The Parables - Week One

 

I.          “The time has come.  The kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news.”  David Wenham, author of The Parables of Jesus, states it this way!  “The revolution is here!”

 

A.             What are Jesus’ parables all about?   The simple answer to that question is they are all describing some aspect of the ‘kingdom of God’. 

 

B.             One of our misconceptions today comes in  understanding what Jesus meant by ‘kingdom’ and ‘king.’ 

 

1.             Jesus used the term “kingdom” in its broadest sense to refer to a state of affairs where God rules as king not just a specific realm.

 

2.             In the time of Jesus, “kingship” meant something very powerful – Herod the Great.

 

C.             When Jesus announced the coming of God’s kingdom and His kingly rule, he was not explaining an interesting theological theory.  He was declaring that God’s final intervention in history was taking place fulfilling O.T. prophecy  ( Zechariah 14:9: “The Lord will be king over the whole earth.”)

 

“He was announcing a dramatic, forceful change in society to people who – unlike many in our complacent modern world – really longed for such a change: God was at last intervening to put things right.”   (David Wenham)

 

C.             But what did these people think was going to happen?  They thought that Jesus meant that the Romans and their lackeys like Herod would be driven out of Palestine.

 

  “But Jesus had in mind a bigger revolution than that: God’s revolution was to be a total revolution overthrowing Satan and evil and bringing earth and heaven back into harmony, and this would not be accomplished by force of arms , but – unbelievably so far as the disciples were concerned, and who blames them? – through suffering and death.”  (David Wenham)

 

D.             Evidence of the kingdom was seen in what Jesus was doing on earth.    Remember when John’s disciples came on behalf of John the Baptist to ask if he is the one – the Messiah or should they look for another?  Jesus’ response: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see.  The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raise and the good news is preached to the poor.”

Matthew 11:2-5

 

E.             Jesus’ revolution would affect their relationships with each other:  His would be a revolutionary society.

 

F.              It would affect the divine-human relationship.  Jesus came proclaiming that forgiveness was available to sinners not through the law but through repentance and faith in Him as God’s Son.

 

G.             What would be the response to this message that the kingdom of God is near, the ‘revolution’ is coming?  Some would be enthusiastic supporters & some would be quite comfortable with the way things were and see this as a threat to be resisted.

 

II.             Feasting or Fasting?  One of Jesus’ departures from tradition which upset some people was his breaking with the tradition of regular fasting. 

 

A.             He is questioned about why he and his disciples do not fast and he replies: ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?  They cannot, so long as they have him with them..’  (Mk 2:19)

 

“For Jesus to explain his followers’ failure to fulfill the religious duty of fasting in these terms is, to say the least, remarkable; but it makes sense in the context of his announcement of the kingdom.  He was conscious of having brought God’s revolution into the world, and this was a cause for great rejoicing and for the abandonment of religious fasting.”    (David Wenham)

 

B.             For Jesus to use the comparison of the kingdom to a feast is not surprising in the light of the O.T.  Isaiah 25:6 - “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and the finest of wines.”  

 

C.             Jesus’ coming is the coming of a joyful revolution, of God’s great party for the end-times.

 

III.             Following the discussion on fasting, Jesus tells two more parables – the first about not patching an old garment with a new patch and the second about not putting new wine in old wineskins. 

 

A.             The context of the parables is Jesus’ failure to fit into expected patterns of  contemporary Jewish behavior & piety, and through the parables Jesus is asserting the revolutionary nature of his coming and his ministry.

 

B.             Jesus did not see himself as starting something completely new, with no connection to the past.  ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them’ (Matt. 5:17) 


 

IV.        How do these passages all fit together?  Jesus wanted to explain that the Kingdom was something new and different, something “revolutionary.”         

 

A.             Jesus told these parables to answer the question “Why is it that we fast and pray and your disciples don’t?”

 

B.             Dr. R. T. Kendall, author of The Complete Guide to the Parables, says that the passages we are studying in this lesson are “parabolic riddles.”   The first passage has to do with fasting and reveals the purpose for fasting.

 

“The point of His riddle is that people don’t fast when they have what they want – they fast when God has been hiding His face; they fast when they are not sure if they are pleasing God and they need to know; they fast to get God’s attention; they fast to see His face.”                                                

(Dr. R. T. Kendall)

 

C.             The second riddle, Jesus gives the picture of someone patching a torn piece of clothing and the foolishness of doing this.    Jesus is telling them and us to watch out for the comfortable, because you will not be open to the new that is front of you.

 

D.             The third riddle is the image of wineskins and how impractical  it is to put new wine into old wineskins.  Jesus was saying that you cannot have it both ways. .  By old wineskins he meant old structures, traditions and comfort zones.  The new wine was the new work of the Spirit that was upon them.  The two do not mix.

 

V.        What is the relevance of these parables?  (Dr. R. T. Kendall)

 

A.             First of all, God works within new wineskin.  This means that we must be open to the working of Holy Spirit in our lives so that we can welcome the new things that God wants to do in our lives.

 

1.             Not just a parable but a pattern for future behavior.

 

2.             Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 3:18 we are being changed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.  Always moving from the old to the new.

 

3.             The Holy Spirit’s work in us is never finished.

 

 

 

“The Christian faith has not been designed to create a new, superior kind of comfort zone in which we can remain unchanged.  It has been designed to create new hearts that are continually being renewed, like the new wine that stays in process but is not fully aged.  The Bible calls this process sanctification.”

(Dr. R. T. Kendall)

 

B.             Every new generation of believers needs new structures in order to continue God’s work.  One of the principles of the Great Reformation in the 16th century was this: The Church was reformed but was always reforming. 

 

C.             Finally, Jesus made a shrewd observation about human nature in Luke 5:39 where it says “No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’” We resist change, we resist leaving our comfort zones. 

 

D.             Jesus is not saying that the old has no value.  Neither is he saying to throw away all of our traditions.  But what Jesus is saying, “When it come to the Kingdom of heaven, change is here to stay.”  Changing will be God’s way until we get to heaven, because both we and the Church are not perfect yet.

 

VI.        The parables of the wineskins and the old garment were the Lord’s way of introducing the interrogators to themselves.  This is what you are like, your experience of God is like an old wineskin or an old garment and it doesn’t allow you to contain or accommodate the new revelation of God before you. 

 

“Three things grip our attention in these parables from the autobiography of God.  They tell us that God is an innovator, that His Incarnation in the Messiah is the new wine and the new patch, and that we have been called to contain the tumultuous dynamic of His Spirit today.  He is the Lord of new beginnings: “Behold, I am doing a new thing” (See Isa. 43:19), is His watchword through history.  And His promise is sure:  “And I shall give them one heart, and shall put a new spirit within them” (Ezek 11:19).  The new covenant would be established through the Messiah.  He is the persistent, relentless newness of God.  An old wineskin or a patch on a garment would not do.

God has given us the gift of His presence and we need his power in our lives.  We have been called to abide in Him and He in us.  That’s the secret meaning of the parable of the new wineskins.

We are to present the Lord with a fresh wineskin of viability each day and in each new situation.  We cannot depend on previous experience.  If we do we will be like the wineskins that burst.” 

(Lloyd Ogilvie – Autobiography of God)