Steven Furtick - 'Not Now' Is Not 'No'
Y'all be praying for the worship team. They're going on tour this week. We want them covered and smothered in prayer. They'll be in Boca Raton on Tuesday, and other places. Where can we go to find out if there are tickets in our area, Chris? It's easy…elevationworship.com. There are still a few tickets left. I could have said that. Elevationworship.com. That's all they have to do? That's all they have to do. That's so simple, Chris. Come out and worship with us. It's going to be fun. Many nights are sold out. A few are not. Hey, how many of you have had our new album on repeat this week? Wave at me. What is your favorite song on the new album? Tell me. That's mine too. That's my favorite one.
We tried to make that thing dang near skipless. No skips was the goal. I pray that it's blessing you. I speak on behalf of this incredible team of technical geniuses, musical geniuses. As a songwriter for the people of God, I speak on behalf of all of our worship leaders. I speak on behalf of all of our givers. We love creating anthems for you so you can draw close to God in your time of need. We consider that a privilege. I figure everybody can't take Chris home with them for him to say, "Miracle after miracle!" while you're cutting the grass, and stuff like that, but this is our way to be there with you far beyond a Sunday morning context.
I realized early in my ministry with the Word of God that worshiping God… You know, there's the Word of God being preached to us, and then there's the worship we give to God that doesn't have to do with how we feel, that doesn't have to do with a style, but it has to do with our response to how good he has been. When those two things are in tandem together, you become dangerous to the Devil and you become an instrument in the hand of God. So, please don't let this be the only time in the week that you sing to your God. Don't let this be the only time of the week that you open your Word. I desire for you to grow and be strengthened and to receive everything God has for you. Wow!
Today, I stand before you ready to preach, excited to preach. The proof of that is Abbey said, "Dad, I saw you on the porch preaching to nobody at 6:00 a.m. when I woke up". She said, "I almost took a video of you so I would have proof for my therapist one day". (She didn't say that last part.) I have been up early. I was explaining to her, "That's not me preaching to the trees; that's God preaching it to me". So, I now get the privilege to preach to you. We're going to go to John, chapter 2. This'll be big. You might know this Bible story. "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".
I love how Jesus is mentioned like a plus one. "And Jesus and his disciples". Verse 3 says, "When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, 'They have no more wine.' 'Woman, why do you involve me?' Jesus replied". I practiced reading that verse about 30 times out loud to try to say it in a way that didn't sound bad or disrespectful. There's no way for me to say that sequence of words, being raised in the South, that sounds right. "Woman, why do you involve me?" I feel like she might slap me, and she's on the second row. She can't even reach me.
"'Woman, why do you involve me?' Jesus replied. 'My hour 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 twenty to thirty gallons," that's pretty bigm "Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water'; so they filled them to the brim. Then 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, '[This is weird. The way this normally works…] Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests [are too drunk to know the difference]; but you have saved the best till now.'"
There's something the Lord wants to discuss with you today, and I want you to help me tell your neighbor the title of my sermon. Look at your neighbor and make a distinction for them. Tell them, "Neighbor, 'not now' is not 'no.'" That was the wrong neighbor. Look at your other neighbor who feels rejected. Come on. Put it in the chat if you're not in the room. Say, "Neighbor, oh, neighbor, in case you're disappointed about something, struggling with something for a long time, and think it's never going to come to pass, I want to remind you 'not now' is not 'no.'"
Clap your hands and put a praise on this word in advance. It's not no. We say yes to your Word, Lord. Speak. We're listening. In Jesus' name, amen. I've been waiting to preach this one. The hard part is holding it, getting ready to do it. I decided to set this sermon up by giving you a little personal anecdote from my life experience. I have never coached one of my children in sports. I just decided that my enthusiasm about being their dad shouldn't punish the other children on the team with my lack of expertise in sports. I think you know what I'm talking about. I think you've all had that coach, cussed out that coach, and complained about that coach. I always coached them personally on the sidelines.
Graham said something so devious the other day, because he's a good little wrestler now. A good big wrestler now. He's not little. He's the same size as me. He said, "I thought you were so OP as a wrestler when I was little, but now that I look back and realize how little you actually knew about wrestling, it's amazing to me how much you coached me, knowing almost nothing about the sport". That's funny. I try to coach my kids for the challenges of their life. Of course, you know they didn't sign up to be on your team, so they don't care much to listen to your advice, and you can't kick them off, so you are limited in your coaching. But, all joking aside, I have found it to be one of the greatest and most stretching challenges and privileges of my life just to be there for them, especially in those moments…
My oldest son Elijah called me from college last semester. This is one of those moments. I think in the transition of being a freshman in college, he just wanted to hear my voice on a few things, but I could tell he was down and he was low. That happens to all of us. After we pushed past that a little bit, I said, "I'll tell you what. Do you want to call me back at, like, 3:00 and have something to write with, and I'll coach you up a little bit? I'll coach you as if you paid me to do it". He said, "I would love that". So he called me at the scheduled time of the appointment. We did. We set up an actual appointment.
I said, "Okay. What I think you're feeling right now is you are feeling like all of the resources you relied on when you lived at home… You're still resourced, and you still have us at college, but everything is new to you. When I get in that place where, in my personal life, I feel like I have reached the end of my resources, and I get in that funk… You know, the Devil starts telling me the same things he's telling you as a college student, but he tells me them as a grown man, that I have nothing really to offer or that my best is behind me or that I'm no longer relevant or that the things my critics have said about me are right. You know, the list goes on and on. I don't want to bore you with it. When I get in that place, I've learned to make a list".
So I told him, "I'm going to take you through this today of how to make a list when you feel low". I said, "One list that I, of course, make that I've taught you about is gratitude, things to be grateful for. You've heard about that". There's nobody who has a TikTok account who hasn't heard the importance of a gratitude list. I said, "There's another type of list I like to make, and it's when I'm basically telling myself I'm in this alone and nobody is there for me. I know that's not true, but it feels true emotionally. I'll make a list of every person who is in my life who has in a past time or even recently said they would be willing to help me or who I think might be willing to help me even in the smallest way. If they ever helped me before or if I think they might help me or if they mentioned one time that they would help me, I will just start writing a list".
I said, "Now, the hardest part is going to be to start the list, because right now you're feeling like, 'Well, nobody cares about me. Nobody likes me.' But that's just recency bias. That's just the last thing that happened to you posing as the biggest thing that happened to you. It's not. As you begin to write, what you're going to find is… When you start writing with no discretion, with no editing, you'll have a hard time stopping writing the list. Don't qualify anything. Don't asterisk anything. Don't 'Yeah, but they might, but then if they do that for me, I've got to do that for them.' Then, if you can't do that, how about somebody you could do something for"? Y'all are quiet. Y'all liked the first part of the list better.
I said, "Sometimes it's better to even say, 'Well, who's somebody I could encourage? Who's somebody I could send a text to?'" I said, "When you start the list, you'll have to stop yourself because once you start… Trust me". So, we did it together on the phone. What I said would happen, happened, because I'm a good coach, just not at sports. So, he starts writing the list, and he's like, "This is crazy. This is amazing. You're right. This is crazy. And they know them, and I know…" I said, "See? See how it happens"?
"Now you have to stop, because now I'm going to tell you the next hardest part of this. I'm going to need you to act on at least one of them and reach out because you feel low. I want you to learn the pattern in your life that when you feel low on resource, reach in, and then reach out. You don't have to reach out to everybody on the list, and you don't have to ask them to do something, and you don't have to stand there and stare at the bubbles. The third hardest part of this, and the hardest part of all, is after you reach out, I need you to release your need for them to respond, because they might not. If you predicate your happiness or your strength on their response, you could end up worse off after this exercise than you were before you did it, because now it will have served to have reinforced your insecurity that 'Nobody is there for me.' So I need you to reach and release. That's what we're going to do".
And he did that. I told him, "You might reach out to somebody and say, 'Hey, can we get together? Hey, remember when we talked about…?'" Because he was in a state that we've all been in before, like, "I don't really have anything, and I don't have that many people, and I don't have enough". I said, "Well, the first thing you need to do is remind yourself of the resources you have and then reach, but then release, because they might get your text but it's just a bad time. It might just be a bad time. You might create stories in your mind that 'They don't like me. They don't care about me. Something horrible happened that they didn't tell me about. They're dead.' No, they're not dead. They're just asleep, taking a nap. It might just be a matter of timing".
That's what I saw in John, chapter 2, this time. In all of my sojourns through this text, joining the milieu of students of the Scripture through the millennia who have wondered about this question: "Why is Jesus at a wedding when he only has three years to change the world"? You will recall that his life was cut short at the age of 33. You will recall that for the first 30 years of his ministry there is no record of his ministry activity, meaning everything we have that was written about him, other than him getting lost at the temple one time and sitting around with the older teachers… Well, it simply isn't there for our records.
So, the question becomes, "Jesus, do you really have time to stop by a wedding when you only have three years to change the world? And, I might add, your discipleship team is not exactly executive, world-class material. You've got a lot of work to do with these boys. Are you sure you want to take them to a wedding on the first week that they're your disciples"? Did you know that? This is the first week that they're following Jesus. Everything in the text makes me think about the timing of Jesus. "On the third day a wedding took place…" You're like, "Oh, yeah, the third day…resurrection". Not yet. We still have a long way to go until Jesus gets up from the grave. He hasn't died yet. He hasn't healed blind Bartimaeus yet. He hasn't taught the Pharisees and the Sadducees with authority and rebuked them for their stiff-necked adherence to traditions of men rather than the ways of God. None of that has happened yet, and it says, "On the third day he went to a wedding".
The third day of…what? The third day after he selected his disciples. For years, I read this and thought it was the third day of the wedding feast, because in these days they would party for a week at a wedding. So I thought it meant the third day of the wedding. That's not what it means. "On the third day a wedding took place at Cana…" So, we realize from the very beginning of this text it's not happening on our timeline; it's happening on his. Not your schedule. It's happening on his. That is one of the most difficult lessons for us to learn. Sometimes, when we believe a promise from God, we expect that promise to happen according to our plan, but it's not happening according to my plan. It's not happening on my say-so. It's not happening according to my preference. It's happening according to his purpose.
That being said, don't you want to kind of tell Jesus to read a leadership book and learn how to say no? Read the Scripture. It says, "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". So, you're running Jesus' scheduling. You're his administrative assistant, and you're going through all of the possible things that the Son of God, the perfect Word of God that was made flesh and dwelt among us, the one through whom and by whom and for whom all things were created that were created… He's sitting down to plan the week, and they say, "Jesus, we've got this wedding in Cana, but I told them no," and Jesus says, "No. Actually, we're going". "But, Jesus, it's a wedding, and we've got to change the world". "Yeah. No. We're going".
What I took from that that I want to pass on to you is you might be surprised where Jesus would show up if you would invite him. We do think we have to be almost going under to cry out to him for help, and then he'll come. We do think we have to be going through the fire of hell to call, and then he'll come. But what if he wants to join you in your moments of celebration to make them even sweeter? I don't mean you have to be weird and stop at the ball game. "Lord, we thank you for that base hit, for, God, you are the basis of every base hit, and on Christ the solid rock we…" No. Just shut up and, in your heart, have a moment.
What God can do in one open moment might change the rest of your life, but if you are waiting on what you perceive to be a God moment, which means, "I can call on him in the prison cell…" Why not call on him and ask him to come to the wedding feast too? He has time for this, and I think that's amazing. I think it's amazing that he came to the wedding. I think it's amazing that he took the time to stop by. I think it's amazing that we don't even know whose wedding it was, because who was at the wedding becomes even more important than who was married at the wedding. Jesus goes from the plus one to the miracle worker in the eyes of the disciples, and that is where we pick up. He was invited to a wedding, and verse 3 says, "When the wine was gone…"
It would seem to me that if he was already at the wedding and intended to replenish the supply, it would have been better to do it when the wine was getting a little low. He did not step in when the wine got low. It would seem to me that if he was coming to the wedding and he is God in the flesh, he could have brought wine to the wedding, because he knew they would run out if he's omniscient. Herein lies one of the great mysteries of the mercy of God. He lets the human supply completely run out before he steps in. Just because you've run out doesn't mean he won't still step in. I could preach a whole revival on that.
I'm preaching to somebody out of energy, out of answers, out of ideas, out of innovations, out of people to call, out of people to text. "I made my list. I went through my list. Nobody hit me back. I'm out of time. I'm out of opportunities. I'm out". Just because you're out doesn't mean he won't step in. Now you know why we were singing earlier that he's always on time. Even though there were some times where he didn't show up right when we wanted him to, there were also some times when we learned some things in the lag time that we would not have learned… Oh, I have to break this down. If he had stepped in immediately… If the wine never ran out, it would have been about the wine. If the job never dried up, it would have been about the job. If the relationship would have always stayed intact and always been easy, it would have been about that person. So he let it get hard. He let it run out. He let it run dry. He let it lag a little bit so when he stepped in there would be a revelation.
Now there's a conversation between Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jesus, the Son of God. This is humorous. You have to see the humor in it, because I really can't tell what's going on at first. I really can't. She turns to Jesus (verse 3) and says, "They have no more wine". Two words in Greek: no wine. It's a very strange thing for her to say. She's not exactly asking him to fix it, but I think she's implying he should. It's one of these. It's like, "No wine," and he goes, "Woman…" I'm like, "What"? He said, "Woman, why do you involve me"? This is hilarious to me. "No wine". "Woman, what does that have to do with me"?
Now watch this statement, because we're talking about time. He said, "My hour has not yet come". Okay. So, she's not exactly asking him to fix it, but she's implying that he could. He's not exactly refusing to do it, but he's implying that he might not. I can imagine all of the responses that Mary, the mother of Jesus, would have had in this moment if she had had an attitude like many of us, because watch what he said. "It's not my time". "Not your time? Son, I was a virgin". Think about this. "Not your time? You came into my womb. Talk about not time. Then I carried you for nine months. I was going to Bethlehem for a census, and, no, you couldn't wait for me to get back home. I was on that donkey behind Joseph, and here you came in a barn. And you want to talk about your time. Let's talk about time".
Maybe it's not a problem. Maybe it's not a controversy. Maybe it's not an argument. Maybe it's not a debate. Maybe it's not manipulation. Maybe it's not reluctance. Maybe there's a pattern here. Let's see. He's asked to do something. There's a request, there's a refusal, and then there's a revelation. In John, chapter 7, Jesus' ministry is really thriving. Many miracles have already been performed, many blind people have already received sight, many of the deaf have been able to hear, and Jesus is popular. His brothers come to him and say, "Now, if you really want to do this thing right, you need to get to Jerusalem where the festival is, because they'll see you at the festival," and Jesus says something interesting. He says, "Not now".
The Bible says Jesus' brothers went and Jesus showed up with some sunglasses on a little bit later in the week. He got there when he wanted to. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? They said, "You need to go to Jerusalem and show everybody who you are". He was like, "Oh, I'm going to show them…on my time". He told them, "No," but what he was really saying was, "Not now". There's a difference. There were two sisters in a place called Bethany in John, chapter 11. Often, they would host Jesus at their home. One of them loved to cook, and one of them loved to listen. Jesus could speak and eat and speak and eat. He was in heaven in their home. Eventually, their brother Lazarus, who many believe had a physical impairment and that is part of the reason Jesus loved him so much… We know that whatever the case of his physical condition at birth, he was sick and to the point of dying.
So, the messenger sent a text to Jesus. (I'm modernizing.) They sent a message to Jesus. Since there was no communication via text message or Internet, it took a little while for them to get to Jesus. It took a little while, and he got worse. Now, the moment the message arrived to Jesus in John, chapter 11, he could have gone to Bethany, but he did not. "He must not have loved them very much," you say. No, the Bible says because he loved them he stayed where he was two more days. So, here comes the message now. "Heal him". It's a request.
Here's the response of Jesus: He stays where he is. He refuses to move where he is needed the most. Why? They've seen him heal. They've seen him take a sick person, reach down, and raise them up. They've seen him speak the word, and his word was so powerful his word went where his body did not and healed, but in his delay Lazarus died. He died because Jesus delayed coming. When he finally got to the place, late, Martha was upset about it, saying, "Lord, if you would have been here…" John 11:21. Check this out. "…my brother would not have died". "Why did you refuse a request, Jesus, that would have resulted in a healing? You could have done something".
Do you have anything in your life today that you secretly feel like God could have done something about and he didn't? Many times, it can be painful to praise God for being on time when you feel like he just stood back and watched stuff happen to you that didn't happen to others, watched stuff happen to you that you know was evil, watched stuff happen in your life that he could have stopped. She said, "Lord, if you would have been here, he wouldn't have died".
And Jesus (verse 22) hears these words from Martha: "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask". What's she talking about? It can't be resurrection. We've never seen a resurrection before. But she understands something about Jesus. She has heard him teach. She has watched him work. She has seen him move. She has felt his presence. She has understood that he has this propensity, when you get in his proximity, to make things possible that seemed otherwise impossible. She said, "I don't know why you said no when we asked you to come, but I know what I know that even now…"
I need you to high-five somebody and say, "I know what I know". "I don't know why God didn't do it, but I know what I know. He can still do it right now. I know what I know. I don't know where it's going to come from, but I know what I know. God has what I need. He can supply it even still". I feel God on that. "I know what I know. I don't know what kinds of things you're able to do that we haven't seen yet, and my brother is in the ground. My kid is on drugs. My life is really in tatters. I'm in recovery. I have a brother in prison. I'm in the middle of this custody battle. I have some legal problems. I have an addiction I can't quit. I don't know what you can do about that, but I know what I know. You're here right now. Do it, Lord"!
High-five everybody in your section and say, "I know what I know". "I don't know why he said no. I don't know why my roommate got an engagement ring and she's a hellion and I'm pure and single. I don't know, but I know what I know. One day in his courts, one day in his house is better than anywhere else, and blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel…" Y'all, calm down. I'm trying to teach a verse-by-verse Bible study on a God who turns water into wine. Somebody asked the other day, "Do you know what they said about you on this blog"? I said, "No, but I know what I know. It doesn't matter". I know what I know. Yeah, I know what I know.
The mystery of this text is just as much of a message as the lesson. Let me say that again. The mystery of this text is just as much of a message as the lesson. The consumers didn't know how the miracle happened; the servants did. This is where I think, when I got on the phone with my son and said, "I want to give you a process you can do…" You know, if he was having a bad day, I probably could have Cash Apped him some money and he would have been happy, but he would have gotten the money, he would have spent the money, and then he'd feel worse, because "Did you really need three burgers"?
I'm realizing something about Jesus. How many of you…? I'm not even going to look at you when I ask this. Just raise your hand for your own accountability. How many of you have something in your life right now that's taking longer than it should if God is big? Okay. How many of you have something in your life right now that you feel like, "God must be telling me no"? He might. One time in the Bible, King David wanted to build a temple for God. Who better to do it? He wrote all of the songs. Why not build the house that would house the songs he wrote for God? But he didn't get to do it. In fact, the prophet told him, "Go ahead. Do it, man. That sounds good," and God stopped the prophet in his tracks.
The prophet had to pivot and turn back and say, "David, I went home and prayed about that thing. Dude, I love you so much, and you are so amazing, and you are so incredible as a leader. I thought surely God would let you do it and God would say yes to you. I mean, you want to build God a temple. Why wouldn't God get behind that? It's a good thing in your heart. But the Lord said… Well, he didn't say 'no'; he said, 'not you.'" That's hard to hear. "Not you". He said, "Your son Solomon is going to do it. You have too much blood on your hands. But I'm still going to do it through you". David spent the rest of his life storing up the materials to hand over for a project he would never personally receive the benefit from.
This is the part of the sermon that you leave out if your goal is a shout, but my goal is not to just give you a shout in church. If you shout, what do you have? A sore throat. What we have to learn to do is realize that Jesus is a miracle worker. Yes. Jesus is the Savior who paid for our sins on the cross, and that is the purpose he came for: to rise from the grave, to have dominion over death so we could call on his name and be saved. Yes. He is also a teacher, and a good teacher knows when to go slow. Maybe he is going slow because he wants to show you something. I hired a guy to teach me guitar years ago, and I went to one lesson. He seemed more interested in impressing me with how fast he could play it than showing me how I could.
I thought, "This won't work. If your whole goal is showing me how much you can shred, I leave knowing nothing, and you feel good about yourself. The proof that you are good at this is that you can slow it down enough so I can watch and say, 'Huh. So I do third fret, fourth fret, sixth fret, first fret.'" I mean, if he really wanted to teach me, he had to slow it down. We ask Jesus to teach us things, and we're surprised when he slows it down. We ask him to teach us to be more loving. We are surprised when he slows it down. We ask him to give us patience. Bad idea. You have seven days of traffic to look forward to, the worst traffic of your life. You are going to have Atlanta, Georgia, traffic in Waxhaw if you pray for patience.
God will stack the deck to give you what you asked for, and he'll slow it down. When I was in high school, I had some friends on the step team. I thought that looked really cool. I said, "Teach me just a simple thing on the step team". So they went really fast. They went something like this. See how fast I did that? It took about four months. I can just do it now. It has been, like, 30 years now, but I swear we were going… Not because they couldn't do it…because I couldn't do it. God is not going slow because he can't do it. Somebody who knows what I'm talking about… Let's get into this. God didn't say "no" because he can't; God said "slow" because you can't…yet. But if we can do it… I still remember this after all of those years because they slowed it down for me.
"You've got to go slow for Steven. Steven can't do all that really quick. He has a good heart, but he needs it really slow". Peter is really slow. John is kind of slow. Nathanael is kind of slow. The disciples are kind of slow. How many are willing to admit "It may take God slowing this down in my life, and he might not be giving it to me when I want it out of kindness"? God making it convenient isn't always kind. I think it would be amazing if he said, "Okay. Y'all are out of wine"? Mary says, "They're out of wine," and Jesus says, "I already have that taken care of. I found the well". Y'all picture this miracle like they had a water hose. This water was not ionized. There was no faucet. Picture the miracle. They said, "We're out of wine". Not, "We're running out of wine". Not, "We're going to be out of wine in a couple of hours. Let's do something about it now".
We're out of wine…when? Now. We need wine…when? Now. This is what's frustrating about this kind of preaching. Right? It's like, "Wonderful. Awesome. Glorious. Great. You're doing steps on the stage, but I'm struggling through things that are real in my life, and I don't have time for that right now". Well, maybe there is something Jesus wants to do in the process that will teach you where to go back when you need it again. I'm thinking he would have the power to go out to the well, wherever they're getting the water from. I need to slow this down one more time just to get my point across. "Jesus, they have no more wine". "What does that have to do with me"?
We have a request, a refusal, and then a revelation. What's the revelation? Of course, he is the new wine. There's an old covenant represented by the water. There's a new covenant that will be made in his blood and ratified by his death. He's showing us that. To be filled with his Spirit… All of that is symbolized in the text. Simply put, it would have taken a while to do what he told them to do. I love what Mary said in verse 5. "Do whatever he tells you". Maybe that's the lesson he has been trying to teach us. We've been doing all kinds of math in our lives about this and that. "This needs to happen, and that needs to happen". Mary goes, "Do whatever he tells you". That's the math.
A few months ago, we were online talking about girl math. Do you remember that? Then Holly showed me one the other day called mom math. It's when you're calculating all of the times… "We need to be there at 7:00, so we need to have our shoes on by 6:15, so that means we need to wake up by…" It was hilarious. I saw it. I said, "Oh. Well, this week I'm preaching about Mary math". Mary math goes like this: "We have no wine and a lot of people. Do whatever he tells you". Stop letting the math distract you. "I don't have enough time. I don't have enough years yet. I'm not old enough to do that. I'm not young enough to do that". Don't let the math distract you.
As we will see, five loaves and two fish can feed 5,000 if you do what he says. Now, if you don't do what he says, you're on your own. Get your calculator and good luck. But if you do what he says in each moment, if you'll get attuned to the process instead of just being a consumer, you will not need God to give you something external to produce something wonderful. The Bible says when Mary activated the presence of Jesus… What changed? "They're out of wine". "That has nothing to do with me. My hour has not yet come". When he says, "My hour," he's talking about his death. He's not saying, "I won't do it because it's not time yet". He's reestablishing the big picture.
There's a request, a refusal… That's where some of you are today: the refusal. "Well, life won't let me. Well, they won't let me. Well, I tried that. I've been trying that for years". The refusal. Then there is a reset. He reminds her, "My hour has not yet come. This is not my ultimate destination". Then she realizes there's nothing she needs to convince him to do. All she has to do is convince them to do what he says. The moment she says, "Do whatever he tells you…" It's like me with Graham and wrestling. She doesn't know much, but she's coaching good. Do you hear me? You don't have to know that much. You just have to get going in the next thing he tells you to do, which meant for this miracle, for this moment, for this occasion, they had to go out and get the water from the well.
Why did Jesus not just bless the well and everything that came out of it was wine? Why are we taking bucket after bucket after bucket, putting it down in the well, drawing it out of the well, carrying it into the house, finding the jars, and dumping the bucket? Do you know how big these buckets were? Two gallons. Do you remember how big the jars were? Thirty. That's like… Let me do some preacher math really quickly. What's that like? Fifteen-ish. Yeah. It's 20 to 30 gallons, so there's some variance, but… Now I have to do this two gallons at a time, but that seems pointless.
If you're Jesus, go out, bless the well, and then we'll just take it in. But the real revelation to me was in this. I think you missed this when I read it. While they were going out to the well and back and forth, there wasn't just a two-gallon bucket, 30 gallons, 15 fillings, which would have taken a while. The Bible says in verse 7, "Jesus said to the servants…" Watch this very carefully.
Now I'm coming to the point of the message that I preached all the way here to get you to, because I see you in your life struggling with some stuff. I see you in your life dealing with some things. I see you in your life going through a process that maybe, at this intersection of your life, seems a little pointless. The Bible says, "Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water'; so they filled them to the brim". Read it again. He said, "Fill the jars with water". So they filled them to the brim.
Verse 8: "Then he told them, 'Now draw some out…'" "What's your point, Pastor? You're really slowing down here. Do you have a purpose or are you struggling on how to close? Do you just want the parking lot to be chaotic between services today? Are you sadistic"? Nuh-uh. I'm slowing it down to show you something. Verse 7: "Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water'; so they filled them to the brim". That's fine, but this is an emergency. We have no wine and a lot of people. In this culture, that was the ultimate shame. I know what some of you are thinking. "It was probably good that the alcohol got cut off at this point in the weeklong wedding. Maybe that was God making them run out of wine".
It's symbolic. It's a culture of honor, so there is shame present. Jesus is stepping in not to deal with their alcoholic consumption situation; he's dealing with their shame. One thing that feels really bad… I don't know about you, but I hate the feeling in life like I've fallen behind, the embarrassment of thinking, "I should know how to do that by now, and I don't"; the embarrassment of feeling like, "I should have my family here by now, and I don't"; the embarrassment of going, "I should have whipped this six years ago, and I didn't".
Now the fear of falling behind has been combined with the reality of being at the bottom. There is no wine. This is an emergency. This is urgent. So why wouldn't Jesus let them fill one jar and start distributing it? Read the text. It says they had to draw out the water and fill them to the brim. That means they had to fill all six before anything changed. It wasn't as if they poured the water and the water became wine, because that would have made sense, and if it made sense, then maybe they would have been addicted to it instead of believing in him. So, they're pouring water. Water doesn't turn to wine. I don't care how much of it you pour. There are no grapes in this situation. There is nothing to suggest this is going to work.
So, the servants are pouring and pouring and sweating and pouring and sweating and pouring and checking. "Has anything happened yet? Did he bring the wine? Not yet". So now imagine. They get the first jar full. That's 15 buckets full. That's plenty to demonstrate that I take you seriously. The head server comes over and says, "Jesus, can we take some over to the people now and kind of get them calmed down a little bit, because there's no wine? Can we just take one over there? We'll keep filling up the other ones". He said, "No, no, no. Not now. Fill the next one". "But can we take this one"? "No. Not now". It was not until every jar was filled to the brim and the water was drawn out of the last filled jar that it became wine.
Why did God make every jar have to be filled? Why has God allowed you to pray about this for so long? Why has God not just waved his wand over our situation? Why did he reset in order to reveal? It is only after the jars are filled. I'm telling you what I know from my life. It is only after you have done it and done it and done it. I can't speak for everybody in the room, but somebody online needs to hear this. It is sometimes when I am almost done trying. At that moment in time, that's when God says, "Now". It's not when I'm fresh. It's not when I feel like, "I've got this". It's not when it makes sense. It's not when it should have happened on a human schedule. It's at that moment where I'm like, "If I have to pour one more two-gallon bucket…" "If I have to do this one more time…"
Nothing is happening, but everything is changing in your life, for every time you pour, when your eyes can't perceive, it is a building of your faith that is producing within you the strength to know where your help comes from. The strength to know where grace comes from. The strength to know that there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. Now you can take it. Some of the things that you thought in your life were rejection were not rejection; you just weren't ready. God is speaking to somebody today who has been told no. Or so you thought. The Lord didn't even say, "No". He said, "Not now". For the one who lost a loved one, and your prayer has been, "Will you help me understand why this happened…"? We may never understand certain things on this side of heaven. God said, "Not now".
Now we know in part, now we see in part, now we prophesy in part, but when what is incomplete has been made complete, then we will know. Your job in the meantime is not to understand; it is to obey and do whatever he tells you. I'm telling you. Some of the stuff God is doing in your life won't happen until all of the jars are full. I understand that you filled three jars. I understand that you've worked on it for four years. I understand that you went back five times, but sometimes you have to fill all six in order to see who he is.
The key verse of this passage has nothing to do with when they drank the wine. It's verse 11 of John, chapter 2. The Bible says this was the first of the signs he performed, and he revealed his glory. He refused the request so he could reveal his glory. He reset your expectation so he could reveal his glory, because if he just gave you the wine, you'd be a consumer, but if he teaches you to trust him, you'll be a producer. There is a process for joy. There is a process for trust. There is a process for confidence. There is a process. That's what the pouring is. It's the process. This is his first sign. He will do many more, but first you must learn to pour.
Jesus is so awesome that the man who tasted the wine said, "Normally, they switch out the cheap stuff at this point, but you did something different". I came to announce, "Get ready for God to do something different in your life". Different than you thought, different than you planned, different than you hoped, different than you put on your list. "You saved the best till now". There are some things in your life that in a previous season you were not ready to receive, but God brought you under this word today. Why? Because it's a now moment. God said, "Now draw it out". Now the jars are filled. Now. Now over your mental health. Now over your business. Now over your dream. Now.
It wasn't about you. You weren't rejected. You weren't ready yet. I remember when I first wanted to write a song with Matt Redman. He's the greatest worship songwriter you could ever meet from the UK or maybe anywhere else in the world. I said, "Write a song with me. Write a song with me. Write a song with me". He was very British and polite. He was very passively, kindly affirmative in his not-now-ness. "Yeah, mate, we should do that one day". I was like, "Will you quit calling me 'mate' and write a song with me? I want to write a song with you". This was very early when I was writing songs with our team. I got kind of mad at him because I thought, "You don't want to write a song with me. You think I'm just a preacher. You don't think I can write a song. I can write a song. I'll show you I can write a song".
In the meantime, along with the incredible team, we wrote songs, we wrote songs, we wrote songs. I'd send them to Matt and say, "Aren't these good? Won't you write with me? Aren't these good? Won't you write with me? Won't you write with me"? And do you know what Matt did? One day I was preaching, and I was up on the stage at a big conference…30,000 people. He was there leading music. I said a statement in my sermon. I was preaching on "Don't stop on six". I could preach that from the stone jars too. The line I said was, "The promise still stands". He came up to me after my session. He goes, "Mate". I said, "Yes"? He said, "That was an amazing message, and that should be a song: the promise still stands".
I said, "Will you write it with me"? He said, "Yes". So, he wasn't saying, "No". He was saying, "Yes. Not yet". I'm glad he told me no, because it made me go back and dig to find out what I had. Chunks, who was my very first person who joined the church right after Holly joined it… He was there, and he heard it. We had three hours before we had to fly. I said, "No, we'll do it another time". He said, "No, you'd better do it now. He might not want to write with you after he forgets that sermon". He said, "I'll get some chicken wings from room service and bring it up to the room, and y'all can eat. In the worst-case scenario, you'll hang out for a couple of hours. I'll get everything taken care of. I'll make sure we don't miss the flight. I'll come get you exact last moment. I'll come at the very last minute and get you".
We sat there, and we got almost nothing. The only thing we came away from that with that I remember is… Walking around these walls, I thought by now they'd fall, But you have never failed me yet. Then we had to leave. Eat some chicken wings, get on a plane. He would text me from time to time. I would text him. He was very persistent. He was like, "We should work on that thing with the walls and the 'promise still stands.'" We didn't even have the line that made him want to write it in the song at that point. We kept going. One day, I sent him a thing. It went like, "Dun-dun-dun-da". And he sent it back. He did it twice. Months more go by. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Then Chris… Do you remember? We were finishing up a song at the fabled mountain house. I wish we would have bought that house. We wrote some good songs in that house. We should have bought that house. He said, "You know, I don't know what you want to work on next, but we still have that thing with you and Redman". I said, "The 'promise stands' thing"? He said, "Yeah," and started playing it. Something came up. I've seen you move, you move the mountains, And I believe I'll see you do it again.
Now, think about this. "I thought by now they'd fall…" You thought by now you'd be different. You thought by now it would be easy. You thought by now they would have apologized. You thought by now they would be productive. You thought by now it would have turned around. You thought by now it would have lifted. I think it's amazing that we wrote a song together about God in his infinite faithfulness from a relationship where I actually felt I had been rejected. I wonder. Is there an area in your life where you have called it rejection, but now God has been using it to get you ready? You thought, "There's something wrong with me. That's why". That's not why. He's teaching you something. He's teaching you how to fill the jar by faith. You fill it two gallons at a time.
Every two gallons you carry, and you fill it, and it's still water, that's how you learn who God is, gallon by gallon by gallon. I feel like preaching "God by the gallon," but I don't know who it's for. It's not going to come all at once, but when it happens, you'll be saying, "Now! He saved the best till now". Give him praise! It was not God saying, "No". Jesus, I was tossed in the water… Kind of scary for a second. But I never went under, Because you were always on time.
Jesus, when I went through the fire, You were right there beside me… Yeah, always. You never left me. Hold up. I've got one. Jesus, all I've got are some pots, But I'll fill them with water, You can turn it to wine. Jesus… Because I've still got a God who turns my water to wine. That doesn't make any sense. Water to wine? Wine has to age to get good. Not when Jesus does it. He doesn't work on your time schedule. Some of the best stuff in your life is still coming. I don't know who it's for. The Devil is a liar. He told you, "Go home. Give up. It's over". No, the best stuff is still coming. It's still coming. He's at your wedding, and it's coming!