09.18.2011 The Jesus that May Surprise You

SermonAudio

Bill is out of the hospital – but they are stopping chemo – they are looking to get him into some trial treatments, so we will pray that those things work out to get him into that. Let’s pray for them – their faith is amazing, but they are asking that everyone pray.
Lord, we do ask You for Bill, that You would continue to reverse the cancer in his body – we pray that You would – You know the medical stuff, that You would work in his body – that it would be ready for this new treatment and that he would get into this treatment. We know that Your will would be done, but we bother, beg, plead, knock and knock – that You would work on our behalf, for the sake of Bill and Jemma and their kids. Thank You for their faith – help them to trust You. We pray for our time this morning – give us a sober attitude towards life – it can be short.
This fall, we are going to be looking at how to live like Jesus. We will be looking at the gospels – some of the stories – Jesus’ life and how He lived. In small groups, we will be focusing the small groups on that. We will be doing some thematic things – Jesus and His mission, the Poor, Sinners, Humility – and then, what we’ll do, I’ll give a message – and then I’ll give you some other passages that speak about the same thing and you will study those passages – I urge you to do that.
Eric Chen has a bookmark – a simple pattern to follow in how to study the Bible – we will give them to you next week – so you can study and get into what the gospels say – what is going on in this story, what is He saying and not saying – then we will take that information and discuss it in small groups and to get it into our lives. The real goal is to get us to live like Jesus – we’d like to step up our study of the Bible. I challenge you to do the work, for your benefit. It can’t be bad for you to study the gospels and Jesus’ life! I think you will get more out of that than you will from my messages. Your own personal study of God’s word will give you more than you can get from me.
This week – I’d like to give you an introduction to Jesus and what we will be doing.
Luke 5: 33 They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking." 34 Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast." 36 He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, `The old is better.'"
The challenge – this is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry – and what we find – Jesus is not doing things the way things have always been done. He is not acting like the respectable religious people of the day acted. He is describing Himself when He is describing the wineskins – I am the New Wine – you can either be a new or old wineskin – but I am new – and you can’t expect me to be like you expect!
We will discover some things about Him – and some of the things we have heard, thought, and been taught aren’t always accurate. Maybe what we know is not accurate.
Phil Yancey – The Jesus I never knew – he tells the story about growing up as a Christian, he learned Jesus in a certain way, and he realized there were some things he did not understand correctly. And as someone who has been teaching the word for 30 years, I still find new things – new wine.
Some boring background stuff – it could be really interesting to some- but this is important.
From 198 to 166 BC – there was a guy named Antiochus of Syria who ruled over Israel. He was interested in getting rid of the Jewish religion. When the Greeks and Romans would go in and conquer, they would try to assimilate people into their culture – and would want people to adapt and become like them – that is how they kept the empire together.
The Jewish nation always stayed separate from all of this – but this guy wanted to make it happen – so he outlawed circumcision – and outlawed eating kosher – and in 167 BC he offered a pig as a sacrifice in the temple – and it incited the Maccabean revolt – started by Mathias and his son Judah, or Maccabeus – known as the hammer. And he gathered the people and defeated this ruler – and three years later – they reinstituted the temple sacrifices – and this started Hanukkah – the festival of lights. But during this time – there was a group that came out of the Hassidim movement – The Pharisees.

Luke 5: 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and `sinners'?"
When we see the Pharisees, we see them as the bad guys, but the people of Israel did not see it that way. Yes, they had conflict with Jesus – but they were middle class folks who stood for the rights of the poor, who stood against people taking on the Greco Roman culture. Pharisees were martyred for standing up for the Jewish religion – they held strict adherence to the Law – the Bible – and they believed that you should obey it wholly.
They were also separatists – who believed in purity. The problem, what happened to the Pharisees – they made the minors the majors and forgot about the majors. They were so concerned about the letter of the law they forgot about the spirit of the law. They weren’t off; they just allowed hypocrisy in to their lives.
John’s disciples and Pharisees disciples – the two respected religious groups – Jesus was not acting like they acted. If he was a prophet – and yes, he was much more than a prophet – but he did not do things like them. Fasting – we may take a day to devote to prayer – but think of it more like Ramadan for a Muslim – there were schedules of fasting for the Jews and you just did not break it.
But Jesus is looking in the face of these things – because He is new wine – and the old wine skins are having a hard time accepting what He is calling people to.
When you go to the Law – they went to confirm what they already believed. They read it to confirm what they already knew. And Jesus came in to blow it all away – He says – You’ve got it wrong! There is comfort in knowing the Bible says what we think it says – but we are going to try to discover what we don’t know – and to challenge what we do know. So in one sense, we need you to put on your seatbelts!
There are two dangers – one, to read the Bible to confirm what you already believe. But there is also a danger in looking for something unique and different. But what we need to do – we need to continually affirm historical orthodoxy – those things the church has believed throughout the centuries – the Trinity – if you think you find something new – like a Quadrity – you are probably wrong. Salvation by Grace through Faith – we need to affirm those things – HOWEVER< we need to challenge our suppositions of the Bible – especially how we need to live our lives.
We often think – This is what this means – and you are probably right! But we need to challenge ourselves – ask questions – is this really what it says? Is it really what it is teaching?
Think of the reformation – if they didn’t question things, where would we be? If Martin Luther didn’t say, it is by grace, not by indulgences, where would we be?! If people didn’t say, wait a minute, the Bible doesn’t promote slavery – where would we be?
The point is not to challenge, but are we focused on religious respectability or what the Bible really says.
I’d like to show you the context. I’ll talk about this in the weeks to come – but understand – one mistake we make – we read a story in the gospels and pull it out and try to figure out what it is saying. When Luke wrote this – he put things in an order to lead to other things – We have a chapter that leads up to this new wine skin story – Luke is a writer who is teaching.
First, in v. 12 – He heals a man with leprosy – and what does he do? He touches them. Respectable Jews do not do that.
Do you remember the song, Signs, Signs, everywhere a sign – the sign said, anyone caught trespassing will be shot on sight. That was the sign about leprosy and Jesus stepped across it!
When I was in college ministry – it was a tradition to break in and play football on the stadium field on Thanksgiving morning. We stepped over the sign.
Lev. 21: 17 "Say to Aaron: `For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18 No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; 19 no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20 or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. 21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the LORD by fire. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. 22 He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; 23 yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the LORD, who makes them holy.'"
Wow. This was the Law – and they followed that. But what does Jesus do? First he forgives them and then he heals them – and they don’t like that at all.
How can you eat with Tax Collectors and sinners? This was a major boundary that he stepped over. We think – those are all normal things – of course you eat with tax collectors and sinners! But their law said, NO! You don’t! How many ways do we fall into this thinking – OF course you don’t do this! But maybe with Jesus He is saying you better be!
Then Jesus breaks THEIR rules of the Sabbath. In every way, Jesus is breaking down the way the old wineskins look at things.
Luke 5: 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, `The old is better.'"
There is no chance to be a go-backer. Maybe you had a childhood experience in faith and you want to go back. Or you had a campus experience and you want to go back. But you need to go back all the way to Jesus – find out how he lived – and to do this we need to put it all on the table before God – all of our presuppositions – the way we do worship, our traditions, (or lack of traditions) and to look at the Bible with fresh eyes to see what it says. And to say, okay, I will live like Jesus – and that is a real challenge – and then to wisely take the principles we get and to apply them to our circumstances.
As we pray, ask that God would make you NEW wineskins – to receive afresh from Jesus.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we do ask, no – we must learn to live like You – to see how You lived and to make that application into this world today. I pray that we would accept this challenge this fall – to commit to studying the gospels – looking with an open heart and to put everything on the table before You and to ask what needs to come off my table and what needs to be put on, that I might be faithful to You.