Water into Wine and Clearing the Temple — John 1-2

0:00 Father, we come to you this morning. We thank you for this time that we have to open your word and examine it and hear the things that you would have to say to us through your spirit. We ask that you would open our hearts, open our minds that we might receive the things from you, that you would remove me from the equation and that we would remember the things that you would have us to know and that we'd be able to apply them in our lives. We commit this time to you in your son's name. Amen.

0:26 Continuing in our study of the book of John. In our third week, we get to chapter two. I'm sorry, Abe. I am too selfish to finish your chapter and I will spend all of my time on my chapter. I'm sorry.

0:42 Well, you'll have to do that on your own. Study the second half of chapter one. I won't call anything out, but Abe fails as a preacher since he didn't get through everything he was assigned. I, of course, will get through all of mine, 25 verses in forty minutes or less. As it seems every time I come up here, have a very large portion to speak from.

1:10 So, we'll skim through things fairly quickly. But do know this is not an exhaustive study of the chapter of two. There's much more that could be said about each individual verse really. I'm going to try to give some highlights and expound a little bit verse by verse. But there's a lot more that can be said.

1:31 The chapter two is divided into two main sections. Obviously, turning of water into wine at the wedding and then Jesus clearing the temple. There's a little bit, the last couple of verses are kind of on their own there, but there's two main sections. And so, I'm going to start by reading just the first portion. We'll talk about the wedding first.

1:55 We'll read through this before we get started. And on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana Of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited and his disciples to the wedding. And when the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.' And Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.' His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it.

2:21 Now there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification containing 20 or 30 gallons each. Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. And they took it to him.

2:40 And when the head waiter tasted the water which had become wine and did not know where it had... Where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the head waiter called the bridegroom and said to him, every man serves the good wine first and when men have drunk freely than that which is poorer. But you have kept the good wine until now. This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana Of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. And we'll stop there because that's what we're going to talk about first.

3:10 Now, I get into this miracle, I want to recognize that there are two ways of interpreting the miracle beverage and whether it was alcoholic or not, whether it was fermented or not. There are very good cases that can be made on both sides and I'm not here to debate and belabor that argument because I don't think that's the most important thing that we can get from this passage. We have to think about, as we've discussed before the last couple of weeks about why John wrote his epistle. What is different from the Gospel of John from the synoptic Gospels? John is presenting Jesus as God.

3:47 Matthew presents him as the Messiah, the King. Luke presents him as the Son of Man. His humanity is written for the Greeks. Mark presents him as the servant. And so, John is presenting Christ as God, the God incarnate.

4:05 And from the theme verse of the book of John, we have that John wrote that you might believe. So that's the whole point of this. And that's what I want to stress about this part of chapter two. I will present it because my opinion is that from the context it was alcoholic fermented wine. That's where I stand and that's how I'm going to kind of present it.

4:25 But like I said, it's not, I don't think it's really that important to interpreting what's the significance of this passage. It is interesting to note that John is the only gospel writer who mentions this miracle. The other writers do not make mention of this. And I think that also tells us something that there's something about this in particular that shows Christ as being God. And so that suits John's means for writing.

5:22 And the mother of Jesus was there and also Jesus and his disciples. I want to mention that the mother of Jesus is kind of... I look at this and I think that John was saying, Oh yeah, and by the way. I think it's important to note that Mary is not presented in the gospels as the haloed person individual that some people hold her to. She was not anything special.

5:55 Obviously, she was chosen to give birth to Christ the Messiah, but she's not even named here. John doesn't even use her name. It's just the mother of Jesus. It's not capitalized. He only mentions her because it's kind of has something to do with the story development because she actually says something a couple of verses later.

6:18 But the scripture places the emphasis on Christ. It's not about Mary. I have a quote here from William McDonald. He says about this, the savior was not famous because he was the son of the Virgin Mary, but she was well known because she was the mother of our Lord. Verse three, and when the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

6:41 And Jesus said to her, woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come. So, here Mary presents the problem. If I can put that in quotations. Whether it was alcoholic or not, you know, the fun drinks gave out and now we have to drink water.

7:00 So, she's presenting the problem. You know, it's such a drag to drink water, but she presents the problem. And we can look at this as, was she really just commenting? Was the chest down? The wine gave out.

7:14 Or was she complaining? Was she thinking that Jesus was actually gonna do something here, do something amazing. I think she wasn't just, I think it wasn't just a comment. Because if we look at Jesus's response, and since we know and can understand that he knew her intentions. So, because Jesus addresses her and almost rebukes her, I think we can tell that Mary must've had some kind of motive for telling this to Jesus.

7:47 Now, maybe she wanted him to be glorified. Maybe she was trying to get people to know who he was. This was the beginning of Jesus's public ministry. He was about 30 years old as most of us understand at this point. And she wanted...

8:05 I don't know if she just wanted to show him off. She wanted to give him an opportunity to do something. We can take from verse 11 that this was his first miracle. So, don't think John would have written that under the influence of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus was performing miracles at home, look mom, I turn these stones into bread.

8:27 I don't think there was, I don't think he grew up in that kind of household. I don't think it was, Hey mom, watch this. So, think this really was his first one. So, did Mary really have an idea that he would perform a miracle? Did she know?

8:42 I think it's tough to say from the context, but I think she wanted him to somehow do something that would garner attention, maybe. And it wasn't the right motive because Jesus rebukes her here. And it's also important to note here in chapter in verse four, that in the Greek, this is not quite as severe as it would be in English. If any man were to address his mother like this and say something like that, it would seem a bit disrespectful and not really the right thing to say. But first of all, the term that's used there for woman is really just how we could say lady or ma'am in English.

9:25 So it's not quite as rude as we think. However, it's not the endearing term that most of us would ascribe to our mother. So it is a little disjunct here. And he says, my time has not yet come. What do I have to do with you?

9:40 And there's also something to note. He's not... The expression there, what do I have to do with you, is really more of an idiom. For some unknown reason, what comes to mind here is like... We have all kinds of expressions in English that we don't always mean literally.

9:57 Raise the roof. Usually, it means we're going to get loud and have a party and, you know, you're not physically going to actually raise the roof, okay? So, it's an idiom, that phrase. It's more, this doesn't have anything to do with me. This doesn't concern me.

10:13 So Jesus is not quite, while he's not being rude to his mother, he's definitely making a clear distinction here that he's no longer, he is not of his mother's house. He does not have to obey his mother. He's beginning his public ministry. And as we see in the other gospels, when he was left behind, when he was 11 or 12 years old and his parents come back and he had been in the temple for three days and he says, I have to go about my father's business. And so, he's in a way distancing himself from her because he has to do the will of his father and not her.

11:20 She just couldn't even process that. Now, this was a wedding. And it's also important to know that Jewish weddings were not like wedding receptions are today. These kind of wedding receptions could go on for seven days. Weddings were a much bigger deal.

11:41 And we could talk about the whole engagement process and how ancient Jewish custom, how things went, you know, even aside from scripture, just what we can read about in history books about ancient, those ancient times. But this was a big event And there... And and I don't think we can take that this was actually all happened on one day. You know, this could have been several days into the wedding celebration. Now, maybe Mary...

12:08 I I think it's plausible to think that maybe she had been partaking of festivities and maybe she had been drinking wine. And so maybe she wasn't quite altogether up here and possessing her mind. I think that's possible. We can't say for sure. But for whatever reason, what Jesus says to her goes right over her head.

12:29 And I feel like she just says to the sermons, Just do whatever He tells you to do. And, in a way, we can still take that as a very applicable instruction today. She wasn't trying to take control over the servants. She was trying to tell them, she was pointing to Jesus and saying, Do what He tells you to do. And even if she had the wrong motives for this, I think it's a very applicable instruction today.

13:00 You know, we should be not looking to someone else to tell us what to do. We shouldn't be looking to someone else to intercede, on our behalf with God. You know, I'm not standing up here because I know something that you don't or I have some kind of weird access to God that you don't, you know? It's that do what he tells you. Have the direct interaction with him.

13:24 You don't need me here. And that's very true today. Verse six, now there were six stone water pots set there for the Jewish custom of purification containing 20 or 30 gallons each. And Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water and they filled them up to the brim. As I said here, these were the water pots that were used for purification services.

13:49 This was ceremonial cleansing. These were not pots for drinking water. They put water in these because they would wash all the ceremonial wash. Would wash their hands. They would wash their utensils.

14:01 They would wash the plates before they ate. This was also for when a Jew had a sickness or a disease, when they became well again, they had to go through the ritual. There was a ceremonial washing process. You present yourself to the priest, he pronounces you clean, and now you wash your clothes and you wash. That's what the ceremonial thing was.

14:26 And you can see that back in Leviticus. That's what these were for. And I guess if there are 20, if we interpret this correctly, I'm reading out of the New American Standard. I think the King James calls it firkins. I have no idea what a firkin is.

14:38 But I guess somebody figured out that they're 20 to 30 gallons. So they're decently sized water pots and there were six of them. And Jesus says to them, to the disciple... I'm sorry, not the disciples. Distinction there.

14:52 He says to the servants, fill the water pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. Now, here's the first point that I want to get out of here. This is a big thing here about why this miracle was chosen by John to show Christ as God. I I think this is one analogy that he means for us to get out of here is these were, as I said before, these were pots of water.

15:23 Well, weren't, they were empty, but they were pots for filling with ceremonial water. And Jesus replaces the water with wine, fermented or unfermented. It doesn't matter. I don't think it really matters. They're filled up to the brim.

15:43 Now, man provided the pots. They were man made pots and men filled those pots with water. But it took God to make the change, to perform the miracle, to replace the water with something else. We think about when Paul says that he planted, speaking of the gospel message, and Apollos watered, but it was God who gave the increase. We think about this in terms of the gospel.

16:16 The gospel gets sown. A human being sows the gospel. A human being preaches the gospel to someone else. Now, if that individual, under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, recognizes and confesses the fact that they're a sinner and they need Christ as savior. Okay.

16:33 So, we have man doing two things, preaching it and then accepting it. But does that save that person? Absolutely not. It takes God to perform the miracle. It takes God to replace what you had with what He's going to make you.

16:49 You don't save yourself. It's not enough just to accept that. It's not enough when you wrong someone and you go to make an apology and you say, I'm sorry. You're apologizing to someone. Does that mean anything to you if they never say anything back?

17:03 It doesn't mean anything until they say, I accept that. I forgive you. You can apologize all day long and you could still feel awful about it afterwards if that person doesn't acknowledge your apology and accept it. It takes that third. It takes the third.

17:20 It takes God to make that change. So I think this is one picture. He's giving us a little picture of the gospel message here and how He's taking the ceremonial and turning it into reality. Something else that's significant here is that the servants are the ones that are used, not the disciples. He had disciples with him and if remember right, he doesn't have all 12 at this point.

17:49 But he has some disciples with him. But he uses the servants to fill the pots with water. He uses the servants to draw some out and then take it to the wedding planner. Hang on a minute. I get ahead of myself and this is what I always do.

18:33 And when the head waiter tasted the water which had become wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, The head waiter called the bridegroom and said to him, Every man serves a good wine first and then, when men have drunk freely, then that which is poorer. But you have kept the good wine until now. So, why did Jesus have the servants take the wine to the wedding planner? Why not, he could have said, okay, go fetch the head waiter and bring him back here. At which point, he could have said, Hey, watch this.

19:12 Or, while they went to go get him and bring him back, Jesus could have just slipped out. But he says to the servants, Take some out and take it to him. And one way that I look at this is that in a way Jesus was trying to not draw attention to what He did. Because I think, and this is just my opinion, but if the wedding planner had come into this storage area wherever all these pots were, and Jesus was standing there, and Jesus turns it into wine, this guy's going to know who did it. And he's going to know, kind of, he's going to have this idea about what happened and he's going to go tell people at this wedding and where people are partying and that.

20:05 And I think that would have distracted from and drawn too much attention to what Jesus was trying to do. Also, say Jesus had slipped out while the servants were bringing this guy back, the guy would have looked at the servants and went, Where'd this come from? Where'd all of this come from? This wasn't here before. The servants were like, I don't know.

20:27 This guy over here. I think it would have drawn attention to it. In the way that Jesus did it, you have to try to place this in context and try to imagine where they were and what was going on. Okay. It's a wedding thing.

20:42 There's a lot of music going on, dancing going on. It's a big, big party. And so, the servants take this ladle cup, I don't know, and they take it over to him in the middle of the Hulu and hubbub. It's, know, taste this. And he tastes it.

20:57 You know, and he doesn't care where it came from. He goes, oh my goodness. You know, the servant see his face go up and his eyebrows go up and he goes, wow, this is good. And go get the groom. He doesn't care where it came from.

21:10 You know, it's just like, you know, the servants opened the next batch. He's not concerned with it because he doesn't see where it came from. And so, I think that's how I look at this as being significant, because then he doesn't ask the servants where it came from. He's not concerned with it. It's, Oh, wow, this is really good.

21:26 Go get that guy. And tell him, What in the world are you doing? Because you're supposed to serve this stuff first, but this is the best stuff we've ever had. And he's just kind of overcome with, Oh my gosh, this is really good. And I think that fits in with what Jesus is trying to do here.

21:42 He's using the servants because nobody cares. If you think about this in a more modern day wedding reception and the servers, the waiters and waitresses acquire new beverages from somewhere, I mean, whoever thinks about it. You don't question them or anything. They're just the ones that are serving it. But if the guy in charge were to actually see where it came from, then people start asking questions and people find out and it's all a big deal.

22:12 So, and this kind of jives with what He's saying in verse four, My hour has not yet come. This wasn't His time. Now, He knew from before creation that He was going to perform this miracle at this time, at this place. He knew that. But it was not his time to become known.

22:32 He was not trying to, you know, he was not trying to achieve celebrity status here. That's not what it was about. And like I said a few minutes ago, I think there's a big salvation message pictured right there in taking the ceremonial pots, the ceremonial water, and turning it into something new and replacing it. For the Jews in particular, this was turning turning... This miracle, turning the water into wine was taking the the the drab, boring ritual, the waters of ritual, and turning it into something real.

23:17 It was turning it into something better. It was saving the better for later. This is the old covenant versus the new covenant. Jesus instilled... God instilled the old covenant, and He gave them all of that.

23:27 This is your method of atoning for your sins. And then He gives us something so much better, so much better. And I am so glad I live in the church age and have this opportunity for salvation and that I can accept Christ and have my sins pardoned for in a way that the Jews did not have at that time. So, that's going to wrap it up for the miracle at the wedding feast. So, if we can read the next portion here, in verse 12, it says, after this, He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples.

24:36 And to those who were selling the doves, he said, take these things away. Stop making my father's house a house of merchandise. His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for thy house will consume me. The Jews therefore answered and said to him, what sign do you show us seeing that you do these things? Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.

25:00 The Jews therefore said, It took forty six years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days? But He was speaking of the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. Now, when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing. But Jesus on His part was not entrusting himself to them for he knew all men and because he did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for he himself knew what was in man.

25:40 Okay. Jesus both began and ended his ministry by clearing the temple at Passover. It is in Matthew... I think it's in all three of the other gospels, I think, Jesus clearing the temple. But that is at the, it's the last Passover we have.

26:02 It's around the triumphal entry. So, Jesus cleared the temple at the beginning of his ministry at Passover, and then when he went to Jerusalem, and there was also a Passover in between. John's the only gospel that really gives us this three year timeline here. So the one that's in the other gospels is three years from now or two years from now. I don't do math, okay?

26:25 I'm a musician. I count to four. Yeah, it is. It's in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19. I made a note of that.

26:35 How about that? All right. So, there were seated in the temple. The temple was a large place. This was Herod's temple.

26:44 And you had, just like in Solomon's temple and in the Tabernacle, you had a holy place and you had a most holy place. But then outside of that, only the priest could go there. And then outside of that were the larger courtyards. This is where people gathered and if you weren't a priest, this is where you could go. Big courtyards.

27:01 You think about it as the grounds out here in the parking lot all of that. And there were people that had made a bit of a store there, a bit of a market. They had the sheep and oxen and doves that were used in sacrifice. And there were also money changers. The money changers were the people who would exchange foreign currency to pay the temple tax.

27:24 So whether you were a sojourning Jew who had gone somewhere and acquired some foreign currency, you know, it had to be changed into, you know, the local currency there. Or if there were travelers who were coming to the temple, this was here, we'll exchange your money. And it was known that they would take advantage of people saying that, Oh, that is only worth this much in Hebrew money or Roman money. I don't know. I didn't do my homework that well.

27:55 But they would take advantage of people as well. That was a well known thing. They were selling everything that was needed for the sacrifice. That way, it was convenient, right? You, as a Jew, you come to the temple to offer sacrifices for whatever it was.

28:10 You read Leviticus and you go, Man, they were doing this, I thought, almost every day. Because you had to offer sacrifice for so many different things. Instead of having to buy it ahead of time or maybe if you were a shepherd, had your own, instead of having to bring one, you just buy one when you get there. How awesome is that? You don't have to travel with an animal.

28:30 This is super convenient. You just go to the temple, you buy what you need to do and then you hand it to the priest and there you go. So, it was a convenient thing. And it's not that the people who were selling the animals, it's not that that was wrong. Because you think at this point, you know, you have people of different occupations.

28:50 So you had tent makers and you had carpenters, you know, these people didn't necessarily have flocks. So they would have had to buy animals for sacrifice anyway. Not everybody had flocks and herds and all of that. So you would have bought it anyway. So it's not that it was a problem that people were selling animals.

29:10 If you were a shepherd, that's what you did. You raised sheep. You could sell them. You could make a living that way. But as we get to here, as we get to verse 15, obviously, this was a problem.

29:43 I don't think they were very long. I don't get the idea it was this Indiana Jones style, you know, 15 foot swing across the canyon crazy business. It wasn't a whip, know, he's making it from some scraps that were lying around. Maybe it was this long. And you know, he's...

29:57 You have to think that he's brandishing it like a sign of authority here. It does not say he actually struck anyone. And I think the way I interpret it is that I don't think He actually did strike anyone because I don't think it would have... I don't think that would have went along with the rest of His testimony. Everything we look at in Jesus' ministry, and when he talks about turning the other cheek, when you're struck on one cheek, you offer your enemy the other one.

30:26 Know, Jesus never struck anyone. That's not to mean that he's not, he doesn't believe in corporal punishment. We obviously know that God believes in corporal punishment and death. So, but I don't think it would have behooved him to actually strike people with this whip. However, you got to picture this.

30:44 If you're sitting there in the temple, you're selling stuff. There's guys that are selling the oxen in the sheep. They got the cages over here. They're tied up over here at the post. You got the guys over here sitting at the table because they had the money boxes and they're the ones that exchanged the money.

30:56 So they're all sitting down there at the table, you know, and Jesus comes up and he's got this thing and he whams it down on the table. I think that's very likely he could have. It doesn't say he did that. But, you know, if you're sitting at a table and your hands are right here and like a whip comes down inches from your hands on the table. It would have been a fearful thing.

31:18 I mean, you know, you can do the woah, you know, I'm getting out of here, And he's probably flogging the animals with it. These sheep and oxen probably are very used to human contact. So Jesus going, Here, get. I don't think they would have started moving anywhere, okay? There are a lot of deer where we live.

31:42 There's an infestation of deer in Parma. And you walk right up to one of those things and they just look at you like, what? Bad, you and Parma. Okay. So he's probably hitting the animals with it.

31:57 You know, this is a big scene here. It's kind of a big deal. Know, he's hitting animals with it. He's probably slamming it down on tables. And after he hits the table, he picks the thing up and throws it over.

32:10 Is Jesus losing his cool here? Is this, you know, do we use this to say, you know, Jesus, oh, he really was a man, wasn't he? Cause he kind of lost it. No, absolutely not. We can't think that for a minute.

32:22 So how do reconcile this with his testimony and what God is about, what Jesus was about? We have to make sure we don't paint Christ in too rosy of a picture. Yes, God is love. And you think about everything that Jesus ever said. Yeah, love your enemies.

32:40 Do good to those who hate you. It was all of this very Jesus led a very quiet life. He didn't even own a house. He didn't own anything. And He went around healing the sick.

32:51 We think about Him as being a very demure kind of person, not drawing attention to Himself. And that's good. And true. However, don't forget that He's still God. And God, where there's love and grace and abundance, there is also His holy and righteous judgment and wrath.

33:17 God abhors sin. God cannot tolerate sin. And what they were doing in the temple, turning what was a place of worship into a market. It would have smelled like you've been to a petting zoo. It would have smelled in there.

33:32 You have all these animals. And this was the temple. You're only supposed to go to the temple. This is where you worship. You bring your sacrifices.

33:38 This is where you worship. And it smells like a farmhouse and there's all this noise. No. That's not what this is. It's not what it's supposed to be.

33:48 And he had a righteous anger as God. And the zealousness, as his disciples are remembering as it was written. It's maybe a bit of possessiveness. Way any of you men might feel towards your wife. Do whatever you want to do to me, but don't touch her.

34:09 Don't touch her. You cast yourself in front of her and you say, Don't touch her. Or if it was your mother, it's this kind of possessiveness where, Don't do that to her or her things. Don't mistreat that. Whether it's the person or something that belongs to them.

34:28 You don't mistreat that. It's his kind of possessiveness. This was his father's house. And he as God, Christ as being fully God, had every right to be angry and to drive them out. So, the Jews' reaction naturally is, what gives?

35:07 Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. What kind of sign is that? You know, maybe... I know if he really yelled it because we don't... There's no punctuation in the original.

35:23 So, we don't have all kinds of exclamation points. You know, maybe he calmed down at this point, and it was. Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it. Maybe he yelled it at them. I know.

35:33 I don't know. But what kind of sign is that? Okay. Let's think back to why is John writing about this, and what's John's point? How is he trying to paint Christ here?

35:42 As God, one, he's trying to paint Christ as God and it's that you may believe. If you skip ahead a little bit, when therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. So, this sign, the sign that you would have thought of, and if I was there, I can't say I would have been any different. He said, Destroy this temple in three days, I will raise it. Who are you, Bob Villa?

36:18 No, you can't do that. That's ridiculous. But it wasn't for them. The sign was for His disciples and for those of us reading later. It's that way, when you see it all play out later, then you can go, oh, I remember.

36:33 He said that. And now here it is. Huge moment. That's one of those, Oh, this all makes sense now. He really must have been God.

36:43 He really must have been. He said it for their sake. It was for their benefit that they might believe. Verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, beholding his signs which he was doing, which aren't listed.

37:06 But Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them for he knew all men and because he did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for he himself knew what was in man. There's a lot that could be said about those couple of verses. And in the couple of time... Couple of minutes I have left, you know, if you're ever looking for a really interesting way to spend the fastest forty five minutes in your life, prepare a message and come up here and forty five minutes vaporizes like dead. Okay.

37:46 So, these people who believed in His name, okay, Jesus didn't entrust Himself to them. Why? Because they were fake. They weren't real followers. Many believed in His name, beholding His signs.

38:05 I want to follow that guy. Look at that. Look, man, we've got to follow this guy. I want to see magic tricks. This is cool.

38:14 That's what it was. They didn't they wanted to watch, you know? I could make a movie quote from The Incredibles here. But I really don't have time. Waiting for something amazing.

38:31 Any of you get that? I'll leave it there. They're just waiting for something amazing. That was all. And so Jesus did not He didn't entrust Himself to them because He knew.

38:40 He knew their motives. He knew their intentions. He knew what was in man. He didn't need anyone to bear witness. Concerning man, I mean, he needed people to bear his witness.

38:54 But he already knew. And that's why he didn't, in a way he didn't bother. I mean, yeah, he didn't stop the flocks from following him. But, you know, he doesn't, he chooses whom he entrusts himself to. And he can weed out the real ones from the lip service.

39:31 And when you meet Jesus Christ, you meet Him honestly, or you don't meet Him at all. Jesus isn't looking for a crowd of people cheering His miracles. He's looking for a little group of people who will die for him if that's the price he demands. You can be a part of that little group. And incidentally, if you're worried about dying for him, that's promotion day.

39:54 To die is to what? Gain. To die is the easy part. It's the living that's tough. But you can be a part of that group by faith.

40:08 God hates sin. But God's provided a way of escape and forgiveness in His resurrection. If you come to Him with genuine faith and receive Christ, His salvation is for you. Christ is God. Do you see it?

40:27 John MacArthur. Let's close. Father, we come to you again. We thank you for this time that we've had to open your word and to examine how and why you are God. And why your son, Jesus Christ, our Messiah was fully God.

40:47 And we see this played out and we will see it in the weeks to come as we examine John's gospel. And we ask that you would show us how. Show us how and show us the way and show us what you would have us see about your son and how he truly is God. Lord Jesus, we thank you for coming into this world to die for us. Thank you for coming to teach us.

41:12 Thank you for setting the example, the ultimate example that no one else could have ever set. We thank you for all that you have done for us. Thank you for redeeming us. And we thank you for this time and ask for your blessing as we are dismissed. In your son's name, amen.