The Kingdom Way: LUKE 5:36-39 with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor at MetaCurch, and I hope that today's message is inspiring and enlightening and really builds you up wherever you're at in life.

All right, I want to welcome you in.

Uh, if you're new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

And wherever you're joining us from, man, I am so glad that you are joining us.

If you're here at our Holotus venue, and I'm so proud of the work that's going on out there.

If you're joining us online, either live or watching this later in the archive, I think that God has something for you as well.

If you are new, we've been walking very carefully through the Gospel of Luke.

This is one of four historical narratives of the life of Jesus.

And we've really been taking our time.

We've broken Luke down into seven sections, and we are in section number two that we've called the kingdom way.

Jesus is in his ministry, which means every second he is demonstrating and teaching us the way of the kingdom of God.

And so we are really trying to pay attention because as believers in Jesus, we live with the reality that we do not belong to the kingdoms of this world.

Amen?

This world is not our home.

We are pilgrims passing through.

And so if we are going to be a significant part of the kingdom of God, then we need to learn how it operates and what is expected of us.

I want you to know that over the next three Sundays, we are going to step out of the book of Luke and into a series that we've called Paradise.

This is gonna lead us through Holy Week and then to baptisms.

We're in a very important time in the calendar.

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday on the 29th.

On April 5th, it is Easter Sunday.

Make some noise if you're excited for Easter.

And then finally, on April 12th, which will be the end of our paradise series, we will be baptizing at both of our venues in all of our services.

Baptism is the best thing that we do here.

So many people have put their faith in Jesus over the last six months since our last baptism.

My encouragement is to obey Christ and to get baptized, to let the body of Christ celebrate you and support you on this journey, and to have the boldness to go public with the faith that you have in Jesus.

And so we're so excited about the 12th.

I want you to get baptized, and I want you to get baptized at your venue.

If you typically go to Petrenko venue, get baptized at Petrenko.

If you typically go to Holodas, get baptized in Helotus.

It's a spiritual statement to the enemies of God that we are serious and we're taking ground.

Amen?

Amen.

All right, now that leads us to this Friday, the 27th, at 7 p.m.

We are going to have a night of worship and prayer.

If you were at our last worship night, uh, it changed our church.

It was unbelievable what happened.

Uh, that's gonna take place at our Petrenko location at 7 p.m.

this Friday.

And uh man, I want you to come out, come early.

It's gonna be hard to get a seat inside.

We're gonna have overflow outside.

What I want is the body together in one geographic area.

And that night, we are going to do a 24-hour fast.

So we're gonna start a fast, we'll take communion together.

That will be our last meal for 24 hours.

We're asking you, if you're a part of this movement and a believer in Jesus, to abstain from food for 24 hours.

Water only fast for 24 hours if you can.

Some of you, because of medicine that you take or medical condition, you cannot go off of food.

And so, look, we are called to be faithful, not foolish, okay?

No one's gonna try to be a superhero here.

If you cannot go off of food, then prayerfully consider something or some other things that you can fast from that are in daily rhythms, like food, that when you want to do them, instead you'll join us and go into prayer.

And we are going to pray, we're gonna prepare our hearts and our minds and our bodies for Holy Week, for Easter, and for baptism.

We are praying that we have a record number of new people who come and hear the gospel on Easter.

Everyone should bring at least somebody to Easter, and we are praying to have a record number of baptisms, which is an audacious prayer, because six months ago we baptized 144 people in one day.

Numerically, I just don't know how we beat that.

But we're gonna pray for that in faith.

And you'll, if we baptize three people on the 12th, you're gonna see me as excited as you've ever seen me.

Uh but I'll tell you, we're four weeks out.

I love y'all, but y'all aren't early for anything.

And we have 30 people signed up for baptism already, four weeks out.

So God's moving.

You should clap for that.

I'll help you there.

You should clap.

I'm really excited about the text today.

Jesus has two parables back to back.

They both have the same aim with a little bit of nuance.

And to understand it, I need you to understand something that you know already.

I just need to draw it out.

It's observable, it's just a part of reality.

There are some things that just do not go together, they cannot coexist, they can't get along.

So, uh, oil and water, you cannot mix together.

It will always separate.

You cannot run Windows programs on your MacBook.

You all have these friends, and these are the people we're praying for, earnestly praying for.

Um, Android users.

You can have 10 iPhone friends, aka Christians.

There's a lesson here.

It only takes one to turn your bubbles green.

You know what I'm saying?

You gotta be careful who you hang out with, honestly.

So there are some things that just don't work, and the same is true uh culturally.

So sometimes you build a culture, and if the culture is correct, there are just certain people with certain ideas who will not fit into it.

And so, listen, we're seeing a revival in our town.

No, I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about the San Antonio Spurs.

We have been in the wilderness for six long years, but we can see the promised land on the horizon.

The year was 1998, and I had to find a new team.

Who knows why I had to find a new team?

Who knows me in here?

Because Michael Jordan retired.

I needed a new team.

This is a true story.

I decided my new team was the San Antonio Spurs.

We had just gotten Tim Duncan.

I thought he was adorable.

I'm like, that's my team now.

That season, 1999 NBA champions.

From 1999 over the next 20 years, the San Antonio Spurs were the most dominant dynasty in any league, in any sport, without question.

San Antonio, we're blessed.

And then there were some down years, and now we're back.

So we think God and also kind of Wimby, right?

Here's the thing about the Spurs they did not win five championships because they had the biggest superstars or the most money.

We're actually a very small market.

They won through culture.

And you can ask anybody, the Spurs culture is unique in the league, and people are trying to copy it because of the success that San Antonio has had over the last really 30 years.

The culture is very different.

It's hard-nosed defense, it's past first offense, it's philosophical buy-in, and it is caring more about the points on the board and the banners in the rafters than you care about your own individual stat line.

That's the Spurs culture.

Now, throughout the last 30 years, we've had a handful of players who got traded in or came in as free agents, and they just couldn't work.

You guys remember when Dennis Rodman was a San Antonio Spur?

I love Rodman.

He's not a Spur.

We've had some others who came in, they could not buy into the culture, it just didn't work.

So you understand that, that there are some things that are incompatible.

You have to get that to get today's text.

Now, let me get you caught up if you weren't here the last two weeks, because we're still in the same scene from two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago, by the way, I meant to do this last week.

Two weeks ago, Pastor Tony preached and absolutely brought down the house.

Both menus show Pastor Tony some love real quick.

Honor him.

He taught us about the call of Matthew to be one of Jesus' disciples.

Matthew was a tax collector.

And Matthew threw a party in honor of Jesus at his home, and the only people there were tax collectors and other sinners, the marginalized of society.

That alone ruffled some feathers.

The religious leaders were like, we don't like this.

He's a rabbi, he's a spiritual leader.

Why is he hanging out with sinners?

You remember this from two weeks ago?

Last week, we were still at the party.

Someone at the party asks Jesus, hey, all of the other like religious groups, their followers fast.

A lot of them fast multiple times per week.

You and your disciples don't do that.

You're like here with us, eating and drinking.

And so they're trying to figure Jesus out.

Here's really the context that we have to get to understand what's happening today in these parables.

Everyone is asking the question: how does Jesus fit in our framework?

How does Jesus fit inside of our framework?

How does it make sense with what we know to be true?

And so Jesus is going to answer that question, and he's gonna do it with two parables.

Let's look at the first parable together.

In Luke chapter 5, starting in verse 36, Jesus told them a parable.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

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.

Now, this is a significant series of parables, and I want to make sure the weight sits on you appropriately.

So I don't do a lot of stage illustrations, but this one was just so easy for me to think through.

And so I have two garments here.

This shirt belongs to me.

This is mine.

I've had this shirt a very long time.

I did not ask my wife if I could show you guys this shirt.

I'm realizing in this moment.

It's seen better days, but I'll be honest, um, I love this shirt.

It's been with me for a very long time.

I have a lot of memories in it.

I went through in like the early 2000s a phase where I was gonna try to do the Steve Jobs thing and wear the same clothes every day.

All I wore were white V-necks for years.

And then Katie said, Stop.

So I started wearing different shirts.

Uh this shirt is worth literally nothing.

I probably couldn't pay you to take this shirt.

Then I have a new garment.

This is a long-sleeve Supreme shirt.

This costs$260.

This is not mine.

All of my shirts are from Walmart and they do not cost$260.

Uh, I borrowed this shirt from my friend who owns a sneaker shop here in town, the countdown.

I know it's$260 because it had a tag on it when I borrowed it.

And this shirt is brand new.

Nobody's worn it.

It's name brand.

It's very expensive.

Here's the parable.

There is an old garment.

It's got some holes, and there is a brand new garment.

Now, I have an affinity toward my old shirt.

And if I wanted to patch it up, what I could do is I could just take the$260 shirt.

I'm kidding, I'm not gonna do that.

That would be crazy.

That would be crazy.

And my friend would kill me, so I'm not.

But the point is, you should have seen your faces.

It's like no one would do this.

And so I need you to know this like deep theological concept that Jesus is driving at in both of today's parables.

Uh, the concept, if you're taking notes, you can write this down.

The concept is this.

Duh.

That's all he's going for.

He's he's telling parables that are so obvious, no one's pushing back.

Nobody's like, well, actually, Jesus technically, because of the shirt and the fabric and the five- it's like nobody's arguing.

Everybody just goes, Yeah, we we totally get that.

And there's actually more in the ancient context.

If you notice, it says if you patch the old with the new, it will tear.

And here's why.

Because an old garment would have gone through many washes and shrunk.

A new garment would be unshrunk, which means if I cut a patch out and I sew it into the old shirt, the next time it washes, the new patch will shrink and will actually tear an even bigger hole than you started with.

It's just obvious.

No one would do this.

Jesus is trying to help people understand how he might fit in their framework.

And the first thing he says is, there's an old garment and there's a new garment.

You could do a lot of things with them, but the one thing you can't do is cut a patch out of this to cover up that.

And so this was a parable, which means there's layers of meaning.

The old garment represents the old way, old habits, old lifestyle, old ideas, old reactions, old relationships, old financial stewardship.

This is the old, and you should write this down.

The new garment is the kingdom way.

The new garment is the kingdom way.

This is what Jesus came to earth to offer a brand new way of doing things.

And so he's talking to people who are living in an old system, the old testament temple system.

And the system revolves around the law, 613 laws that the Hebrews had to follow.

It revolves around a sacrificial system where people had to go to temple and make their sacrifice.

And it revolved around the temple itself, which is in the old system where the Spirit of God lived.

Here's what's hard.

The people in Jesus' time are living in an old system, but they don't know it's an old system.

They're still clinging to it as their framework.

And so Jesus comes and he offers us something brand new.

And just so you know, this idea of Jesus offering us the new garment, this becomes a metaphor that tracks through the rest of the New Testament.

There are many examples.

I'll just give you one.

In Galatians chapter 3, verse 27, Paul writes this for those of you who are baptized into Christ have been, say it with me, clothed.

Galatians 3:27

Oh, we'll try again, have been clothed with Christ.

This is the metaphor.

The writers of the New Testament will talk about taking off the old and putting on the new.

This is what Jesus offers.

And what is the parable?

The parable is the one thing you can't do is just simply pick and choose patches out of the new garment to try and patch up the old.

Here's why that matters.

Because throughout the 2,000 years of Christianity, people have had a wrong idea about what Jesus is offering, and it's never been more prevalent than Christianity today in the West.

We get comfortable in our old garment.

Our old way of looking at things and thinking about things and navigating the world.

And we like the idea of Jesus.

So many of us have put our faith in Jesus.

Our only hope for today, our only hope for what comes after this life.

We appreciate that, we love that, but we haven't been willing yet to fully remove the old.

We're not willing to go total surrender, pull off the old, put on the new.

Instead, we want to wear the old, the old ideas, the old behaviors, the old habits, the old relationships, the old you, we want to wear that, but we go, you know what though?

My relationships aren't great.

Let me see.

I think Jesus has some things that he can teach me, and I'll learn about relationships, and I'll take a little patch and I'll patch up my relationships.

You know, things are going pretty well, but I got a lot of debt, and I keep getting into further debt.

And I want to be an owner, not a renter, and I could, but my debt to income is off.

So let me see what Jesus has to teach me about stewarding my money better.

And I'll take another little patch and I'll patch up my finances.

And my mental health isn't great.

Let me see what Jesus has to say.

Oh, cast all your anxieties on him and lead with gratitude.

Okay, more gratitude, and now the anxiety is going down.

So I'll patch up my mental health.

I'm wearing the old and I'm patching with the new.

And so many Christians today are navigating life, unwilling to take off the old and assuming they can just patch the broken spots with what Jesus has to offer.

And Jesus is introducing himself.

He's saying, This is the way my kingdom works, and I have come to give you something new, by the way, at the cost of my life.

And you can accept it, or you can reject it.

The only thing you can't do is go.

I think I want that piece of Jesus and that piece of Jesus and that piece of Jesus, and that will patch up the things I feel like I'm missing in my life.

Am I making sense?

Let me tell you the other thing that happens.

There are people uh all over the world, there are many people who have even become famous online, in books, on podcasts, and they teach Jesus, but they don't believe in Jesus.

They go in and they go, you know, uh, psychologically, scientifically, historically, we're not against science or psychology or history.

But these are people who preach Jesus, they've grown wealthy, they've grown famous off of teaching Jesus, but they don't believe that he is God who stepped out of eternity and put on human flesh.

And they don't believe that when he died on a Roman cross, that that very act took the sins of the entire world, past, present, and future, upon himself, and was able to forgive those sins as the ultimate sacrificial lamb.

And they do not believe that three days later he walked out of his own grave.

They preach Jesus, but they don't believe in Jesus, and they will preach Jesus and they will see fame and success and adoration, and they'll die and wake up in hell.

And here's what happens people realize what Jesus has offered, and they like parts of it.

It's like I really like the not go to hell part.

That part seems cool.

And you know, even love your enemies, that's attractive to me.

I like that.

And love is the highest virtue, and love your neighbor.

I loved that thing.

I love the truths, you know, the philosophy of Jesus.

Seemed like a good guy, seemed like a fun hang.

But they look at the whole garment and they recognize that what Jesus is actually asking is for all of it.

And so they're like, you know, the parts I like, I like, but like the insanely strict sexual ethic that goes against everything our culture promotes.

Not sure I love that.

I have to like live like a nun or whatever if I'm gonna not super interested.

Jesus expects me to like sacrificially give my money away.

I just, I barely have enough money for me, I'm not giving money.

So we start to pick and choose the parts of the new garment that we're interested in and discard the rest, and we stay in the old.

And even for believers who are living this way, here's the problem: if you're just patching things up with Jesus, life will put you through the wash.

And you will end up with bigger holes than you started.

You will end up emptier than you started, you will end up with more anxiety than you started, you will end up with worse relationships than you started.

Because you are not using Jesus the way Jesus has told you he is available to you.

He's like, you can't take a$300 shirt and patch up your 15-year-old v-neck.

You cannot do it.

You know you can't do it, but you keep trying with Jesus.

There were years where I knew Jesus.

I just wanted to live the way everyone else was living.

I wanted the safety of eternal life.

I wanted the little parts that I could quote when they were convenient to me.

But I wanted to think like the world and act like the world and date like the world and spend money like the world and build my own kingdom like the world.

We want the promises of the kingdom of heaven.

While trying to live out the prescriptions of the kingdoms of our culture.

And Jesus is just telling you it is not going to work.

And so look, He doubles down.

Sometimes Jesus gives a parable and it's just one and done.

He's done.

He's like, there's a farmer, and he has some seed, and some falls here, and some falls there, and he's just out.

Sometimes Jesus tells multiple parables aiming at the same thing, and when he does that, we should pay attention.

And so let's look at verse 37 and 38.

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.

No.

New wine is put into fresh wineskins.

I've got to do a little bit of contextual work here.

If you are a wine drinker, you know older wine is better than newer wine.

So if you are buying a yellow tail that was bottled yesterday, I'm not mad at you, I'm probably in the aisle buying it.

But it's not as good as a 10-year-old Bordeaux.

Okay?

Y'all didn't know I was like classy like this.

I Googled this.

A 10-year-old Bordeaux, which is French, Google told me.

It's aged and it gets better with age.

That's not this parable, okay?

In this parable, old wine's old.

It is old and bitter and stale.

And the actual purpose of the parable is about the wineskins.

And so let me explain.

A wineskin, it's gonna grow some of you out, but is like the full skin of a small animal.

This is not the bag inside the box of francia in your aunt's cabinet.

This is the skin of an animal.

And new wine, freshly pressed, requires new skin.

And here's why.

New skin is supple and it's elastic.

And what new wine does when you pour it in is it ferments.

And during fermentation, it releases all kinds of gas.

And in a fresh wineskin, that's fine because the elasticity of the skin can absorb it.

Everyone in Jesus' context got this.

I need to make sure you get it.

When he says you can't put new wine in old wineskins, he's not saying you probably shouldn't.

He's saying you cannot.

Because the old wineskin becomes brittle, ossified, and inflexible.

And when you put new wine in and the fermentation happens and the gases release, it will burst the skins, all of your wine is ruined, and your wineskin is ruined.

It will explode the wineskin.

And Jesus is telling people this don't forget, deep theological concept here.

What he wants is for everyone to go, duh.

We know this.

Everyone knows this.

Jesus is promising new wine, new clarity, new revelation, new movement.

The problem is, if you are holding on to old wineskins, it cannot contain it.

And so it's a parable, it has layers of meaning.

The old wineskin is the old worldview, the old ideas, the old beliefs.

They're just simply not gonna hold.

Two parables, they have the same aim, but they have a little bit of nuance.

So let me help you apply it this way: the patches equal spiritual fixes.

It's like, well, this isn't going well, let me cut some out of Jesus, let me put it on.

Well, this isn't going well, let me cut some out of Jesus, let me put it on.

The patches are spiritual fixes.

The wineskins are spiritual frameworks.

Let me put it to you in Jesus' context.

Jesus is in Israel.

Jesus is the transition from the old covenant to a new covenant, which means while he walks the earth, everything is in the old covenant, old testament model.

It's the temple model.

Here's how the temple model works: it requires one building inside of one city, inside of one nation.

You have the temple where the Spirit of God lived in the Old Covenant, inside of Jerusalem, inside of Israel.

And Jesus is going, that's old wineskin.

We have to be very careful, Christians.

We cannot look at the old covenant as if it is something bad.

The old covenant was perfect in its time.

And it was used by God to bring about the Savior of the world, but it was always meant for a specific time and specific purpose.

And when the new wine comes, you must find a new wineskin.

Jesus is going, What I'm getting ready to start, if you try to pour it into the temple model, where the Spirit of God only lives inside of one building in one city in one nation, that new wine from heaven will explode that wineskin.

And it did.

Amen?

We know this?

Here's what happens we all have a framework.

We all have a worldview.

Inside of your worldview is everything that you believe about everything.

That's definitionally what your worldview is.

How you view the world based on your beliefs.

And so many of us are holding on to old wineskins, not the new, fresh skins that are given to us by Jesus Himself, inspired for us in His Word.

Instead, our framework is not built by Christ, it's not built by the cross, it's built by our culture.

And as Western Christians, here's what's happening.

We are not reading our Bibles, we are not investigating God's word for what our beliefs should be that inform our worldview.

And we are not spending time in communication with our Heavenly Father.

I'm not mad at you.

I'm just saying statistically, in the West, people who claim Christianity are not reading Scripture and they are not spending significant time in prayer.

So where do your beliefs come from?

The problem for so many of us as Western Christians who are busy and we're ambitious and we're affluent and we're trying to build and we're trying to grow and we want power and we want influence is that the voice of culture is speaking so much louder than the voice of Christ.

And so we're holding old wineskin.

And you love the Lord.

So you're like, give me more, give me a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit.

Anoint me, speak to me, show favor on me, guide me, push me, use me.

And maybe God is looking like if I poured in to the wineskin that you're holding right now, it would blow up your life.

We believe that every word of the scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

And God so desperately wants your framework, your wineskin, to be built by His truth, that He sent the Holy Spirit to live inside the life of every single believer.

So that you can hold on to this word, and the Spirit who inspired it also lives in you and can enlighten and apply it into your life.

Some of it is painful because we just we get used to the old.

If you're really honest, maybe you're a little bit manipulative.

Most of us are.

New wine requires new wineskin.

Jesus ends this section and ends chapter 5 with a sobering indictment.

Here's what he says in verse 39.

And no one after drinking old wine, not aged, old, stale, bitter.

No one after drinking old wine once knew.

Because he says, ah, the old's better.

You know anybody like this?

It's it's a stereotype that it comes with age.

I don't believe that.

I think it comes with ignorance.

I don't know.

I like the old way.

I like the way we used to do it.

It's objectively worse.

Here's the stereotype.

If you're above 50 years old, I'm not aiming at you, but you know this is the stereotype is like, I don't, I like a landline.

I don't know why we need cellular phones.

I like a landline.

The old way is better.

High speed, I like dial-up, I like the noise it makes.

It's comforting to me.

Old way's better.

It's like that's the stereotype.

It's not an age thing, it's an ignorance thing.

Jesus is saying, I'm coming with new garments.

I'm coming with new wine.

And to be able to hand it over to you, I will be handed over.

I will be nailed to a cross.

I will die, and I will rise again.

And when I walk out of that grave, I will have new wine in one hand and new garments in the other.

And I will present it to the world, and the world will say, I don't know, I liked the old way.

This is an indictment, obviously, against the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the priests and the scribes, the people who lived in the time of Jesus, who not only would reject him but would crucify him.

It's just as much an indictment on us.

You know how often modern Christianity inside of our churches try desperately to crawl our way back to religion?

Try to reinstantiate the law?

Try to draw dividing lines where Jesus came and erased them.

Every time we do that, we're like, I don't know, I like the old way.

There's a term for this.

It's called the sunk costs fallacy.

It's easy to understand.

What happens to us is when we invest a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of emotion, or a lot of finance into something.

It does something to our emotions and it does something to our mind where even after it has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a bad investment, we keep investing.

Sunk costs.

Obviously, this happens with money.

It's like you fall for some weird little pyramid scheme, and you just keep giving because you've put 10 grand in it and you're so embarrassed to walk away that over the next three years you're gonna put 20 more grand into it.

And you're just gonna keep going, maybe even though it's never worked, it will magically work.

That's sunk costs.

It's not just money.

This is why people date the wrong person for eight years, waste eight years of their life, and then finally break up.

Nine months in, they knew, oh, this person's crazy.

But nine months in, it's like, dude, you know, I've met her mom and her mom likes me, and I shared my ATM pin with her, I'd have to change that.

That's a huge hassle.

She's got my MP3 player.

I just, you know, I guess I'll just date her for eight years and waste my life.

We do this all of the time.

And when we get into those sunk costs, we go, no, no, no, the way I'm doing it's good.

The way I'm doing it's good.

I like the way I'm doing it.

We do this with our habits.

It's like obviously not working.

You don't have any friends left, you don't have any money left, your health is deteriorating, everyone's trying to throw caution signs in front of you.

You're like, no, I think I got it under control.

It's just sunk costs.

Here's what happened with Jesus.

Remember our question.

Everyone's asking, how does Jesus fit into my framework?

Now, the religious leaders, they're very wary of Jesus, but they don't really know who he is yet.

So maybe they're thinking, ah, maybe he's a contrarian.

We've dealt with contrarians before.

You know?

He just has something negative to say about everything, it'll be fine.

People will get tired of it.

Maybe he's a reformer.

Maybe, you know, we have some things we can fix, and he's gonna call them out and we can patch those things up.

Maybe he's a reformer, we can kind of circle him in and bring him into the fold, he can help us get better.

Maybe he's just a hater.

You know, if he's a hater, that's fine.

People don't like being around haters, he'll lose influence over time, we'll just wait it out.

This is the moment, it's a milestone in Luke's gospel.

This is the moment where Jesus is answering the question, how does he fit into the world's framework?

And the answer is, he doesn't.

This is the moment where he reveals that Jesus did not come to fix their system, but Jesus came to replace it.

It is old garment, new garment.

Old wine, new wine.

This is why Jesus gets killed.

The real reason Jesus gets killed is because it has been God's plan throughout all of space and time.

He is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

But this is the moment.

Because here's the deal: for the religious leaders, if he's a contrarian, if he's a reformer, if he's just a hater, you can coerce, manipulate, overpower.

As soon as they realize that he has the power and the intent, not to mess up within their framework, but to overthrow it.

He's not a contrarian, he's not a reformer.

He's come to replace them.

He can't be coerced, manipulated, or overpowered.

The only thing to do with someone who has the power and the intention to change your entire framework is to kill them.

And that's exactly what they did.

And in the greatest twist, the greatest irony in all of human history, they thought that the cross was how they would stop him from replacing their system, not knowing that the cross was the means to replace their system.

That the cross was never a detour in the life of Jesus.

The cross was always the destination.

And if you're here at one of our venues, you're with us online, and you don't know Jesus, you've never had a moment in time where you've put your faith in Jesus as your only hope for this life, and your only hope for what comes after this life, you need to know he went to the cross for you.

He went to the cross for me.

The reason that we are in the old is a much deeper problem than you might realize.

The actual issue is sin.

And all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's standards.

It's our sin that separates us from God.

And as hard as we try, there is nothing we can do to bridge that gap.

There is no religious system that you can follow, there is no level of perfection you can attain.

And God knew that.

And God proved his love for you by coming to earth, putting on human flesh, and dying the death that I deserve and that you deserve.

He went to the cross, so what Paul wrote to the Corinthians could be true of you and true of me.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away.

And see, the new has come.

You do not have to live in the old any longer.

You may be more comfortable there.

Your mind and soul may be so infiltrated by the culture that you're even convinced it's the best way to live.

But if you live long enough, you will find that that road only leads to heartache and misery.

And that the God who loves you has stretched out his arms to you again and again, and he'll do it again today.

As we close across our venues, if you would join me in prayer, bowing your head and closing your eyes, there's nothing magic about that.

I just want to create a little bit of space for honesty and reflection.

For those who are believers, ask the Holy Spirit, where am I using Jesus to patch up my life?

Where am I living with old broken frameworks?

Ask and just listen.

For some of you, the Holy Spirit is already bringing things to mind.

For some of you, this will be revealed to you over time as you investigate his word, as you spend time with him in prayer, and as you get deeper into a community of believers who can speak truth into your life.

For those who are under the sound of my voice, who know that you do not have a relationship with Jesus, which means there has never been a moment in time in your life where you have intentionally decided to put your faith in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.

I want to encourage you to live with a sense of urgency.

You are not promised tomorrow.

We do believe Jesus is coming back.

Time is of the essence.

Today you can get that right.

I believe that the Spirit of God is already pressing in on your life, calling you to surrender.

Put your faith in Him.

If that's you and you're ready to say yes to Jesus for the first time today, I want to ask you, with everyone's eyes closed across our venues, to just simply raise your hand.

By lifting your hand, this is a symbolic gesture that says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, I can say with confidence out of God's word that He sees and accepts your faith, forgives all of your sins, and has given you the gift of everlasting life.

A gift that no one and nothing can ever take away from you.

All I want to do as we close service is for those who raised a hand, I want to lead you in a very simple prayer.

I'm gonna ask you to pray it with me.

I'm gonna ask all believers across venues to pray out loud as well.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

So glad you joined us for today's message.

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