Simply Incompatible

vv. 14-15) Levi’s Response:

Family the more that I read Scripture the more I feel unworthy of the love of God that He has lavished upon me and especially salvation. I have more in common with the harlots, and the scum of society then with that of Christ, and yet He would save me?

[Student who should renounce his faith]

While completely wrong and misguided, if we would understand the severity of our sin… we could at least understand where this student was coming from.

However, that call is extended to you and me, “Follow me.” It is to Levi’s eternal credit that when he heard the call of Christ, he dropped everything and followed Him. Jesus called Levi to leave his old life behind. More likely then not, Levi’s call would cost more on the surface then that of the other 4 disciples (Peter, Andrew, James, and John), because the other men could go back to their trades to their careers. Levi could not, not after abandoning his contract.

I pray that each of you would heed the call of Christ, for He is calling you to a life dependent on Him.

What is it that is keeping you from obediently following the Lord?

Family it might seem like a great sacrifice at the time to truly follow Jesus, but in eternity it will be seen as no sacrifice at all!

[rope example]

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”–Jim Elliot

Something I don’t think we probably don’t realize is that Jesus has likely been ministering throughout Galilee for a little over a year by this point. Like everyone, Levi had certainly heard of Jesus and had probably heard His message of:

Mark 1:14–15 NKJV

14 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Do not give up, giving the gospel of Christ to people. As we learned last week, persistence and patience are needed. Persistent in prayer and being intentional. Patient because you are not the HS and you cannot save.

[15] Verse 15 is so encouraging. Jesus associated with the outcast, sinners, the worst of the worst.

Lets note a few things:

Immediately after his conversion, Matthew invited his associates, friends, family? to a large feast. These people were not the respectable people of society. His friends were those who rejected both the restraints of society and God; they were the immoral and unjust , the thieves and the foul-mouthed and rebels.

Levi found something wonderful: a glorious peace and joy of heart and mind. He had found it in Jesus. In fact, in Jesus he had found what was actually a new life, and he desperately wanted his friends to discover the same peace and joy. So he planned a feast, and invited all his friends to meet Jesus!

Application: Matthew didn’t forget about his sinful friends and associates after he got saved. He wanted them to have the wonderful, life-changing experience with Jesus that he had come to know. So he witnessed to them using the best method he knew how… FOOD!

Jesus gladly accepted the opportunity to meet with these wretched people.

As Jesus meet with them, He was not condoning their sin, but asking them to turn from their sin.

Apart from Jesus there is no, true, life-changing experience, no salvation, no freedom from sin and death. If a person is unwilling to meet with Jesus confess and believe that He is Lord, that person again will stand on the precipice of eternity, facing vast darkness and eternal damnation!

Matthew 10:32–33 NKJV

32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.

1 John 2:22–23 NKJV

22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

1 John 4:15 NKJV

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

Check yourself.

Muse with me the impact of Jesus on the outcast and sinner: “There were many, and they followed Him.”

We have to imitate Christ:

He had interest and acceptance to offer. Do you?

He cared for and had compassion for people. Do you?

Jesus did act as if He was above or better, aloof or separated from sinner. Are you doing that?

Jesus never compromised the message of repentance, offering love and true forgiveness for those who would believe in Him. Are you living an uncompromised life, and proclaiming the gospel?

This type of ministry would not be an isolated instance. Jesus would do this often.

Application:

The only way you will leave what you treasure is if you find something you treasure more.

Do you treasure Jesus? If you don’t you need to read through the first couple chapters of Romans, and the Gospels.

When a sinner is changed by Jesus, he should want to gather other sinners in order for them to be changed by Jesus as well.

The disciples opened their homes and their hearts to minister to the sinners in proximity to them.

vv. 16-17) The self-righteous React:

Jesus never excused or condoned sin; no scribe or Pharisee ever condemned it in stronger terms than he did. But this criticism of Jesus by the Pharisees was completely ill-based for, for several reasons.

First, a man or woman who became a friend or follower of Jesus, were called to leave their sin. Jesus also freely met with the outcast and sinners because it was for these that He came to save! Unlike the ‘religious,’ these were conscious of their need and they were responsive to that gospel message.

The scribes and Pharisee were religionists, meaning they were all about the rules and their established religious law. They held the rest of the culture in contempt for their lack of standards and discipline. They felt they were excelling in self-control and righteous living. While the sinners and outcasts were either unprincipled or not discipled enough to live by the rules.

We are talking about men that would blindfold themselves so that they would not lust after a woman, and run into things and get all banged up and bruised and it was an outward sign of their holiness. They also wouldn’t touch another persons blood (good Samaritan) because they didn’t want to be ceremonially unclean.

I must confess that we look down on the Pharisee with bias. We need to understand that they were looked up to in the culture and were really beloved by the people. Unfortunately for them they didn’t think they needed saving!

Application:

There is enormous hope for ever man, no matter how weak, unprincipled, or undisciplined. The hope is Jesus Christ. A man can be born again— truly born again. They are able to be re-created in Christ, made into a new person, a new creature:

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

These self-righteous men questioned Jesus’ association with the outcasts and sinners. Jesus’ reply was forceful: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” This answer was both simple and profound.

By associating with sinners, Jesus tarnished His reputation but never compromised His character.

The religious leaders were eager to enter the house of preaching but not willing to sit at the table relationship.

In their attempts to insulate themselves from blatant sinners, the religious crowd became a worse type of sinner: they were sick but thought they were healthy.

If you distance yourself from sinners, you distance yourself from Jesus.

Jesus didn’t expect the sick to become well by themselves, but He also didn’t intend on them staying sick either.

Application/Challenge:

Who can you open up your home to this week for the purpose of ministry?

v. 18) Unmet Expectations:

It is interesting to note that it is not clear who posed the question about fasting to Jesus, nor is it clear what their intention was. Mark simply describes them as some people, a nonspecific reference that is insufficient to connect them with any of the groups mentioned in the Gospel.

It is also impossible to tell whether they had come to argue or simply to request information. Mark does refer to the Pharisees and John’s disciples twice in just one verse, suggests that this was more than a polite conversation. The question might well imply that Jesus was neglecting an important tradition, that any person concerned with holy living would participate in.

It is important to note that the Pharisees were well known for fasting once, and even twice a week:

Luke 18:12 NKJV

12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’

And it makes sense for the disciples of John the Baptist to fast because his ministry stressed repentance, and don’t forget, John is in prison waiting a grim verdict.

So what could be happening here is that while Jesus is feasting in Levi’s house, the two big spiritual powerhouses were fasting.

OT prescribed fasting for all Jews only on the annual Day of Atonement, as an act of repentance (Lev 16:29), but again the Pharisees promoted fasts on Mondays and Thursdays as an act of piety.

God is not against fasting; it is something that He is for. But fasting has its time and place in the Christian life. Most of us have no time or place for fasting, and so we are out of balance. we will talk about this more in-depth in a moment.

Jesus would show the incongruity of fasting for His disciples here, though He allowed it if practiced properly:

Matthew 6:16–18 NKJV

16 “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

The Pharisees fasted as they miserably waited for God and the sinners feasted as they joyfully met with God.

Jesus was unconcerned about meeting the religious expectations of the traditional legalists.

He was more concerned about the souls of people then He was going through the motions of piety. He wasn’t interested in pretending to be holy. He was eager help people giving them what truly mattered… the Gospel.

Family, religious peer pressure attempts to shame you into conformity with the system rather than a relationship with the Savior.

vv. 19-20) Unexpected Observations:

As we go through this Gospel it is going to be become more and more evident that Jesus never replies in the way we expect. Here He answered this criticism in a much deeper, theological way. Getting to the true heart of the issue.

Jesus uses the illustration of a wedding, which would be a very powerful picture among the Jews. During the weeklong wedding celebration, rabbis declared that joy was more important than observing religious rituals.

To paraphrase the question Jesus asks, “in a time of joyous fellowship, who thinks of fastings?”

Fasting is, in the Bible, a sign of disaster, or penitence or mourning, or voluntary abasement of spirit. The grief which find expression in this fasting will come soon enough of its own accord, when the fellowship of the disciples and Jesus is broken; the disciples will have sorrow then, at his departure to the Father:

John 16:20 NKJV

20 Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.

Essentially Jesus’ message was bold and clear, stating, “I’m not like the Pharisees or John the Baptist. I am the Messiah, the bridegroom to the people of God. Wherever I am, it is appropriate to have the joy we associate with weddings.”

Because the presence of a person, the bridegroom, that justified a different sort of practice. That phrasing points to Jesus, Himself as the reason that his disciples did not fast. They could not fast because he was with them. The implications of this parable are stunning!

It is as though Jesus was claiming to be the fulfillment of the covenant, the revelation of God’s will or the focal point for expressions of devotions. This all is treated indirectly, Jesus did not go quite so far as to assert those claims, but the parable points towards them.

The parable doesn’t claim to introduce a new king of time that invalidates everything that went before it. It doesn’t go so far as to suggest that a permanent change in the nature of time has occurred. It relates everything to the presence of the bridegroom. The time was different because Jesus was present.

[Fasting]

Family, the discovery of Christ and the day-by-day consciousness of His presence do bring joy to life. Christ is the secret to life and the joy in life. No matter how gloomy life may be or how far you may feel, Christ can change your life and bring joy to your heart. Joy is so much deeper than just feeling happy, it is something that is truly only rooting in the God who created you. That is why with Christ you can experience some of the worst things imaginable, that life can dish out, and yet still have joy.

Jesus Christ can convert a person from gloom and emptiness to joy and fulfillment. Please understand the only way to truly satiate your soul is to live in submission to Jesus Christ.

John 10:10 NKJV

10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

John 15:11 NKJV

11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Fasting is prioritizing the feasting on God over the feasting on food.

Believers fast in their longing and feast in their belonging.

Jesus foreshadowed His sorrowful death and promised His joyful return.

vv. 21-22) Unfit Formations

With this second parable Jesus is teaching on the danger of trying to put something new on something old. And in like fashion, the same principle was true for wineskins.

Jesus the Christ (Messiah) brings an adventuresome life. New wine skins were elastic and would expand as the gas of fermenting wine built up pressure. Old wine skins were hardened and would not expand, but rather would explode under pressure. What Jesus is meaning is, He is bringing a new elasticity to life: a new expansion, a new adventure, a new excitement, a new life.

You cannot fit Jesus new life into the old forms. Jesus traded fasting for feasting; sackcloth and ashes for a robe of righteousness; a spirit of heaviness for a garment of praise; mourning for joy; and law for grace.

Through the centuries, old rigid forms could rarely contain the work of the Holy Spirit. Through the generations, God often looks for new wineskins because the old ones wouldn’t stretch any further.

Family, Jesus came to introduce something new, not to patch up something old. This is what salvation is all about. In doing this, Jesus doesn’t destroy the old, but fulfills it, just as an acorn is fulfilled when it grows into an oak tree. There is a sense in which the acorn is gone, but the purpose is fulfilled in greatness.

Application:

The time for the new always comes in both life and history. The day for patching the old will not suffice. A new beginning and a new life must be launched or else the person faces uselessness, extinction, or death.

A man or woman will die in the old garment of their flesh unless you come to Christ for a new beginning:

John 3:16 NKJV

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

John 5:24 NKJV

24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

Ephesians 4:22–24 NKJV

22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

We cannot and should not be Calvary Chapel of 50 years ago. Chuck Smith did not want the movement to look to him, to continue the work the work. He desired the generations to follow, to seek the Lord and to be established in Jesus Christ.

It is impossible to stitch Jesus into a tattered religious garment.

The gospel does not fit into an old religious system without completely bursting it wide open.

If you are trying to fit Jesus into your tidy religious box, you are going to have a destroyed box.

Beware of:

Unscriptural Rituals

Systematic Works

Reflective Religion

Benediction:

Numbers 6:24–26 NKJV

24 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; 26 The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’