G.R.O.W.T.H.: Wineskins
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Intro:
37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
Today, I want to continue the series entitled, [G.R.O.W.T.H]. Each week we will look at an aspect of our growth in God. The subject of today’s message is, [Wineskins].
With everything taking place in our country and world, I am thoroughly convinced God has us in a position for spiritual growth. The purpose of this series is to see what is involved with growing.
For when we come to Christ, we have everything we need at our disposal to grow in God. We must remember, there is no reference to someone in scripture who opted out of Spiritual Growth and remained faithful to the Lord.
There is one facet of growth I want notice. Growth in God often causes us to move beyond what is comfortable and try something new. His call to try something we’ve never done stretches us.
I have noticed this in my life:
I remember preaching my first message. I looked at a crowd who never did what I was doing, but they would discern whether I did it right or not. I preached and God helped me. It was new, but I grew in Him.
We had a service for our seniors in Oklahoma. I would play the piano and Pastor Tucker would lead a few hymns. One time I asked him, which songs do you want to do? He told me to pick them out this time.
About five minutes before the service began, he said, by the way, you are leading the songs tonight. It stretched me, it was new, but I grew in God.
In February 2015 I felt the Lord wanted me to come to Vulcan to serve as Interim Pastor. That was new. I was used to holding revivals. I preached on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, on faith, on the presence of God, on victory, and on messages that led to a good altar services.
It was new preaching to the same crowd week after week. God stretched me. There were some services I thought, how in the world will we have a good altar service with this message?
For instance, why would people want to pray after I discussed the locusts coming from the bottomless pit. Surprisingly, the Lord showed up mightily. It stretched me, it was new, but I grew in God.
Each time the Lord has prompted me to do something new, it stretched me, but it was necessary for Spiritual Growth.
When Jesus walked the earth, He stretched conventional thinking. He introduced a new way of living. He knew He would become the means whereby humanity could reunite with the Father.
Let’s review where we’ve been in the idea of GROWTH:
Growing- it is imperative that we determine to grow in the Lord. God continually plants seeds in our lives. Will we open our hearts and let God help us grow?
Reaching- In our desire to grow in God, there are moments where we feel like we are shrinking. In these times, we keep reaching out to God and eventually He will lead us and grow us!
Obeying- God is more interested in our obedience than He is in our sacrifice. For when we obey God, we create an opportunity to for Him to extend His mercy and grace!
This week we are on W. Initially I planned to preach on waiting on God. We could have discussed worship. Instead, the Lord led me a passage on Wineskins.
Jesus’s explanation on Wineskins was so important, Matthew, Mark, and Luke included it in their writings. Jesus compares what He wants to do as the New Wine. We then are like Old Wineskins or New Wineskins.
We will look at the specifics of what wineskins were a bit later. But through my message this morning, I want to us to remember, God wants to do something new in our lives and our church.
The question is, are we prepared for what God wants to accomplish?
Are we open for God to send a new, fresh outpouring, something we’ve never seen before?
Or do we want God to do something new, but have Him package it like what we’ve experienced before?
Jesus discussed Old verses New Wineskins. With this in mind, I have two points, [Old Rituals] or [New Relationship].
Let’s begin
1. Old Rituals
1. Old Rituals
33 Then they said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?”
These verses happen right after Jesus called Matthew to follow Him. Jesus went to Matthew’s home for the banquet. The Pharisees were offended, but they were not alone.
Though Jesus and John the Baptist had a solid relationship, there were times their disciples quarreled.
When John’s disciples saw Jesus’s disciples baptizing people, there was a little bit of a turf war. John’s disciples complained and wondered why he allowed them to baptize people.
Imagine being John the Baptist and Jesus. They both knew their roles. John understood his responsibility to decrease as Jesus increased.
The Pharisees took advantage of this situation and questioned Jesus again. John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, so do the Pharisee’s disciples.
But the YOUR disciples are always eating and drinking, what’s the problem?
What were the Pharisees really asking?
Over the time they had been in power, they added manmade rules and regulations. They took the truth of scripture and made it a legalistic requirement.
For instance, fasting was a part of Jewish culture. God’s people have fasted for thousands of years. But to show their moral and spiritual superiority, they would fast every Monday and Thursday, and believe me, they let everyone know!
Fasting is just one example. They habitually took what God instituted as a means of drawing closer to Him and they made it a ritual.
By the times of Christ, their prayer life was ritualistic. There was not meaning or feeling behind their words.
They tithed, but it was not out of generosity, but to show their spiritual superiority.
They studied scripture and could quote the Old Testament, but they lost touch with the God of the scriptures.
Every thing they did was out of ritual. It meant little to them. Instead it was old routines that they insisted on doing.
Was fasting, praying, and tithing important? Yes.
Did Jesus abolish fasting, praying, and tithing? No.
The New Testament church and our church fasts, prays, and tithes. But the Pharisees lost touch with God and walked around fulfilling religious rituals.
They were so far from God, they didn’t realize Jesus was the one they fasted and prayed to meet. They wanted a Messiah, He stood before them.
Their lives were so consumed with solemn ceremonies, they did not rejoice or even identify Jesus was the answer to their prayers.
But Jesus’s disciples did. Why did they eat and drink while the others fasted?
34 And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? 35 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.”
Jesus compared His position in the life of His disciples to that of a wedding. Jewish weddings lasted a week. During the week they celebrated, they had lavish banquets. It was not until the bride and groom left that people stopped celebrating.
It reminds me of our wedding. After the reception, Bekah and I stood on the parking lot with her parents and siblings. I could tell there was a little sadness because not only had Bekah became a Tidmore, she moved over four hours away from her family.
The laughter turned quiet and the hugs began. Bekah’s sister hugged her and said, I love you sis. Then she looked at me and warned, “if you hurt her, I will kill you.” Without thinking I leaned in and replied, “and if you hurt her, I will kill you.”
Everyone kind of looked and then we hugged and went our separate ways. The party was over, the bride and groom left the building.
Jesus pointed out, while I am here with them, they are not interested in the old rituals. For they are with the one they have longed to meet for decades!
The Pharisees stopped growing in God for they were consumed with old rituals. The disciples on the other hadn were about to experience a...
2. New Relationship
2. New Relationship
36 Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
Jesus wanted to make His point between His disciples with that of John the Baptist.
Remember, John was the final Old Testament prophet. He lived his entire life under the Old Covenant. Jesus came to do a new thing.
He introduced a new way of living, called the New Covenant. He already alluded to His death by mentioning that the groom will be taken away.
Therefore, He came to provide the means whereby humanity can have a new relationship with God the Father.
15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
With this in mind, He makes His point by using items the ancient audience would understand.
If someone had a new outfit, would they cut up that outfit to patch an old one?
If I had a new pair of Levis, would I take the knee from those to repair a hole on the knee of my new Levis?
Of course not! Why then would the disciples who had experienced a new sense of God’s love through Jesus fall back into the old rituals of the Pharisees?
Next, Jesus used wineskins as an example. Let me explain what wineskins were and why they were important.
In ancient time, people did not have pure drinking water. Therefore, they would crush grapes, making juice, or new wine. To hold this wine, they would place the liquid in wineskins.
The wineskins were made of cleaned animal hides, which were shaped and formed into pouches that would hold the grape juice.
As the juice would ferment and expand, releasing gases and carbon dioxide. The the New Wine was in a new wineskin, it would expand and not burst. But if the New Wine was placed in an old wine skin, one that was dry and brittle, it would burst.
The ancient person would take the juice, New Wine, and mix it with water, reducing any potency and making the water making safe to drink.
Jesus is making a point. The Pharisees were like the Old Wineskin. Perhaps at once they were sincere in their devotion to God. However, it had been a long time.
Therefore, their lives had become dry and brittle. God could not pour NEW WINE into the OLD WINESKIN for it would burst.
However, He prepared a way where people can grow in God. Remember, sometimes growing in God stretches us. But if we are in right relationship with God, He may stretch us but it won’t break us!
Jesus anticipated a day where He would do a new thing in the earth. Through His death, burial, and resurrection, He would reconcile God with His people.
When people accept Him, they can move beyond old rituals and begin a new relationship with God.
Then, He can pour out the Holy Spirit. He can refresh His people. He can answer people’s prayers.
Listen, the greatest decision we can make is to enter into a relationship with God through the sacrifice Jesus made. But Jesus’s point is, in order to do what He wants to do in people, we MUST let Him make us new, like new wineskins.
He cannot work in people who consumed with old rituals, void of any active relationship.
Should He attempt pour out His new wine on people living in sin or with dead faith, the inevitable reaction is breaking under the pressure.
But thank God, Jesus made a way for anyone to come into relationship with Him!
He is not interested in an antiquated ritualistic people who are content with the status quo.
But where people will get hungry for Him and ask Him to do a new thing, He will make us new and pour out new wine into us.
Close:
Luke adds one more statement of Jesus in his explanation of Jesus’s conversation with the Pharisees. He includes something Matthew and Mark omit:
39 And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”
39 But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”
In these hours, God wants to do something new. But sadly there are many Christians who are content with the old wine. For they are disinterested in God giving them new wineskins.
Why would people stay content?
When God does a new thing, it stretches us. Sometimes the stretching is not always comfortable. But He stretches us to grow us up in Him.
As we look at Spiritual Growth, we must remember, there is no reference to someone in scripture who opted out of Spiritual Growth and remained faithful to the Lord.
God is calling on people, a remnant of believers who will declare, the old is no longer just find. I want God to do something new in my heart, in my life, and in my church.
Jesus came to fulfill the old, so that we might live in the New Covenant as described in the New Testament.
We are not bound by the rituals and ceremonial requirements of the past. For Jesus came with a:
New Teaching giving us a
New commandment to love God and to love our neighbors and now we walk in the
New Covenant, living in God’s grace we are a
New Creation created in Christ Jesus, we have a
New self and a new identity He has given us a
New name, redeemed, how I love to proclaim it! And one day we will sing a
New song in the New Heaven and the New Earth in that city whose builder and maker is God, the New Jerusalem
and He declared BEHOLD I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW!
And when Jesus makes something NEW, He doesn’t do patch jobs, taking old things and making them look refurbished. No, we are clean, purified, and justified.
The Prophet Isaiah promised:
18 “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert. 20 The beast of the field will honor Me, The jackals and the ostriches, Because I give waters in the wilderness And rivers in the desert, To give drink to My people, My chosen. 21 This people I have formed for Myself; They shall declare My praise.
I am thoroughly convinced in these days in which we live, GOD WANTS TO POUR OUT NEW WINE upon His church! And as He pours out this new wine we will see:
New refreshing in His Spirit
New people come to Christ as their Savior
New avenues of supernatural blessing
New ways to serve and dedicate our lives to God.
The question is, are we content with where we are, or do we want God to do a NEW THING.
If we want to grow in God, let us cry out to Him, Lord pour out the new wine, but first, renew my relationship with you. I do not want my walk with you to be characterized as old and ritualistic.
Instead, prepare me and purify me. Give me a new wineskin so that I might obtain this new wine. I want all that the Spirit has to offer.
I do not want the wine of this world, but I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit.