ARE WE READY FOR AN OVERFLOW OF NEW WINE?

Matthew 9:14–17 NLT

14 One day the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him, “Why don’t your disciples fast like we do and the Pharisees do?” 15 Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 “Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. 17 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”

Title: ARE WE READY FOR AN OVERFLOW OF NEW WINE?

INTRODUCTION

I’m So Glad to Be Back!

Talk about how much I have missed our church Family.

What started out as a much-needed two-week vacation back in August to cope mentally and physically with what we now refer to as “2020,” coupled with years and years of neglecting Sabbath rest, hit a wall when my father unexpectedly passed away in September.

While the journey hasn’t been an easy one, I am thankful the Lord didn’t ask me to travel it alone.

:) If you will indulge me for a moment, but it may sound like the Academy Awards for a few minutes as I really want to thank all my...

Friends

Personal Family

Kristi

Kids

Frank & Sharon

My Mom

MRI (Ministry Resources International)

All of you! My Church Family

Deacon Board

MRI has stated several times how supportive the Board has been during this time.

Curtis

Dan

Judy

Rob

Viktra

Leadership Team

Kris

Pam

Worship Team

Christian

Tambi

Pastoral Team

Pastor Jason

Pastor Bonnie

Pastors Stephen & Tammy

Pastor Jay

Pray for Pastors Jay and Tammy

I will share more of my journey with you as the Holy Spirit leads, but for this morning I just want you to know how thankful I am to be here worshiping the Lord together with you.

I don’t think I ever fully appreciated how important corporate worship was until my time away from it these past couple months.

Talk about this

Of course, as we all know...

2020 Was a Game Changer!

It changed the way we interacted with each other.

It challenged once stable relationships.

More and more Christians were allowing political affiliations to take precedence over Christian brotherhood.

People were and still are leaving churches over both sides of the mask mandates and political preferences.

Many life-long churchgoers were admitting that they probably weren’t coming back if this Covid stuff ever settled down.

It caused many to question long held norms and is continuing to do so.

But it didn’t stop there, it has changed the way we “do church” as well.

Things will not be the same for the foreseeable future.

“In Tony Morgan’s Q3 UnStuck Church Report, he shares that among churches his team surveyed, in-person attendance is 36% of what it was pre-COVID.”

https://careynieuwhof.com/3-statistics-that-show-how-quickly-radically-and-permanently-church-is-changing-in-2020/

“The Pew survey and a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that one-third or more of those who had previously attended church regularly were not bothering to watch online services.

For those whose church affiliation was already tenuous, the disconnect may be permanent.”

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/20/858918339/things-will-never-be-the-same-how-the-pandemic-has-changed-worship

Everybody, and I mean everybody was being offended—and it’s only getting worse!

I know I’ve had my fair share of offence.

It seemed like every time I got on Facebook, I was self-fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy in Luke 17:1.

Luke 17:1 NKJV

1 Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!

The more I got offended, the easier it became to be offended!

Talk about how easy it is to be offended

Whether or Not We Want to Accept It, Things Have and Are Continuing to Change Across the Landscape of Our Nation.

I could easily go on and on about how bad things have been getting over the past year, but instead, I would like to use them to focus our hearts and minds to the fact that while we are in this world, Jesus wants us to remember that we are not to be of this world!

In his book “The Cost of Discipleship,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about his church’s then, current struggle with Nazi Germany saying,

“The Church is not to be a national community like the old Israel, but a community of believers without political or national ties.

The old Israel had been both-the chosen people of God and a national community, and it was therefore his will that they should meet force with force.

But with the Church it is different: it has abandoned political and national status, and therefore it must patiently endure aggression. Otherwise, evil will be heaped upon evil.

Only thus can fellowship be established and maintained.”

If There Ever Was a Time Where We Needed Overflow in Our Nation, In Our Church, In Hour Homes, In Our Lives, It Is Now!

I am so thankful for our Leadership Team for seeking the Activity of God in this year’s theme for our church’s 21-Day Corporate Fast by leading us in the Devotional, “21 Days to Overflow.”

Give a plug for the book

Church, we desperately need an Overflow!

We need more than just a trickle

We need more than just a downpour

We need an overflowing!

Or as the book puts it:

1: to flow over bounds

2: to fill a space to capacity and spread beyond its limits

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

How many of you would agree with me that, Yes Pastor...

We Need an Overflow of New Wine!

Well, I wholeheartedly agree with you!

:) Now, before we shout hallelujah, high-five each other, and go back to business as usual, I believe the Holy Spirit is asking some important questions of us.

However, before I ask them...

I don’t want us to rush in answering them.

I don’t want us to quickly spout out the “right” sounding answers.

If you don’t like the answers that comes to your mind, it may be a heart issue and something deeper.

That’s ok, take it to the Lord and let Him speak to you about them.

I have personally been struggling with these questions for quite some time now as they have caused me to do a lot of soul-searching.

Here, let me share them with you.

The first one I believe the Holy Spirit is asking us in this season is...

1. DO WE REALLY WANT AN OVERFLOW OF HIM OR ARE WE REALLY SEEKING AN OVERFLOW OF OURSELVES?

Do we truly desire the “New Wine” we have been singing about lately, or is it merely lip service for what our heart’s true desire is?

Here are some personal desires that I’ve been hearing a lot from people lately. Not saying their good or bad—just personal desires...

Our presidential candidate to somehow win or transition into power next week.

Our way of Covid to be handled in the manor we see fit

Our political party to rule

You name it, there’s an opinion on how it should be handled or done.

What are some personal desires consuming you lately?

So...

a. Are They Self-Centered or Are They God-Centered?

I get it, for many of us, times are hard, but think back over your prayers lately.

Have they been moreGod-Centered or have they been more Self-Centered?

It’s ok if they are both, as long as theGod-Centered wins in the end.

b. Jesus Demonstrated How to Pray Both Self-Centered and God-Centered Prayers in Matt. 26:39

Matthew 26:39 NLT

39 He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

If anyone had a right to pray a self-centered prayer at that moment, it was Jesus!

But He knew that if things were ever going to truly be made right in the light of eternity, His prayers had to move beyond all the hype and hysteria of the day and ultimately focus on what God was doing in the big picture of eternity.

Now stop and think about this for a minute. What’s going to matter the most in 1,000 years...

An Overflow of His Spirit / His New Wine?

Or an Overflow of Self?

What do you really want today?

How we answer these questions will have a huge impact on...

Our prayer lives

What we post on Social Media

How easy it is for us to become offended

Our family dynamics

Our response to spiritual authority

Our friendships

Our financial priorities

Our walk with Jesus

and on and on...

Talk about this...

When we truly humble ourselves and begin to seek an overflow of Him over ourselves, we are then ready to wrestle with the second question...

2. ARE WE READY FOR AN OVERFLOW OF NEW WINE?

If the Lord were to pour out an overflowing of His Spirit, or as Jesus once referred to it as, the New Wine, as we have been crying out for...

Are We Ready to Receive It?

This is the pivotal question the Holy Spirit began laying on my heart last summer for our Church Family...

Are we ready for the New Wine?

But this isn’t the way He asked me the question, instead He asked me it like this...

3. IS NEW LIFE WILLING TO BECOME A NEW WINESKIN?

Now you have to understand the context of the question.

The way we’ve “done” church has changed more in the last year than it has in my lifetime!

Talk about all the changes Covid brought to the church

Talk about my conversations with retired Pastors concerning the matter

Pastors all around the nation and world, including us here at New Life have been constantly beating our heads against the wall asking the Lord to show us what we could do to, not only reach the lost, but connect and love on those...

Who were sick, yet we couldn’t visit

Having surgery, yet we were barred from the hospital

Who were immunocompromised and unable to corporately worship with us

Connect and love on those...

Who have become bitter and offended for whatever reason

Who we will never see in person because they can only watch online

When we ourselves are on empty

etc.

So, what the Lord was really asking me was...

Are you willing to “do church” differently without compromising the Word of God or the Mission of the Church?

Yes, you are crying out for an Overflow of New Wine, but first, I am asking you New Life...

Are you willing to become a New Wineskin?

So...

a. What’s the Significance of Wineskins?

To find out, we need to go back to our opening text in Matt 9:14-17

Matthew 9:14–17 NLT

14 One day the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him, “Why don’t your disciples fast like we do and the Pharisees do?” 15 Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 “Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. 17 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”

In this passage we find Jesus having dinner at the house of His disciple Matthew when some of John the Baptist’s disciples show up.

:) They were kind of edgy because they were fasting.

Have you been feeling a little edgy from your fast lately?

One of the reasons John’s disciples were fasting was because they were mourning the imprisonment of John by King Herod Antipas.

Another reason they were fasting was to prepare themselves for the promised Messiah to come.

That’s why Jesus responded in v. 15...

Matthew 9:15 NLT

15 Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Jesus was basically telling them without blurting it out, “hey guys, the Messiah you’re preparing yourself for is right here in front of you!”

b. Jesus Wasn’t Condemning Fasting

He was all for it!

That’s why it was the very first thing He did after He was baptized in Luke 4:1-2

Luke 4:1–2 NLT

1 Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.

Then in Matt 6:16, Jesus told His disciples...

Matthew 6:16 NLT

16 “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.

And WHEN you fast...

Here’s the real deal...

c. Jesus Had Come to Do Something New!

However, John and his disciples were still looking at things through the old lens of the way things were done.

That’s why they were still fasting for the Messiah when the Messiah was right there in front of them.

So...

Jesus had to shake things up and help them to understand that yes, there would be a time for fasting, but for right now, He was there to show them a NEW way of doing things—A New Covenant!

Here’s a great piece I found in “The Jesus Film Project,” which helps explain it a little better,

“Because we're unfamiliar with ancient practices, sometimes it's difficult for modern readers to understand Jesus's parables.

In Jesus's day, people used animal skins—like goatskin—for storing liquids. Fermented drinks like wine expanded, and since an old wineskin would already be stretched to its limit, the new wine would tear the seams.

This is why new wine needed to be preserved in new wineskins. As the wine expanded, the new skins would stretch to accommodate it.

Jesus was making a very specific point to [the disciples of] John the Baptist. He was here to do something completely new. If John (or anyone else) tried to make sense of it through a lens of old expectations and regulations, they'd miss the amazing thing that was happening. Through Jesus, God was redeeming the world to Himself. And if people expected this to look familiar to what God had done before, they wouldn't understand.

Modern Christians have the benefit of hindsight. We get to see the whole picture in a way that makes sense. Those who chose to follow Jesus in the first century struggled with a lot of confusion. Was this Messiah going to conquer their enemies?

Why did Jesus behave so differently than other rabbis? Why was the religious establishment so angry with Him? Questions like these would have created a lot of unrest and anxiety in His Jewish audience.”

https://www.jesusfilm.org/blog-and-stories/what-did-jesus-mean-putting-new-wine-new-wineskins.html

So, when the Holy Spirit asked me, “Is New Life Willing to Become a New Wineskin,” I came to realize what the Lord was really asking me...

4. ARE WE WILLING TO BE THE CHURCH THAT HE NEEDS US TO BE IN THESE LAST DAYS TO CARRY HIS SPIRIT?

Now that’s the real question, isn’t it?

Not only was the Holy Spirit birthing this question in my heart for our church, but I also soon came to realize that in my time away, the Lord was doing the exact same thing in my life, creating a new wineskin out of me, so I would be able to carry the New Wine of His Spirit.

And this is where we will pick up today’s message, “Are We Ready for An Overflow of New Wine?” next week with, “It’s Time For Some New Wineskins”

BRINGING IT HOME

Are We Ready for An Overflow of New Wine?

1. DO WE REALLY WANT AN OVERFLOW OFHIM OR ARE WE REALLY SEEKING AN OVERFLOW OF OURSELVES?

2. ARE WE READY FOR AN OVERFLOW OF NEW WINE?

3. IS NEW LIFE WILLING TO BECOME A NEW WINESKIN?

4. ARE WE WILLING TO BE THE CHURCH THAT HE NEEDS US TO BE IN THESE LAST DAYS TO CARRY HIS SPIRIT?