A Sign of the Times

Order of Worship:

Welcome
Song of Praise  “Our God”
Call to Worship  Psalm 105:1-6
Song of Praise  “Praise To The Lord”
Confession of Faith WCF V-III
Song of Praise  “Tis So Sweet”
Prayer of Adoration
Greet One Another
Ministry Spotlight Mother’s Day
Prayer of Intercession
Giving of God’s Tithe and Our Offerings
Scripture Reading John 2:1-11
Song of Preparation  “Holy Spirit”
Sermon Josh Gilman
Prayer of Commitment
Song of Response  “Jesus Thank You”
Benediction

Sermon Notes – “A Sign of the Times” Word of the Day: Faith
John 2:1-11

Gospel Truth: In our need, God strengthens our faith through the glorious works of Christ.
Introduction
“For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our
God calls to himself.”
Acts 2:39

“Faith…is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing
moods…This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come…That is why faith is such a
necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off,’ you can never be either a sound
atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the
state of its digestion. Consequently, one must train the habit of faith.”
(C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
I. Our Dilemma (vv. 1-4)

Isaiah 43:18-19

John 7:30-31

John 8:20

John 13:1
Amos 9:13-15

Jeremiah 31:1
Isaiah 25:6-8
Ezra 9:6

“I can’t look back from where I am now and feel that I have been very much in charge of my life …. I
have made plans enough, but I see now that I have never lived by plan …. Nearly everything that has
happened to me has happened by surprise. All the important things have happened by surprise. And
whatever has been happening usually has happened before I had time to expect it …. And so when I
have thought I was in my story or in charge of it, I really have been only on the edge of it, carried along.
Is this because we are in an eternal story that is happening [only] partly in time?”

(Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow)

II. Jesus’ for Deliverance (vv. 5-8)

John 3:25
Mark 7
2 Chronicles 4:1-6 Temple purification rituals

Robert Capon said of the Reformation, “The Reformation was a time when men went blind staggering
drunk because they had discovered, in the dust the basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of
1500 year old, 200 proof Grace – bottle after bottle of pure distillate Scripture, one sip of which would
convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel – after all those centuries of
trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps – suddenly turned
out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started… Grace has to be drunk
straight!
Psalm 104:15 
“Jesus sat in the midst of present joy sipping the wine of future sorrow, so that we might sit in the midst
of present sorrow sipping the wine of future joy.” (Tim Keller, Walking w/ God through Pain & Suffering)

III. Divine Glory Faith (vv. 9-11)

John 1:14
Augustine, “For she saw that you had granted her far more than she used to ask in her tearful prayers.
You converted me to yourself, so that I no longer placed any hope in this world, but stood firmly upon the
rule of faith. And you turned her sadness into rejoicing, into joy far fuller than her dearest wish, far
sweeter and more chaste than any she had hoped to find.”

God’s wonderful works which happen daily are lightly esteemed, not because they are of no import but
because they happen so constantly and without interruption. Man is used to the miracle that God rules
the world and upholds all creation, and because things daily run their appointed course, it seems
insignificant, and no man thinks it worth his while to meditate upon it and to regard it as God’s
wonderful work, and yet it is a greater wonder than that Christ fed five thousand men with five loaves
and made wine from water. (Martin Luther, Day by Day We Magnify Thee)