Chapter 5
The Servants
 

5: His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
6: And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.
7: Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.
8: and he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.  And they bare it.
9: When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew:) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom.
10: And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, than that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.
11: This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

John 2:5-11


We have seen Mary as Love in action, Jesus as the Hope and now we’ll look at how the servants represent Faith. But before we do, notice that the servants first had to listen to

27

29 30 31 32 33 34

You need to receive the love of God first before you can really do anything for God. The Bible says that we love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19). If you haven’t received His love then you won’t be able to love Him. You won’t be able to serve Him out of a heart of gratitude and thankfulness to Him. Your "faith" will simply become a religious duty. You must receive His love first and only then will you be able to do what you do for Him because of your love, worship and desire to be obedient to Him.

If your faith is not motivated by love then you run the risk of your faith becoming an idol to you. Faith is a tool, which you are to use to love and serve God with. But if you’re not love-motivated you can try and make God a servant of your faith without even realizing it. When a person boldly declares that God has got to do what they say because they’re speaking His Word in faith then they are attempting to make God a servant of their faith. But in reality, faith is the servant. You use it to serve God with. You don’t use it to get God to act as a puppet every time you speak. When you hear someone say things like, "If your faith isn’t working then check out your love walk," then that should be a warning that things have gotten flipped around. The purpose of love is not to get your faith to work. It’s not a tool you use to get what you want. But rather faith is a tool that serves love. Love is the one who decides what you ask for, not faith.

Jesus gave this warning to His apostles when they asked Him to increase their faith. (Which by the way, came after He told them the depth of forgiveness they were to have. When they saw the depth of love He required them to walk in their first response was—Help! We need more

28

  <<<Prev-p27    Next-p29>>>

  30 31 32 33 34

faith! Luke 17:5-10).  He told them it’s not that they need more faith. Faith is simply a servant. Don’t idolize faith and worship faith because it does something for you or because it brings you blessings from God. That’s what I call idolatrous faith.

Idolatrous faith is when a person, usually unknowingly, begins to worship their faith. They become proud of it, thinking that it gives them all they need. It’s the mindset that thinks 'my faith' supplies all my needs according to God's riches in glory. Idolatrous faith breeds perfectionism. There's no room for mercy or compassion. It works to produce conformity. Not unity, but the kind of conformity that squashes our individualism. It squashes our uniqueness. It demands that your faith be like my faith. A person does that to try and keep an inner assurance that their faith is really O.K. If other people are striving to have faith like yours, then yours must be O.K. This kind of thinking will cause you to work to make your faith appear to be the ultimate. You’ll spend a lot of effort to make your faith look like a thing to be desired, a thing to try and attain to. And instead of encouraging people to seek God themselves and develop faith in Him and learn to express that faith in the way that God desires them to, you will try and mold them to be like you. This is done because inside there's this need for reassurance that your faith is O.K.

When faith has become an idol, you will want people to talk and act exactly like you do. You will become critical of every word they speak that doesn't conform to your brand of faith. This is what happens when you have begun to exalt your faith higher than God Himself. You have begun to worship your own faith as your provider, deliverer, vindicator etc.

At the heart of this kind of thinking is the desire to still be in control. A person who falls into this trap is still not quite willing to relinquish control of their lives completely over to God.  As a

29

27

<<<Prev-p28   Next-p30>>>

 31  32  33  34

This opens the door wide open to a religious spirit. A spirit of intolerance. Intolerance over one "wrong" word. A need for perfectionism. When you have a fear of things not going how you want them to go you will demand perfection out of yourself. You feel that you have got to have perfect faith in order to get what you want. If pride is an issue, you will want to show off your faith and you will "teach" (or criticize) others for not having a level of faith that you have. You will want the expression of their faith to be just like yours. Because if it's just like yours then that calms the inner nagging (we call it doubt) that something is not quite right with your faith.

Human thinking has always gone back to the political idea that if I can just get a group of people to agree with me then that assures me that my thinking must be O.K. That is a wrong assumption. The devil will accommodate you when you think that way! Just because a group of people think like you do doesn’t mean that you believe the truth. You could all be deceived! Just look at some of the cults in recent years that have committed mass suicides.

This is why the Lord has been dealing so strongly with things like the fear of man, so you won't be deceived into thinking that as long as a certain group agrees with you then you’re O.K.  He is also dealing with perfectionism, so you can be free from a driving need for things, (or people),

30

27  28

<<<Prev-p29     Next-p31>>>

 32  33  34

to be just exactly a certain way!  Intolerance and criticism need to be removed so you can accept the uniqueness and diversity that God has created in His body. And you must overcome a desire for control and fear, so you can truly trust God to lead in the direction you should go.

I’m not saying that you don’t need to have people around you that you are working with to accomplish something. You do. This is what a family is all about—working to live a godly life together. This is what a local church is all about—working together to fulfil God’s purpose for your church. And this is what the body of Christ as a whole should be doing as well. But we must keep the Lord the center of all we do at all times—both individually and corporately. Jesus summed it all up when He said to "love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself." When you do those two things they will guide and direct you in everything and keep you close to the heart of the Lord. (Mark 12:29-31).

Again, the servants had to receive the words of Love before they could receive what Jesus said. And we’ve seen from Mary’s love that she first of all had a love and respect for the Lord. In order to truly appreciate the love of God for you then you must begin with a fear of the Lord. You must understand that God chose to love you because He wanted to. He didn’t owe you anything. One way you may be able to tell if you have the fear of the Lord by looking at your opinion of those in authority. If you have a tendency to criticize the authorities in your life then that’s usually indicative of a rebellious attitude towards all authority—including God. Please don’t get offended by what I’m saying. If you don’t have a rebellious attitude then you don’t have to worry about it. But if you feel that the government, the police, your boss, parent’s etc. "owe" you something then you will usually feel that God "owes" you too. If you are constantly fighting for "your rights" then you may want to check your heart and see if that is your attitude towards the Lord also. I’m not saying that there’s not a time to disagree with those in authority

31

27  28  29

<<<Prev-p30    Next-p32>>>

 33 34

or even take certain action as the Lord leads. But when there is even a hint of criticism or disrespect for authority you would do well to search your heart for any lack of appreciation towards the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. (Proverbs 1:7). You won’t get too far if you can’t get past the beginning. And once you start at the beginning then you can move on to a place of great appreciation for God’s choice to love you. I’m not saying these things to hurt you but to help you. Just take a minute to ask the Lord to show you if any of this is in your heart.

Once the servants received the words of Love then they could receive hope. After hearing what Mary said, the servants anticipated that something would happen. Understanding that the Most High God loves you and is interested in taking care of your needs brings great hope. If you don’t see that God loves you then you won’t have any hope that His presence in your life could bring any good into your life. For example, if you are in financial need and happen to be at a dinner where there is a billionaire present, but you know that this person doesn’t like you and is mean and selfish then you will not look at him and have any hope that he will help you with your financial troubles will you? No, you’ll look at him and think, "Well, he has enough money to help me out but there’s no way he’s going to do it—he has no concern for my problems." Thank God that when Jesus is here, you have hope! He loves you and has concern for your problems. So by the servants receiving the words of love first, they were then able to have hope. Faith needs both love and hope to function properly.

Of course, Jesus required the servants to do something. If they would have just sat back and waited for the waterpots to miraculously fill with water then the miracle would have never happened. God could instantly put all of us on Easy Street if He wanted to but He cares about our eternal life. There are certain characteristics He needs to develop in your life that will last you

32

27  28  29  30

<<<Prev-p31    Next-p33>>>

34

for eternity. If you don’t learn how to walk in the Kingdom principles but just get everything handed to you then you won’t have a clue how to make godly decisions. If you don’t have to do anything at all to receive God’s blessings then you won’t appreciate them as much.

Did you notice that the servants never spoke a word? They simply did what Jesus said. As I said earlier, we don’t see the servants repeating what Jesus told them to do. We don’t see them making bold confessions of faith. But if someone would have asked them what they were doing in the course of them carrying out His instructions then they would have said, "We’re filling the waterpots with water. We’re getting ready for new wine." Their normal everyday conversation would show their faith, along with their actions. If you want to find out what you really believe then look at what you are doing when you’re not trying to impress anyone else. When you’re just going about your business of following the Lord’s commands then you don’t need to shout it out and make announcements to everyone, you just quietly do what He says. Quiet, humble obedience is a characteristic of great faith.

Jesus gave the servants a two-part instruction. Both parts were required in order for the miracle to come to completion. First He told them to fill the waterpots with water. They had to do something. It required some physical effort and some involvement with their surroundings. Then we see their faith put to the test. When He told them to draw out and take it to the Governor of the feast then you might see them sweat a bit. But they did it. They didn’t look at the water in the pots and say that it would never work. They didn’t run a lab analysis on the contents of the water first before they gave the Governor some to see if it really became wine. They didn’t stop short of what Jesus said to do. They followed it through. What do you think they were thinking when the Governor called the bridegroom over after tasting the wine? Were they thinking that they were in trouble now, serving him water when he asked for wine?  They didn’t say anything.

33

27 28  29  30 31

<<<Prev-p32   Next-p34>>>

In fact, through all of this we don’t see the servants saying a word. 

What we can learn from the servants is that Faith, Hope and Love worked together here to produce a miracle. A miracle that brought glory to the Lord as well as meeting the need of the people. This is the kind of miracles we need to see in the church today. This is what it will take in order for the new wine of the Holy Spirit to be delivered to the body of Christ. This is the preparation that the Lord is doing now among His people. You don’t want to stop short in any of these three areas. You don’t want to major in one and minor in the others. You want to learn to develop all three of these characteristics in your life because all three is what it will take for God to get through to you as He needs to.

As we move on now and look at the Governor of the Feast, the Wedding Guests and the Bridegroom we will see how the Lord desires the church to respond when the new wine is delivered to us. Open your heart to receive the fresh new wine of God’s Spirit!

34

27 28 29 30 31 32