Feasting, Not Fasting
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Old proverb: Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. Rather true. You tend to conform to the people around you. Make decisions in that way.
Need: We conform to what’s around us and we expect Jesus to conform to us. Our hearts have fleshly desires and we want Jesus to bless them. When he doesn’t, we can question him. Many times, we desire good things he doesn’t bless, then we doubt his goodness.
Main Idea: Jesus doesn’t conform to the church, the church conforms to Jesus
He’s at Matthew’s house when the Pharisees come and and not ok with this.
Luke 5:33-39
Truth #1: Jesus ushers a wedding celebration (33-35)
Exp. They didn’t like his response, so they question his piety. Verse 33.
Ill. Like comparing brothers. He’s doing this, why can’t you?
Exp. Why would they bring this up? Fasting: The abstaining from food for spiritual purposes. Facts about fasting:
Sign of repentance and always paired with prayer.
Only one fast was required, Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29-31).
Mishnah describes three other types: Lamenting national tragedies, times of crisis (war, plagues, etc.), and other personal reasons.
Exp. Pharisees believed ascetic lifestyle was best. Jesus responds. Verse 34. Opposite of fasting. Feasting for 7 days. If fasting is repentance to be close to God, what if God came close to them? OT frequently says God is Israel’s husband. The wedding is here!
Christ - The bride is the church, and the groom is Jesus. Paul reminds us of this:
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Christ - How is it that the church can joyfully feast? Because the groom laid down his life so that his bride could be presented in splendor. Fasting is grief over sin, but Jesus delivers us from it. Verse 35. Grieve the tragedy of his death.
App. Jesus is the bridegroom who brings a joyful repentance. Live in joy with Christ!
Don’t despair over repentance. It is joyful because of Christ!
Abstain from what is necessary and biblical. Sin…obviously. Coveting…commercials. Know your heart, and know your temptations.
Truth #2: Jesus ushers in the new covenant (36-39)
Exp. Then Jesus gives two parables. First one: verse 36. Both parables lead to the same message. Tear a new garment to fix an old garment. Defiles both. Don’t match, ruins the new. Verse 37-38. New wine will burst old wineskins because the fibers cannot handle the fermentation. New wineskins were needed. The gospel Jesus brings cannot fit into Pharisaic Judaism. It would defile both. Verse 39. Serves as a rebuke for those who don’t want the new because they tasted the old.
Ill. Old and new. Baseball. Pitch clock rule. I was against it. Why? I’ve only ever known baseball without it. It would destroy the sport otherwise. We get so used to the old, anything new would ruin it. Jesus wasn’t coming to ruin the OT, but to fulfill it.
Arg. Here’s what it’s not: a reason to adapt Christianity. No, Jesus fulfills the OT. Nothing is contradicting the old. Modern attempts to culturize Christianity clearly stand in contrast to the teaching of Scripture.
Warning: If someone says they’ve come across something new about Christianity, your red flags should come up.
Christ - Jesus is the fulfillment of the old covenant by bringing the new covenant. This was expected.
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Christ - This wasn’t Jesus being a trend setter. He was fulfilling the will of God. God planned to set you free from sin by giving a new covenant. The covenant made in blood of Jesus.
App. What do we do? Be conformed to Christ, not the other way around.
Be conformed to Jesus. Don’t conform Jesus to you. Or culture.
Beware of false teaching labeled as “new”. Rob Bell story. We don’t look for new, we grow deeper in what Jesus established.
Conclusion
How should you be conformed to Jesus today?
