Bunbury
Sun am
18/04/10
“The wineskin of your mind”
Intro: The remarkable truth of the Word of God is that nothing in the Bible is meaningless.
Everything ahs value / speaks to our lives / ministers / convicts / directs / encourages & inspires.
As a loving father God is looking to perfect in us His purposes & bring to fruition His plans.
T.B.S. He’s looking forward to a day when he can present us to Himself as a finished work ......
In the parable of the wineskin & the new wine we find some unique thoughts about what God has done in our lives & how He wants to keep / preserve His work.
Our minds are the key to either the success or failure of His work in our lives.
I want to preach t/m on ‘The wineskin of your mind’.
Text: Matthew 9:17 (NKJV) Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
# 1. The old wineskin of the mind.
A. Our minds are very much like the wineskin in our parable.
a. Jesus was using a pict that everyone in his day u/s – a wineskin.
i. Wineskins were a leather pouch that were used ...... quite obviously .... for holding wine.
*** In Jesus’ days when a goat / animal was killed quite often the flesh would be removed in such a way as to leave the hide in one piece, not laid out like a mat but more like a pouch. The skin would be peeled off the flesh leaving an envelope of animal hide w/ the legs / neck being sewn up. When this was done the wineskin – looking very much like an animal carcase at times – w/ a cork of some kind at the neck, to pour the wine out.
It was easy to carry on a journey & unlike a clay pot it was light / wouldn’t leak & wouldn’t break if it were accidently dropped or bumped against the ground or a rock. Being filled up with wine @ any time anyone needed a drink fresh, sweet wine could be poured out & everyone refreshed.
ii. But there was something that would happen to that wineskin over a period of time – the wine that was put into it would affect the hide.
iii. As the wine aged it would begin permeate the leather & the leather would begin to be affected by the aging / fermenting of the wine.
iv. The flexibility / suppleness / elasticity of the hide the wine was stored in would begin to be lost.
b. The simple thought here is that the wine would affect the wineskin.
i. And that’s a very powerful thought when we think about your mind being like a wineskin.
ii. When we come into the world our minds are very much like an empty wineskin – ready to be filled up.
iii. They are fresh & apart from original sin .... basically unmarred & ready to be written on.
iv. But the problem is that much of what is stored in the wineskin of your mind has a very negative affect on it.
B. When we come to Christ in a very real sense our minds are like a used wineskin.
a. What I’m getting at is that all kinds of things have been put into your mind.
i. Your mind has been filled w/ all kinds of different things from different kinds of sources.
ii. When we come out of a sinful / wicked life we know that there are many things that should never have been put into our minds.
iii. Potent things have had a powerful impact on the ..... ‘skin of your mind’ & w/o even realising it the wineskin of our minds loses something through those things.
b. Who knows what some of the things we’ve seen / heard / been involved w/ have done to the wineskin of our minds???
*** Brandon Centerwall, psychiatrist at the University of Washington, reported in a study of the Journal of the American Medical Association a conclusion that TV may be responsible for doubling the crime rate in the U.S.
Centerwall analysed crime statistics both before and after TV was introduced in several communities. Those comparisons cause him to conclude that prolonged exposure to violence on TV has increased the number of murders in the U.S. by 10,000 each year. He sees TV as a "causal factor" in about 70,000 rapes and 700,000 injurious assaults annually.
i. You’ve heard people make the statement “What have they been filling your head with?” ..... there it is right there – like a wineskin that’s been filled up.
*** Some of us can relate to things we seen / been involved w/ b/4 Christ. Unfortunately many of those things are not just forgotten & erased from our memories over night. Many of us have to fight through disciplining our/s to prevent those things taking up residence in our thought life again like demonic squatters coming back to camp in a clean / right mind.
c. Of course we need our minds filled – there’s nothing worse than a blank / empty mind.
i. Jesus gives us the parable about a house that has been cleaned out / swept / had its tenants evicted & left empty.
Luke 11:24-26 (NKJV) “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’
And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
ii. No two ways about it an empty mind is decidedly bad thing & it’s not what God wants you & I to have as His people.
iii. I hear some people say – “I’m open minded!” ...... Well I’m not!
iv. I want my mind to be a closed to some things ...... I want to have the same mind as Christ.
T.B.S. Philippians 2:5 (NKJV) Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
v. And Jesus reminds us that the way to heaven is not an open / broad superhighway .... but a narrow way!
Matthew 7:14 (NKJV) Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
# 2. Refilling the old wineskin.
A. The parable that Jesus is speaking here is pointing directly at things that are incompatible.
a. In effect what He is saying is that whenever you try to refill an old wineskin – you’ve got problems!
i. Think about it if your mind is like a wineskin ........ what’s been in it b/4 Jesus comes into your life is a serious issue.
ii. We’ve already seen how things that are put into our minds affect our minds.
iii. In reality what happens is that our minds are hardened by those things ....... take certain shapes / forms b/c of the things that have permeated the mind.
iv. The capacity / flexibility / suppleness that God intended our minds to have is often lost / damaged by sin.
b. Listen to what Jesus is saying in our text ......
Vs 17. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled,
i. The old mind cannot accommodate the new revelations that God has for you!
ii. Jesus wants to change the fundamental nature of the way you think & this can’t happen with the old wineskin of the old way of thinking.
B. What Jesus is saying in the parable is that sin permeates a mind & ruins it.
a. Just like an old wineskin ...... where something had been lost b/c of what was in it, so it is w/ your mind.
*** I remember when I was an apprentice many years ago a man came into our workshop w/ some timber from an old wine vat. The vat had been disassembled & he wanted to use the timber for something else. My job was to machine the wood & get the biggest sizes I could out of these 6 or 8 foot lengths.
I remember for several hours running the curved timber over the planning machine to get a straight edge & all I could smell was wine! The wine had b/co ingrained in the wood & had actually changed the nature of the wood too.
i. This is what happens when the new wine of God’s purposes & plans come into contact w/ the wineskin of an old mind.
ii. There is something ingrained / the old wineskin has absorbed things that have changed its ability to be able to work properly.
iii. W/ the wineskin of the old mind our old ways / habits / thinking is so ingrained that it is incompatible w/ the new life.
b. The old mind is morally bankrupt & can’t facilitate what God wants to do in a life.
i. Jeremiah gives us the pict of a potter making a pot that is marred ....
Jeremiah 18:4 (NKJV) And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
ii. The first one was no good / marred / broken / incapable of being useful for the purpose that it was originally created ..... so the potter made it again!
Vs 17. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled,
iii. It’s the same thought that is conveyed both times ..... it’s the idea of something being broken / ruined / incapable of doing what it needs to do.
iv. And that’s what has to happen w/ the old wineskin of your mind!!! ....... it’s got to be completely / absolutely renewed to hold the new wine of salvation.
# 3. The wineskin of a renewed mind.
A. What God is doing in our lives is too precious to be lost.
a. What Jesus is saying is that you’ve got to put it into the right vessel / container if you hope to keep it.
*** Out at the Fonterra factory where I’ve been working some shifts they make yoghurt. The milk is pumped into huge stainless steel vats & they add culture, heat the mix & about 6 hours later the milk & culture is basically turned into yoghurt. But between every batch of yoghurt the vats are washed down & sanitised to protect the integrity of the product. Even a small amount of bacteria will ruin the batch. When the yoghurt finally comes out of the vat & is poured into the various size containers ready to be packed & sent off to the supermarkets. The first few tubs off the line & then a few tubs in the middle of the line & then a few tubs at the end of the line are taken as samples to the lab & tested. If they detect any bacteria at all in the yoghurt thousands of dollars of yoghurt is thrown away!
But here’s the hinge pin – it all depends on the condition of the vat.
i. And in the very same sense ...... the success of everything that God wants to do in your life depends on the condition of the wineskin.
ii. More than anything else God is concerned w/ preserving the new wine of His work in your life.
Vs 17. ...... or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled,
iii. Jesus didn’t shed His blood on the cross so that the wine of new life would be spilled & lost from your life!!!
B. What Jesus wants to do in our lives He wants to preserve.
Vs 17. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
a. And the new wine of His saving / transforming / redeeming power can only be preserved in the wineskin of a renewed mind.
Vs 17. But they put new wine into new wineskins, .....
i. Paul picks up this same thought when he speaks about you & I being the temple of the Holy Ghost.
1 Corinthians 6:19 (NKJV) Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
ii. The Spirit of God is only willing to dwell in a clean environment – that’s the point here!
b. For Jesus to preserve the new thing He’s doing in our lives it’ll only be preserved in a new mind.
i. If your mind is like a wineskin that contains the wonderful substance of His work then Jesus says it’s only going to work if the wineskin – your mind – is new!
*** Greg Mitchell spoke at conference about a job he had as a pioneer pastor scooping sheep brains out of sheep heads in an abattoir. The heads would come down a processing line & his job was to scoop then out to be sent off to the market for sale.
ii. Quite clearly God doesn’t remove our brains ..... or even our mind but He does promise us a renewed mind.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Ephesians 4:23 (NKJV) and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
iii. God doesn’t want to throw away your mind he wants to renovate / renew / transform the wineskin of your mind.
c. For this to happen you have to be involved in the process – it involves repentance.
*** Whenever a new wineskin would be made it always involved the shedding of blood. A life would have to be sacrificed for the new wineskin to be made.
i. And it’s no different w/ the wineskin of your mind ...... Jesus has shed his blood so he could pour the new wine of salvation into the new wineskin of your mind.
ii. Here’s your part in providing the new wineskin ..... listen to what the Bible has to say here.
Ephesians 4:22-24 (NKJV) that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
iii. What the Bible tells us here is that the old nature / ways / life .... the old wineskin is going to have to be ‘put off’.
iv. Then we are going to have to ‘put on’ the wineskin of a brand new life!
v. New wineskins filled w/ the new wine of salvation in Jesus Christ.
