Sunday Sermon

Starting Over Dave Shaner July 25, 2004

Introduction: Have you ever been in a situation where you wished that you could start all over? The Bible indicates that a day is coming when the books will be opened and we will be judged. What are we to do?

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.  - Revelation 20:12

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.  - II Corinthians 5:10

For the wages of sin is death  - Romans 6:23a

Once more Jesus said to them, "I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come."  - John 8:21

What does it take to start over?

1. Recognition of what's happened in the past.

2. A willingness to put the past behind you.

Text: Mark 2:18-22

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?" Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."

I. Jesus represented an entirely new way of life.

A. Jesus' opponents were trying to press him into an old form.

B. Jesus was trying to give them a new start.

II. New patch on old clothes: new wine in old wineskins.

A. We try to give our life a patch; a quick fix.

B. What are some quick fixes we use?

1. We simply try ______________.

2. We lower our ______________.

3. We turn to ______________.

III. Implications:

A. Christianity must take the place of ______________.

B. Christianity must occasionally shake the place of ______________.

C. Christianity must continually make a place for ______________.

Conclusion: External rigidity is not the problem. It is the heart.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  - II Corinthians 5:17

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