Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
    and serve only him.’”
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good newsof the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

– Matthew 4:1-11, 17, 23-25

One of the things that strikes me as I talk with people about life is how often we get “stuck” in the vicious loop of self-defeat.  A couple trying to repair a broken marriage keep running into the obstacles of their own self-image, broken trust, and lack of kindness.  Parents dealing with a child that can’t seem to find their way in life…they try everything they know to help and it seems like nothing works.    A young man who lost his wife to cancer and seems to continually find himself in wilderness after wilderness…he wonders is this what the rest of my life will be?

Jesus gives us new wine – the offer of new life, a new self in a new world.  The problem is we keep putting it in old wineskins.  Jesus warned us not to do that, but we can’t help ourselves.  Our biggest obstacle in life is we don’t know where to get new wineskins for the wine Jesus offers us.

Over the next two months, I want to explore the Sermon on the Mount in a way that helps us learn how to develop new wineskins and tackle life differently.  As Einstein once said, “You can’t solve the problems of the world using the same thinking that caused them.”  For many of us, we are trying to find freedom and liberation but we keep getting stuck…primarily because we are trying to solve the problems with the same thinking that caused the problems.  Old wineskins.  The new wine keeps bursting them and we can’t ever seem to move forward.

I hope you will join me in this journey.  One of the things that excites me the most is that studying the Sermon on the Mount has changed my life this summer.  And I pray it will change yours as well.

If you’d like to discover your next step of discipleship at Chapelwood, click here.