JUST DO IT!

 

 

In honor to the mothers that are here today on Mother’s Day, I would like to take my text from …

John 2

The Message (MSG)

From Water to Wine

2 1-3 Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”

4 Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”

5 She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”

6-7 Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the servants, “Fill the pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim.

8 “Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host,” Jesus said, and they did.

9-10 When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn’t know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom, “Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now!”

11 This act in Cana of Galilee was the first sign Jesus gave, the first glimpse of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

 

According to Nike company lore, one of the most famous and easily recognized slogans in advertising history was coined at a 1988 meeting of Nike’s ad agency Wieden and Kennedy and a group of Nike employees. Dan Weiden, speaking admiringly of Nike’s can-do attitude, reportedly said, “You Nike guys, you just do it.” The rest, as they say, is (advertising) history.

After stumbling badly against archrival Reebok in the 1980s, Nike rose about as high and fast in the ‘90s as any company can. It took on a new religion of brand consciousness and broke advertising sound barriers with its indelible Swoosh, “Just Do It” slogan and deified sports figures. Nike managed the deftest of marketing tricks: to be both anti-establishment and mass market, to the tune of $9.2 billion dollars in sales in 1997.

—Jolie Soloman “When Nike Goes Cold” Newsweek, March 30, 1998

 

4 Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”

5 She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”

Although Nike made the phrase “Just Do It!” famous, we see by our reading today that Mary, the mother of Jesus was the one who told his disciples “Whatever he tells you to do,  Just Do It!”

• The servants at the wedding that day knew nothing of Jesus.
• They did not know of His virgin birth as only Mary could.
• They did not see him teaching the religious rulers in the synagogue at the age of only 12.
• They did not know of the angels who appeared to so many to announce and celebrate His birth.

But Mary knew.

• She had no issues with the incarnation of Christ.
• She knew better than anyone else that the boy who was now a man was in fact God manifest in the flesh.

And she was ready for him to step out into the limelight as it were and fulfill his calling and purpose.

• Reluctance.
• Hesitancy
• Disinclination
• Aversion
• Foot-dragging
• Doubtfulness
• Unwillingness
• Uncertainty
• Was not part of her vocabulary when it came to the miracle son that she had raised.

He came from miraculous means and She knew He was meant for miraculous purpose.

• Just Do It!
• That’s what she told the servants.
• Whatever He tells you to do…
• Don’t hesitate…
• Don’t think about it…
• Don’t analyze it…
• Don’t get counsel on it…
• Just Do It!

You see, Mary had an advantage over everyone else at the wedding.

• She knew who Jesus really was!
• She knew Him like no one else there could have known Him.

They all knew Him to be just another guest at a friends wedding.

• Jesus the carpenter’s son.
• That’s all…

 

But what they did not know.

• What they could not know was that in their midst that day was ‘God Manifest in the Flesh’.
• How could they know this?
• He looked like any other man.
• He appeared to be just another guest.
• There was no angelic choir singing when He stepped into the room.
• There was no Heavenly Host proclaiming His authority and power.
• It was just Jesus to them – the carpenters son.

You know, you never know where a miracle is going to come from.

• One can never assume to know how or when or where God is going to choose to show Himself.

Who would have expected Him to reveal Himself at a wedding?

• Surely, if He is God, He will reveal Himself at some prestigious place.
• Surely His first miracle would be in the temple.
• Surely on some religious holiday where thousands of people have gathered to worship.
• Surely not at some nameless person’s wedding.
• And not in Cana of Galilee.
• Why Cana is no town of recognition.
• It’s no place to start a ministry.

1 Corinthians 1:27

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things, which are mighty;

If there is one thing God has taught me in the last 31 years, it’s that He is much more involved in our simple everyday lives than we realize.

Since He is God, we expect Him to not be so concerned about the trivial aspects and moments of our lives,

• But He tends to show up at places like weddings and water wells and dinner tables in the scriptures more than He does in the places where people expected Him to.

So Mary tells the servants, Whatever He tells you to do – do it!

• Can I ask this morning, have you ever heard God speak to you?
• Have you ever felt a gentle nudge from Him to do something for Him or to help someone for Him?

Too often we hear God speak to us, but then we soon dismiss what He says to us as too trivial to be God or too complex to be possible.

• Sometimes we come up with every excuse under the sun to not do what it is that He is calling us to do.

In our reading today Mary’s charge to the servants to “Do Whatever He Tells You To Do!” commands them to be obedient to what Jesus says to them.

• These people were servants.
• They were used to doing whatever they were told to do.
• They understood that it was not their place to question or doubt what someone told them to do.
• They were servants.
• They served.

Here is where so many of us miss out on the miraculous in our lives.

• We fail to have a right spirit about what God says to our lives.
• So we question
• We fear
• We disagree
• We challenge
• We know better
• We doubt
• And so we miss out on the miraculous

 

Mary’s faith in Jesus superseded the problem at hand.

• Her knowledge of who He was displaced any fear or possibility that the water pots would come back water pots.
• And the servant’s wiliness to do whatever He told them to do channeled a miracle for some unknown people for an almost unrecognizable purpose.
• Wine at a wedding?
• Why mention it?
• It almost sounds too menial to discuss.

But this is where Jesus works.

• In the menial.
• In the almost unmentionable.
• In the places where most of us would not expect Him to show up.

 

• At our weddings.
• In our homes.
• In our jobs.
• In our relationships.
• In the day-to-day events of our simple lives – God Shows Up!

 

And it’s in these places where He most often speaks to us.

• And when He does, we should learn to not question, but Just Do It!
• When He tells you to talk to someone about Him – don’t doubt – Just Do It!
• When He tells you to apologize – don’t argue – Just Do It!
• When He tells you to give to bless someone else – don’t question – Just Do It!

 

About 25 years ago a man came up to me in church and handed me a 100-dollar bill.

• Although this was a very rough time in our lives financially, I told the man I could not take his $100.
• He then told me that the secret to the financial blessing in his life depended on him giving me that $100.
• He said that he always has a $100 dollar bill in his pocket.  He said he might carry it around for months or maybe just days.  But he said that as soon as he feels that God is telling him to give it to someone – no matter whom it is, he obeys God and gives it to them.
• He said, “this money is not mine, it’s God’s and He wants you to have it.”
• This man lived by “Just Do It” long before Nike came up with the slogan.

They told the little boy David to watch out for that giant,

• But when he heard God tell him “Just Do It”, he put a stone in his sling and killed a giant.

They told Moses they had gone as far as they could go,

• but he heard God tell him “Just Do It” and he stretched out his staff towards the Red sea and it parted.

They told Joshua and Caleb that the Promised Land was impossible to inherit,

• but Caleb heard God’s voice and said, “Give me my mountain”!

Just Do It!

What’s He telling you to do with your life today?

• Just Do It!

What’s He asking you to sacrifice?

• Just Do It!

What’s He saying to your heart this morning?

• Just Do It!
• Put the arguments aside.
• Put the questions out of your mind.
• Just do what it is you hear Him saying to you.

You know, I am convinced that I have missed out on some of the greatest miracles of my life all because I questioned what God was saying to me at that moment.

• Do you ever wonder what might have happened had you stretched your faith and responded to Him in the second He told you to do something?

Gary Church Offering – 85 thousand dollars.

• Don’t think about it.
• Don’t reason with it.
• Just Do It!

Someone said, what if we fill the water pots and they come back water pots.

• What if there is no wine?

Then we’ll all have some good clean water to drink I guess…

And here’s what’s really all that’s important.

• What is important is that you listened to and obeyed what God was saying to you at that of your moment.