Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Good morning,

I hope you’ve stirred your passion this week for our great Savior and have come here this morning longing for more of Jesus.

You know, I was thinking about how we approach Sunday this week.

I would venture to say that most of us have, at one point or another, felt like Sunday worship is an event that happens to us.

Like spectators watching a performance.

We might enjoy the performance for the moment, but then we go on with our lives.

Worship might be something that we go to, and, consequently, has very little to do with the rest of our life.

However, did you know worship doesn’t have to be something that just happens to you? Worship can be something that we do together.

Sunday’s worship can be what shapes and inspires our whole week.

Sunday worship can be where we find purpose, mission, and joy.

So I was think about what makes the difference between worship that happens to you individually and worship that we do together.

Where does the desire for deeper worship begin to be satisfied?

Some people think its all about the church program, but the desire for deeper worship begins to be satisfied by how we come to worship.

How we prepare for, cultivate, and approach worship determines how deeply we will worship God in the fellowship of his kingdom people.

Like an athlete prepares for their game, or a musician prepares for their part in a symphony, we can only ever be satisfied with deep worship when we take time to prepare ourselves for worship so that we come expecting to find God!

Assignment

To help guide your preparation this week, please read, meditate on, and pray through Mark 2:23 - 3:6.

A Man of Desire - Fasting

Imagine someone who was doing something that would forever change the world.

Their work was more than ground-breaking, it was world-shattering!

To the people around such a person, who think they have things all figured out, this person doesn’t make sense.

Misunderstandings about this person abound, creating constant conflict at almost every turn for this person.

What kind of person would someone like this be?

Pause > > >

Jesus changed everything.

He shattered how the people of his time understood life just as he still shatters how we understand life to this very day.

Those who tried to understand him through the old ways constantly misunderstood him.

But those who were driven after him by their deep longing for more saw what he was doing, and what they saw drove them to forgo everything, even the essentials of this life, in their pursuit of him.

Jesus was a man of desire.

Today’s message looks at Jesus’ answer to a question about fasting, which explains what he came to do so that we can understand what it means to follow him as learners of his way of life in view of what he came to accomplish.

John’s disciples approach Jesus along with the Pharisees to ask why his disciples don’t fast like their disciples do.

This question is asking why Jesus doesn’t do things the way they do them.

You see?

Following Jesus / isn’t like following other great leaders / doesn’t look like it looks to follow other great leaders.

Jesus is being questioned why he doesn’t teach his disciples the same way of life that their leaders were teaching their disciples.

And, as we’ll see this morning, Jesus’ answer is that he teaches his disciples a different way of life because he’s not going in the same direction as the others going.

You see?

Our way of life is determined by where we’re going.

People who live for this world and following the course of this world to it’s destination.

People who live for their religious traditions are following their religious traditions to their destination.

How you live is what you live for.

Peter commented on this:

Briefly expound > > >

So John’s disciples and the Pharisees fasted the way they did because their way of fasting moved them in a certain direction.

They didn’t fast in pursuit of God.

If they did, they wouldn’t be fasting in his presence because they would have the very thing their fasting was meant to express their desire for!

So Jesus answers their question about fasting with three illustrations:

The Bridegroom

The Unshrunk Cloth

The New Wineskins

And all three of these illustrations are wedding metaphors.

We took a deeper look at this in our morning Bible class to explain how the dawning of God’s Kingdom was expressed in Messianic terms with wedding symbolism.

So, these three illustrations are meant to provide his answer to their question about fasting by framing the answer by the realities their fasting seeks.

So Jesus’ answer to their question tells us a lot about the purpose of fasting in the Christian’s way of life and why fasting absolutely should be a regular part of every Christian’s lifestyle.

Jesus’ first illustration uses the metaphor of the wedding guests from John the Baptist’s teaching, which, in turn, used Old Testament Messianic terms.

So let’s take a look at these two together:

When Jesus started baptizing, John’s disciples came to him about a dispute over why Jesus was baptizing people.

John responds by saying that his ministry was pointing to something and someone greater.

John understood who Jesus was: he’s the one they’ve always longed for, whose presence they’ve always desired.

So Jesus is using Messianic symbolism that they would’ve been very familiar with to tell them that fasting in his presence would be altogether inappropriate if their fasting has been about him and not just about themselves.

Isaiah’s prophecy contributes to this the understanding that the “groom” is their Creator - the Lord of Armies - the God of the whole earth!

In simple terms, they’re completely oblivious to what’s happening right in front of their face.

How can one fast when the substance of all their heart has ever desired is right in front of them?

Who goes to a joyous wedding and refuses to join the feast?

Jesus’ coming changes everything because he is the substance towards which everything else pointed.

25-Minute Bridge > > >

I think this first illustration is instructive to us for how we understand our religious observances: we must never lose sight of the substance that our religious observances symbolize.

There’s no better definition of dead-religion than the practice of religious observances that have been emptied of their substance!

Here’s Jesus, the very one for whom their fasting was meant to draw them to, and they’re still over there fasting because their fasts had become the point themselves rather than something that pointed them in a meaningful way to God.

25-Minute Bridge < < <

Fasting is motivated by our desire to be with God.

Our hunger for Christ displaces our appetite for this world.

Jesus’ second illustration uses a metaphor from a piece of unshrunk cloth, which, if sown onto an old garment to repair a tear, will cause an even bigger tear.

This metaphor builds off the wedding symbolism of the first illustration and envisions what Jesus was doing like someone thinking about repairing a torn garment to wear to a wedding feast.

Jesus said:

The old forms and customs were fulfilled in Christ, but these old forms and customs aren’t enough when thinking about getting ready for a wedding celebration.

They would be like wearing the work clothes you to garden in to a wedding where everyone is wearing tuxedos.

Your work clothes might be good enough to put food on the table, but you need something more for the joyous occasion of a wedding!

Jesus didn’t come to sew new righteousness onto an old garment because these would destroy each other.

We're given an entirely new garment of righteousness in Christ Jesus:

We're given entirely new robes of righteousness that make us fit for the wedding feast of the Lamb!

Jesus himself is our righteousness.

We’re given his robes of righteousness when we are baptized.

And we daily put these robes on in life.

As we put off malice and put on grace, as we put off lying and put on truth, as we put off unfaithfulness and put on faithfulness.

We daily put on the righteousness we’ve been given in Jesus Christ so that we are ready and clothed for his wedding feast when he comes!

Jesus is telling them that their fasting is like wearing old-garments to a wedding celebration; they don’t understand the occasion that they’ve come to!

15-Minute Bridge > > >

Jesus is bringing in the very reality that Isaiah the prophet spoke about in the context of fasting:

We can see the purpose of fasting plainly described in this text:

To seek God and his attention by denying ourselves and choosing him

To delight in his ways

To delight in his nearness

However, we can see that the manner in which they practiced fasting contradicted what their fasting sought to accomplish.

The result was that they were frustrated because their fasting was without effect and God did not pay attention to them.

Isaiah rebuked their hypocrisy by saying:

Their self-denial was pretense: they still did as they wanted

Their delight in God’s ways was pretense: they oppressed others and practiced strife

Isaiah’s message is clear: you cannot use fasting as a means to come to God when your heart and life are in defiance to him!