The Unchangable
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
18 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”
The Pharisees were fasting while Jesus and His disciples were feasting. Again, a holier than thou attitude from the Pharisees when the question comes.
Fasting was associated with many ideas in the old testament:
Only one required fast, - Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur
Other reasons for fasting:
There was no required fast during this time, it was something the Pharisees had taken upon themselves to participate in so that they could appear holy and self sacrificing. But they were aggravated at the fact that Jesus and His disciples were not following suit.
1. fear of demons - Jesus bound satan and exorcised demons
2. sway God's favor - Jesus is God's greatest gift, He gave it freely
3. atonement of sin - Jesus forgave sin, healed without requirement
4. badge of piety - Jesus rejected behavior to win applause from others
5. sorrow/mourning - we still mourn and grieve loss/ His resurrection changed death
There was no required fast during this time, it was something the Pharisees had taken upon themselves to participate in so that they could appear holy and self sacrificing. But they were aggravated at the fact that Jesus and His disciples were not following suit. We are doing this and you aren’t, we are better than you. You are doing it wrong.
Example:
I struggled last week because I couldn't believe that I had let myself become the type of person that I blamed for me not coming to church as a young man.
They had made their own practice a standard for what other should be doing and condemned those that did not follow. They already didn’t like Jesus or the message He was sharing, so everything He did was an opportunity to attack, question, and undermine Him.
Have you ever noticed that when someone doesn't like you, they always expect the worst from you.
Example:
Family member who has always been selfish and manipulating, you learn to avoid them. But even if they made a dramatic turnaround in their life, we would still be waiting for the old version of them to make an entrance.
These sinners will never change, he will never respond to Jesus, she will always be lost.
We expect the worst from people rather than believe in the life changing power of Jesus Christ!
That’s where these Pharisees were, but lets look at Jesus’ response to the question:
19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
This is Jesus' first mention of the prediction of His death. It is in that time that they should be fasting. A time of reflection and solitude and mourning without Him. But even then, it will be temporary, because the resurrection of Jesus will again be cause for celebration! But the bridegroom was still here!
While the bridegroom is here, it is a time of celebration. It is a time of happiness and joy. Jesus says that they CANNOT fast while Because of it’s significance and the excitement surrounding the occasion, it would be impossible to fast during this time.
While the bridegroom is here, it is a time of celebration. It is a time of happiness and joy. Jesus says that they CANNOT fast while He is here, it is inappropriate and impossible to fast during this time. Jesus has brought with Him a new age, not simply to teach or reinforce old rules and regulations, but to bring salvation to the world.
Wedding feasts lasted up to a week in those days. Family and friends would come and stay for the entire week feasting and celebrating and taking joy in the fellowship they had with one another as well as in the reason for the celebration.
Jesus has brought with Him a new age, not simply to teach or reinforce old rules and regulations, but to bring salvation to the world.
Jesus has arrived and brought with Him a new age.
Jesus' entire ministry is an example of fellowship and celebration. He does not condemn the practice of fasting, but the reason behind it. If it does not sway God's favor or acceptance, then why do it?
Jesus' entire ministry is an example of fellowship and celebration.
He does not condemn the practice of fasting, but the reason behind it. If it does not sway God's favor or acceptance, then why do it?
Jesus' entire ministry is an example of fellowship and celebration. He does not condemn the practice of fasting, but the reason behind it. If it does not sway God's favor or acceptance, then why do it?
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
Fasting because of external rules of because of the time of year is to be rejected. It is only meaningful when the reason is rooted deep in the truth of God's Word.
20 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.
Sacrificing your own comforts in order to give to others.
Denying yourself to try and overcome your own selfishness.
Seeking God's face and direction about a situation or decision that needs to be made.
The act in itself does not bring glory to God, nor does it do us or those around us any good. It's only when done with the right heart, when values are given priority causing lesser things to fall away, that we offer real praise to God.
We should approach our religious observances in a way that shows the meaning and the love that we have for God as well as the love that He has for us.
Christianity is not a ball and chain that weighs us down, it is the freedom of joy and the expectation of the glory to come.
Jesus ushered in a new way of relating to God. It is good news to those that were before left out and it bothered those that spent their lives clinging to law and tradition.
Which one are you today?
.
Do you see your relationship with God as that of a master and a slave or that of a bride and her groom?
Wedding feasts lasted up to a week in those days. Family and friends would come and stay for the entire week feasting and celebrating and taking joy in the fellowship they had with one another as well as in the reason for the celebration.
Does it bother you when things are done differently than you are used to? Or do you rejoice in the heart behind the reason things are done? do you say “They aren’t doing that right”, or do you say “i love that they are worshipping and celebrating Jesus”?
Do you take joy today and celebrate the time you have with Jesus? Do you take joy in the fact that your God loves you immeasurably more than you could ever understand?
So let’s look at the examples Jesus gives to support His answer:
21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”
21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse.
Mark 2:
The two types of cloth do not go together.
Concert tshirts, look great when they are new, but shrink after a wash and never look or fit right again. But I continued to buy them, never learning my lesson because I had an impulse in the moment that I needed one of those shirts!
You can’t put new wine in old skins.
What does that mean? Explain:
One will destroy the other. Neither does new wine and old skins. They will both be ruined. In v. 20, we saw the future that would overcome the past (Jesus overcoming the world), and now we see the new that will replace the old (Jesus overcoming the world).
1. The new teachings of Jesus cannot be attached to or pieced together with the old law of religion. The Pharisees and their religion had stripped God's law of all of it's substance and turned it into a dry shell of what it used to be. The new will destroy the old. Jesus says that He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it.
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
. He is not telling us that the law is dead, but that the way we have used it to our own purposes is dead. Jesus is fulfilling the law, filling in the gaps of what we missed, taking it back to what it was meant to be, thus making it new again so that we now have new wine in a new wineskin.
He is not telling us that the law is dead, but that the way we have used it to our own purposes is dead. Jesus is fulfilling the law, filling in the gaps of what we missed, taking it back to what it was meant to be, thus making it new again so that we now have new wine in a new wineskin.
We have to let go of external (religious rules) and the internal (the way we think) in order to become one with the new covenant of grace and faith.
2. Once a person responds to Christ, we must take on our new identity by leaving behind the old one. Many people today try to take pieces of Jesus and patch their lives with Him, picking and choosing what parts of salvation they want and which ones they don't. We try to pour the newness of Christ into the same shell of sin that we have been living in all of our lives. We think that we can continue to live the lives we have been living, the lives WE want to live and still call ourselves Christians because we sew on a little Jesus patch on Sunday morning.
Many of us approach it like a buffet line. We take what we want and leave the rest, fixing ourselves a plate of religion that reflects all the things we like and none of the things we don't.
We cannot put God in a box. To put Him in a box that we can understand and more importantly, control, is to limit Him in every way. It's to limit His authority, power, love, grace, mercy, lordship, knowledge.
The
Here is what I want to challenge you with this morning.
3. People that are new to Jesus cannot be expected to behave and understand the things that more mature Christian would. It is unreasonable to hold a new believer to the same standard as one who has been following Christ for many years. He must be pushed and pulled, shrunk and stretched before He will reach a place of more mature understanding. Placing a new believer under this type of pressure might cause him to turn away from Christ, never to return. This doesn’t mean being lax on the truth of God’s Word, it means understanding that this is journey that none of us have finished yet. We are all still growing and learning and understanding and growing stronger and more confident in each and every day. It’s called discipleship.
So as we begin to reach out to people around us, we need to be clear about a few things and ask ourselves this question:
What exactly are we inviting people to be a part of? A old system of do's and dont's that reflects what WE think church should be? A life of judgment and shame that even we aren’t excited to be a part of?
What are we inviting people to be a part of? A old system of do's and dont's that reflects what WE think church should be? A life of judgment and shame that only has room for a certain type of person? Or are we inviting them to something that is real and honest and messy, a relationship with a true and loving God that loves us so much that He doesn't ask us to change before we come to Him, but gives us the grace to come as we are and grow and mature next to Him and is exciting and worth celebrating?
Or are we inviting them to be a part of something that is real and honest and messy, a relationship with a true and loving God that loves us so much that He doesn't ask us to change before we come to Him, but gives us the grace to come as we are and grow and mature next to Him. A relationship that is exciting and worth celebrating?
The people that are out there, don't look like us, which is probably the reason we don't spend much time with them. They make us uncomfortable because they don't do things the way we do them.
But those people are our children, grandchildren. The truth is, they will probably never do things the way we would do them.
But let me tell you something this morning.....that's ok, they shouldn’t have to.
As long as we don't stray from this (bible), everything else is flexible. That's why Paul said that he becomes all things to all people, so that some may be saved. He never compromised on the truth of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Word of God, but he presented it differently to different people so that they could relate to it and understand it and be changed by it.
As we reach out to the people around us, we have to make sure that we are inviting them to something that they can relate to and understand no matter the culture or generation they come from. We have to do a better job at making sure they feel, not just welcome here, but as if they belong here but including them in what we do.
We have to give them the grace to grow and question and make a mess, do things a little differently than we would. Instead of just telling them what to believe and how to act, we have to give them the opportunity to experience Jesus in way that makes it personal to them. So that they begin serving and working, not because we told them to, but because they love Jesus so much that can't imaging not doing it.
Closing
what in your life is incompatible with Jesus today?
Christians, what old thoughts, routines, traditions, and sins are keeping you from experiencing Jesus this morning, being an effective disciple, moving into the future He has setup for your benefit and His glory and taking people with you?
What are you willing to sacrifice so that other people come to know Jesus?
Lost - What decisions, hurts, fears, shame, habits are holding you back from receiving the new life Jesus has for you?
Becoming a follower of Christ means you can’t hold on to your old practices and sinful habits without doing serious damage to your life. Your life needs to change.
But Jesus not only wants to free you from your old ways. He wants to lead you into new ways of living. He wants you to grow in your faith and your knowledge of God. He wants you to know the joy of Christian fellowship and service. He wants to fill your life with his goodness and love.
Trying to restrain Christ in your life is like the old wineskins bursting from the fullness of the new wine. We need to let Jesus do his work in us through the Holy Spirit to make us new vessels for his glory. We need to let God expand our lives to fit the new patterns of life he wants to grow in us.
We are the incompatible. Because of our sin, we don't fit with God. We are the old garment that will tear and the old wine skin that will break because our sin has made us weak and brittle.
We are not called to be joined together and fit in with a system of rules and traditions, but to become new vessels filled with the Spirit of God. We have to become new in order to receive the Spirit so that we can stretch and move and expand and grow as the Spirit does the same within us.
If we want to see change, we must surrender to the only thing that is truly unchanging, Jesus Christ.
Jesus does not fit into something or someone that has no room for change. Not a person, not a church, not a religion, ritual, or tradition. Jesus is unchanging, which means that in order for us to be affected by Him, it is us that must change. If we think the system that we have created can contain Him, we could never be more wrong about anything in our lives.
He is greater than anything we could ever create or imagine.
If we want to see Jesus work within us and through us, we have to be willing to let go of the old things of the world and be made new through Jesus.