Thursday Night Fellowship
January 26, 2006
Study of John
Introductory Questions
1. How many of you told your parents and a friend about Jesus in the last two weeks?
2. Has your mom ever asked you to do something that you didn't want to do?
3. What are some concepts about God that aren't clear to you or difficult to understand?
4. Which of these words describe Jesus?
- Loving, caring, meek, mild, divisive, confrontational, harsh, violent, passionate, purposeful, critical, gentle, name-calling, powerful, handsome, alive, loves to party, had to burp occasionally
Our Purpose for Studying John? To know Jesus better. To move Jesus from the Sunday school two-dimensional flannel graph figure to the God-man who lives and loves people like us.
Let's read our passage of John 2:1-12.
Let's list the main people in this passage:
* Jesus
* Jesus' mother
* Jesus' disciples
Will someone please summarize the story for us?
How does verse 2:4 sound to you? Let's read that in some different versions. To be honest, I have a hard time understanding why Jesus says this. What do you think he does?
Jesus' mother may have been being motherly and telling Jesus what to do. She knew that Jesus could have done something and so she told her son what to do. Well Jesus is more than just the son of Mary, he is the son of God the Father, and Jesus always does the will of the Father. While it was God's will that Jesus turn water into wine, Jesus may have been demonstrating to his mother that he will act according to the Holy Spirit.
The other option may be that Jesus didn't know that he was supposed to turn the water into wine and later the Holy Spirit revealed it to him. The story happens rather quickly in John 2, but it may not have happened that quickly at the celebration. Weddings were long and huge events back then. This is a harder explanation to understand, but at least we can ponder about it.
The focus of our study through John is on the relationships Jesus has with people. We want to look at how Jesus relates to people and how those people relate to Jesus. From these observations we can draw applications as to how Jesus relates to us and how we ought to relate to him.
First we can look at Jesus and his mother.
Mary believed that Jesus could do something about the problem of no wine, so she took the problem to him. In the same way we have problems in our lives that we can take to Jesus. In this passage the “problem” wasn't life-threatening, yet it concerned Mary. Likewise we may have concerns in our lives that aren't “huge” to others, but are still important to us. My pet worm may be sick and you don't care; but if it's important to me, it's important to Jesus, and he can do something about it.
How about how Jesus relates to Mary? It seems a bit harsh; it seems as if Jesus doesn't care. Have you ever had times when you felt like Jesus doesn't care about your concerns. We can see that He really does care, but sometimes our perceptions or motivations are incorrect. We can trust Jesus that He knows what is best and will do it. 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Here's a tough question: Who did Jesus perform this miracle for?
See verse 11. Jesus turned the water into wine primarily for his disciples benefit. Although Jesus did turn water into wine for his mother, the party attendees, the bridegroom, even for Himself, His purpose was to reveal his glory to His disciples. Why did he reveal his glory his glory to his disciples? So that they would believe in Him. Did Jesus accomplish his purpose? Yes. Jesus always accomplishes his purpose.
What's a purpose Jesus has for you? Here's one of my favorites: Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Jesus promised to finished what He started in me. That is, he saved me, he will continue to save me, and he will ultimately save me and bring me to heaven where I will finally be like him.
Jesus reveals himself (his glory) to us so that we may believe in him more. How many of you hear are Jesus' disciples? All of you who put your faith in Jesus are his disciples. He wants you to believe in Him more. How will he do that? He will reveal himself to you through various ways, sometimes even miraculous ways.
Action Point:
* Read John 2:13-25 twice this week.
* Tell one parent and one friend about Jesus this week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
Ah i see that you have changed the color scheme to a brighter look. i am not sure if i like the rust color, it may just take some getting used to :)
I think that when Jesus was talking to Mary at the wedding cerimony in John chapter 2, he wasn't necisarily saying that He wouldn't change the water into wine. I think He was saying wait. Many times when we pray Gad doesn't otomatically say yes or no to our prayer, He says wait. IT doesn't mean that HE won't do it, it just means that the time has not yet come for that prayer to be answered with a defineate yes or no; thus Jesus saying "My time has not yet come."
Yeah I changed the color. I'm trying for a warmer look. There's a bunch of pre-built templates, but many of them don't fit a youth group blog (probably because there's not many youth group bloggers out there).
I think Nathan has a good point. I like the way you're thinking. It's amazing how many different ways you could translate the Greek into English, and if you don't read the different versions you may assume the tone of voice Jesus was using. Often times Scripture isn't as clear as we like it to be, but we can trust that the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth we need at this point in our lives.
Post a Comment