Christopher: All the things you've wept in this life, all the sorrows of this life, they've been gathered up as it were in this cup. And the day is coming, the promise of wine in scripture tells us this, when that cup will be lifted to your lips by the nail pierced hands of Jesus Christ himself. And when you drink from it, all you will taste is the sweet wine of his steadfast love for you.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher: Last week, as I said, we looked at this overview of the Lord's Supper, just very, very general look at theologically what what do we say it is? What's happening when we come together in this way? And as I mentioned, the elders are in agreement as we've been studying and praying and talking together that we would like to propose to you as a congregation to move to a weekly observance of the Lord's Supper such that every instance of preaching Christ from the pulpit culminates in faiths feeding upon Christ in the supper together. And we looked at some reasons for that last week. This week, we're going to continue our examination of the supper together, and we're going to be focusing on one specific element in the tradition, namely wine wine.
Now part of what the elders are suggesting, what we're in agreement on together and suggesting to you is that Kingstree would consider returning to the traditional and scriptural practice of having wine at the Lord's Supper rather than merely grape juice. Now this will be voted on. This will be voted on. Nobody's pressing this from the top down, and we would continue to have grape juice as a nonalcoholic option for those who have that concern or that conviction or just who would want to go in that route. We would continue to have that, but we're suggesting that we have wine at the supper as would have been the practice of Jesus and his disciples and the earliest expressions of the church.
Indeed, the entire expression of the church until the late eighteen hundreds. Now, like I said, that's going to be voted on. That's not going to be forced upon anyone. If we go in that direction, we want the whole church to be able to say, we we agree with this. We're doing this together.
What I want to do today though, is give you an overview of the theology of wine in Scripture, because there is one. There's a biblical theology of wine all throughout scripture. This is strange. I mean, I've never given a sermon on wine before, but as we're thinking about this, and as I've been considering and as the elders have been considering it, we've really been thinking about there is significance to wine, and we see it in the Bible. We gather it from the Bible.
So I want to look with you today at a theology of wine in Scripture, and I want to do that one, to help you just understand it as we move toward the vote so that you can have that in your mind, but two, and more primarily, I wanna help you taste and see by faith the fullness of the blessing that we've been given in Christ, and wine is one of the images, a primary image scripture uses for that blessing. And so by looking at the image of wine in scripture, whether or not we move in that direction with the Lord's Supper, I want you as a Christian to be reminded again or to taste for the first time something of the blessing, something of the fullness that is ours in Christ. Because when the Holy Spirit inspires words about that blessing, one of the images he often uses is wine. So that's what we're gonna be looking at today. Now, text, we're gonna be jumping all over the place.
So don't try to follow me for a lot of what we're doing. It's just gonna be quick reading. I'm gonna be giving you examples throughout scripture, but a place that we can kind of land this morning is John chapter two. John chapter two, which is the wedding at Cana. And I'll read for you this passage before we pray together and look at this concept together.
John chapter two starting in verse one says this, on the third day, okay, that's important. What else happens on the third day? Resurrection, the in breaking of joy. But it's not a sermon about that right now. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. And his mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you.
Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification each holding 20 or 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants fill the jars with water and they filled them up to the now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it and when the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. The master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, everyone serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then the poor wine, but you have kept the good wine until now. This is the first of his signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.
Let me pray for us. Father, as we come to your word this morning, I know there's many various associations that we all have with with wine, whether it's negative or positive, all sorts of things. But Lord, I pray that this morning you would take this aspect of reality, this wine, and you'd help us Lord to see it in the light of Christ, to see it as an image and a symbol and a sign of what you have for us and who you are for us in him. And father through that sign this morning, I pray that your people would receive something of the fullness of yourself in Christ. Lord, that this would not just be an interesting discussion of a word or a concept from scripture, but that truly Lord, the the reality beneath these things, the love beneath this, the the person beneath this would stand forth and be received afresh by your people, and that there would be joy and fullness and healing and peace granted to your people this morning as we consider the sign of wine and what it means what it means for the bride of Christ.
Lord, grant me grace to be clear, grant your people grace to hear, and glorify your name we pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, since a sermon about wine is a bit out of the ordinary, I want to begin with a few clarifications that will just kind of lay the groundwork for us as we're talking together this morning. The first of these is just to be right up front, the wine that would have been used at a Passover ritual, which is like what the Last Supper was, and the wine that would have been drunk in the Greco Roman world at Jesus' time would have been wine mixed with water.
So we're talking about wine mixed with water. There's Jewish prescriptions for the Seder meal, the Passover meal, that say the wine should be mixed with two or three parts water. So we're talking about two cups of water, one cup of wine, or three cups of water, one cup of wine. It's a diluted kind of wine. That would have been the standard in Jesus' era.
It would have been the standard for the Greco Roman world. In fact, it was believed I believe it was Plato who writes about wine, but the understanding was unmixed wine is for fools and madmen was the idea. You would drink mixed wine. So the wine that we're proposing as elders to be used in the Lord's Supper would be a mixture. That's the traditional way the Jews would have done it.
It's the traditional way the church inherited to do it. Mixed wine mixed with two to three parts water. And you might say, Well, why even use wine then if it's so diluted? But the point is this, what Jesus used in the Passover meal would have been this wine, this fermented fruit of the vine, and if we think the specific words of scripture matter, which we do, we're people of the word, then it matters that it's wine and not merely grape juice. There's something about wine.
In scripture, wine, grape juice didn't exist at the time. In Scripture, wine bears a particular symbolic weight, and it's that particular drink that Christ symbolically links to His blood and that Christ gives to His bride. He gave His bride wine with all the symbolism associated with it, and so as people of the book, it is reasonable for us to say, Well, then we want to have what he had. We want to do what he did. There must be something meaningful about this that we want to employ.
So that's the first point though, that we're not talking about just straight wine. We're talking about a mixture of water to wine. That's how Jesus would have used it. That's what we are suggesting would be implemented here. The second thing to say is that wine is a multifaceted symbol in scripture.
It's got many different expressions. It's a rich symbol. It can have different differing meanings, and this is where I'm just gonna run through a few texts for you to give you a sense of it. But at the center of all these meanings is this idea of potency. Potency.
There's a potency that comes with fermentation. There's power as it were that's latent in this drink and that becomes part of its symbolic meaning. So listen for it here. The first facet of wine's meaning in Scripture is in fact that it can be a negative thing. Scripture's very clear.
Wine can lead to debauchery, can lead to drunkenness, and Scripture is very clear about the warnings of any kind of drunkenness. Proverbs twenty-three 31, Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end, it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Or Isaiah five eleven, Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may run after strong drink or who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them. So scripture's clear, wine is potent and that potency poses a real danger.
A real danger to those who would receive it without moderation, to those who would look to it as a savior, as a shelter, as a relief, as a protection. It's a real danger. So that's clear. Hear that clearly. Secondly, associated with this negativity of drunkenness, wine is also a picture of God's wrath.
Wine becomes a picture in scripture of God's wrath. Psalm 70 five:eight, For in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine well mixed and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth drain it down to the dregs. Or Jeremiah 2five fifteen-sixteen, the Lord speaks to Jeremiah and says, Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them. Or we read this a few weeks ago, even in the book of Revelation, the wine of the wrath of God poured full strength into the cup of his anger.
So wine is an image of wrath in Scripture, and this is associated with the other negative element of wine, which is drunkenness. Just as wine can overcome the senses and leave someone laid out on the ground physically, wrath, the wrath of God is pictured as overwhelming, completely drowning those upon whom it is poured out beneath judgment. Just this effect, this reality that throws you down to the ground. That's how wrath is being pictured when it's associated with wine like this. So there's these negative facets of the wine image in scripture, but then very commonly, if not most commonly, and certainly the the capstone image of wine is as blessing, which is strange, right?
It's this dangerous thing. It's this image of wrath, but then it's also very commonly an image of blessing and specifically the blessing of Yahweh's presence with his people. The blessing of Yahweh's presence with his people. One of the first appearances of wine in all of scripture comes back in Genesis 14 with the figure of Melchizedek. Melchizedek is a fascinating figure who represents Christ.
He anticipates Christ and here's what we read. Melchizedek, king of Salem, this is Genesis fourteen eighteen. Melchizedek, king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham or Abram saying, blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hand. So early on in the appearance of wine in Scripture, here's wine and bread associated with the king of righteousness, that's what Melchizedek means, who's also the king of peace, that's his city, Salem, and he brings out bread and wine and he blesses Abraham.
So wine here is associated with blessing. And then Amos thirteen fourteen, or sorry, Amos chapter nine verses 13 through 14 reads like this, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed. So it'll be so much bounty that planting season will invade harvest season and harvest season will invade planting because there'll be so much to gather in, to gather in. I'm sure that's exactly what our farmers are wanting right now. And then it says this, the mountains shall drip sweet wine and the hills shall flow with it.
I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine. They shall make gardens and eat their fruit. So here, despite the negative elements of wine we see in other places of Scripture, wine is presented as the central image of the fullness of Yahweh's presence with his people flooding down from the mountains, wine washing down from the mountains in that image of Amos. So you've got this negative side of drunkenness or wrath, and then you've got this sense of blessing, and we're gonna spend the rest of our time this morning looking at the blessing element because that really is the defining aspect, the final stamp of wine in scripture, and that happens because of because of the Lord's Supper.
But what I wanna say now is just kind of summing up what we've seen about what what we can say about wine in scripture, very briefly obviously, is that it's marked by this idea of potency. Potency. Because of its potency, it can lead to drunkenness. Because of the potency, it's an image of wrath, and because of that potency that's in it, it's this powerful picture of the fullness and the abundance and the joy of the kingdom, of Yahweh's presence with his people. And notice that this potency is precisely what is lost when we use grape juice rather than wine.
It's the symbolic essence of the drinks the Lord gives his people is set to one side if we use something other than wine. And I'm not saying that breaks everything. I'm just saying consider that. Consider that. You can think of wine in Scripture almost like a drinkable fire.
Fire is potent and because of that, it's dangerous, but it's also life giving. It's a source of destruction and joy. It's an image in scripture of wrath and of love. In the same way, wine is also dangerous, but it's a source of joy when used correctly, when received correctly. It can bring ruin, but it can also be a means of holy sanctified celebration.
It can be a sign of wrath against God's enemies, but it's also one of the central signs of blessing for his people, and this goes back to this potent aspect that it has. Okay. So that's the overview. Now the final and defining significance wine is given in scripture because of its association with the supper, with communion. It's sealed with this idea of blessing, blessing associated with the end time presence of the Lord, and that's what I want to look at for the rest of our time this morning, how wine carries the idea of blessing for God's people.
There's three, at least three main categories of blessing associated with wine in scripture. Wine as it's received rightly by God's people. Kingdom abundance, eschatological joy, and eschatological just means end time associated with the end. Kingdom abundance, eschatological joy, covenant love. Wine becomes a sign of these three aspects of blessing.
So let's look at them together briefly. When the Old Testament wants to paint a picture of the fullness of the kingdom to come, One of the main paints that it reaches for is wine. It paints the image of our final hope of our of the kingdom of the Lord. It paints that image with wine. Let me give you a few examples of this.
One of the first places the Messiah shows up, you know, pastor Sean's dealing with the Christ, Messiah as he's going through first Samuel. One of the first places we see this figure of the Messiah anticipated in scripture comes in Genesis 49, and here's how he is presented. Verse 10. It says this, you don't have to turn around. I'll just read it.
The scepter, the kingly scepter, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine. He washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk. Now, only thing I want to point out to you there is that the Messiah is one of his introductory passages, pictures him as associated with wine, washed in wine. So the king, the coming king is identified with this abundance of wine.
Proverbs three:nine-ten, the king is writing to his son. So you've got the Davidic king writing to the heir of the throne. So we're in messianic territory here. And in Proverbs three, here's what the king says to his son about being a faithful king. Proverbs three verses nine through 10.
It says this, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. So the faithful king, his faithfulness is fullness of wine. Okay? So the king is being associated with wine. That's what we're seeing here.
And then we come to the passage I already read a little while ago, Amos nine thirteen-fourteen, where the Lord is anticipating the end, the promise of what's to come, and he says, The mountains shall drip sweet wine and the hills shall flow with it. Just let yourself imagine the vision that the Holy Spirit's conjuring in our minds there of the end time kingdom. Mountains streaming with wine, hills flowing with rivers not of water, but of wine. And this is a picture not of debauchery or luxury or drunkenness, it's a picture of abundant blessing. The wine is flooding the earth as it were.
The presence of Yahweh with his people is pictured as wine flowing down from the mountains. If God's wrath floods the earth with water, then we could say God's covenant love will flood the earth with wine. That's the picture here. So wine pictures kingdom abundance. The abundance of God with his people.
One of the main images scripture gives us is wine. Okay. Next, scripture associates wine with not just the kingdom of the end, but the joy that comes at the end. The joy of that kingdom, eschatological joy. This is one of my it's a wonderful passage.
You don't talk about favorites, guess, but this is a wonderful passage in Isaiah 25. Let me read it for you. It's anticipating this end time kingdom of Yahweh, and it pictures it as a feast. It says this, On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined, and he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and it will be said in that day, behold, this is our God.
So see what's being said in that passage. What's being brought together? Death is being swallowed up. Tears are being wiped away. Yahweh God is being revealed to his people, And all of this is happening in the context of a feast of rich food and well aged wine.
Rich food and well aged wine. In that sense, wine here is being made a sign of the joy into which God's people will be gathered, the feast of gladness into which his people will be gathered in on the day when he swallows up their death and reveals himself to them. And of course, we know that that day happens on the cross. That's precisely what's happening on the cross. Our death swallowed up.
God revealed to us on the Mountain Of Calvary such that the cross becomes the table upon which this very feast is spread for us. And at the center of this feast is this wine, this joy of the kingdom to come. And you see this even more clearly in Jeremiah. Jeremiah gives this beautiful picture of the end of the kingdom of of our hope in Jeremiah chapter 31. I'll read it for you.
Chapter 31 verses 11 through 14 says this, The Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. Pause. How's the ransoming happened? We sing about it. The blood of the lamb, the blood which Jesus says, receive it in this cup, in this wine.
Okay? So we're all it's all mingling together here. The Lord says, I will ransom Jacob. I have redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the heights of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine and the oil and over the young of the flock and of the herd.
Their life shall be like a watered garden and they shall languish no more. Then shall the young women rejoice in dance and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow. I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness.
What a beautiful image laid out before us here. Just notice two things briefly. The goodness of the Lord is set in parallel with grain, wine, and oil. Listen to this. They shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, comma, over the grain, the wine, and the oil.
What that grammatical construction means is this, they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord. That is to say, the grain, the wine, the oil. What Jeremiah is saying is that these the produce, the fullness, the feasting will itself be the goodness of the Lord given to and received by his people. Wine here becomes the drinkable goodness of Yahweh for his people. It becomes a potable sign of his presence.
Second, notice this, that the goodness of Yahweh in this passage that's being pictured by wine, it results in joy, but not just generic joy, not just, Oh, I'm happy now. That most precious kind of joy, that Christian kind of joy, that resurrection joy, which is joy that comes from and is in fact sorrow transformed. Look in verse 13. What kind of joy does wine represent? I will turn their mourning into joy.
I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow. So wine here is associated not just with generic happiness, but with that particular quality of joy. That is the joy that is sorrow transformed. That is the joy that wine represents. Just as the trampled down death of the grapes in the winepress becomes joy in the cup, so too wine represents the joy that comes out of the trampling of sorrow, the breaking down, the mourning of this life when the broken down soil of our soul yields a harvest of gladness, that particular kind of joy is what wine represents.
It represents the joy that says, I never thought it could be like this. I never thought this could happen. I never thought I would be glad again, and I am. That's what joy that's what wine is representing here from Jeremiah 31. So wine's representing kingdom abundance.
Wine's representing eschatological joy, and finally, wine represents covenant love. This is the final one, covenant love. We have to ask ourselves, okay, kind what is the joy that wine is representing? What is the joy? I get the feeling, but what is it?
And the answer is it is this. It is love. It is covenant love. That's the final thing joy or wine represents, and you see this really mainly in the Song of Solomon. The Song of Solomon, or which is also called the Song of Songs.
So in this book, in the Song of Songs, it is firstly dealing with the intimate love of husband and wife. That's clear. That's plain. That's agreed upon. But remember, husband and wife represent that's built on something deeper.
Husband and wife represents Yahweh and his people, Christ and the church. So if the song is about human marriage, which it is, it's supremely about the marriage, the union of God and his people. Let me just read you a few passages briefly about how wine is used here. Right at the beginning, the woman who is ultimately then the church, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your love is better than wine. And then down in verse four, draw me after you, let us run.
The king has brought me into his chambers. We will rejoice in you. We will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you. Or again in chapter two verse four, he brought me into the banqueting house, but what the words really are is house of wine.
He's brought me into his house of wine and his banner over me is love. Chapter four verse 10. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride. So now this is the groom speaking to the bride. How much better is your love than wine and the fragrance of your oils than any spice?
We could go on, but the point is in Song of Songs, love, covenant love is pictured as wine, and if marriage, if love in marriage is ultimately a picture of Yahweh and his people, and if this book presents love in marriage as wine, then what this book is doing is saying the love of Yahweh for his people is pictured in wine. You follow that? See how that works? The love of Yahweh for his people is here being associated with wine, and that is the highest depiction of wine in all of scripture. It becomes a drinkable sign of God himself given in love to his people, given in love to his bride.
That is the blessing toward which wine points. That is the joy in which wine is consummated. That is what wine ultimately is. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. In the Old Testament, that's what wine says to the believing soul.
I am my beloved's, my beloved is mine. Now, with these things in view, wrapping up, let us look at how Jesus fulfills these three aspects of wine's blessedness in the miracle at Cana. So if you haven't turned away, go back to John six. We're going to see how or sorry. John two.
We're going to see how all of this is fulfilled in what Christ does here. First, kingdom abundance. Kingdom abundance. Remember, the Messiah is introduced as one who is washed in wine and the promise of the kingdom is pictured as the mountains flowing with wine. There's abundance of wine as a picture of Yahweh's end time presence with his people.
Well, what do we see in Cana? We see Jesus inaugurate his public ministry as the Christ, as the Messiah, by turning 180 gallons of water into the best wine anyone has ever tasted. Okay? This was a little country wedding, maybe 20 people, maybe 30 people, and Jesus, our Lord, provides 180 gallons of wine for this. And that would have been raw.
So if you would have mixed it, it'd be hundreds and hundreds of gallons of wine that he provides. And the point is, look at the abundance. This little wedding becomes a picture of the eschatological kingdom. This little wedding is flowing with wine. Jesus fills it with wine.
Not to say, all right, now let's party. That's not the point. The point is the kingdom is here. The point is the mountains are flowing with wine. The point is the blessing of Yahweh's presence is among you.
So it in the midst of you so full that you can't even calculate its fullness. That's what Jesus is saying here. I am present with you. The kingdom has come in its fullness. That's the first thing.
Second thing, joy. Joy is being pictured here, not just the Kingdom, but joy. Remember what's at the center of the miracle of Cana. Transformation. Water turned into wine.
That's important because Jesus did not have to do that. He could have just taken a wineskin and made it never run out. He did that with the widow's oil in the Old Testament. He could have just taken one cup of wine and divided it, multiplied it like he did with the fish and the loaves. But he doesn't.
He turns one thing into another. He turns the water into wine. And in doing so, this miracle becomes not just a miracle of abundant provision, but a miracle of unexpected transformation. That's key. It's not just look how much, it's look what happened.
This turned into this. It was this and now it's this. And that matters because remember Jeremiah 31 tells us that wine is associated not just with joy, but with the joy that sorrow turns into. Wine pictures weeping turned to gladness. Sorrow turned to joy.
And John is thinking this when he writes these words about Jesus because we can be fairly confident in John chapter 16, John uses the exact same word for water that becomes wine when he says this, when Jesus says this, John 16 verse 20, Truly truly I say to you, you will weep and lament but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful but your sorrow will turn into joy. Your sorrow will turn into joy. And that's the same word he uses in chapter two, the water became wine. The water turned into wine.
So it is right Christian for us to look at these six stone water jars and to see in them the gathered sorrows of the bride of Christ. Stone like the tomb, water like our tears, and to see in these the weeping of the church, the tears of your own soul, and then to see these very tears turned into wine, turned into the wine of blessedness. Part of what Jesus is doing when he doesn't just make wine but transforms water into wine is saying, in me, this joy is here. In me, the whole bitter sea of humanity's sorrow will be transformed into the river of gladness flowing down from the throne of God. This has come.
This joy has come. The morning is turning to joy. The night is passing away. So that's the joy that's pictured here at Cana and Jesus is giving that to to the people there and ultimately to us because this is the last point. The final thing fulfilled at Cana is love.
Kingdom abundance, eschatological joy, covenant love. Very briefly, this is a wedding. It's a wedding. But where are the bride and the groom? The groom's mentioned briefly in passing, but where are they?
In the next chapter, John the Baptist calls Jesus the bridegroom, and the rest of the gospel pictures Jesus as a bridegroom. We don't have time to look at it right now. But the point being, when we recognize that, we realize the wedding at Cana is really a foreshadowing of the wedding day, of the wedding of Christ and the church, of the coming together of God in Jesus and humanity, that this is our wedding. This is the church's wedding being anticipated in Cana. And the groom is right here.
The groom is here pouring out this wine, which he fulfills when he goes to the cross and pours out his life. Where's the bride? Where's the bride? We see the groom. It's Christ.
Where's the bride? The bride appears in the other book of John, Revelation. Let me read to you Revelation 21. It says this, and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. For the former things have passed away. We are the bride, Christian.
Those trusting Christ are the bride. The church is the bride and it is to us that he gives this wine from Cana, the wine of his love, the wine of his whole self poured out to us. So the day is coming. Cana, the Cana miracle promises this and the resurrection seals it. The day is coming Christian when the leaden cup of all your bitter tears, all the things you've wept in this life, all the sorrows of this life, they've been gathered up as it were in this cup, and the day is coming, the promise of wine in scripture tells us this, when that cup will be lifted to your lips by the nail pierced hands of Jesus Christ himself.
And when you drink from it, all you will taste is the sweet wine of his steadfast love for you. You'll see the cup of weeping and you'll taste it and taste nothing but love, the wine, the water turned to wine. And when you taste it with tears of disbelieving joy flowing down your face, then you will say, you've saved the best until now. You've saved the best wine, the good wine until now. Praise God.
So this is for us Christian, the abundance of the kingdom, the joy of the resurrection, the love that swallows up everything into itself, the love of God in Christ. This is given to us really from the veins of our Lord on the cross, and it's witnessed to us truly in the wine that he gives to us in the supper. And so and so I would call us to consider these things together. If you're a Christian, this blessing is yours. Whether or not we have wine in the supper, this is yours.
This grace is yours. But but if our Lord and God and groom has given us wine, if he has given us wine with its particular potency as a tangible sign of this overflowing sorrow transforming love, if he's done that, why would we neglect to receive it in all of its fullness for us? Something for you to consider as we move toward the vote. Consider that, but then ultimately and finally, Christian, know this, wine or not, this love is ours in Christ. This abundance that overflows, this joy that transforms, this love that embraces all, witness to us in the cup, this is yours in Christ.
So as I prayed at the beginning, I say now again, take the chalice of your soul, dig out of it the gravel of the things that we've been running after, dig out of it the sand of the false promises that we've trusted in, dig out of it the broken glass of my obsessions and take it and plunge it again into the good wine of God's love for you in Christ. That's where satisfaction is found. And we do that plunging one of the ways as we come to this table. Let me pray for us and then we'll do that together. Father, we have seen so much and we've just touched the surface, But I pray that something of the beauty of these things would find its home in your people.
Father, thank you for this love. Thank you for this mercy. Thank you for creating a world where there is such a thing as wine and then filling wine with the meaning of your love for us. Thank you that there is such a thing as this love that fills all things that that ultimately will define all things for your people. So father, as we come to the table now, I pray that we would receive this even though what we have here is grape juice, that we would we would receive the reality of the promises that you've given us in Christ, and we would rejoice afresh in him.
Meet your people, Lord, now in every way they need it. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.