Why New is Better Than Better | Matthew 9:14-17 | Pastor Neil McClendon

Neil McClendon, Lead Pastor
Grand Parkway Baptist Church

Why New is Better Than Better
Matthew 9:14-17
1. Jesus came to be enjoyed, v. 15a
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. 1 Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
Matthew 11:16-19

2. Fasting is an expression of lament and longing, v. 14-15
Psalm 13

Four questions to restore your perspective...
a. What am I trusting in?
b. What am I rejoicing over?
c. What am I singing?
d. What am I remembering?

3. Jesus came to bring new not better, v. 16-17
Romans 6:1-4
Revelation 21:1-5

Mental worship...
1. Is your problem that you sin too much or that you don’t enjoy God enough?
2. Who or what do you most often turn to when you get tired of waiting on God?
3. Who in your life is tired of your efforts to get better?
4. What are you trusting in, rejoicing over, singing and remembering?

5. Where do you need to replace better with new?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

See, the issue for most of us in this room is not that we enjoy sin too much. It's that you do not enjoy God enough. And because you do not enjoy God enough, sin appeals to your affections and your appetites, which are not being satisfied in God. So your problem is not that you enjoy sin too much or you sin too much. No, your core problem is that you do not enjoy God enough. You should call a family meeting tonight, Dad. You want to see your kids roll their eyes like, oh, here we go. This is gonna be great. Say, hey, family meeting, everybody in the living room, and then just ask one question. Hey, what is our plan to enjoy God the way God desires to be enjoyed this summer? And watch your kids be like, if your kids don't think about enjoying God, then you are failing as a parent. If all your kids do is fear God and dread church and all this kind of stuff, something's wrong in your home, okay?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parquet Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit our website at grandparkway.org.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Man, amen. Let's pray together, Church. Lord, we understand today that you've come to redefine that word for us. And so when we walk out of here, may we have a different definition for everything. What matters is gonna change. Who matters is going to change. Because you've come to redefine everything. You make all things new. You don't come to make them better, you come to make them new. We've been raised to walk in newness of life, so we're not gonna settle for better today. So, Holy Spirit, illuminate the scriptures today. Cause it to find a resting place in our head, in our heart, and then let it find expression in our hands this week. We pray all this in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen, amen. You can have a seat, you can have a seat. If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it, open up to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew chapter 9. I will talk to you this morning about why new is better than better. Why new is better than better. And what you'll see in the text is there's three things you have to believe if you're going to, if you're going to understand that new is better than better. Uh, but we're if you're our guest today, we're preaching through the book of Matthew. Uh, and what's happened in in just in this chapter alone is Jesus heals the paralyzed guy. And then last week we talked about how Jesus calls this autistic young man named Matthew to follow him. He doesn't have autism. Stop watching the chosen. No, the chosen is great. Uh, and so he calls Matthew. And if you remember, Jesus said, Follow me, and the Bible says that he left everything to follow him. Because see, what Jesus does is he redefines what everything. You think differently about everything. This is why Matthew was able to just get up and leave everything. It wasn't like a one-time cold call evangelism thing for Jesus. Matthew had been hearing about him, kind of checking him out, and kind of like, whoo! But here's why Matthew was able to follow Jesus. Jesus redefined everything. You should ask yourself today, has Jesus ever redefined everything for you? Are you still calling everything the same old thing you've always called everything? Because he comes to redefine it, okay? And so we're gonna pick up Matthew chapter 9. I'll start reading verse 14. The Bible says it like this. Then the disciples of John came to him saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved. Both are preserved. There's three things I want to point to in the text. And the first one is right there in verse 15, the first part of verse 15, and it says that Jesus came to be enjoyed. Jesus came to be enjoyed. That's why he asked the question. They come and say, Hey man, we fast and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples, the people that follow and believe in Jesus, they're not fasting. What's the give here? And Jesus says, Hey, can a wedding guest mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? I mean, think about it. Who does that? Have you ever been to a wedding where people just insisted on being sad? You know, you ever been to a wedding like and they have the ceremony and then they have the cocktail hour where everybody gets lubricated, okay? And then they have a dinner sit down. And then at some point in the dinner, the bride and groom come around to all the little tables. Can you imagine the bride and groom coming to a table and somebody sitting there crying, and the bride is like, oh, sweetie, what's wrong? I tell you what's wrong. You're 30 pounds heavier than I am, and you got married before me. How can that happen? That would be weird and awkward, but also enjoyable all at the same time. You would be like, whatever's going on at that table, I want some of that. Yeah. Nobody does that, okay? No one goes to a wedding and is just sad. I mean, I thought I'd be married by now. I'm 22, my life is over. I just can't eat. I did a wedding last summer that was catered by churrascoes. I ate. I enjoyed myself. Somebody said, What's churrasco's? I said, You're about to find out, okay? But probably my one of my favorite memory, wedding memories, just about understanding what it means to enjoy the bridegroom. It's probably 14 years ago, but it seared in my brain because they had the ceremony and all they had like seven bridesmaids and everything, and they all grew up together, most of them are met in college, but they're all good friends. And so we had the little cocktail hour where we're taking pictures, and then we had the dinner, and then the DJ said, Hey folks, the dance floor's gonna open up in a few minutes, so get ready. And I was like, This will be good. Drunk white people on the dance floor. Can't wait for this. And it's about what it was about the first 10 or 15 minutes, and then this entourage of all these blonde-headed girls go over and talking to the DJ, then they get on the dance floor. He plays one song, and then a song came on that I'd never heard of before because I did not know who Nicki Minaj was. I know you're surprised by that. Uh and so these girls, just a bunch of white girls, I was like, this is gonna be good. It was incredible. They could dance. One of them was hitching her dress up, she was getting down, and there's this part of the song that comes on where Nicki Minaj raps, okay? It's I uh I've come to since find out that it was called the monster rap. And these girls had moves and gestures, and they were like, You can be the king, but watch the queen conca. First thing first, I eat your brain, and then I start rocking gold teeth in faith. And I'm like, And I'm sitting at a table. Now, by the way, when people start enjoying themselves at a wedding, everybody looks at the preacher to see if this is okay. And I can feel it, and I just let it hang in the air, and there's like uh finally a lady leaned over and she said, uh, you're the officiant, right? Yeah, I am. Uh, what's the question? What do you think about this? I said, I think this is great. They clearly know how to enjoy themselves and they can actually dance. As long as they enjoy God more than they enjoy dancing, I don't have a problem with it. And then it was like everybody at the table was like, huh? Like Scooby-Doo, like, oh, what? What? I said, yeah, as long as they enjoy God more than they enjoy dancing and each other more than more than they enjoy each other. Nothing wrong with enjoying each other. Nothing, I mean, they had choreographed moves and everything. I was like, y'all have done this before. Somebody won singing at their sorority with these moves, okay? But I was like, I don't have a problem with that. I'm not here to say, stop, I'm not the fun police. Better yet, Jesus is not the fun police. As long as you understand, hey, I can enjoy all this, but the thing I enjoy supremely is I enjoy God. You say, What do you mean? One of the early uh catechisms of the church, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question number one asks this What is the chief end of man? What is the chief end of man? Why do you exist? Why are you breathing? Why are you here? Here's the answer Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Years later, a man there, a pastor, writer, thinker, theologian named John Piper came along and he said, uh yeah, yeah, the the way the man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And the way you glorify God is by enjoying him forever. See, the issue for most of us in this room is not that we enjoy sin too much, it's that you do not enjoy God enough. And because you do not enjoy God enough, sin appeals to your affections and your appetites, which are not being satisfied in God. So your problem is not that you enjoy sin too much or you sin too much. No, your core problem is that you do not enjoy God enough. You should call a family meeting tonight, Dad. You want to see your kids roll their eyes like, oh, here we go. This is gonna be great. Say, hey, family meeting, everybody in the living room, and then just ask one question. Hey, what is our plan to enjoy God the way God desires to be enjoyed this summer? And watch your kids be like, if your kids don't think about enjoying God, then you are failing as a parent. If all your kids do is fear God and dread church and all this kind of stuff, something's wrong in your home, okay? Jesus says, hey, they don't fast because they don't miss me, because it's hard to miss me when I'm right here, because I'm so stinking enjoyable to be sad when I got a party going on, when the kingdom of God is being set down and the party is happening and the DJ's kicking it, and girls are out there, I mean, knowing every word. They showed up with a bad girl from Sri Lanka, and I'm like, well, easy now. We're gonna poke somebody's eye out here, girls. In that environment, okay, you gotta know how to enjoy God because Jesus came to be enjoyed. Now, some of you are bothered by this because you're like the Pharisees of the day. They're always trying to prescribe to Jesus what he should be doing, how he should be doing, and trying to get Jesus to calibrate to what they were about. Look at me. Jesus came to get you to calibrate to what he's about. Again, you're never going to get Jesus to calibrate to your preferences and your pace because he came to get you to calibrate to his preferences and his pace. You say, What do you mean? We'll get there in Matthew chapter 11 in a couple months, but let me just read. We'll get there. Y'all are like, it's two chapters away. That's a couple months worth of sermons, okay? But this is what happens because this is classic about people trying to control Jesus, okay? He says to this in verse 16, Jesus says, But to what shall I compare this generation? Because they've been harping on Jesus, criticizing Jesus, saying, Oh, your disciples don't fast. We fast, and the Pharisees fast, and Jesus is like, bro, it's a party. What are you being all sad about and fasting? Fasting's great. We'll get to that later. He says, But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, we played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, He has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. See, they're like kids caught trying to tell they're calling out requests and saying, Jesus, you got to calibrate to what we're doing and what we prefer. And Jesus is like, I didn't come for that. I did not come. Y'all are bringing Kool-Aid to a gin party. I didn't come for this. Okay? I came to be enjoyed. I came to be enjoyed. You got to embrace that, okay? If you're gonna understand that new is better than better. The second thing you gotta embrace is that fasting is an expression of lament and longing. It's an expression of lament and longing. That's why Jesus says in verse 14, he says, the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. Jesus knew what he was gonna die. He knew exactly what was nothing about this surprised him. It's why he came. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. See, we we live on this side of that experience, so we're the ones who should be longing, uh, missing Jesus so much that we kind of fast for his appearing. We fast to put ourselves to I say fast, I don't mean like intermittent fasting so you can fit in your speedo this summer, okay? When I say fast, I mean you purposely have a regular ritual and routine where you push away from physical food because you want to kind of dial into your spiritual need. You want to, you wanna you wanna feel what you were created for, okay? And let me just sound crazy uh uh to you for just a minute. My fear is that we've been taught to plan, invest, and structure our lives so as to never experience what we are created to experience. And that is this deep spiritual longing. Have you have you realized, or you maybe have you ever noticed how hard it is to actually miss God in America? Have you ever realized how it rarely does it come out of you where you're just like, oh man, I tell you what, I don't think another vacation is gonna scratch this itch in me. I need something more. It is hard. Like, like I remember years ago, uh, there's a guy in England, a preacher, his name was Martin Lloyd Jones, uh, great preacher. Uh I mean, his preaching was transforming the nation of England, not just his church and his town. Uh and and God was doing a work and he was just preaching the and teaching the Bible. Uh, and and and God began to be on the move in his church, and he had already scheduled a guy to come and speak. And he was concerned about he said to his wife one day over tea, he said, you know, I want to cancel him, but I don't I don't know what to do because I don't want to kill what God's doing. I want to just keep preaching and teaching God's word to our people because it's taking a root and it's having effect. And so he said to his wife, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna call him. And if he's already booked his train ticket, I'll let him come. But he hadn't booked his ticket yet, I'm gonna cancel it. Called the guy that goes, Oh, brother, oh yes, I booked, I can't wait to be there. Yeah, and that he was from the Higher Life Society, which is the modern-day equivalent of the Gideon's. If you know what I mean by the Gideon, say amen. If you've ever been in a hotel and open the Bible and there's a Bible in it, says bought by the Gideon, the Gideon's is a great organization. They they give away Bibles and stuff. Uh, but but it's not like, hey, let's just get down and enjoy Jesus. It's it's about a cause or a topic. And so the guy comes, and they're in the midst of a spiritual awakening in Martin Lloyd Jones's church. And he gets up and he just gives a religious speech. And about halfway through the speech, a guy, old man in the back, just puts his head on the back of the pew in front of him and just out loud just says, Give us God, man. Give us God. Have you ever let yourself feel that? You see, that's that's that's hard. It's hard. I would say it's almost impossible to miss God like that, to long for God like that in a culture where you can pull out your phone any time of day or night, and within 30 minutes you can have anything you want, whether it's a pizza or a lover delivered to your door in 30 minutes. It's hard to feel, give us God, man. Oh my God, I don't think a new truck is gonna do this for me. And yet I'm standing here before you this morning. I'm telling you that you should structure your life and your habits so as to miss God so much that sometimes you ache for his appearance. Or you feel this, oh, give us God, man. Come on. Your girlfriend's like, you want to do what we've always done? No, no, because it ain't meeting my deepest need. Actually, we all ache. We just disguise it in the form of our favorite sin. When you get on Tinder, what you're really saying is, give us God, man. When you eat for comfort instead of because you're hungry, what you're saying is, give us God, give me God, man. Come on. When you check your investment portfolio more than you read your Bible, you are crying out, oh, can somebody give me God, please? When you mindlessly scroll on your phone looking for you don't know what and never finding it, what you're doing is just saying, oh, give us God, give me God, please. When you play games on your phone for hours at a time, and you lose track of time because you're that into Candy Crush. God make it personal for you. What you're really saying is, oh man, give me God, please. Please, I I I I'm not experiencing what I was created to experience. But if you read the Bible, you'll see all through the Bible, especially in the Psalms, you'll see that people had this longing, this sense they enjoyed the things of this world. Now look at me, okay? Uh I'm not saying, oh, abstain from everything enjoyable. Heck no, Jesus came to be enjoyed. But all the king's horses and all the king's men ain't gonna put your humpty, dumpty self back together again. It's don't get it twisted, sister, and think if I just had that and we got that and we acquired that and we bought that and we experienced that and we went there, it's not gonna do it. It's not gonna, and now hey, go. It's vacation season, go. By the way, kids, 72 days before school starts back. And your mom got up this morning with a black sharpie marked off a day. Like 72 more days to these kids get up out of here, and I get my whole day back. Yes. So there's a sense of long, especially in the Psalms. John Calvin, the Swiss theologian, he described the Psalms as an anatomy of all the parts of the soul. You read the Psalms, you'll see every human emotion. Like this past week, I spent some time in Psalm 13. There's a guy in our church, Tim, who's always faithful to say, Hey, how can I pray for you, Neil? I told him last week, pray for me. I'm going on a study break. I didn't tell y'all, I told the first service last week. The first service is not filmed. And so I just get off the reservation sometime. I told them last week, I say, I'm going on a study break, I'm leaving tomorrow. Don't want me, don't need me this week, because I'm fasting from people all week. Ah. And they all laughed and like, hey, hey, hey. And so I got in my truck and I loaded it up, and uh, my daughter just finished her first year of grad school at Baylor. By the way, apartments in Wake Up got it figured out. There's no such thing as a nine-month lease. You have to sign a 12-month lease. So I'm paying for an apartment that's sitting there right now for three months empty. And so I just thought, I'm gonna go there one week, have my study break there. So I roll up there, I load my truck up, I go, I get there Monday, I unload, stack my books up on the table, got the coffee maker going Friday, I mean Monday night, it was awesome. Got up Tuesday morning, awesome. Driving, I run a little errand, coming back on Tuesday, my and all of a sudden I found myself in the 13th Psalm. But God, why? Because it's an anatomy of all the parts of the soul. Let me just read it to you. He says, How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul, in my sorrow, in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me. Translation, God, I'm not hearing anything back. I need you to answer me. Oh Lord, my God, light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed over him, I have prevailed over her. What does that mean? Here's what it means, students, this summer, okay? It means, hey, that girl's dating the guy was crushing on, and her tan is better than mine, and she looks better in her swimsuit than I look in mine. What kind of a God would let that happen? Lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. You know, you got people in your life that will rejoice when you fail. They're not your friends. Some of you, they're your roommates. You go to school with them. You adults have no idea how mean and cruel teenagers can be to each other. The things that write about each other on social, like, oh my gosh. But, and by the way, that last part begins with the word, but you gotta get all that first part is just context. Here's where the meat is. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. There's four questions that restore your perspective when you're stuck in this. How long, O Lord? How long, oh God, I mean, are you gonna hide your face from me forever? Would you please answer at least one of my prayers? You gotta have some things that restore your soul and your sanity. And here's four questions that do it. Number one, what am I trusting in? He says, I've trusted in your steadfast love. What are you trusting in? Second question, what am I rejoicing over? The psalmist says, My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. What am I rejoicing over? Are we are you rejoicing because your kids are popular? They got friends, the social calendar is really full. Or when everyone goes to the party and your kid doesn't get invited, can you still rejoice? This is where I was this past week. Third question what am I singing? You say, I don't I don't get it. What am I singing? You you you should have just you should have this joy just kind of you should be so enjoying God, all of a sudden songs just kind of percolate up out of you. I uh went to wake up one Monday, had a great night, had a great morning, Tuesday afternoon. I'm driving my truck, and I looked down, I brought you a picture. This popped up on the dashboard of my truck. Yeah, I don't know what that means. It doesn't sound good. It says service transmission now, unable to shift soon. So I I was going down the road with one hand, I'm scrolling my phone, beep, called the dealer, and I said, Hey, I got this message on the dashboard of my truck, and he went, Uh-oh. No, no, I don't want to uh what's going on? This truck is not that old, it's got 29,000 miles on it. He said, Well, the good news is whatever's happened, it's under warranty. No, no, no, that's not the good news. The bad news is this popped up on my screen on this computer with wheels that I drive. And he said, That means your shift module is about to go out. And what does that mean? When it does, you won't be able to shift gears. So if you're in park, it's stuck in park. And I he said, You need to get to me as soon as possible. I said, Dude, I'm in Waco. I said, Am I gonna tear something up if I drive back in Waco? He said, No. But when it stops working, you'll be the first. To know. I'm like, son, does the village miss you today or what? I know I'll be the first person to know. I said, okay, so you're saying I'm not gonna tear anything up. He said, I'm saying, get it here. Now, by the way, I called a couple people in my life and just say, hey, here's what's going on. And when something's not going well, people don't want suggestions. I don't need you to suggest me what I should do. I need you to shut all the way up. I'm informing you. I'm not asking. I'm informing. Hey, I'm coming home, my week just got blown up. Oh, can you rent a car and wake up? Can you stop making suggestions? Because when I'm freaking out, I know the rest of you men are like, oh, yes, honey, I'll listen to your advice. When I'm freaking out and when I'm angry because I didn't get my way, I don't want you to tell me nothing. I know you men are like, yes, honey, please talk more. Shut your yapper. So I go back, I load everything up, throw it in my truck. I'm like, one more shift. I'm not stopping. I'm in par, I'm in drive. I'm driving all the way back. I'm about, I don't know, an hour out of Waco, and the Holy Spirit says, Hey, what are you singing? You go talk to you people on Sunday about what they're singing. What do you sing right now? And I always got a song in me. A friend of mine texts me the other day, he goes, What do you listen to these days? Bam! I sing the song. Here's a song that's been stuck in me. Uh it's a song, I don't know what the title is. I call it That's What My Father's Like. And the chorus says, With love's arms around me, I'm finally home. There's no better feeling than being known. Here's the part that I had to sing over and over. Always good and always kind. This is what my father's like. And I just, he's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not reminding me, you're reminding you. And so I was like, Always good and always kind. This is what my father's like. Even if my shift module breaks. And he said, if it breaks, if it breaks down on you, hit your on-start button. We'll come to you. I said, No, I'm gonna call my wife. I got so freed up. Worship frees you up. I got so freed up, I stopped in Hearn or whatever it is, kind of where the loves is on six. I'm gonna get some coffee with them little hazel cream cream, hazelnut creamers. Uh, and if I get out and it doesn't work, I'm gonna say, babe, I'm I'm at the loves with the McDonald's next door. What are you gonna do till I get there? I'm gonna eat French fries. You better drive fast. I am going to self-medicate until you get here. I might even have a Big Mac. I didn't have a Big Mac in 25 years. I just thought, oh, because when things go wrong, you give yourself permission, the gospel never does. You know that, right? Hey, do y'all serve alcohol? It's been a rough day. Yeah, yeah. What are you singing? Here's the last question. He said, because he says, I will sing to the Lord. What am I remembering? Because he has dealt, past tense. He has dealt bountifully with me. You see, we always insist on God dealing in the moment, and you lose sight of how he's dealt with you in the past. I was like, Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna be just fine. Ask yourself a simple question. When's the last time? You sang because you couldn't help it. Men, your kids should hear you singing around your house. Just because you can't help it, just because it's just rising up in you. Here's a third thing you gotta see and understand. Jesus came to bring new, not better. Jesus came to bring new, not better. This is verse 16 and 17. He's trying to explain to them. Hey guys, I don't think you understand, but let me explain. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away and the garment and from the garment and a worse tear is made. You guys want me to calibrate to you. I didn't come to do better. I came to bring new. If it is, he says, he says, neither is new wine put in old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled out and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved. Jesus says, What I came to do, your little religious system can't handle it, okay? So don't talk to me about what you and the Pharisees do. I don't give a rip about what y'all do. And by the way, when I say Jesus came to bring new, not better, have you ever noticed that the people in your life pretty quickly get tired of your efforts to get better? Let me ask that question again, because I don't think you heard me. Have you ever noticed that the people in your life pretty quickly get tired of your efforts to be better? Oh, baby, I'm sorry, I'm gonna do better. Your wife is so sick of your better. So, women, the next time your husband says, baby, I'm sorry, I'm gonna do better, you just say, Listen, I'm sick of better. I want new. Because better, you just give yourself permission to try harder. You think Jesus did everything he did for you just to try harder? Better is this an improved version of the status quo? You think that's what God created your wife for? By the way, the people in your life that are tired of your efforts to get better, they're actually doing you a favor because Jesus did not come to make better an option. Instead, he came to make all things new, to make you new and to empower you to walk in newness of life. That's why when these mom and dad baptized their their kids, when Adrian baptized and they're saying, you believe baptized, what they're saying, and they put them on a buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life. If you were raised from being spiritually dead to walk in newness of life, why do you think better is okay? That is an insult to the cross and the resurrection. He said, What do you mean? I'll just read from the Bible, Romans chapter 6, verse 1. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? God forbid. Well, I'm doing the best I can, but sometimes I sin. I'm just human. You understand? I'll do better next time. God forbid. By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ, hear it, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live, might walk in newness of life. You were raised to walk in newness of life. So people who talk about better instead of new don't have an effort problem. You have an eschatology problem. Let me say it again. People talk about better instead of new. You don't have an effort problem. It's not, I need to exert more effort. You have an eschatology problem. Well, tell me what that means. I'll tell you if I got that problem or not. Eschatology is a theology of the end times. You need to understand eschatology because it's not, hey, it's just believe it, and then when you get to heaven, you get to experience it. Look at me. No, no. When you really believe it, you start experiencing it here on earth. And it gets even better when you get to heaven. It's why the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17 if any man, any person, any woman is in Christ, they're a new creation. Hear me, old things are passed away. Behold, all things become better. No, no. This is why you should refuse better. No. If anybody's in Christ, he's a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold, all things become what? New. Jesus came to make new, not better. Religion can help you get better. A relationship with Jesus Christ makes you new. I used to when my girls were younger, especially about 15 or 16. I would say, you just tell me about you want to get better. I want new. You are super frustrating, Dad. Put whatever adjective you want in front of frustrating, I don't care. I'm just not going to settle for your better, your best. Your school, that school across the street, teaches you about your best. I want new. Because if you're not capable of new, then maybe you're not a Christian. Because if you if you're a new creation and all things become new and you were raised to walk in newness of life, why should I settle for better? One of my gods got so frustrated me one time, she said, I don't know how mom lives with you. Went to her room and slammed the door. I went in there. I didn't go, young ladies in my house, I'll tell you what. I did open the door. She goes, What are you doing in my room? I said, This is my room. I pay for it. If I took away everything I gave you, you'd be like a naked hobo in 10 seconds. And by the way, I never don't raise my voice to my children. I said, You say you don't know how your mom lives with me? Joyfully. That's how she lives with me. And I closed the door and I heard. Yes. Look at me. We as a culture, culture teaches you to acclimate to better. Your podcasts you listen to incessantly, they teach you to acclimate to better. The gospel and the gospel alone teaches you to acclimate to new. It's the only place you're gonna find it, okay? He raised you. You have an effort problem, you have an eschatology problem because you don't appropriate now what Jesus said was available. You're trying to wait till then. He raised you to walk in newness of life, so stop settling for better. Or how about this? I'll just go to the very end of the end of the Bible, Revelation chapter 21. Hear this. He says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither there shall shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Hello. And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things better. No, he didn't come to do better. Behold, I am making all things new. If God sits on the throne as the sovereign ruler of the universe, and he says, I am making all things new, then when you settle for better, you are at cross purposes with God. So if God came to make you a new creation in Christ and He did, and if He raised you to walk in newness of life and He did, and if He's making all things new and He is, then why in the world will you stop short and settle for better? This is all I'm saying, and I'm done. New is better than better. Let's pray together. If you're our guests, we just uh we like to teach the Bible and we'll give you some space to think about it. That's what this time is for. So questions come on the screen. You don't have to try to write them, you can take a picture of them. But just ask yourself, God, ask God, Lord, what had my name on it today? What do you want me to think about for the next two minutes? Father, that's our prayer today. We're not gonna settle for better. You're a God of new. You made us new, you raised us to walk in the newness of life. Old things have passed away, everything became new. And you're sitting on the throne as a sovereign king of the world, and you're making all things new. And so, Lord, we want to be a part of appropriating the newness of the kingdom over everybody and everything in our life. We want it to be informed and influenced the way we parent our kids, the way we relate to our spouse, the way we run our business. Lord, I pray you'd just put a deep distaste in us for better because we were created for new. This is our desire, Lord. Make it our experience in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen, amen, amen.

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