Our Purpose is Found in Jesus

Scripture: Matthew 9:16-17

But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Insights: As a preacher there are times you recognize while you are preaching that you are butchering a point or a passage.  That unfortunate reality happened with this final point of the sermon Sunday.  In today’s verses we see two illustrations expressing the same point.  You are looking at the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.  The Old Covenant was wrapped up with people trying to fulfill the Law in their own power.  The New Covenant freed people of such bondage and helped them to understand the Holy Spirit within them empowered them to live a victorious life of obedience before our Lord God.  Here then is the point I was attempting to communicate Sunday: The Old Covenant was not capable of containing the truth of the New Covenant.  In other words, obedience to the Law was not going to be able to confine the Spirit’s freedom given to one who is born again in Jesus Christ.  Now, if I had not already messed that part up, I really dropped the ball when I tried to tie this final point into the results of fasting.  Because we are living under the New Covenant we now have our purpose in Jesus as well.  We are supposed to go and evangelize a world and tell them about the saving grace of God through the work of His Son Jesus on the cross of Calvary.  So, here is how everything this week fits together.  We find our pleasure in Jesus and we pursue that pleasure by displaying our passion through fasting.  While we are fasting we are growing in our relationship with the Lord Jesus and feel His compulsion to spread His good news to a lost world.  This message becomes our purpose for still being here and not with the Lord in eternity.  The more we fulfill our purpose, the more we experience pleasure in Jesus and the more we experience pleasure in Jesus the more passionate we become about our faith.  This cycle continues on and on and on.  Hopefully, I did a better job of explaining this final point in written form than I did in verbal form.  May you be blessed this week and I will see you Sunday.

Questions:

1.  Does your life clearly communicate what your purpose is?

2.  Are you just going through the motions and faking your passion?

Prayer: Father, I want my purpose to be found in You and You alone.  Stir my pleasure so that I pursue my passion in order to fulfill my purpose of telling others about Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior.  Amen.