lord.
(1) There have been, and always will be until Jesus comes again, religious leaders that people adore and worship!
(2) God gave us this account to show us that the foremost prophet of that time, John the Baptist, said that he was not the Christ, but Jesus was.
(3) He wanted his own disciples to understand that their loyalty should be in Jesus, not him.
(4) There are many charismatic leaders today, and people tend to worship them.
(5) People need to remember that when in Revelation when angels spoke to John he wanted to worship at their feet, and they commanded him not to do it!
(6) No man on earth is to be called your father meaning that our worship must be reserved for God!
(7) Jesus is Lord, and that was completely new to the Jews, and it must become a reality to each of us, or we have no place with Him!
5. John 4:1-42. The key verse here is 42.
(1) I can tell you a lot about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, but I have never met any of them, and I certainly don’t worship them!
(2) The people in Samaria, Gentiles probably, half-Jew half-Gentile possibly reported to the woman, “Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world!”
(3) I grew up learning about Jesus, right and wrong, the rules of order and worship, and I belonged to the church, but that wasn’t enough.
(4) Myron Hayter introduced me to Jesus, and I found everything I ever wanted in Him!
(5) The new Fellowship we have is personal! So personal that Romans 8:16,17 says, ”The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are God’s children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
(6) I’ll admit, I can’t see that picture clearly enough to think I really understand it, but I have faith to believe my new relationship with my heavenly Father is that of a beloved son! And that is yours, too, if Jesus is your Lord!
6. John 4:43-54, tells us Jesus brought us a new life.
(1) The Galileans had seen the miraculous thing Jesus did at the Passover feast in Jerusalem.
(2) They wanted more! To them, Jesus was the “Greatest show on earth!
(3) There are so many today who want to hear people speak in tongues, see people healed, see someone walk on water, whatever is impossible, right?
(4) That’s not necessarily wrong. What is wrong is that so many of us are looking for such physical miracles, but we are not even interested in spiritual miracles.
(5) Look at how Jesus handled this situation.
(6) The man begged Jesus to come home with him to heal his son. That would have really thrilled the Galileans!
(7) Jesus was probably looking at them when he said, “Unless you people see miraculous signs, and wonders, ... you will never believe.”
(8) The father pleaded with Jesus to go with him. He was sure his son would die if He didn’t.
(9) Jesus answered him quietly, “You may go. Your son will live.”
A. There was no blare of trumpets, no beat of drums, no dramatic action, but that boy was immediately healed from a distance that required about seven hours of travel.
B. This nobleman’s faith was probably not made whole until the next day when he returned home, and his servants met him to tell him his son was
well!
C. People do get well without any outside help as far as we know, but this son was healed in a moment at one PM! The very moment Jesus spoke to his father! That’s when his faith became real and complete, and when he shared what had happened his whole household believed! Including his servants!
(10) Those Galileans who wanted a show went home without one!

Conclusion:

1. All of these gifts, Jesus came to give us, and to receive them, we have to change just like God expected the Jews to do.
2. But the Jews refused Him.
3. If you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, all of these gifts are already yours even to worshiping in Spirit and in Truth!
4. If you haven’t received Jesus as your Savior, He is the door into heaven. You pass through that door when you put your trust in Jesus, and you are born again.
5. You can trust Jesus, and you can tell Him you do, while we pray.

Emmanuel Community Church 6/5/2005