Releasing the Old to Embrace the New.

Will Butterfield

Luke: The Person and Mission of Jesus • Sermon • Submitted 9 months ago • Presented 9 months ago

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Jesus is comparing the old way with the new. He challenges his listeners to release their old, dead religion, and embrace the new work that God is doing. We are challenged to release our old paradigms in order to embrace every believers call to proclaim the gospel.

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Good morning!

Last week as we covered Luke 5:27-32 we learned that when Jesus saw Levi, the tax collector, he really saw him.

He knew everything about him.

More importantly, Levi felt seen.

In being seen, and then interacted with, Levi experienced the love and forgiveness of Jesus for himself.

That love drew Levi to Jesus and led him to repentance.

We learned that repentance is turning from sin.

It is a decision that we make to engage the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us defeat sin.

And finally, through our faith and repentance, we experience forgiveness.

The fact that Jesus loves us enough to forgive us and to take the punishment for our sins is what we call grace.

It is getting what we don’t deserve.

As Luke records these events he is showing the undercurrent of anger in the religious leaders because they don’t like that Jesus is taking their control and power.

As we dig into our passage today we are going to get yet another example of this and how Jesus responds.

Luke 5:33–39 CSB

33 Then they said to him, “John’s disciples fast often and say prayers, and those of the Pharisees do the same, but yours eat and drink.” 34 Jesus said to them, “You can’t make the wedding guests fast while the groom is with them, can you? 35 But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them—then they will fast in those days.” 36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. Otherwise, not only will he tear the new, but also the piece from the new garment will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, it will spill, and the skins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one, after drinking old wine, wants new, because he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

In just seven verses, Jesus shares three very short parables.

Parables are moral stories that use imagery or metaphor.

If you are familiar with 80’s and 90’s sitcoms, this is the part of the episode when the canned laughter stops and the soft, emotional music begins, and the characters learn something.

All three of these parables or sayings make the same point.

We are going to learn what all three of them mean today, discuss what Jesus is trying to communicate through them, and how we can apply those truths to our lives.

The main theme of all three parables is similar.

They are a comparison between the old and the new.

Specifically, Jesus is saying that

The things of old have passed, and something new is happening.

We are going to play on that theme heavily this week.

Last week in life groups we talked about God’s call on our lives to share the gospel.

This is not a call for only some believers but is foundational to what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Followers learn and do what their leaders do.

I have been thinking about it a lot recently.

Then, in the past week, two different people have described our church’s evangelistic style as a pendulum swing.

It is not a coincidence that two different people, who have been around since the Donahue days said almost exactly the same thing.

It is also not a coincidence that God is bringing this up at this point in our study.

In the last two weeks, we have talked about sharing the gospel, and there has been some push back from you guys.

(We are going to talk about it today.)

Then, on the heels of these two discussions, Jesus talks about the difference between the Old and the New.

So let’s start by talking about the old.

I’ll admit, much of what I have heard you guys talk about; I didn’t grow up in.

I grew up in a church with almost no evangelical activity.

Many of you grew up in churches where it was not only talked about, it was required on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Specifically, in the days of Donahue, and some of the other churches you have described, you were required to do things like door-to-door ministry, handing out tracts in public places, etc.

That was one side of the pendulum.

Many of you needed to de-toxic from that, and rightly so.

You weren’t doing it because you had a deep desire for people to know Jesus, but more than likely, out of guilt or shame from others.

Also it also lacked authenticity, but more importantly, the Holy Spirit.

But now we are on the other side of the pendulum swing.

When asked the question, did you share the gospel with anyone last week, nearly everyone said, “No.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

Listen, I get it!

No one wants to swing back to the other side!

However, we cannot continue on this course because we are living in disobedience to God.

I know for a fact that not one person in this room desires to walk in disobedience.

We have learned, in some of the most miraculous ways, that when we are abiding in Christ, we experience God’s activity and feel how much he loves us.

In our passage today, Jesus is addressing the “old” way and comparing it to the new way.

If you will recall, this section is about so-called “controversies” between Jesus and the religious leaders.

Jesus is redefining religion.

Rather than ignoring the sick and outcast, he is loving, healing, and spending time with them.

The prompt of this conversation is a question about fasting, but Jesus addresses a much bigger issue while answering it.

Jesus is saying that the old ways are no longer valid.

Because Jesus is here, things are different.

Look at all three and give a brief overview.

You don’t fast at a wedding.

You don’t put a new patch on old clothes because it will shrink and make the garment worse.

You don’t put unfermented wine in an old, dried-out wineskin because it will burst under pressure during the fermentation process.

In our attempt at breaking from the mistakes of the past and detoxing, we have swung way too far and found ourselves in a different paradigm that is just as bad as the first.

How would you describe your current evangelistic paradigm?

We have gone from oversharing by force to not sharing at all.

The only difference is that the paradigm we are in now is comfortable, but both grieve the heart of Jesus.

We are going to spend the rest our time today talking about why we are to evangelize and in general terms about how we are to evangelize.

I want to give you the assurance before we even begin that the old ways are gone, and we aren’t going back there.

Our goal in this is like everything else.

We want to be right where God wants us to be, and we are going to see that is somewhere in the middle of our pendulum swing.

Before we move forward, can we all agree that it is absolutely God’s intention for all believers to share the gospel?

If you believe that give me a firm amen!

Why is it that we believe that God has called us to share the gospel, but we don’t?

Look with me at Romans 10:14-17

Romans 10:14–17 CSB

14 How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. 16 But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? 17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.

In this chapter, Paul is talking about how our salvation comes through faith alone.

But if a person never hears the gospel, how can they have faith?

How can they believe in a message that they have not heard?

I want to point out that the word “preacher” in verse fourteen is translated as “proclaimer” about half the time.

This is significant because Paul is not saying that this is only the preacher’s job.

Preachers or Pastors as we know them today did not exist in those days.

All believers were sharing the gospel.

Who has God put in your life for you to share the gospel with?

How have you been intentional in that relationship?

You were designed by God to be a gospel proclaimer!

I don’t think you heard me.

You were designed to be a gospel proclaimer!

We need to affirm that with one another today with an amen.

Let’s try this again.

You were designed to be a gospel proclaimer! AMEN!

This idea was plainly understood by the new testament church.

There was no confusion for them on who was to tell others about Jesus.

Of course, everyone shares, because they would tell others about what God was doing in their lives.

Let me give you another example, and we are going to pull some applications from it.

Acts 8:26–38 CSB

26 An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is the desert road.) 27 So he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem 28 and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.” 30 When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the Scripture passage he was reading was this: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who will describe his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. 34 The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or someone else?” 35 Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning with that Scripture. 36 As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water. What would keep me from being baptized?” 38 So he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.

Who was the gospel proclaimer? Philip!

How did this go down? What was the process?

We listen.

Philip heard God say go.

Where has God called you to go, and whom to share the gospel with?

God didn’t tell him who the person was yet.

God didn’t tell him what he was going to do when he got there.

God said go, and Philip went!

Oh church, imagine what God could do through us if we would just go.

Because look what happened when Philip went to the desert with no game plan.

God spoke again and said, “Go and join that chariot.”

Now think about this.

This chariot is moving, it was on its way somewhere, and Philip had to run.

He had to put forth some effort to obey God.

I think this is where we miss it.

We have talked so long about God drawing people that we forgot that also sends people.

Come on that should have got an amen.

My friend, Rev. Avery Hamilton, said in his sermon last week that our faith is participatory.

We were not saved to sit.

We were saved to walk with Jesus.

We learned a few weeks ago that Jesus called Peter and told him he would become a fisher of what? Men.

We learned last week that Jesus told Levi to follow him, and the first thing Levi did was throw a party and invite everyone he knew so they could meet Jesus.

Jesus' disciples participate in the mission of Jesus.

I was listening to a book last week by James Emery White, and he said that the call to share the gospel cannot be separated from the call to follow Jesus.

They are one and the same.

And so, what do we do?

We go.

Just like Philip, we listen to God, and we go where he tells us to go.

Even if it is a desert!

We know that the harvest is not our responsibility.

Farmers know the same thing, but that does not alleviate the necessity of doing the work of harvesting.

You can have a great crop of corn, but if you never drive the combine and pick it, it will spoil.

Church, we are missing the harvest because we aren’t going into the fields!

What does that mean, going into the fields?

If you are not spending a significant amount of time with people who don’t know God, you are not following Jesus.

With the exception of David and Julie Miller’s life group and our Wednesday night ministry, our church is completely inwardly focused.

The religious leaders were upset because Jesus was spending time with who?

Tax collectors and sinners.

If you look at your life, and there are not a number of people who don’t know Jesus that are in your regular circle, you are missing the point.

Jesus didn’t tell Peter, James, John, Andrew, and Levi to stay home.

He called them to go, to follow him.

I understand that this may rub some of you the wrong way, but don’t get mad at me.

Talk to Jesus about it.

I bet there isn’t a person in this room who doesn’t understand how frustrating it is to tell someone to do something and then they refuse.

If we are an abiding people, if we truly know how to hear God’s voice and do what He says, but we aren’t spending time with people who don’t know Jesus, we aren’t a branch that is producing fruit.

Please consider this; I know we don’t like to think about numbers, but just for a moment, think about the future of this body.

If we continue on our current trajectory, in the next 5-10 years, we will cease to exist.

You may think I am being a bit dramatic about this, but I am not at all.

This is the reality in which we find ourselves.

Tozer on Leadership spoke to this on Friday.

Evangelism: Times of Extraordinary Crisis

So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." —Isaiah 6:5

Let a flood or a fire hit a populous countryside and no able-bodied citizen feels that he has any right to rest till he has done all he can to save as many as he can. While death stalks farmhouse and village no one dares relax; this is the accepted code by which we live. The critical emergency for some becomes an emergency for all, from the highest government official to the local Boy Scout troop. As long as the flood rages or the fire roars on, no one talks of "normal times." No times are normal while helpless people cower in the path of destruction.

In times of extraordinary crisis ordinary measures will not suffice. The world lives in such a time of crisis. Christians alone are in a position to rescue the perishing. We dare not settle down to try to live as if things were "normal." Nothing is normal while sin and lust and death roam the world, pouncing upon one and another till the whole population has been destroyed. Born After Midnight, 30.

"Lord help me to respond like Isaiah, when he saw the extraordinary crisis around him, 'Lord, here am I; send me.' Amen."

So what do we do?

How do we prevent this from happening?

We listen, we go, and then finally...

We speak.

When Philip heard God, he went to the desert and ran up to the moving chariot, look at what he did next.

He read the room.

Acts 8:30 CSB

30 When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

I think what we fear more than anything is questions.

We are afraid we won’t know what to say.

Do you realize that all the years you have spent in life groups has prepared you for this task?

In life groups, we spend at least an hour discussing what we have learned through scripture.

When Philip spoke up, he started with a question, and the conversation flowed from there.

By reading the room, and by spending the time to understand what a person knows, we are preparing for God to use us to speak his truth in that person’s life.

Let me give you a great example that was in the book I read this week.

The kind of evangelistic activities that many of you participated in, door-to-door, track handouts, etc. was pioneered in the ’50s and ’60s.

If you were to think about this in terms of a scale from 1-10, one meaning someone won’t even talk to you, and ten, they are ready to profess faith, most people, when that method was pioneered, were at a 7.

It didn’t take much talking because the culture was different.

Today, most people are around three.

The author’s point was that we need to stop thinking of evangelism as an event and think of it as a process.

That means it is going to take time.

It means that the days of doing old-school evangelism is over. woohoo!

But it means that we have to learn to orient our lives so that we can spend time with people.

As we love them, serve them, and spend time with them, they will get to experience God through our lives.

I know you guys hear me talk a lot about Cenla Interfaith, and the work that we do is important to me.

But, what is also important to me are the people that I have met and spend regular time with that don’t know Jesus.

It is my steadfast goal, hope, and prayer that by spending time with these people that they will come to faith in Jesus.

And I can happily say that God has given me numerous, deep, meaningful conversations with some of those people.

It is evident that God is drawing them in.

I am going to continue to spend time with them until God sends me somewhere else or they come to know Jesus.

Jesus was trying to get the religious leaders to see that the old ways had passed and the new were here.

But they just couldn’t see it.

We can’t make the same mistake.

Jesus has laid out the evidence in our lives already, and we talked about it last week.

Jesus ends this short section with a sarcastic tone, and it is a warning.

Luke 5:39 CSB

39 And no one, after drinking old wine, wants new, because he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

He is addressing the fact that the religious leaders are stuck in their ways and unwilling to move forward.

I heard a preacher once tell a church that if they continued to grasp so tightly to the past, they were going to not only lose that history but kill their future.

It is like trying to hold tightly to a ball of slime.

The harder you squeeze, the more you loose.

This warning is for us as well.

We traded one paradigm for another.

Jesus is saying that no one, after experiencing the level of comfort that we have, will want to do anything different.

The pharisees were comfortable in their religious activity.

We have become comfortable in our religious activity.

It is different than the days of the past, but it is still not representative of the life of Jesus.

We have traded the old for a different old.

Jesus calls his disciples to listen, go, and speak the truth.

Let’s not make the same mistakes that we have made in the past.

Listen for the Holy Spirit to tell you where to go, then go there, read the room, and share as the Holy Spirit leads the conversation.

I encourage you to take a look at your life and the people that you spend time with.

Ask God to show you where to go and who to spend time with.

I want to close with a final thought that God spoke for me to share with a friend.

Don’t waste your life missing the whole point.

We were not created to squander our time on earth.

We were created to know God and to make Him known.

Don’t leave here today full of nervous, anxious energy.

We have a calling on our lives, but we are not asked to do this alone.

I’m saying this because that is where our minds go.

God will work through our lives just like he did Philip’s life.

God is asking us to simply participate.

To listen, go, and speak.

As we close today, take this time of prayer and worship for confession and repentance.

Have a conversation with God and allow him to speak some specifics in your life regarding the call to proclaim the gospel.

Let’s pray.