Sermon Tone Analysis
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Illustration of trying to fix something?
A kindergarten teacher once told her students to draw a picture of what was important to them.
In the back of the room little Johnny began to labor over his drawing.
Everybody finished and handed in their picture, except for Johnny.
The teacher graciously walked back and put her arm around Johnny’s shoulder and said, “Johnny, what are you drawing?”
Without stopping his work or looking up, Johnny replied,” I’m drawing God.” “But, Johnny,” the teacher said gently, “no one knows what God looks like.”
He answered confidently, “They will when I’m through.”
You may not be able to draw a picture of what God looks like, but it’s your privilege through Christ to know Him completely.
God is not distant or obscure, because Jesus has made Him known – and in Christ’s name the God of the universe has become your Father.
God’s kingdom is not as far or as distant as we would think either.
So often I think we are so set on heaven, that we miss the splendor of God’s kingdom here and now.
Which is easy to do, especially with the times we live in today.
It is extremely difficult to think of the blessings of God’s kingdom in the midst of trials.
The trials we currently face though here pale in comparison than to those around the world.
Every day, 12 churches or Christian buildings are attacked.
And every day, 12 Christians are unjustly arrested or imprisoned, and another 5 are abducted.
Perhaps you have heard on the news of the 17 missionaries in Haiti which have been kidnapped.
Open Doors tracks persecution across six categories—including both social and governmental pressure on individuals, families, and congregations—and has a special focus on women.
But when violence is isolated as a category, the top 10 persecutors shift dramatically—only Pakistan, Nigeria, and India remain.
In fact, 20 nations are now deadlier for Christians than North Korea.
Worldwide registered martyrdoms rose to 4,761 in the 2021 report, up 60 percent from the 2,983 tallied the year before and surpassing the 4,305 deaths noted in the 2019 report.
(Open Doors is known for favoring a more conservative estimate than other groups, who often tally martyrdoms at 100,000 a year.)
Nine in 10 Christians killed for their faith were in Africa, the rest in Asia.
Nigeria led the world with 3,530 martyrs confirmed by Open Doors for its 2021 list.
It is understandable then why we as Christians today have a difficult time understanding how things could be better.
But that is exactly what Jesus is trying to get across to the scribes and pharisees as we continue in our passage today.
Jesus, through these parables is showing that the new kingdom, with the new covenant, will be better than anything that has come.
Last week we began looking at this section of scripture and the opposition that is beginning to take shape towards Jesus.
The pharisees have been trying to modify an old system - the law - the fit God’s plan.
While yes, the law is a part of God’s plan, it is not the redemptive part.
The law was given to reveal sin.
Paul is quite clear on this in writing to the Romans.
Through the law we see the nature of God.
We see His holiness, and we see our great need.
That we cannot, and will never measure up.
The Pharisees though were convinced that they could.
If they did enough religious activity, made themselves look good enough, God would show them favor.
Which brought up the question of fasting.
During the time of Jesus, a devout Jew would fast twice a week.
And Jesus disciples did not fast.
Jesus first used the picture of the Jewish wedding process to describe what was happening.
You don’t mourn when the bridegroom is with you.
In our context today, Jesus is the bridegroom, we, the church, are the bride, and we eagerly await his return.
A picture of the new kingdom.
Jesus didn’t end there though.
He continues on with a parable showing the same thing in a few different ways.
The first picture is of a couple of garments, or pieces of clothing.
Through this parable, Jesus is making the point that his presence represents something new in God’s plan.
His presence calls for a new order, a new process in life.
Jesus is like the new piece of cloth.
A lot of you ladies will understand this much better than myself.
You have to think about types of material, new, old, washed, unwashed.
In those days, no seamstress worth her salt would take a new piece of cloth and patch it onto an old garment.
Such a match produces two problems.
The new cloth will tear the old, and the pieces of material will not match.
There is irony here: the patch that is supposed to fix the garment would end up ruining both.
This new era Jesus brings simply cannot be wed to the old practices.
This is one of the most difficult things for Jewish people to comprehend is that Jesus is not patch to the old system.
The new covenant is new and requires new ways.
Jesus is teaching that that he has not come merely to add devotional routines to those already practiced,
for what he brings is not a patch but a whole new garment.
Merely to “patch things up”—i.e., to have a dinner celebration in place of fasting—would fail for two reasons.
First, it would ruin the rest of the new garment from which it is taken.
Second, just one new patch will not help preserve the old garment but will in fact be inconsistent within itself.
One cannot mix what Jesus brings with the old ways without creating a destructive mix.
His new way needs new ways of doing things.
This idea is expanded upon by the second portion of Jesus parable.
Wine and wineskins.
Jesus teaching, which we have already begun to see through his quoting of the Isaiah passage stating his mission.
Through the implementation of his mission,
Healing, casting out demons, forgiving sin.
His teaching is
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke (8.
The Question about Fasting (5:33–39))
like fermenting wine that seems to almost have inherent vigor and can not be contained within an old rigid system.
Later on Jesus will speak of a new covenant (22:20), which is indeed new and not merely an improved extension of the old.
I don’t know how many have ever tried making wine, but it is an interesting process.
If done incorrectly, you can have a large mess on your hand as fermentation takes place.
And once it begins, it is extremely difficult to stop.
Jesus’ era is also like wineskins in that were usually made from sheepskin or goatskin.
The neck of the animal became the neck of the wineskin.
Once the hide was stripped of hair and cured, it could be used to store wine.
New wine put in old wineskins is another tragic error in judgment no one makes.
Since the new wine is still fermenting, the old wineskin cannot expand with the fermentation.
Its age and brittle quality causes it to rip, and the wine is lost.
The story is told with a “what a waste” feeling.
The point again is that the new era will bring new ways, which must therefore have new containers.
Jesus is more than a reformer of Judaism; he has come to refashion it into something fresh.
Which bring us to the third thing Jesus brings up.
The last picture looks at how traditional Jews may have viewed the changes Jesus was bringing.
Jesus uses a common proverb.
Those who like old wine do not try the new, for their minds are already made up:
“The old is good.”
Jesus is not reversing himself and saying that his new teaching is not as good as the old it replaces.
The point emphasized is that people tend to want the old and reject the new, assuming (wrongly in this case) that the old is better.
So Jesus expects many not to respond to his new way.
They are comfortable with life and piety as it is.
Jesus’ remark is both a description and a warning.
John the Baptist came to tell the people that a new era and change was coming,
but Jesus knows that some do not want change.
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