A NEW THING

LAST WEEK

We saw a Paralytics friends do whatever it took to bring him to Jesus

We saw one of the greatest pictures of the church

Where you have someone that is far from God

Not able to come to God on his own

But who had friends that had enough faith to bring him into the presence of Jesus

Hoping that God would do the miraculous

Watching God not only heal him of his spiritual sickness but also his physical infirmities.

We also saw the calling of Matthew into the Ministry

We went to the Gospel of Luke to see what that looked like

We saw a guy who had been known as Levi

Who was hated by Jews and couldn’t really be trusted by the Romans

This Dude, Begins to Follow Jesus

Leaving his very prominent business behind

Trading in a bad reputation for one that was considered even worse.

Exchanging the known for the unknown

He knew God had saved him

He also knew that God wanted to save his friends

So Matthew threw a party for Jesus

A Party where he invited all of his friends.

Sinners, Tax Collectors, and Winos.

When the Religious of the day saw Jesus hanging out with these bad dudes, they called him out on it,

They asked his squad if this was their Rabbi

If this is the guy that they wanted to be associated with

Challenging the very think that identified them

We also saw Jesus respond to the Pharisees with a message that cut them to the heart.

THIS WEEK

We are going to look at another accusation made by the Religious Leaders of the Day

But before we get started, I want us to have a clear perspective of who these guys were:

Who were the Pharisees?

Google defines it as this: a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity. a self-righteous person; a hypocrite.

Josephus points out that the Pharisees were a group of men who where held in high regard by the common people in Israel

They were the students of the law

The ones that set the standard for law keeping

Paul considered himself a Pharisee

Gamaliel was a Pharisee

This group of guys were not only well educated, their education created a sense of elitism that was felt by those below them.

They weren’t just educators to those beneath them

They created a burdensome expectation of what holiness should be

They raised the bar that made religious growth seem impossible.

A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself. - AW Tozer

These guys valued Spiritual Orthodoxy more than the Spiritual Journey

They valued keeping the rules

Instead of focusing on the process of reconciliation that restored the people who didn’t have the character or drive to keep the rules.

READ

Matthew 9:14–17 NKJV

14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

PRAY THAT GOD WOULD CHANGE THE PHARISAICAL HEART OF THE CHURCH TODAY

Matthew 9:14 NKJV

14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”

Who were the Disciples of John?

These were the guys who were predominantly Gentile

They had heard the voice crying in the wilderness

They had responded to the Prophetic Message of Repentance

They had probably been baptized in the Jordan

They had maybe even seen the Baptism of Jesus

Maybe they even saw the heavens opened

Heard the voice of the Father proclaiming who Jesus was

But they were curious

They couldn’t trust Jesus just yet

But they continued to follow John

Even after John relagated himself in light of Jesus’ coming

Proclaiming that he must decrease and Jesus must increase

Proclaiming that he wasn’t worthy to loosen his sandals

Proclaiming that

These guys come up to Jesus saying: “Why do we and the Pharisees Fast often, but your disciples do not fast”

Valid question

But a question that revealed the focus of their spiritual practicum

First of all:

These guys who had repented of their sins

Who had been baptized into the waters of repentance

Who had heard John preach on the coming of the Messiah

Who had studied under John the Baptist

Where still using the Pharissaical model of Penitence to flesh out their spiritual practices.

They were still applying the Old Method of Self Inflicted Humiliation in order to bring attention to themselves without realizing that it was at the expense of God’s Glory

They were using Fasting as a means to prove their holiness

They were using fasting as a form of public humiliation in order to prove their holiness.

They were using this OT Practice just because the religious leaders of the day were also doing it.

For some reason, this OT practice was a way to prove something

This practice had become a way to draw attention to the practitioner instead of the what they were trying to accomplish

When they saw the Fast-less Practice of Jesus’ Disciples

Those who Jesus had chosen to be a part of his squad

Those who were following this so called Messiah

Those who were the closest to the “Son of God”

WERE NOT FASTING

Those who were the closest to the “Son of God”

They were confused

Because it looked different than theirs

They had to be wrong

They couldn’t reach the same spiritual echelon

They couldn’t be as holy as they were.

Not only that

It is as if their whole Spiritual Worth was considered Null & Void

Their whole Spiritual Identity was challenged

If John was pointing to Jesus

And Jesus Students were not fasting

What did that say about how they determined their spiritual worth?

Before they could say anything, Jesus answers their question with a complete redefinition of what Fasting truly was about and what it is to be

Matthew 9:15 NKJV

15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew 9:15

Jesus in his genius, goes on to explain

It is as if He takes them up to 30,000 Ft for a brief moment and says:

Can the friends of the bridegroom

Or Can those closest to the Groom

Those who are actively a part of the wedding ceremony

Those busy about the Father’s Business

Those filling their hands with the

Can they mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?

Jesus confronts OT practice with anticipation of what He was going to accomplish at the cross

“How can they mourn if I am still here”

“What do they have to mourn for, if their bridegroom is still teaching them valuable lessons about the Bride?

Jesus is turning from a self inflicted penitence that Glorified Man first and God second.

To the picture of the Cross

Where all Glory would be given to God for the work He has done on Man’s Behalf

Jesus is redirecting the focus from a Culture of Rigid Religiosity

To a culture of Freedom and Fluidity that Glorified God for his grace shown on the cross.

We must acknowledge that Jesus isn’t prohibiting fasting

He is clarifying that there is a time for everything

While the Bridegroom was present

There was no need for fasting

While Jesus was with the boys, the Bridal Group

Those attentive and busy with the preparation for the wedding

There was no room for fasting

But there will come a day

When the Bridegroom, Jesus the Christ

Will be taken away from them, speaking of the cross

It will be then, that they will fast

It will be then that they will know why they fast

It will be then that the motives will be correct

It will be then that the perspective will be doxological in nature.

At this point, all the disciples knew what life with Jesus was about

They knew the fellowship

They knew the intimacy

They loved the comradery

But there would be a day when they would miss Jesus

A day where Jesus wouldn’t be there to talk with

A day where they would feel like something was missing

On this day, they would be able to fast

They would be able to give up feeding the flesh

In order to press into all that Jesus had for them through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was actively trying to create something new

He wanted to take the Old Stale and Exhausted way of communing with God

Make it Vibrant again

Breath new life into it

But he knew that what He ultimately wanted to do could not be contained by the Box that His Father had been placed in

He new that the new thing He was creating

The new way of doing life with God

Needed a whole new look with all new materials

Matthew 9:16 NKJV

16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.

For example

Whenever you have an old garment

Whenever something that is old

Whenever something has been broken in

And for some reason it becomes compromised

It loses its integrity

A tear, a hole, an opportunity

If you place an unshrunk piece of material

Or a new piece of material

A new resource

New personnel

The Old, broken in, set in its ways material or entity

Will not treat the new thing/fabric well

In fact, because the old fabric has ceased from being flexible

As the new material blends in and begins its aging process

The old fabric, having become brittle and rigid, will have no other option but to tear.

Matthew 9:17 NKJV

17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

For those of you who drink wine

Back in the day, they didn’t have glass bottles or boxes

They used treated goatskins to hold wine

As the wine continued its fermentation process for 2-4 months

The Wine would get heavier as it expanded

Which caused the wineskin to stretch almost to its limit

By the end of the fermentation process

The wineskin has lost its integrity and its ability to stretch any further

Which made it effective to only hold the old wine and not the new

It was limited in its effectiveness as a wineskin

The New Wineskin could hold old and new wine

While the old, would be limited to only the old wine.

CHURCH, GOD IS INTO CREATING SOMETHING NEW

His people have been transferred from an Old Earthly Kingdom to the Kingdom of Light in His Son

He promises that He will one day make all things new

He wants to take the things that deserve death and He wants to breath life into them.

He wants to clothe us in His righteousness

He wa

But that involves being naked and unashamed

That means removing the leaves of the garden

And accepting the Robe of His Righteousness as sufficient

FRIENDS, IF WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO COVER UP OUR SIN WITH A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE, WE ARE WORSE THAN THE PHARISEES

We don’t understand what Jesus has to offer

We don’t get that He wants to change that status quo

We don’t get that He wont waste New Wine on old Wineskins.