Chapter 2
Those With The Need

John 2:3

Whoever ‘they’ is in this sentence are the people we are going to talk about next. These are the ones who had the need. It wasn’t the Governor of the feast or the Bridegroom as we’ll see later, but it was most likely the servants. We’ll talk more about the servants in Chapter 5, but here we are going to focus on the initial time of discovering a need. When the end seems to have come.

The Amplified Bible says, "And when the wine was all gone…" These people had run out of wine. They had come to the end of themselves. They were spent. And now they were about to face the shame and humiliation of running out of wine at the wedding. This was really not something to be taken lightly. This was a shameful thing for them to run out of wine and not be able to meet the demands of their invited guests. And from the servant’s perspective they may be the ones who would have to answer for not properly planning. The embarrassment they would bring to their boss would be bad for them as well.

The servant’s had a choice here what their attitude would be. If their boss, for whatever reason, didn’t provide them with all they needed then they could have the attitude that it’s his fault and they don’t really care if he’s embarrassed or not. When you’re going through difficult times like this and faced with the possibility of humiliation it’s easy to get into the "blame game" where you start looking around to pass blame on someone else.

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Now of course if there is a problem in your life or in an area that you are responsible for then you may need to identify the cause of the problem, which you could say is the same thing as placing blame. If you own a company and one of your employees keeps leaving the door wide open all night and everything and everybody have access to your building then you are going to want to find out who keeps leaving the door open. Yes you are placing blame but you’re doing so to solve a problem for an area you are responsible for. You’re not placing blame to get out of a responsibility but rather to take responsibility. Because of the responsibility you have before God you need to confront the person, but of course you do so in love. What you don’t want to do is to make judgments and criticisms where you have no business to do so. You want to stick to your own life and your own areas of responsibility. Usually that will keep you busy enough!

In this chapter we’re not going to focus on how to get God to bail us out of our responsibilities, but what to do when we’ve done all we can do. Those times when it is your ‘fault’ may hit you particularly hard. When you’ve done all you know to do and you thought you were doing everything right and then you hit a problem that seems like there is no solution for then you may feel frustrated and hopeless.

What you need to do first of all is have a desire for the truth. You need to be willing to love the truth at all costs. Even if that means you have to admit you were wrong, which is sometimes

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Thank God He will deliver you. And you don’t have to get everything perfect before He does. He is merciful. But the attitude of your heart is very important. You need to take responsibility for what you are accountable for. You need to admit it if you’ve messed up. And He is faithful and just towards you when you do. You may find yourself in a situation today where you have come to the end of yourself and are about to face shame and humiliation. It could be a financial situation or any other situation where you have no more to give. You can’t solve the problem. You don’t have it in yourself. Your resources, whatever they might have been, have run out. You need something from outside of yourself to provide. You need a miracle. You need God to intervene. And He can and He does. But it will begin when you confess your sin and take responsibility for the problem.

One thing they didn’t do at Cana is give up. They didn’t say, "This is the end. Everyone go home!" You can "run out of wine," or experience a deficiency or need, and yet still not come to the end. It’s all in how you look at it. Do you recognize the need and then look to the Lord or do you give up? What are you thinking when you come to that last drop? Are you looking to get to the Lord? Are you looking to communicate with Him regarding the problem for the purpose

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I remember when my nephew was in a severe car accident years ago. His friend was killed and the doctors gave my nephew less than a 5% chance of living. His mother was there when the hospital minister came to see him. The minister asked the mother, "Do you want a prayer of healing or a prayer of committal?" Basically asking her if she wanted him to be healed or to die peacefully. She said she wanted a prayer of healing. To make a long story short he recovered completely—minus a couple organs—but he is functioning fine today. The point is, what do you do when you come to "the end"? If you view the end as the end then it will be. But if you don’t see the end as the end then you will look to the Lord to show you an avenue through which a solution can come.

Turning to the Lord as just another "option" where you pray "just in case" He might be able to do something is not the attitude God wants you to have. Many people pray this way simply because they don’t know any better. And that may have been the situation with these people who had run out of wine. But they didn’t even approach Jesus themselves. It was Mary who approached Him on their behalf. Someone will need to approach the Lord with the knowledge of who He is. Someone who knows Him and who approaches Him with more than a "just in case" approach. In this case, it was Mary. We’ll look at her next to find out what it was that moved Jesus to speak a word of deliverance.

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