Creflo Dollar - Life Out of Death
We're gonna start, everything we've talked about so far has been out of John chapter 1, so we're gonna start at John Chapter 2 tonight. And I just want you to think. What I've been trying to encourage Christian people to do is think. Don't fall for the cons. Just read it and think. Don't be afraid to think, okay? So let's read John chapter 2 and set where we're going tonight. We see the first miracle here. And he says, "The next day," I'm gonna read out of the NLT. "The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. The wine supply ran out during the festivities," underline that, underline that, "The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus' mother told him, 'They have no more wine.'"
Now listen to his response: "'Dear woman, that's not our problem,' Jesus replied. 'My time has not yet come.'" Isn't it weird that he said, "My time has not yet come," and then it came, all right? And so, he says, "But his mother told him, 'Do whatever,'" he told, she was speaking to the other guys, "Do whatever he tells you to do," which is so appropriate. He's not telling you to try to earn anything from him. He's just saying, "I need you to do whatever he tells you to do". So, this is the yielded life. This is the picture of the yielded life, okay? "Do whatever he tells you to do". All right, I should just be reading this, but I get so excited when I go through it because I kinda see what it's about.
Verse 6: "Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremony washing. Each could hold twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told the servants, 'Fill the jars with water.' When the jars had been filled, he said, 'Now dip some out, take it to the master of the ceremonies.' So the servants followed his instructions. When the master of the ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine," the water, which is now wine, they tasted the water which is now wine. And it it's like the transforming didn't take place until the tasting. It was almost like from the pitcher, it was water, water, water, tasting wine and then noticing the transformation has taken place. Nobody deserved this transformation. Nobody earned this transformation. Jesus wasn't trying to do what Mary thought should be done. This was a supernatural grace intervention.
All right, now watch this. Da, da, da, da, "Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, you know, they bring out the less expensive wine," because they normally give the best wine first. They bring out the less expensive last. "But you've kept the best until now"! I'm telling ya, anything grace transforms is better than what it was. I should be reading, shouldn't I? Anything that grace transformed is better than what it was. It's gonna be better than the original. You're not gonna go, you're not goin' back to where Adam and Eve were. You're gonna be better than what they were before they sinned, all right? "This miraculous sign at Cana," verse 11, "in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed," notice what he called it, "his glory. And his disciples believed in him. After the wedding. He went to Capernaum for a few days with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples".
Now, we see the second piece that's attached to this first miracle. Jesus clears the temple. Verse 13: "It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, and sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging, exchanging foreign money. Jesus makes a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and the cattle, scattered the money changers' coins over the floors, turned over their tables".
Now, I don't know about you, but I've been asking this question for like since I've been saved. Looked like he was tripping out, how come I can't trip out like that sometimes? I mean, let's just be honest. I mean, I've never, nobody's given me all... he got a whip. He runnin' people out, turning tables over, you know how some of you do, you lose your job? "Okay, I'll leave," throw that over. "Yeah, I'll be glad," you start wrecking stuff up, right? Okay, we're gonna get into that tonight. We're gonna get in that because this is part of the sermon I'm writing now called "Jesus the Shadow Caster".
There are a lot of shadows out there, and they all come back to Jesus, and his purpose and his plan, but thank God, through our understanding of grace, hopefully, we can find out was he trippin' or was there something he was trying to communicate at this time? He said, "Then his disciples remembered his prophecy from the Scriptures: 'Passion for God's house will consume me.' But the Jewish leaders demanded, 'What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.'"
Notice again, their believing was all contingent upon what they could see and what he would do. Did it change after the cross? Yeah, I believe it did. He said, "'All right,' Jesus replied, 'Destroy this temple, in three days I'll raise it up again.' 'What!' they exclaimed. 'It's taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?' But when Jesus said 'this temple,' he meant his own body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believe both the Scripture and what Jesus said". And then verse 23: "Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many begin to trust him," because of what he did and what they saw, "But Jesus didn't trust them, because he knew human nature. No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like".
So, he's not surprised. So, based on what we just read, I wanna see if we can dive into a study on life out of death, life out of death, and I wanna start off with this one statement, and I really want you to think about these things as we travel. We're really gonna go on this journey here tonight. I often wonder what is the initial work of grace? What's the initial work of grace? And I believe it is to deal with the problem of, number one, death, which entered the human race through the sin of Adam, and I'll show you the script in a moment. Then it was passed upon all men. I believe that the initial work of grace is to deal with sin and death, to bring life out of what's dead, to transform something that's been infected by sin. In other words, grace is God's answer to sin and death, all right.
Now, here's a scripture, Romans chapter 5:21. Grace is God's answer for sin and death. Notice what it says verse 21: "So just as sin ruled over all people," sin ruled over all people, and what happened? "Sin ruled over all people and brought them death". He says now the grace of God, "God's wonderful grace now rules instead," of sin ruling, "God's grace, rules instead, giving us right standing". His grace is ruling, making us righteous with God. His grace is ruling, and now we believe in him, "which results in eternal life," and how do we get it? "Through Jesus Christ".
So you have to understand when the grace of God showed up, it immediately start dealing with sin and death, and the regeneration of our lives have been dealt with by this amazing grace of God. And remember the first, part one of this thing where there... nobody, nobody... and it's hard for me to fathom this, not to believe it, but to see how fabulous this is. Nobody could have delivered the gift of grace to us but God wrapped in flesh, or the Word that was made flesh. The Word that was made flesh who was flawless, perfect, glorious, delivered something to us to deal with sin and death, and he was the only one that could. There is no messenger, not an angel, not a man. God said, "I got to bring you something that I am so that you can hopefully get a picture of who he is". He is Jesus full of grace and truth.
Now, let me back off that just for a moment. So, let's just submit to this, that the grace of God is his answer to sin and death, and we see that when sin abounds grace does much more abound, and whatever sin and death came, grace came in and made us righteous, and righteousness, our righteousness, our righteousness came out of death, glory to God. And the life of God came out of sin. It didn't produce it. It was transformed, glory to God, just like the water was transformed. So, the first miracle performed by Jesus was the transformation of water into wine, an inorganic substance belonging to this material world where all is death was by his divine power changed into an organic substance, one belonging to the realm of life, and in that miracle, we see it.
We see something glorious coming out of that, which was water. The greatest of all of God's miracles I believe is the regeneration of mankind, but you see it all over the planet. You see it especially in John when he would do these miracles, the regeneration of man to one of his creatures who has broken, now, notice, man regenerated. He's one of those guys who has broken God's holy law. He is therefore under death, and watch this, and God imparts divine life. Ephesians 2, look at this, Ephesians 2:4 through 5. These are scriptures that we read, but I'm really trying to take your thinkin' to a place where you can really dig into this. Ephesians 2:4, he says, "But God is so rich in mercy," how about we got a God that's rich in mercy? Aren't you glad God's not broke in mercy?
It's this, you know, mercy is the things you deserve you don't get, the bad you deserve you don't get, and he's rich in mercy. But God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much, watch this, 5, "that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life," we were dead. He gave us life, when? "When he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God's grace that you have been saved!)" It is only by God's grace that you are not still in death. You are alive. You believe in Jesus, and he has now given you eternal life because you believe in Jesus, and this life that you now know, check out where it came from! It came from death. That's why death can't do too much now. Where's you sting?
All right, now, watch this now, stay with me. So the miracles and the incidents related to all of those who were dead. You see Jesus now bringing life, and you see Jesus bringing more abundant life to mankind. Now, I know we take the scripture John 10:10. You know, he has come to give us life and give it to us more abundantly, so what we're thinkin' about is Jesus has come to give us an amazing life full of everything we want, ah yes he did. He said he'll give you life more abundantly, two or three houses. He'll give you life more abundant, five whole cars. He'll give you a life more abundant.
That's, hey, if you can walk in some of that, I mean, you know, I ain't mad at you, but I'm saying it's so much more than that. You're so locked in on this dead world, and there's a life that he's given you in the midst of this dead world so that you can enjoy... see, eternal life happens when you believe Jesus, okay? Eternal life is not, it's more, it's Jesus more than how long is this gonna be? He has come to give me life when I was in death. He has come to give me something when I was in sin, and he came to give it to me to the full until it overflows.
So, everything about me now permeates with the life that came out of death, and it's gonna touch everything I touch 'cause he touched me. I am in him. He is in me. We are one together. The life I live, I live in him. So this is more than "he's come that I might have life and have it more abundantly to the full, till it overflow". Whoo, this is more than you bein' rich. This is you being abundantly rich in the eternal life of God, and there is nothing on this planet that can dare compare to what you have on the inside because he's not doin' no more miracles in the natural. He's doing all the miracles in the spiritual, and you gotta believe the Word to get it to you.
Okay, I said it. I gotta go back and I kinda skipped a bunch of steps when I said that. Everybody still kinda on the bus? I know some of you got a leg hanging out there like. Okay, so it has been said that the present age of grace is not one in which God performs miracles that man may believe on him. So this is, in the age of grace, God's not performing miracles to get you to believe on him. Before that time, yeah, when Jesus was walking and fulfilling the law, they believed because of what he did. Did a miracle, they said, "Oh Jesus did this," and they believed on him. "Oh, Jesus opened those..." They believed on him. "Oh, Jesus did," and they believed on him. And we gotta get this right 'cause we got too much disappointing stuff going on in church when we're doin' stuff and we're expecting some stuff.
I'm wondering, do you have a right to expect that kinda stuff? Is that where the real power is? You see, I believe, let me say it like that. I believe that God does not perform miracles in the material realm during this age of grace to get you to believe. He has risen to the spiritual realm in which to perform his miracles. The eternal life, which is the gift of grace, eternal life, which is the gift of grace, is spiritual. The walk of the believer is spiritual. The promised blessings are spiritual.
Ephesians 1 and 3: "I'll bless you with," what kind of blessing? "Spiritual blessings," where? "In heavenly places," where? The whole program is spiritual, but you can't say that about the law. There is no impartation of divine life that comes from the law. The walk of those under the law is in the power of the flesh and not of the spirit, and all the promises are earthly and material under the law. God's trying to get people to believe him by believing what he said. Okay, just, God's entire program of dealing with mankind, I mean, in each case, how God deals with mankind is related to a particular message of grace and truth. So let me see if I can take this first miracle and explain all of that stuff I just said and you just heard. Y'all ain't gotta write... You waitin' on the... here it come, here it come.
All right, so, this is why in John chapter 2, he records this miracle, and I wanted you to feel these truths and appreciate parables and why Jesus did what he did. Okay, so, the first miracle was performed at the marriage. The first thing that is told of the marriage is that they wanted wine, verse 3, their own resources had come to an end. You're feeling something now. You feeling something now. They're all, all of their resources have come to an end. You've been there. You've been there in your life. You know what it's like when all of your resources, everything you know to do, has come to an end, oh my goodness. So it must always be before God's work according to grace. It must be always before God's work according to grace, always. This miracle, the water to wine emphasizes the end of man's resources and a divine provision to satisfy man's need.