All Things New

Well, Truth Stories is our new summer series. It's in the parables of Jesus. Hello, my name is Mark. I wanna say, Hardy, good morning to all of you. Thank you so much. Good morning to all of you joining us on the livestream as well. There you are. We are so glad that you are with us.

And for the past three weekends, if you've been here, we have had a wonderful blessing by way of a pastor named Herman Hamilton. Wasn't it awesome having Herman here? I have to say Herman had a distinct impact on me. It might not be in the area you think of, but I found myself, my prayer life kind of intensifying. And especially with each week, I found myself praying more and more and more specifically for the preacher who was gonna have to follow him. You know what I'm saying? So pray for that guy. He appreciates it.

On another note, we're gonna be sharing a communion after the message. And so here in the auditorium, hope you got one of these. If you didn't, I wouldn't be offended if you went out to the lobby and got one, so long as you come back. And then also, if you're joining us on the livestream, make sure you have some juice or water, bread, crackers, so that you're prepared when that time comes. But for now, grab or download the message notes and let's begin.

You know, when I was a kid, I think we had all of about two and a half TV channels that were available to us. But fortunately, one of them carried one of my favorite shows. It was a show called "Get Smart." Remember this? Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. We loved it because every so often, probably about every second or third episode, they had this kind of catchphrase that Maxwell Smart would say. It was an ongoing gag. He was saying it to the chief here. Anyone know what that was? He would say this often. He would say, I heard it. Missed it by that much. Remember that?

And often, that's where people found themselves when Jesus started teaching in parables. No, I think I missed it by that much. Because the parables of Jesus have both intrigued and confounded people for 2,000 years. They sneak up on us. They surprise us. They challenge us. In some cases, they just sail right over our heads. And we're gonna see that in today's text. And why is this? Well, I think it's because often we get stuck in our familiar ruts. Talking about our way of thinking, our way of perceiving, our religious routines, our very way of life. And the same thing was equally true back then.

And so when Jesus arrives on the scene, he arrives into an established framework and there are expectations that he's expected to comply with. But of course, Jesus has a much, much bigger agenda. And today, I wanna take you to just a couple small parables, just little parables that teach something really big about what Jesus is doing because he is in the process of making all things new. All things, hallelujah indeed. That means he's making you new. He is making me new. So let me hear you say, all things new.

Okay, I just had to do that. It's my homage to Herman. I'm not gonna do that the rest of the time. It's his thing, it's not my thing, but couldn't resist. We're gonna be in Luke's gospel, chapter five. But first, I wanna give you a brief introduction to how Jesus uses the parables, why he uses them in a particular way. And so I've listed four questions at the top of your message notes. And the first one goes like this. What was the core of Jesus's message? Anyone got any ideas? Feel free to shout it out. What was the core? What was the gist of what he had to say? God, okay, that's always a good answer in church. God, I think, yeah. What else? Love, okay, yeah. Well, you were at the other service. No, yeah, did she? No, okay, you are absolutely right.

She said kingdom of God, because Mark's gospel sums it up like this, and you get a gold star for knowing that. Chapter one, verses 14 and 15. Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news, the gospel of God. And what did he say? The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent, change your mind, your way of seeing things, and believe the good news. Now, if you pay attention to the gospels as you read them, you will notice, especially in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that Jesus talks about the kingdom a lot, like over 100 times altogether. So this is a massive theme.

Matthew calls the kingdom of God the kingdom of heaven, because he's writing primarily to a Jewish audience who are very sensitive about even saying the word God. So Matthew politely renders it kingdom of heaven, but it's the same thing. All right, so what is then the kingdom of God? Well, here's a pretty good definition I got from a guy named Jeremy Treat. He is a pastor in Southern California, an adjunct professor at Biola University, and he puts it this way. He says, the kingdom of God is God's reign through God's people over God's place. You might want to write that down. God's reign through God's people over God's place.

Now, let's just unpack this for a moment. God reigns over his creation, but in the very first chapter of Genesis, the creation account, we see God calling humans to represent God's good purposes in God's good creation, to work through us. It's a royal calling. It's God's creative intent for us as to how to live out our lives, but as you may know by chapter three of Genesis, humans rejected this. In fact, it's like that little Frank Sinatra song, "I did it my way." You know, that's his signature song, right? But it also sums up what went sideways at the very beginning when the first human said, "No, we're gonna do it our way, not your way."

And as a result, the dark powers of sin and evil have enslaved us ever since, and in a mysterious way have even altered the fabric of creation. But God didn't give up on us or his world. It's still his place after all. And so at the first advent, the first coming of Jesus, he inaugurates, he kicks off the kingdom of God on earth. The good news is the king has arrived, as the prophet Isaiah would say, six centuries before this, that when he would come, the Messiah would come, they would call him Emmanuel, which means what? God with us, here to start setting things right on the earth.

And little by little, Jesus says that his kingdom would grow, but almost imperceptibly, like how a little mustard seed grows into a large tree, or how yeast works its way through a lump of dough, one human heart at a time yielding to his love, his grace, and his renewal. Back to Jeremy Treat, he puts it like this. He said, "God's reign begins in the human heart, but it will one day extend to the ends of the earth." The Bible is a rescue story, not about God rescuing sinners from a broken creation, but about him rescuing them, the same sinners, for a new creation.

The message of the kingdom is not an escape from earth to heaven, but God's reign coming from heaven to earth. This is why Jesus teaches his followers to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on where? Earth as it is in heaven. For now, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. But that's not how the story ends. The Bible ends Revelation 21 and 22 with actually a new beginning, where new heaven and earth come together fully.

Now, most people, including many Christians, have a very different perception. They imagine something very different about, you know, the hereafter, so to speak. It has to do with you just kind of floating around like ghosts or something in the clouds. René recently referred to as dry ice heaven, right? Kind of, we picture this and maybe we pick up the harp and learn how to play it forever, right? Run into some of the angels that look like little fat babies with wings. And to that, all I wanna say, hello, not in the Bible. In fact, it sounds totally boring. That's why if we're honest, we'd rather stay here than go there because we imagine this weird amorphous existence.

But how about this? How about the renewal and perfection of all things, mountains and lakes and streams and trees and food and culture and art and us? That's something to get excited about. That's the biblical hope when God's kingdom arrives in all its fullness. Now, you still with me? Excuse me, still with me. Good. Brings us to how did Jesus often teach about the kingdom? Well, back to Mark chapter four, verse 30. Again, he said, that's Jesus, what shall we say the kingdom of God is like? Or what parable shall we use to describe it? A couple of verses later, with many similar, what? Parables, Jesus spoke the word to them. Here's the point.

When Jesus is using parables, he is often, not always, but often, he is talking about the kingdom. And so this gives us an interpretive key. One of the questions we can ask, is this something he wants us to know about the kingdom? Well, finally, what's a parable? Well, the word comes straight across from the Greek word parabale, which literally means to place alongside. Place alongside, and it has to do with a short story or a simile, a saying that is designed to illustrate, to come alongside in order to teach some particular truth.

All right, now that we have set the stage, let's take a brief look at our text today. It is Luke chapter five, verses 33 through 39. And let me give you the big idea, right at the beginning here. The big idea in this text is that Jesus is doing something radically new. Not kind of new. Not just here to give a tune up. He is doing something radically new. And the first thing we see in the process of him doing this is that Jesus is more than just a new teacher. He's more than a new teacher.

Let me give you the context for this passage. Jesus has just called Matthew the tax collector to become one of his disciples. Now, do people love and respect tax collectors back then? No, quite the opposite. Do they love and respect them today? No, I'm not gonna even go there, sorry. But Matthew is so excited that he quits his old job and then he throws a big party to celebrate his new calling and he holds his party at his big house that he could afford with all the tax money he ripped off from his fellow Israelites. And so now when you're a tax collector, your friends are pretty much limited to fellow tax collectors or quote unquote sinners, right? People who are on the margins of what you might call polite society.

And so I'm thinking, this is not just kind of a party. This is what we would call a rager. You know what I'm saying? It's like, parties at Matthew's house. Guess who else is there? Jesus and his disciples, are you kidding me? It's no surprise that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, they frown upon this, right? These guys have come from all around Galilee. They've come from as far away as Jerusalem and they wanna see what Jesus is about with their own eyes. And when they arrive at this party, it's like a TMZ moment. You know what I'm saying? It's kind of a scandal. Jesus, he's there hanging with all the wrong people. Jesus, not abiding by the rules of the scribes and the Pharisees.

So verse 33, they said to him, excuse me, Jesus, but John's disciples often fast and pray and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking. Oh. Now, in fact, the Old Testament instructed the Israelites to fast once a year during the day of atonement, once a year. The Pharisees and the scribes, they and even some of John's disciples, they fasted two times a week. Yeah, twice a week, they were probably pretty skinny as a result, but I diverge. Think about this. This is like going, you know, God, you really kind of set the bar too low. You know, you kind of set it for all the underachievers. We're gonna really kind of raise it because we are the peak performers in this system here.

And have you ever had an experience where someone kind of, they kind of lay upon you, maybe it's just kind of subtly guilting you over something that's not in the Bible, but you get the distinct impression that they really wish it was? Like if I wrote the Bible, it would say this too. Let me give you an example. Maybe you've been here, you're at Costco or the grocery store, and you just happen to maybe be stocking up on maybe a couple bottles of wine, you know, to be using moderation, but you, well, they're cheaper if you buy six. So, you know, you do that. And then maybe just possibly, your spouse tells you that we need more of a certain kind of birth control product.

And so in that moment when your cart is full, boom, there's someone from church right in front of you, right? And their eyes are darting from you to your cart, right? Like, whoa. And in that moment, you're thinking to yourself, oh, I know what they're thinking. They're thinking right now, well, well, well. Aren't you planning to have yourself a good old time? Now, truth be told, what they're probably thinking is man, I'm so glad they got their shopping done ahead of me, right? But it's awkward. And we've perhaps been there.

And the Pharisees, surely in that moment, aren't thinking charitably, they're thinking, oh Jesus, we expected so much more of you. And in response, verse 34, Jesus answered, can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with you? Was that them? And he says, but the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them. In those days, they will fast. This is a clear reference to his arrest and crucifixion when he will be taken from them. The original is often used to mean to take away by force. We use it the same way today, you know, someone's arrested, we say, you know, take him away.

But more significant is what Jesus calls himself right here. The bridegroom, well, wait a minute. If you go back to those references that I put in your notes like Isaiah 54 and 62, Jeremiah 2, Hosea 2, in all of those passages, Jesus, excuse me, God refers to himself as a bridegroom, as a husband. Isaiah 62.5, for example, says, as a young man marries a young woman, so will your builder marry you. As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. I wonder if Jesus was just dropping a big hint right here as to who he is. These folks knew their Bible very well. They knew it better than we do. And yet it goes right over the head. They don't even, the question isn't even raised. That's like not even a possibility.

Why? Because they saw Jesus as simply another new teacher in town and nothing more. And you know what? Sadly, that notion is still alive and well today, even among people who call themselves Christ followers. Check this out. According to a survey that Ligonier Ministries conducted, and they had it done by a LifeWay research company, do this for them, August 2020. So this is pretty fresh research. It says a majority of Americans, and nearly a third of evangelicals, whatever that means, that's a big bucket of people, but mostly they talk about the authority of Scripture, right? Say Jesus was a good teacher, but was not God.

It was on to say in total, 52% of Americans say they believe Jesus was a good teacher, but he was not God. And then although the pulse finding about the general population may not be shocking, it's not shocking to me, Ligonier said that it is surprising that nearly a third of evangelicals affirmed the statement and believe Jesus was a good teacher and nothing more. Now you think about the implications of this. One out of three self-identifying Bible believing evangelicals say, "Yeah, he's just a good teacher, nothing more." Is it any wonder that so many evangelical churches have been plunged into division and distraction as a result?

Because if Jesus is just a good teacher, well then I can choose which of his teachings I will follow and which of them I will not because he doesn't carry the same authority. He's like a life coach. He has some good things to say. It's great advice, Jesus, but not there. I don't think that doesn't really work for me. What do you wanna say? For instance, love your enemies. I don't think so. Pray for those who persecute you. Oh, come on, Jesus, you didn't really mean that. That's not what they do on my favorite news show. No, they call people out. That's how we roll.

I invite you to imagine, just imagine what would happen if we focus less on the spec in our brother and sister's eyes another teaching and focused instead on the two by four in our own. Amen indeed. You might even call that revolutionary, wouldn't you? Wow. Jesus had some great things to say that he was far more than a teacher. And so let's just be honest with ourselves right here. Let's make this real to our lives and I'll do the same in inviting you. Is it possible that there are some thinking patterns, some manners of speech, some manners of practice in our lives that are clearly at odds with the teaching of Jesus and yet we tolerate them perhaps even to the point that we don't even notice it anymore? Is it just possible?

Would it be wise for us to place ourselves before the Lord and say, "Am I out of sync somewhere, Lord?" Because my dear friends, Jesus is far more than just a good teacher. He is according to Colossians 1, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is the very same God who loves us and freely gave himself on the cross then rising on the third day, defeating the power of sin and death. That's our Jesus. Amen, church. Amen.

And not only is Jesus more than just a new teacher, secondly, Jesus launched more than just a new tradition. In Mark's gospel, chapter seven, there's a similar discourse going on, not about fasting, but about hand washing. And again, the scribes and the Pharisees had very rigorous traditions about how you were to do this. And yet Jesus says this to them. He says in Mark seven, "You guys have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions." Like he says elsewhere, you gotta go back and read what it means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. You're missing the heart of what God is saying in your very own scriptures.

And he's also saying, you know what? You're trying to put me and everyone else in your box, but I am not gonna play along because in so many ways Jesus is saying, I'm not here to add another layer to your tradition. I am here to fulfill your scriptures. I'm here to fulfill the hopes and expectations of our people and not only that, the entire world, even if they don't even know it yet, because I'm here to make all things new.

And watch how he talks about this back in Luke five, picking up at verse 36. He told them this parable. "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sows it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment and the patch from the new one will not match the old." Kind of a no-duh thing because if you take a new shirt and cut a hole in it to patch a hole in an old shirt, you still have a shirt with a hole in it, right? And not only that, but he says, "The new patch will not match." And here the word in the original is sumfuneo. Sumfuneo. Sound like an English word? Symphony. Symphony. You ever experienced when a symphony isn't quite together, right? Maybe like, you know, junior high band or something like that, right? It's not harmonious. It's not agreeable. And you get the point.

In Mark's parallel account of this very same parable, he says, "The new patch will pull away from the old and only make the tear worse." And along the same lines, Jesus continues, here in Luke five, he says, "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." No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.

My neighbor John is a talented winemaker and so earlier this week I went up to his house and I didn't say, "Hey, can you tell me what he's talking about here? 'Cause I don't really know a whole lot about how you make wine, but what's going on here?" And so John explained to me, and I hope not to mess this up, explained to me that when the grapes are crushed, there's naturally, there's yeast on the outside of the skin and that comes in contact with the sugar that's on the inside, the juice, and it starts to process the yeast, the sugar, and it produces two things. It produces alcohol and it produces carbon dioxide, gas.

And so new wine is this fermenting, bubbling thing. It's brimming with new life and a new wineskin can expand as the pressure increases and presses against it, but an old wineskin has lost its flexibility, its elasticity, and so the new wine will cause it to burst. And of course they knew this. Now fast forward to the night that Jesus was arrested, just prior to that, prior to going out and the results of his betrayal. He's around the table and he takes an old celebration, the Passover meal, and he reframes it. He redefines it within the context of what he's about to do by going to the cross, and so he raises the cup. That meant one thing, and he says, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood," referring to again, his shed blood. He will be the lamb that is slain.

All the other sacrifices are pointing to his supreme sacrifice. Now, once you embrace this, kind of hard to go back and see it the same way, right? You can see it within the context or the continuity, but it's taken on a new meaning because what Jesus has done, it's finished. There is no need for any further sacrifice, and for those of you who have received the new wine of the gospel, so to speak, we're gonna remember that and cherish it during our time of communion together, but before we do, I just wanna attempt as best I can. I wanna make sure that none of us miss the message because we need more than just information, we need transformation.

We need change from the inside out, and it happens in the power of the gospel when Jesus offers us a new heart, not just a new set of rules, a new heart. And again, I'm not saying that we just go off and live wanton lives, but it springs, our new life springs out of a changed heart. We actually desire the things of God, and I've been making this point throughout, so I'm not gonna belabor it here, but just to get our tendency is to cling to what is familiar and routine and comfortable, and Jesus addresses this when he says, with somewhat of a sad note at 39, he says, "And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says the old is better." Who's he talking to? Spherasies and the scribes, predicting that they're going to, in many cases, if not most, cling to their old ways and reject what he is offering.

But you know what? I hope that's not true of you. I hope that you are open to the new thing that he may be doing in you. A new thing may be a new way of relating to somebody else, a new direction in your life, a new perspective. I mean, for some of us, ironically, the new wine may be sobriety, or the new tongue may be one that doesn't go after people with such ferocity or anger, or the new wine may be stepping back from all the noise and distraction of kind of the social media world or the infotainment world or something like that, and just enjoying the newness of life that he offers us.

Because here's the thing, when we get those prompts from the Lord and we know his Spirit is speaking to us, maybe through, again, some kind of prompting, or maybe just through the word of somebody else or the word of God, what a shame if we just push that to the side only years later to realize, ah, missed it by that much. Missed it by that much. Perhaps God's Spirit is calling you right now for the very first time. You've been checking this out, but you're kind of like a Matthew, you're like, yeah, I was here, and then all of a sudden Jesus says, I want you to go there. That offer is as new today as it was the day he called Matthew, and he says, come on, follow me. You don't understand it all, but you know I'm what you need. Come with me, and I will give you life.

And you may not feel worthy. Well, guess what? Matthew wasn't worthy. I wasn't worthy. No one was worthy. It's all by grace. For you, maybe the old promise that was recorded way back six centuries before Jesus arrived, back in the book of Ezekiel. Maybe that's what you need to hear today. It is a fresh promise that is brimming with life when Ezekiel says, this is speaking on the half of God, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, one that is supple, one that can expand with a new work of God in your life. Are you ready for that? 'Cause that's what Jesus is offering today.

No matter what you did last night, no matter what you did last week, no matter what you've been doing for as long as you can remember, he says, I'm ready to make all things new in you. But before I conclude, maybe for some of us here, we just need our hope renewed. You know what I'm saying? It's been a tough two years. And there's been challenges even beyond the pandemic. There's been losses as we reconnect and regather, we hear each other's stories. And then there's been illness and there's been loss. And there's just been so much disruption and upheaval. Maybe you just need your hope renewed today.

Just yesterday, I was at the memorial service of a woman named Vicki Wilson, who was a long time Twin Laker, grew up in this church, served in this church, godly woman, married to a man named Randy Wilson, who was my college pastor here at Twin Lakes Church a couple of decades ago, but who's counting? Lovely couple, God used them in so many wonderful ways in this church and other churches. But for the past 16 years, ALS has been slowly taking Vicki's life. And as her husband talked about that journey, as her brother talked about that, as her son, her brother-in-law all talked about the very real challenges, the very real pain and loss and struggle, they also talked about the hopefulness and the resiliency and the joy of Christ.

And this woman who from a physical standpoint was being taken little by little, how in the world do you live that way with that kind of hope? Well, I'll sum up what they all had to say. It's when you lean in to the promise, the assurance that this is not the end of the story. And there will be a day when God's kingdom comes in all its fullness and the dwelling of God will be among his people. And there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain that will all come to pass on the day, Scripture says, when the one sitting on the throne says, "See, I am making all things new." Do you believe that church? Well, then let's go to him and thank him for these truths.

Lord, we are so grateful. We are so blessed. May we never get tired, comfortable with the radical new work you are doing in our lives, in our world. And Lord, we just pray that your kingdom would come. Your will would be done on earth, in our lives, in our communities as it is in heaven. We live in anticipation of that day. And so Lord, I pray that in this moment, you would envelop us in your grace, your strength, your comfort, your tender care. We all came in with a different story, different joys, different heartaches today. But Lord, you know them all. And so will you meet us at our place of need? Will you give us a sense, Lord, that you are still very much at work? And that we can live in the newness of all that you have for us now and forever. We pray this in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And all God's people said, Amen.