Keith Battle - Try Something New

I want to use the subsidy today to try something new. Just nudge the people you saw, just two people. Tap them, nudge them, and say, «Try something new!» Let’s try something new. When you leave church today, go home a different way. Try something new. Those of you watching online, if you’re going to come to church today, come a different way. In fact, when you come to church, stop sitting in the same section and in the same seat. I already know where you’re going to sit! I dare you to come in the wrong door, walk into the wrong section, and sit all the way on the other side. But listen, this isn’t the promised land; this is Egypt over here, and it’s all the same. We should just make everybody swap seats right now, just to have another experience. You’ve been sitting in the same seat and the same section for 47 months. Try something new. Go to the same restaurant and order something different. They shouldn’t know what you want when you sit down. Try something new. Stop walking past gym equipment at the gym that you don’t like. «I don’t do that; I don’t want to pull anything or snap anything!» Try something new. Stop going to the same place on vacation. Some of us hit I-95 and do the same thing every time we go south, every time we go to Virginia, North Carolina, or South Carolina. I dare you to go north! Where are we going? We’re going north! Just go somewhere different and do something different. Tell somebody one more time, «Try something new.» Read something you wouldn’t normally read. Instead of watching your shows, let me watch my shows. Watch something you wouldn’t typically choose. Open your mind to something that you wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise—something new. Go somewhere new.

Routine has its benefits; it helps us with discipline and keeps us on a path of order, potentially helping us reach our goals. But what routine also does is prevent us from exploring a world that is far bigger than our routine. When we do the same thing, the same way, at the same time every day, we are locking ourselves out of a whole new experience.

Okay, I actually like that. I mean, I grew up in that, so I know it might concern you, but that stuff actually encourages me! Amen, something new! You, whoever did it, keep doing it. I appreciate it. I hope it catches on in this section. When you look at this passage, everything routine wasn’t working. The only thing that’s working in this passage is something new. Somebody say «tradition.» All the traditions in this passage are broken and unproductive. The only thing that’s working is non-traditional. Oh, did I tell you that the person doing all the stuff in this passage is non-traditional and 31 years old? Let me tell you a little story about a man named J. Ed. Poor mountaineer, a better color fare. Jesus Christ died when he was 33 years old; he was baptized by John the Baptist at 30. How do I know he was 31 in this passage? I don’t know exactly the month of his age, but I know he wasn’t 33. And if you transpose the lifespan on earth with the work of Jesus on earth up to today, that would make Jesus a millennial. We have hung our hats and built our faith on somebody who died at 33 years old. I have all my money on a millennial—all of it!

What is unique about Jesus in this passage is that from the opening verse, he is doing something non-traditional, non-conforming—something out-of-the-box, something innovative. He’s preaching, but where he’s preaching is what makes it innovative. He is not in a synagogue; he is not in a temple; he is not in a religious construct. Those places didn’t take well to his preaching. The man is preaching on a beach! How about that? Who would have tried that? The man is preaching on a beach, and it’s working! He has so many people listening to him that the Bible says they are pressing up against him. They are pressing up against him partly because of who he is and also because of what he’s saying. He is Jesus, and he’s preaching the Word of God—that’ll make somebody press! He’s also pressing because they didn’t have a sound system; they didn’t have microphones or speakers. So, whenever you’re listening to somebody who doesn’t have a loud voice, it makes you lean in. If you ever go on a tour and you’re listening to a tour guide who is back in the line discussing an artwork or a scene, what typically happens? «Excuse me, I can’t hear!» And so they keep moving in, pushing closer. Each time they are pushed in, they are pressing themselves up against Jesus.

So now, where he may have started preaching on sand, now he’s backed up, he’s run out of room, and the Bible says he’s on the seashore of Galilee. He’s on the seashore of Galilee, which means as the crowd keeps pressing up against him, it’s a good problem. He’s backing up, and now his feet are in wet sand. Eventually, his ankles are in water, and now his calves are in water. He is having a problem because he has a crowd that is too big for the stage he created. He is out-of-the-box, and it’s working. He is not at the temple; they cannot get chairs. They cannot take people.