INTRODUCTION
Sermonic Theme
Opening Statement: There are many literary forms used in the Bible. There is poetry, proverb, legal document, dramatic narrative, hymn, sermon, theological treatise, personal letter, and apocalyptic vision. And sprinkled into all of these genres are figures of speech and word pictures that highlight what is being said. The form that a writer or speaker chooses to use in order to communicate his or her message indicates it’s meaning or how it should be treated or interpreted.
Illustration: For example, Jesus could have given us a 1-hour lecture on who my neighbor is. He could have pontificated for hours on how to treat someone in need. But instead of writing or presenting a theological thesis on this, Jesus simply told the story of the Good Samaritan. It wasn’t a lecture they needed; it was a story that had the potential of softening their hard-hearts.
Review: We launched into a miniseries last week that deals with Jesus’ use of parables or stories. Jesus was the master storyteller. Jesus used story or parable to connect with his listeners.
Clarification: Some of the parables were true stories taken from daily life. They are told as fact in the present tense. We’ve seen seed growing, yeast at work in dough, children playing, sheep grazing, and we all know what it’s like to lose something. Jesus told true stories about these things. Some of the parables were story parables. These stories, which may or may not have actually happened (the historicity is not important), are meant to convey a significant truth. Jesus made up some of these stories and used them as illustrations. Then there are example stories. They give us examples to either follow or avoid. They focus on the character and conduct of the individual.
Observation: While these stories teach us many good and wholesome things (as we will learn together), the parables do two other things that are easily overlooked.
First, the stories of Jesus indicate that He was fully acquainted with human life in its many experiences. He was knowledgeable in farming, sowing seeds, and reaping a harvest. Not only was he familiar with the workaday world of the farmer, the fisherman, the builder, and the merchant, but also he moved with equal ease among the managers of estates, the ministers of finance at a royal court, the judge in a court of law, the Pharisees and the tax collectors. His stories portray the lives of men, women, and children, the poor and rich, the outcast and the exalted. He knew about work and wages, about weddings and festive occasions as well as funerals and sickness. Clearly, Jesus used an understood, familiar truth in order to teach an unfamiliar or unrealized lesson.
Second, 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?
Notation: When we come to some of these stories, let’s not forget what we’ve already learned. We’re not looking at a legal document in which every word is carefully chosen. Remember, it’s a story. It’s meant to make an immediate impact and was to be enjoyed and re-experienced and thought about over time, not dissected and torn apart and analyzed word by word like prepositional truth should be. And behind the story is a major point (not to the exclusion of sub points however), usually coming at the end of the story and is determined by the historical context.
Title: We’ll continue today by looking at Stories About Change and New Things
Proposition: Jesus told a story in Matthew 9 to teach us about the new things He wants to do in our lives.
Text: Matthew 9:14-17 (Luke 5:36-39)
Recitation: Matthew 9:14 Then John’s disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?” 9:15 Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn while the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast. 9:16 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, because the patch will pull away from the garment and the tear will be worse. 9:17 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the skins will burst and the wine will pour out and the skins will be destroyed. Instead they put new wine into new wineskins and both are preserved.” The Message: “A little later John’s followers approached, asking, “Why is it that we and the Pharisees rigorously discipline body and spirit by fasting, but your followers don’t?” Jesus told them, “When you’re celebrating a wedding, you don’t skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but not now. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!” He went on, “No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes; you want fabrics that match. And you don’t put your wine in cracked bottles.”
Key Word: He told THREE STORIES to make His point, the last of which will be our focus today.
Sermon
Opening Statement: During our recent economic downturn, many auto dealerships were making offers on cars that, if you believed their advertising, they were nearly willing to give them away just to get them off their lots. I read about a man who has a world-wide ministry, but he drives a 1974 Dodge. He has often said, "I never have to lock it up or worry about it being stolen!" It is great to be able to fix things up, but sometimes there is the need to trade in the old for the new.
Transition: In our text this morning Jesus is explaining a similar principle to the Pharisees. Sometimes it is necessary that a change be made. This was the case with the spiritual need of mankind. Jesus came to provide the world with something brand new. Ironically enough, it all came to head with a question about fasting.
Background: John the Baptists’ disciples had a problem with the way Jesus was doing things. If you’ve ever read much of the Gospels you know that Jesus was constantly having run-ins with the religious establishment. Our story comes at the end of three episodes of conflict in the life of Jesus. In the first episode, Jesus forgave someone’s sins and that made a bunch of people mad. Only God could forgive sins. Who do you think you are, Jesus? In the second episode, Jesus hung-out with sinners, and that made all the religious people mad. And, in the third episode, Jesus never pushed for his disciples to fast during his ministry, and that made all the religious zealots mad! We’ve never done it that way before! It seems that Jesus made a lot of people unhappy. Why? Why did Jesus make those decisions? Didn’t he know they would get him in trouble? Didn’t he know they went against everything religious people believed in? Jesus was always stretching wineskins.
Jesus saw something that these people in particular and that the world in general was in greater need of than religious traditions. Jesus saw discouraged people all around him who were carrying the weight of poor health or the load of unforgiven sin. Rather than focus on the sobriety of fasting or on making all the religious people happy, Jesus decided to extend the celebration of his coming Kingdom to those who least expected or deserved it; and it was met with opposition by the religious establishment.
Transition: Three ANALOGIES OR STORIES explain this opposition. Note that all of these images from these stories build on the banquet motif: a wedding, acceptable clothing, and new wine. If you had this going for you in the first century, you were really living.
OUTLINE
The Stories
Wedding Story – Jesus compared His ministry and teachings to a wedding celebration. John the Baptist had described himself as the "best man" and Jesus as the "groom" (John 3:29). Jesus extended John’s figure and described His disciples as the friends of the
groom. They were so joyful that they could not fast because they were with Him. Now was not the time for the sobriety of fasting. This part of the world needed some relief. Religion had become so heavy for the people. The Pharisees and John’s disciples were off in their timing and in their perception of what was fitting for such a time as this. There’s a time for fasting, but not when you’re at the wedding! In essence, they were not recognizing Jesus as Messiah who had come to bring joy and deliverance!
Application: There’s a time for fasting and mourning and the two are linked. But when God brings you the wedding, celebrate the feast!
Cloth Story – A new patch shrinks when washed; old cloth is already shrunk. When you sew a new unshrunken 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!
Application: 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 lifestyle! Besides, you can’t patch selfishness. It must be dealt with at the core. Some people will try to dump some Jesus into their old self and it will not work too well. If you are going to follow Jesus, He expects to be your whole wardrobe, not just a patch. Jesus came to cleanse our hearts and to outfit us in a whole new lifestyle wardrobe that would testify of His great grace. The theological term is regeneration, a new creation.
Exhortation: There are times when we need to scrap a project or plan entirely, and just start over. God loves to help us make a fresh start. Do not suppose that being a sinner must keep you from God. Recognizing that you are a sinner is the first step toward God. Jesus came to call sinners. It is only the self-righteous who shunned Jesus, for Jesus came to forgive sinners and to have fellowship with them. You cannot be too sinful for God to save, only to holy to need His salvation.
Wine Story
Explanation: In this story, we’ve got wine and wineskins. This would have been a true story taken from the daily lives of those living in ancient Palestine in the first century AD.
Illustration: Wine was the most common drink for people in Palestine. However, they never had a bottling company that could process and packaged their drinks for them. Neither did they have refrigeration like we have today. But fortunately, the wine was less likely than water or milk to be contaminated as its alcohol content killed germs. Along with this, they had leak-resistant animal skins that could be processed and treated in such a way that they could expand and stretch along with the new wine as it fermented. Wineskins were bags made of skin or leather, usually a goat hide tied at the legs and the neck. After the flesh and bones were removed from the inside of the goat the skin was tanned over fires of acacia wood. Then the openings were sewn shut, the neck of the goat was used for the spout, and unfermented grape juice was poured in. Afterwards the neck was sewn shut and the fermentation process began. As the new wine fermented and expanded, it would stretch the new wineskins. Putting new (unfermented) wine in old wineskins, which had already been stretched and somewhat dried out, would result in the bursting of the wineskins. Old wineskins become brittle and rigid with age; when new wine is put in these, gases build up--produce pressure and Bang! You’ve ruined your wine and your wineskin.
Exposition: The meaning of the saying new wine into new wineskins is that the presence and teaching of Jesus was something new and signaled the passing of the old. Jesus could not patch or pour His new ministry into old Judaism. Judaism had become inflexible due to the accumulation of centuries of non-biblical traditions. Jesus could not be confined within the old religion of Judaism. Furthermore, Jesus did not come to reform an old and worn out system but to fulfill or complete it and then introduce something radically new. For example, He Himself would be the ultimate sacrifice for sin, so the sacrificial system would no longer be necessary. Can you imagine still sacrificing goats and bulls when Jesus has paid the price for our sins? The Pharisees liked the old way better. They didn’t want to let loose of the old way. Ever met anybody like that?
Application: God has a new thing He wants to do. I sense there’s some “new wine” God wants to pour out into the “old wineskins” of Sunman Community Church. We must be willing to make the changes and stretch with new ideas. It’s time for you to trade-in. You’ve been driving that way of life for a long time. I believe God wants us to experience some new wine. Here’s what you can do today to release the new wine.
1. Be restored to spiritual health. The load of sin accumulates and life gets heavy and church attendance burdensome. But we can get our obedience up to date. You know what you need to do in order to get in the clear with God.
2. Be submitted to Jesus’ Lordship. The Lordship of Jesus Christ cannot be poured into the old skin of our settled personality structure, our presuppositions about life, our prejudices about people, or our plans for the future. Jesus wants all of your life.
3. Be responsive to the call. I believe that God has given us the responsibility of communicating a call; a call to the Kingdom of God; a call to relationship with a God who wrapped himself in human flesh; a call to a life of service, mission and compassion; a call to prepare people for the coming kingdom; a call to authentic Christianity – not church-ianity. We have to call people to be committed to Christ himself. We call people to a life-long, life-changing relationship with the Divine Christ. The church becomes not a destination, but a conduit and channel through which people can find resources, relationship, tools and training for their relationship with their Lord.
CONCLUSION
Application: Here’s the new wine. See power point slides for “New Wine Vision” At Sunman Community Church.
