The Gospel of Mark #6 – “The New Wine of Christ”
Mark 2:18-22
Intro –
1. Have you ever known people who are polarizing figures? (you either love or hate them)
2. Examples may be politicians, musicians, actors, sports figures or even whole teams.
3. ILL – Tim Tebow… Although we just enjoyed a wonderful Superbowl, during this past NFL season the real story of the year was Tim Tebow. Everywhere you turned, (TV, the internet, magazines & newspaper) you heard about Tebow. As a result, this 24 year old, second year quarterback and son of missionaries to the Philippines literally became a cultural icon. So much so, that Saturday night live performed a parody of him. To bow down on one knee has come to be known as “Tebowing.” Also, this season every sports reporter wrote articles on Tebow. Interestingly, they either applauded him or attacked him – no one was neutral! He has become a “polarizing figure.” Fans either love him or hate him.
4. Everywhere Jesus went he had a similarly polarizing effect.
5. Mark 12:37b (NKJV) “…the common people heard Him gladly.”
6. Mark 14:1b “…the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him.”
7. As we move further into our study of Mark’s gospel, we see a growing tension between Jesus & the religious leaders of the day.
8. Mark 2:18-22 (Read)
9. All of Mark 2 & part of Mark 3 deal with the confrontations. We have already seen the religious crowd up in arms over Jesus forgiving sin, calling a tax collector to follow him, and eating with “sinners & tax collectors.” In these verses, we have a confrontation over religious traditions – specifically fasting.
10. Although the church is nowhere commanded to fast, it is a legitimate spiritual discipline. The Jews were only commanded to fast one day a year on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16). However, the Pharisees had once again added to God’s command by implementing forced fasting twice a week.
11. In response to the question, Jesus shares 3 parables. Jesus often taught by parables or stories that used every day commonalities that his hearers readily understood.
12. Jesus’ stories reveal His heart. They tell His autobiography and the autobiography of God. Do you want to know how God feels about people being a good neighbor, read the story of the Good Samaritan. Do you want to know how God feels when someone who is lost finally finds home again? Read the story of the Prodigal Son. Do you want to know how Jesus feels about people obeying His teachings? Read the story of the house built on the rock or sand?
13. So the question before us today is “What do these 3 stories tell us about Jesus?”
I. Jesus Came to Bring Joy – Vs. 19-20 **The 1st picture Jesus uses is that of a Wedding!
PICTURE – Our Wedding…**laughing throughout!
In our culture, we have a grand ceremony & then the new couple goes away for a week to be alone. In the Jewish culture it was much different.
The couple was actually betrothed for a year-long period in which they were considered legally married, but did not consummate the marriage until the wedding feast. This was a week-long celebration where the couple was treated as a king & queen, and everyone in the community ate, drank and was merry. It was a time of great joy!!
A. Why does a wedding bring so much joy?
1. A wedding brings fulfillment –
a. For a Jewish couple in this time, this was the fulfillment of a year-long betrothal.
b. In our culture, it is the fulfillment of an engagement, a high school romance, or in some cases the fulfillment of a broken heart that has been healed. It is the fulfillment of a parents dream of a son or daughter-in-law & grandchildren!
2. A wedding introduces a new family –
a. What a joy I have had to introduce new couples for the first time – no longer 2 but one!!!
b. Gen. 2:24 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
B. Why does Jesus bring so much joy?
1. He fulfills our greatest need: forgiveness!**Redemption!
a. Because of the fall, humanity is sinful by nature & by choice.
b. Ps. 51:5 “…I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
c. Rom. 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
d. Our only hope is for someone to forgive us of our sins! That’s why Jesus came!
e. Someone wrote, “If Man's greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If Man's greatest need would have been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If Man's greatest need would have been money, God would have sent us an economist. If Man's greatest need would have been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. Man's greatest need is FORGIVENESS and so God sent us a SAVIOR! Jesus Christ!”
f. Rom. 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
2. He made it possible for us to be a part of God’s family!**Adoption!
a. Gal. 4:1-5 (turn & read)
b. In Roman law an adopted child became a full heir to his new family, guaranteed all legal rights to his father’s property. He was not a second-class son; he was equal to all other sons, biological or adopted, in his father’s family. That person’s origin or past was no longer a factor in his legal standing.
c. Likewise, when a person becomes a Christian, they gains all the privileges & responsibilities of a child in God’s family.
d. John 1:12 “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”
II. Jesus Came to Bring New Life – Vs. 21 **The second picture Jesus used is patching clothes. A new patch shrinks when washed; old cloth is already shrunk. When you sew a new unshrunk patch on an old garment, your hole-problem is still not resolved; in fact it can get worse.
Jesus was not going to be just a patch in the garment of Judaism to cover a threadbare area. Jesus was bringing in a whole new outfit to wear!
A. Jesus did not come to "patch" people’s lives but to make them whole!
1. Jesus is not into patchwork. He doesn’t want to “patch-up” your old lifestyle or just be used as a temporary patch. He wants to give you a brand new life & lifestyle!
2. ILL – Becky Short (worst sports injury I ever saw)…**Paul Johnson***
3. If you are going to follow Jesus, He expects to be your whole wardrobe, not just a patch (Gal. 3:27). Jesus came to cleanse our hearts & to outfit us in a whole new wardrobe that would testify of His great grace.
B. Jesus did not come to mix the old and the new but to bring new life!
1. The message that Jesus came to preach was not a message of reformation. He did not come to reform an old worn out system, he came to introduce something new.
2. Heb. 8:13 “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.”
3. This would have been confusing if the message of Christ was to be added to the Old Testament law.
4. 2 Cor. 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
III. Jesus Came to Bring Grace – Vs. 22 **The 3rd Picture is that of new wine & old wineskins.
In Bible times, wine was not kept in glass bottles, but in goatskins sewn around the edges to form watertight bags called wineskins. New wine expanded as it fermented, stretching its wineskin. After the wine had aged, the old wineskin (that had gotten brittle with age & couldn’t stretch anymore) would burst if more new wine was poured into it. New wine, therefore, needs new wineskins.
Like old wineskins, the Pharisees & indeed the entire religious system of Judaism were too rigid to accept Jesus, who could not be contained in their traditions or rules. Christianity required a new approach to life – Grace!! **One of my favorite topics!!
John 1:17 “ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
A. The Law could only reform a person’s behavior
1. The Mosaic Law was given to show people their need for God, not to become a rigid set of rules to hold over people’s heads.
2. The Pharisees outward behavior was right, but their hearts were evil.
3. Matt. 23:27-28 “27Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
4. Keeping the Law may make you look good, but it won’t change your heart!
B. Only Grace can transform a person’s heart
1. The Bible is filled with picture of God’s life changing grace. The apostle Paul stands as probably the most monumental recipient of God’s grace.
2. ILL – The Apostle Paul’s life…
3. 1 Cor. 15:9-10 “9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”
4. Paul would go on to literally change the world because God’s grace had changed his wicked heart!
Conc. –
1. SLIDE – Humpty Dumpty…Humpty Dumpty had an unsolvable problem! We have a problem too, but ours has a solution.
Jesus Christ came to our wall,
Jesus Christ died for our fall;
So that regardless of death and in spite of sin,
Through grace, He might put us together again.
2. Titus 2:11 “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”
Do you have joy? Do you have new life? You can have them both through the grace of Jesus Christ!
