Announcements
- Happy Father’s Day
- Men’s Prayer Breakfast- Men! Please join us on Tuesday, June 18th, upstairs at 6:30 am for our Men’s Prayer Breakfast. We will be sharing a meal and praying specifically over our church! Please sign up on the app or through the events page on our website so we know how much breakfast to provide.
Objectives
- Understanding Jesus’ wineskin metaphor in terms of mending our sinful hearts with the transformative power of the Spirit, rather than the temporary fix of old Jewish law and sacrifices.
- Examining our current motivation for living a life set apart as disciples of Jesus.
- Growing in desire for true righteousness from the Spirit, rather than attempting to earn righteousness from our own religious works.
Key Passages
Matthew 9:14-17
Summary
The Sermon on The Mount in chapters 5-7 was a holistic summary of Jesus’ teaching ministry in which he described the nature of His Kingdom of Heaven and its citizen’s righteousness. Now in chapters 8-9, he reveals by word and deed his authority over all things (especially over the consequences of sin). Not just through preaching and teaching, but now through signs and wonders, he is showing his fulfillment as the prophesied Jewish Messiah.
Back in Matthew 9:9-13, Jesus pushes back against the Pharisees challenge against the type of disciples that Jesus called- namely Matthew the tax collector. Now in Matthew 9:14-17, Jesus also pushes back against the disciples of John the Baptist for again challenging the disciples of Jesus, except this time it is for not fasting like them and the Pharisees. Jesus responds with a metaphor of new wineskins to show the need to put away the old covenant for the sake of the better means of living in righteousness that Jesus was ushering in with a new covenant.
Helpful Resources for Leaders
Sample Questions
Feel free to use or reword the questions below that you think will be most helpful to meet the objectives above. Remember, these questions should ultimately cultivate discussion of ways to respond to or apply what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us through Scripture.
- What are the primary differences between the Pharisees’, John’s disciples, and Jesus’ disciples?
- How does Jesus simplify discipleship?
- How can we be so committed to doing right religion that we miss Jesus?
- What is Jesus’ heart for fasting?
- Why is it easier to trust in religion than to trust in Jesus?
- Jesus did not abolish the law, so what’s its proper place in our lives?
Sample Responses
Either in smaller groups or as a whole GC:
- Commit to praying for one another this week regarding the following two self-reflecting questions: In what ways do you see yourself speaking right words, saying the right things, doing the right things, yet missing Jesus? In what ways are you giving the Lord enough but not you’re all?