Day 3 | Jesus Made the Good Wine? Who Created the Rules | What the Bible Really Says

We have been talking about what God created and what He did not. We have established that God did not create sin but that He is sovereign over everything, including the hard and uncomfortable things. Today we are going to look at something that has confused and divided believers for a long time. Jesus, the Son of God, the sinless Lamb, made wine at a wedding, and the people got drunk. Let’s talk about it.

Lord, for Your many blessings, we say thank You. We are so grateful that we can come before You with our shortcomings as we strive to be drawn closer to You. Thank You for inclining Your Ears to us. We ask even now, as we go through today’s topic, that You will free us from assumptions. Free us from what we decided the Bible says before we actually read it. Let the life of Jesus speak for itself today and let it challenge every tradition we have held on to tighter than we have held on to truth. In Jesus' name, Amen.

John 2:1-11 tells the story of the wedding at Cana. Jesus and His disciples were invited. The wine ran out. His mother Mary brought the need to Him. And Jesus turned water into wine, but not just any wine. The master of the feast called it the best wine of the night.

This is the first recorded miracle of Jesus in the Gospel of John, and it happened at a celebration, in the middle of a community gathered in joy.

That tells us something important about God. His presence does not drain the life out of a room. It adds to it. He is not opposed to joy, to celebration, or to the good things of life. That is the foundation of this story and we must not lose it.

But before we go any further, we need to be clear about something, because this passage has been used to justify things the rest of Scripture does not support. The sin is not the glass. The sin is what happens when the drink takes control of you.

Ephesians 5:18 is direct: "be not drunk with wine wherein is excess." The warning is against excess. Against losing control of yourself. Against letting anything master you other than the Holy Spirit. Drunkenness is sin. That has not changed.

Proverbs 20:1 does not soften this either "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." The Bible calls it deception. It calls it foolishness. God is not confused about what happens when drink takes over a person.

Proverbs 23:31-32 goes further, warning against even looking too long at the wine: "at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." Isaiah 5:11 pronounces a woe over those who chase after strong drink. These are not minor footnotes. They are consistent, serious warnings threaded throughout Scripture.

So where does that leave us? 1 Timothy 5:23 has Paul advising Timothy to use "a little wine" for his stomach's sake and his frequent illnesses. A little. Not without limit. Not in excess. A little. That is the balance the Bible strikes — and it is a balance that requires wisdom, not just permission.

Some believers, reading the full weight of Scripture's warnings alongside the miracle at Cana, arrive at the position that if something has the potential to deceive you, to mock you, to bite like a serpent, wisdom says leave it alone entirely. That position is supported in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 6:12: "All things are lawful unto me but I will not be brought under the power of any." But might I suggest to us today: The moment something holds power over you, the question of whether it is technically permissible becomes secondary.

Romans 14:21 reminds us that our choices affect others. "It is good neither to eat flesh nor drink wine nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth." Your freedom, if exercised carelessly, can become someone else's stumbling block. So, as a Christian, when you are going out with your non-Christian friends and family and throwing down the wine, are they thinking you’re cool, or are they saying, ‘So Christianity just means you drink with a clearer conscience?’

Family, some people read the miracle at Cana alongside every one of these warnings and land in the same place: If the door leads somewhere you cannot afford to go, don't open it. Not because wine is inherently sinful, but because its potential for harm is real and the cost of that harm is too high. That is not legalism. That is wisdom. And I will honour that position because the Bible honours it.

What this passage is doing is showing us a God who meets people in their celebrations, who multiplies joy rather than eliminating it, and who trusts us to use that joy with the wisdom He has also given us. The point is not that anything goes. The point is that some things were called sin from a pulpit that God never called sin in His Word and some things that are genuinely sin got softened or explained away by culture.

So for example, maybe you used to have a little something when you went out. Or maybe you went further than that — you weren't just sipping, you were deep in it, drunk, lost in it, and you know exactly what that cost you. Now that God has brought you out, now that your mind is clear and your life has purpose and the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of you — why would you crack that door back open? Why would you hand the enemy a key you already took back? You have better things to do with your life, better things to protect, better things to pour into. Your testimony is worth more than the drink. Your calling is worth more than the night. And the people watching your life — saved and unsaved alike — are worth more than your right to have a glass.

When it is all said and done, our conscience must answer to God and His Word, and not to a man-made rulebook on either end of the spectrum.

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