Is anybody in this room going to a job that they hate every day, and deep in your heart, deep, deep in your heart you have a deep desire to start your own business? You have a deep desire to start your own business and you've been dreaming about it and dreaming about it and dreaming about it. You want to start your own business. You want to start your own business, but you keep going to the same job you hate every day. What's stopping you from stepping out in faith, casting off your garment and giving it a go? That's what this story's about. This story is about those critical moments in all of our lives where we have to make a hard decision to cast off a former identity in favour of a new one. This is a story about how kingdom people respond to opportunity. This is a story - not opportunity because most opportunity isn't of God, but this is a story about how kingdom people respond to Jesus. This is a story about people who say I want what Jesus has for me so bad that I'm willing to lay my license to do something else down in order to enter into something better. It's a story about that.
It's a story about a church who's willing to reinvestigate how they used to do things in order to enter into God's next season for them. It's a story of bravery. It's a story of courage. It's a story of a man who is willing to say you know what? The former things are going to pass away here. All things are fixing to become new for me and I'm going to be brave enough to enter into it. It's a story about that guy. This isn't just a story about one blind man throwing off his tallit to get to Jesus, no. It's a story about me and it's a story about you, and it's a story about what would happen to our life when we're willing to be brave enough to leave former things behind in order to press on to something better, to something newer, to something that Jesus is calling us into next. It's a story about not hanging on to tradition. It's a story about - and the Bible and history's full of these people. Martin Luther was this guy. He was. He was. Now the people who followed Martin Luther, they quit journeying and they slowly but surely became irrelevant. Why? Because they thought they'd found the end - it's never the end-all, be-all. It is what is God calling you into next.
Every one of us has a garment to throw off. What is it? What is it? Every one of us. Every one of us. Maybe you're the guy here and you're 48 and ever since you were 40 you dreamed of owning your own business, but you're still working for the same guy and you hate it. You feel deep down inside you're missing something, and all it takes is you to throw off your garment. Maybe, maybe as a church, maybe God's calling this church to investigate that the pieces of garments they might still be holding onto that's keeping them from the next step of what God's calling us to in the kingdom, this is a story - listen. When you hold onto your garments it keeps you blind. You can't see the next stage of vision. Listen to me. If you're struggling with seeing God's vision for your life maybe it's because of the garment that you're keeping around you. Maybe all it takes is not even releasing it but a willingness to release it in order to see the clarity that God has for us. It's casting aside garments, casting aside garments.
Now here's one more and then I'm going to bring us to where I wanted to get to. Whitewashed tombs. Whitewashed tombs. Jesus tells a group of Pharisees, He says you're like a bunch of whitewashed tombs. You traverse land and sea to make one convert, but after you get the convert you make him twice the child of hell that you already are. It's a pretty harsh statement. Whitewashed tombs - what's going on there? Well to fully understand this we have to understand Leviticus. Leviticus says that it is unlawful for a person to knowingly walk into a place where a dead body is. To knowingly walk into the presence of the dead makes you unclean, so Jesus tells these people you're whitewashed tombs. You're actually tombs but people can't tell you're tombs, because they're so clean. You're so clean on the outside but the inside of you is very unclean, so that your mere presence makes other people unclean. [Laughs] It's a pretty staunch statement.