Do whatever He’s says to do
Good afternoon, I’m Byron Whetstone with Heartland International Ministries and this is our blog. I have a couple of stories I’d like to share with you and they're really not terrifically positive stories, but they really are if you'll hold on for the end, I think it is a positive story.
Some of you know that I have breakfast with a group of men and we've been meeting at this one particular restaurant every Friday for a third of the 30 years that we've been doing this. This last Friday we got to the restaurant and we were informed by the manager that the man that had served us every Friday for 10 years had died the night before from a heart attack. Alan was an amazing man, and we are grieving and praying for his family.
But the reason I share this with you is because in our house church we also have started the study of the gospel of John and John's gospel is completely unique, and that it is not a synoptic gospel. It talks mostly about the life of Jesus in Galilee in Jerusalem and the passage of scripture that I like from john's gospel really well that we haven't quite gotten there yet, but john says in John 20:31:
31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Another sad part of the Alan death story is he's been waiting on us for 10 years he knows our names, he knows our family's names, he knows what we do, he hears us talk about all of the various interpretations of the scripture that we talk about over and over and over again and we looked around Friday morning and we didn't know whether Alan was a believer and there's a couple of pastors at the table, a couple of laymen, and we started tearing up because we didn't know whether Alan was a believer. We choose now to believe that the words that he heard from us, the communication that he heard from us were that he would have known that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God because of the way he took care of us, the way he served us, and in sort of keeping with the theme from John I want to read to you from John 2:
The Wedding at Cana
2 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
I get a kick out of this because he respectfully says ‘Mother’ but then he's a 30 year old man. What does this wine mean? You know being out of wine have to do with me of course we know now that wine is a rabbinical symbol of joy. We knew that they have no wine would have been a tremendous social craziness, and you know I think Mary was no doubt anticipating at some point Jesus was going to show his deity and when he asks a woman “What concern do I have with that” and she responds to the servants “do whatever he says to do”.
Wouldn't it be great if we could live that part of our life every day and do what he says to do, because I know that in fact ten years Alan served us and we don't know whether he believed in the Christ the son of god but it was very much whatever we said to Alan he would do it and I believe that we should think of that when we think of the lord Christ. I just want to point out one final thing, that is in John 2 passage it says “on the third day” and I think there's no missing that the miracle that Jesus started with turning water into wine happened on the third day, and that cleansing and that conversion is ongoing in my life, and ongoing in your life. So I hope that you will see that there is something great in our faith in the lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. To God be the Glory!