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The Gospel Makes Us New (Mark 2.18-22) · Mercy Presbyterian Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to welcome you again to Mercy.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Rob Heron, and I'm the pastor here.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you may be here because you're familiar with Mercy.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the case, I'm so glad that you're here.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It also may be the case that you're here and you're curious.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're curious about a new-ish sign popping up on Holbrook.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: You may be here because you're curious about a church plant and what that's all about or what that looks like.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you may be here because you're curious about the claims that Christians make Christians make.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are here and you're any kind of curious, then also very glad that you're here.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are here to proclaim what God has made known about Himself.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But also to openly investigate every week what God has said and to make the claim every week that what God says is good and true and beautiful.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say God has made himself known and God has said, talking about the Bible, Christians believe that the Bible is not merely a book, but that the words in this book are breathed outwards.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: These are God-breathed words.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And these are words that continue to speak to us because they're the words of the living God.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really important to Christians because it means that God hasn't left us in darkness.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, He's given us these breathed out words so we would know Him, receive Him, trust Him, enjoy Him, and love Him.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is made known in these words is above all God's great love for us in Jesus.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so we as God's people gather every week to be about our first order of business, which is listening, not primarily to me, but to God's word.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so my job every week is simply to restate, re-proclaim what God has said, what God has made made known about Himself, so that we would listen and believe and be strengthened to proclaim it ourselves to one another and to our neighbors, and then to learn to embody the beauty of God's word to one another, together, to our neighbors.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm inviting us all to listen to God's words.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: We look again at the Gospel of Mark, continuing in our series on Mark.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Mark invites us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, he's the Son of God, and that He's come into the world to ransom us from our sins, to give his life as a ransom for many.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And last week we focused on 2, 13 through 17, seeing how the gospel leads to the feast.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this week we're looking at Mark 2, 18 through 22 to hear how the gospel makes us new, how the gospel makes us new.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So without him due, let's give our attention now to God's word.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: But your disciples do not fast.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: No one sows a piece of untrunk cloth on an old garment.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: But new wine is for fresh wineskins.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Grass withers, the flower fades.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Merciful God, we humbly submit ourselves, asking you as children to our Father, that the seed of your word would be sown in us.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And let it take such deep root that neither the burning heat of trials cause it to wither, nor the cares of this life choke it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But as seed sown in good ground, let it bring forth thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold according to your purpose and to the sake of your kingdom.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Give your spirit to open our ears, to hear, eyes to see, hearts to trust, and direct our hearts through your word to Jesus Christ, so that we might believe and have eternal life in him.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: This we ask, Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of the Son.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: My first official job interview went far different than I expected.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had just finished seminary and I was interviewing to go on staff at a church in Athens, Georgia.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And my interview was with the lead pastor of the church.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got together with him and we were at a restaurant, and he's asking me a bunch of intense interview questions, and then he gets a call from his wife telling him that her bumper on her car had half fallen off.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: This pastor who I ended up working for and became a mentor to me was the kind of guy to never be put off by a challenge.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so we got in his car and we drove to meet his wife where she was.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: We swapped cars with her, and then we took her car, driving very slowly with this half fallen off bumper to Walmart.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: To buy duct tape.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: This was the whole time it was still an interview, but before I could even process what was happening, we the two of us, me and this pastor, are lying on our backs on the asphalt of a Walmart parking lot with our heads underneath his wife's car, putting duct tape onto his wife's car bumper to try it to attach it back to the car.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole time this is happening, he's still asking me these intense questions about myself.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: He'd ask me a question, I'm trying to answer it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd interrupt and say, Hey, hand me another strip.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I take the duct tape and take another strip, rip it off and hand it to him and patch.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Slap it on the bumper.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ask another question, I start to answer, and he interrupts and say, Hey, hand me another strip.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So take another strip of duct tape, hand it to him, patch.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And before we knew it, the bumper was more gray than black, just covered in duct tape, attaching the bumper back to the car, and it wasn't no longer half fallen off.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: We get back in her car and we get onto the interstate.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much immediately on interstate, we hear this.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately the bumper had torn free of the duct tape, falling down even worse than before.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sparks are flying.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: The bumper clearly needed more than duct tape.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It needed to be a brand new bumper.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is teaching us here in this part of Mark II that we are often a lot like me and my pastor friend, trying to patch up our biggest problem.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're a lot like us.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we try, when we try to make the repair, trying to patch it up ourselves, the problem doesn't go away.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: The problem just gets worse.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the good news is that God doesn't ask us to try to patch up our biggest problem, a spiritual problem, with the duct tape of human effort.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: God's intention is to make us brand new.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the prayer that Mark II invites us to pray.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you say that with me, make us new.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And here's how I want to move forward as we walk through this passage.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to work towards seeing this principle that we need to be made new, and that we're going to tackle this problem, that we resist the new.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that leads us to the gospel.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus makes us new, and then it leads us and invites us to this response, receive the new.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So principle, problem, gospel, response.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we're going to move forward.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get there, first let's set the scenes.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: In verses 13 through 17, which we looked at last week, Jesus invites sinners and tax collectors to his feast, and he is at the center of the feast.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And also in that previous passage, and if you've been looking at Mark, you'll notice that Jesus is often at odds and in these tense conversations with the Pharisees, this group of Jewish leaders in Jesus' day.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And of all the influential Jewish leaders, these groups in Jesus' day, the Pharisees were in many ways the most like Jesus, the most like Jesus.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: They took the law seriously.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: They believed in the resurrection of the dead.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so the reason Jesus' tension with the Pharisees is singled out is actually probably because of how close, in some sense, they were to being on the same page as Jesus.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it isn't enough to be almost on the same page as Jesus.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the closer you look at this difference between them and Jesus, the more you can see that they were a world apart from him.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So starting in verse 18, we zoom in on that difference.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can see there, verse 18.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And people came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But your disciples do not fast.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what were people asking about?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Within the Judaism of Jesus' day, there were really three main practices that you were expected to do if you wanted to be considered faithful.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that was prayer, giving to the poor, and fasting.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And fasting typically meant refraining from eating food for a period of time.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was an assumed part of what it meant meant to be faithful.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, though, there was one prescribed day of fasting.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was on what's called the Day of Atonement.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the Pharisees, these group of leaders, they fasted twice a week.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not once a year, twice a week.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that John the Baptist's followers, we notice it's indicated here, also followed the practice of fasting shows just how influential the Pharisees were.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that helps us understand why people are asking the question.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: If fasting was just assumed to be an essential religious practice, why would Jesus and his followers not do it?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: In 19, verse 19, Jesus explains why.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting is a way of expressing sorrow or grief.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so the place where fasting is the most inappropriate would be at a wedding, especially at a Jewish wedding in the first century, because these were huge, huge events.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: A wedding would last several days, sometimes up to an entire week.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And a wedding was not a time for sorrow or grief.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, fasting is a time of food and wine and dancing, party.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it was all about.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as the bridegroom, the groom was with the wedding guest, there would be no fasting, only feasting.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is Jesus' explanation for why he and his followers don't fast.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I'm the bridegroom.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so while I'm with you, why would you fast?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to party.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a really profound thing for Jesus to say about himself.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, no human being is identified to be the bridegroom of God's people, but God is.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So one example is in Hosea 2, where God describes his people as a bride and he makes this promise to them: I will betroth you to me forever.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so by identifying himself as the bridegroom, Jesus is identifying himself as God in the flesh.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: God, the bridegroom, is here with you.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm right here with you.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not time to fast, it's time to party.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so let's move on to look at these two parables, these picture illustrations that explain further not only why Jesus isn't fasting, but why the Pharisees are totally missing the point.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: To fast for fasting's sake is like trying to fix a car by dispatching a bunch of duct tape on it.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus didn't come to just simply throw duct tape on our biggest problem.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: He came to make us new.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is our prayer.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Will you say that with me?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's our prayer because, and here's the principle: we need to be made new.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be made new.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And let me illustrate this by speaking to the kids in the room.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a kid, would you raise your hand?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like a kid so I know who I'm speaking to.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Every week at some point, I want to speak to the kids more directly in the room so you can better understand what I'm saying, so you can better understand what the Bible is saying.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever, I mean, one of the things that's kind of hard about having toys is they break.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had a toy that broke, especially plastic toys?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been playing with a toy like a plastic action figure and you're playing you love it and you're playing with it so rough that an arm snaps off?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been playing with a plastic action figure and you love it so much and then the leg snaps off?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever played with an action figure so rough that the head snapped off?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: My kids have.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: It happens.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to imagine that you have this buzz light year action figure and both its arms have snapped off, and you're sad.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: But then grandma, because it's usually the grandma who comes to the rescue, buys you a brand new Buzz Lightyear action figure with both arms.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So exciting.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think: would it make sense?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: You've got your old Buzz Lightyear action figure, no arms, then you have your new Buzz Lightyear action figure, brand new with both arms.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Would it make sense for you to take the new Buzz Lightyear action figure and snap off both of its arms and then try to glue them onto the old Buzz Lightyear?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, it would make no sense because new Buzz Lightyear arms are fit for your new Buzz Lightyear.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: They belong with him.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: The whole point is just you should enjoy the gift of this totally brand new Buzz.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the point I'm making is that Jesus didn't come down from heaven to patch on a couple of new pieces onto us.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus came so that we would receive the gift of being made totally brand new.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus came to do.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that point, getting back to the passage, thanks for tuning in, kids.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: In that point, what fits with uh the what's new fits not with the old but with the new is the point Jesus is making in these two parables.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So starting in verse 21, no one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I to research this because I've never sewn anything in my life.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if a piece of new cloth is unshrunk, and if you sew it onto an old garment which is already shrunk, you've got a problem.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because once that new piece of cloth is washed, it will shrink and it will tear away from the stitching.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It'll tear away from the old garment.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in this parable, Jesus is like the new piece of cloth.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And his point is that he can't be patched onto an old man-made framework of human effort.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't fit that framework.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the framework of the Pharisees, they were operating in, said, throw some more effort at the problem.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: The twisted fasting, which the Old Testament prescribed once a year to prepare God's people's hearts to receive God's mercy, they turned it into a way of earning God's favor.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: They twisted it into a means of just being reliant on themselves.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the framework said, ask even more, do even more.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus doesn't fit that.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's come with a whole new framework where he makes us new, entirely apart from our effort.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a second parable.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you see in verse 22.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: But new wine is for fresh wineskins.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: A wineskin was a leather container, and when it's new, it was soft and pliable.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But when it gets old, it gets kind of solid and brittle.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you pour new wine into an old wineskin that's all brittle, the new wine will need to start to ferment and it will expand, and the old wineskin will just burst, ruining itself and the wine which is meant to be enjoyed.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: New wine is for new wineskins.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in the Old Testament, new wine represented the arrival of the Savior, the delight that he would bring to God's people.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you read the Old Testament prophet Joel, he describes what it's like when the Savior is present.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, In that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is calling himself that savior.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I am the new wine.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not fit for old wineskins.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: The wine of himself, the wine of his presence, the wine he freely serves as the bridegroom is meant for new wineskins.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this is Jesus' big point to the people asking, Why aren't you fasting?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you followers fasting?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting, his point is you need to be made new.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be made new.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were asking him about fasting, in particular about fasting that went beyond what God required in the Bible.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: The fasting that the Pharisees required had totally become about more about human effort than loving God.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, that's old because it's part of the problem.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that your hearts have turned away from God, trusting yourselves more than Him.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how could relying more on yourself fix the problem?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus is the solution, and he can't be patched onto the old.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't come to simply affirm our self-reliance.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: If we try to fit him into a system of human effort, it won't work.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: It will simply heighten our spiritual problem.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus' presence can't fill hearts that continually remain self-reliant and unchanged.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: His presence is for hearts that are made new.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you're asking, Jesus is saying, You're asking why I'm not fitting into the old way of things.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I came to make you new.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because you need to be made new.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we need.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: We need our hearts to be transformed from relying on ourselves, trusting ourselves to trusting God.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is our prayer.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Will you say that with me?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's our prayer because while we need to be made new, here is the problem.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: We resist the new and we cling to the old.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: We resist the new and we cling to the old.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: The problem Jesus identifies in the Pharisees and those who follow them is this.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: They assumed that Jesus would fit into their framework.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus refuses to simply be a patch on the old garment because the garment is torn.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: The wineskins are old.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Again, they need to be made new.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: But more often than not, the Pharisees responded by doubling down.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: They resisted the new Jesus and they doubled down on the old, which is reliance on themselves.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of acknowledging the extent of their spiritual need, they were like me and my pastor friend trying to duct tape a car back together, patch, patch, patch.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when the problem is that our hearts are relying on ourselves, that only makes the problem worse.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not a problem that's isolated to the Pharisees as though they are especially villainous.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You might picture them that way, but actually, this is our problem.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our hearts are prone to resist Jesus who wants to make us new.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be transformed, because being transformed means that we have to give up our self-reliance.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It means surrendering ourselves.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's terrifying.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because we want to maintain control.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So even if we recognize that there is some problem deep within us, some spiritual problem, something broken deep in our hearts, our tendency when we see that or sense it is to double down on self-reliance.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's our tendency.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Double down on our efforts.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: We may have a sense that there's a spiritual problem when there's an ache in our hearts, and you can't even explain why.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: When we feel deeply unlovable, we sense it.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sense something is wrong.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: But in those moments, our our hearts are prone to resist what Jesus is offering and to double down on control.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we would prefer to fix the problem with a patch.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: We try to fix what's spiritually broken with seeking to be morally good, doing better, being better, working hard and making promises, I'll do better, I'll do better, to improve ourselves, hand me another strip, patch.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want to fix what's spiritually broken by doubling down on self-reliance.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: The solution is more control, more managing of my own life.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hand me another strip, patch.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that it's only a matter of time before that patch pulls away.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's only a matter of time before the bumper just falls off the car again.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is still active for us after we believe in Jesus and start to follow him.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's still a tendency in us to want to make Jesus a patch for our lives.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: We want Jesus maybe to be in our lives and to fix problems.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I want Jesus to fit into my life.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Life and not change too much.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want him to patch my loneliness.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want him to patch my worry and anxiety.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want him to patch my need for meaning, my need for hope.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I also want him to fit in my life and not change too much.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want him to be the patch.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I want him to be everything in my life.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe, I mean, for Jesus to fill my life with new wine, sounds pretty good.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: But do I want to be transformed through surrender and losing control to be made into a new vessel?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us plainly, he will not be a patch.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: He will not bring his presence into our lives and let us remain unchanged.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why we start with this prayer.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Will you say that with me?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be our prayer because while we cling to the old, here is the gospel.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's that Jesus makes us new.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus makes us new.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus doesn't make us new by fitting into our old ways.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't re-inforce the assumption that we can fix our problems, our spiritual problems by patching them up.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell us to do better.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell us to be better.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't hand us a new piece of duct tape.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he does what we could not do.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: While we cling to and demand control, Jesus surrendered to his father's will, obeying his will, even to the point of death on the cross.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So pointing ahead to his death, you can see in verse 20, the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: At the cross, Jesus was torn away from the land of the living, experiencing the destruction and devastation that our sins deserve.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he emptied himself, pouring out his life to secure our forgiveness for our tight grip on control.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he did way more than patch us up.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: He crucified our old self-reliant controlling self.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: He put to death the old way of moralizing effort.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's raised from the dead, he clothes us in a new garment of his goodness.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's raised from the dead, he pours into our lives the new wine of his delight in us.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: He makes us new creations, recreated in him for a new life.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Life that's no longer about patching up what's broken.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Life instead that's about surrendering control to God because we now see him as the bridegroom who wants to make us whole through his love.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus makes us new.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we've moved through principle, the problem, the gospel.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the response.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is our response?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's this receive the new.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's the response.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Receive the new.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want what Jesus is offering?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then he invites you to simply receive the new.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: If the bumper on your car is hanging off, you still might think, I just need a lot of duct tape.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you get into a fender bender, you might think, I just need a little bit more polish.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if your car is totaled, if the axle is broken and the frame is bent and the tires are popped, then it is obvious no amount of duct tape can fix it.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: No amount can put it back together, no amount of polish can fix the problem.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: The only solution is an entirely new car.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And through his death, Jesus has proven that the old life of self-reliance and moral effort and control is totaled.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's totaled.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's no use in trying to patch things up.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: But what a relief it is to put away the exhausting work of constantly trying to do better and be better.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: What an incredible joy it is to let go of the grip we have on the old, tired way of controlling our lives.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: What an incredible gift it is to simply receive.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus promises you don't need to keep clinging to the old way.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: He means to pour his life into your life.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: His intent is to take control so you would know the freedom of relying on him.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: His intent is to transform you to be more and more fit to experience his delight.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And while it seems terrifying to surrender control, he's proven that he will treat us with far greater kindness than we ever treat ourselves when we're in control.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't trusted in him, if you're still tightly clinging to control, Jesus' invitation is it's very kind.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: You only need to surrender your self-exhausting control and receive him.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he promises to clothe you in the garment of his love.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: He promises to give you a brand new life, not characterized by exhausting effort, but characterized by resting in him.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you simply need to ask him, make me new, and he'll do it.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've already trusted in Jesus, then you are already a new creation because you belong to him.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he invites you to again and again surrender to him and again and again receive new life from him.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: This passage reminds you that it's no use trying to fit Jesus into your life as though he's just another patch to your problems.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He invites you to bring your whole self to him.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: This passage reminds you that the whole point of him taking control is so that he might renew you, make you more and more fit to know his grace and his mercy, to more and more enjoy him, to more and more be assured of your value in his eyes.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the what the control that he wants to take.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he might release you and free you.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you belong to him, here's how you can respond today.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And ask him to kill off more of the old in you.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ask him to kill off the self-reliance.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Ask him to kill off the exhausting need for control.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ask him to kill off your drive to try and fix your problems through your own exhausting effort.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then ask him to produce new desires in you for him.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can ask him to remind you of what he's done for you so that he might again wrap you in the garment of his love.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And ask him to make you new, because he is the bridegroom who's wed you to himself.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Belong to him.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're already new.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: So here's how we can respond and pray today.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Will you say that with me one more time?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Make us new.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Father, you invite us to come to you because you are the bridegroom who makes us new through your perfect power and love.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: So give us faith to receive Jesus, his garment of salvation, and the new wine of his transforming power into our lives.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this we ask by the power of your spirit, Father, in the name of Jesus.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.