Recognize Something New
Unrecognized Authority: Matt 8-10 • Sermon • Submitted
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· 4 viewsJesus did something new that the Law could never do.
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bibles, please open them to Matt 9:14
and as you do so, let me review what has been happening right before tonight’s text:
We started Matt 9 two weeks ago
Two weeks ago, remember Jesus forgave a man… and this produced offence to the Scribes who heard what Jesus said…
and so to show the Scribes that he had the authority to forgive the Paralytic of his sins, Jesus healed him of his paralysis
And then last week, Jesus called Matthew the tax colector to follow him, and then he shared a meal with a group of sinners. And this caused another offence, this time by the Pharisees who saw Jesus eating with them
to which Jesus replied to their offence by telling the Pharisees that Jesus came not for those who are well, but those who have need for a physician.
and this brings us to this weeks text, were we will see a third group of people who take offence at what Jesus is doing:
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is 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 tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Let’s pray
Cryptic text -
but make it clear
For our joy
and your glory
Recognize Something New
Recognize Something New
there are those who love change
and those who hate change
Let me get a quick poll of the room:
who loves change?
who hates change?
Whenever something new happens we can all expect mixed responses...
New shoes for example are always nice to have!
But if you’re anything like me, new shoes comes with a kind of annoyance as you have to break in stiff new shoes that are not as comfortable as the old shoes that were molded to the shape of your feet
Or consider a new year of school with all new classes and teachers
there is something nice about starting over in a fresh new year of school
but with this change comes the new challenge of learning new teaching styles and new structures of new classrooms
Now, what we have been seeing over the last few weeks and we are seeing again tonight, is Jesus is doing something new that is shocking and even confusing to those who are seeing what Jesus is doing. And it’s especially confusing to them because they do not recognize who Jesus is…
Remember he is forgiving sins
He is calling sinners
and now this week we see Jesus not fasting…
To us this may not come as a surprise, but to the other pious Jews who did not recognize Jesus respond to these things with growing confusion and an increasing offense…
Look at how Matthew puts it
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
First of all we should note, what is fasting
Fasting is the practice of seeking God instead of eating…
Fasting is a discipline that people do as an expression that represents their need for God more than their need for food
and so meals are skipped to pray and read the Scripture in order to seek God as he alone is our greatest need especially when one has sinned against God…
We see David fast after God judges him for his adultery and murder:
16 David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground.
Fasting is a means of seeking God and repenting
With this in mind, consider what John the Baptist’s disciples are asking:
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
In other words, these disciples and the Pharisees fast to seek God, but Jesus and his disciples aren’t doing this… Why is that
Listen to Jesus’ response:
15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
So Jesus takes this image of a wedding that each of us should easily understand:
are weddings a time for mourning or celebration?
Celebration right…
So too, Jesus says, when he is among his disciples, fasting is not an appropriate response…
Why, because God is with them!
Jesus is saying in effect that there is no need to fast and mourn in order to seek God, when God himself has drawn near to them.
This is what we should see:
1. When Jesus is with us there is always a reason to rejoice!
1. When Jesus is with us there is always a reason to rejoice!
There is no reason for fasting and mourning, when the presence of God is with his people, for when God is with his people, the only fitting response is joy!
This is why every Christmas, we sing Joy to the World! Because during Christmas we reflect on when Jesus came and dwelt among us!
Listen to the message of the angels to the shepherds:
10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
The reason for such a joyful new is because Jesus came to call sinners to himself and to forgive sins
This is what Jesus has been demonstrating over the last two weeks and if you missed that, todays text will make no sense at all. For if you do not know that Jesus came to call us sinners and reconcile us to himself, you’ll never understand what the apostles reason was for rejoicing even when they suffered greatly.
listen to Paul:
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Notice two things....
One, there is a reason to rejoice in suffering
And two, the Holy Spirit (Who is God by the way) is with us!
So even in our suffering, there is a reason for every Christian to rejoice, for Jesus promised that he would always be with us!
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
The apostles didn’t Just tell the church to do this, in fact, they did this very thing
41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
So then is there never a reason to fast or mourn for the Christian since Jesus’ Spirit is with us now? No… in fact that’s not even what Jesus said
Listen again to what he said:
15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
The days will come when Jesus is taken away from them, and when he is, then they will fast...
Where Christ is not, there is a reason to fast and mourn…
and while Jesus always with the believer, there are plenty of places in the world where sin and satan rule… and for this reason there is still a kind of mourning, and yes even fasting that is necessary for the Christian.
Listen to Paul’s mourning over the sin of those in the church who have yet to fully submit to the Lord Jesus:
21 I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.
And for those of us who are not near to God, because we are living in sin… we too ought to mourn:
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Listen: If you do not have the joy of the Lord in the finished work of Jesus… and if you live for the pleasures of the world rather than finding joy in Christ… it is fitting to mourn… to fast… and to draw near to God so he too will draw near to you.
But make no mistake, where Jesus is, there too shall be rejoicing!
Let’s keep reading through tonights text:
As Jesus continues to explain the new thing that is happening among them, he says this:
16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Jesus uses two different illustrations to describe the change that is happening as he is among them on the earth. One illustration Jesus uses is that of a piece of old clothes that needs to be patched, and the other is that of wine that is put into wineskins. And notice that both of these illustrations have similar images and results:
in both of them, there is something new and old being mixed together. And in both, when the new and old are mixed, the sum of it all is destroyed.
Let’s take them both of these illustrations and consider what it is that is being described:
First of all, you have an old article of clothing that has a hole that needs to be patched. But Jesus says you can’t put a new - unshrunk patch onto the old garment or else the patch will tear the garment as the patch shrinks and a worse tear will be made in the cloths by the new patch’s shrinking
So we see that the new is incompatible with the old garment
The second image is wine that is stored in wineskins. Jesus points out that if there is new wine that continues to ferment, it will produce a gas in the wineskin causing it to expand (Much like a carbonated beverage that is letting off CO2 that builds up pressure in a sealed bottle) But if new wine is put into an old wineskin made of leather that has dried out… the wine will cause for the old wineskin to burst under the pressure, and both the wine and the wineskin will be destroyed…
so Jesus says, new wine must be put into a fresh wineskin…
Now these two illustrations can be confusing if removed from the immediate context, so in order to understand what is happening we need to frame this around what has been happening before this text and what will continue to happen after this text:
what new thing is being put into something old?
Well consider this:
As Jesus has come, many saw him as a wonderworker that was sent by God…
But no one has quite understood that Jesus was God
John’s disciples are confused as to why Jesus and his disciples are not mourning like the rest of those who are seeking God - not recognizing that Jesus is God with us. Thus removing any need for mourning.
the Pharisees were confused as to why Jesus was calling sinners near to himself last week - not recognizing their own need to draw near to Jesus as the one who has come to make sinners righteous apart from works of the Law
So too, the Scribes were confused as to why Jesus is able to forgive sins as only God is able to forgive sins… all the while they did not recognizing that Jesus is God with us
And so here Jesus is telling them, and us in this moment, that he has come to do something new, that will not fit into their old way of thinking according to the law given by Moses at Mt Sini.
You see, the new thing that Jesus is doing is not comparable with the old
The new means of obtaining righteousness will be completely different from anything prescribed in the Law given by Moses… and many other things would change with Jesus’ coming
For when Jesus came, people will no longer worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, but instead people will worship in spirit and in truth…
Since Jesus has come, there is no longer a need for priests and sacrifices on behalf of sinners, for Jesus himself is the final sacrifice for sinners and is our Great High Priest at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us
With Jesus’ first advent there are no longer food restrictions to mark off the people of God, for now God has come to reconcile all people both Jews and gentiles to himself by faith
Even the Passover meal itself is going to take on a whole new meaning. For with Jesus the passover meal no longer has to do with the People of Israel being delivered from the clutches of Pharoah. Rather this meal will represent Jesus body broken and his blood shed that delivered God’s people, the church, from the clutches of sin and death.
Do you understand what Jesus is getting at in saying new wine must not be put in old wineskins?
If not, let me make it clear
2. Jesus’ authority surpasses that of all the prophets and kings of the Old Testament.
2. Jesus’ authority surpasses that of all the prophets and kings of the Old Testament.
Jesus is telling them something to this effect:
Don’t try to place what Jesus is doing, into that which the Law was never able accomplished.
For Jesus is not just another teacher like Moses
he’s not simply another prophet like Elijah
He’s not simply another king like David
Nor is he another priest like Aaron
For Jesus is God with us…
Jesus is the ultimate teacher, prophet, king, priest, and sacrifice to wich all the Law and prophets were pointing to.
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Jesus came with a clearer revelation of God than that of the Prophets of old… for Jesus is God himself who came to reveal himself to his people.
This is something that theologians call progressive revelation:
The concept of progressive revelation describes God’s revelation of himself and his plan of salvation to humanity that were not all given at once, rather they were revelations that were given in stages.
A way might understand the concept of God’s progressive revelation is to imagine a new car that is behind a curtain that is slowly being lifted off of the car
You can know its a car by the shape of the car under the curtain…
and as the curtain is lifted off of it, we begin to learn more about the car that we did not see or understand earlier…
Sure when the curtain was on it, we might recognize the general shape and know it is a car…
but as the curtain is lifted, we begin to see the make, the model, the color, and all sorts of details about the car that was once hidden to us
But it’s important to recognize this:
as the curtain is lifted, does anything about the car actually change?
of course not…
So too we need to recognize something important about God’s progressive revelation of himself…
As God has continued to reveal himself and his plan of salvation through the progression of history…
God never changed
and God’s plan of salvation never changed
Which leads to the next important thing that we must learn so as to not fall away from sound doctrine:
3. There is no new revelation of God since the completion of the New Testament
3. There is no new revelation of God since the completion of the New Testament
There are all sorts of ideas about God that have surfaced for the first time over the last few hundred years
Mormonism - they want to call themselves Christians, but they aren’t
Another movement called the NAR/new apostolic reformation… where people make claims to have a “new revelation about God”
But do not listen to them!
Remember this:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Jesus was the one who fulfilled the Law and the Prophets…
but Jesus did not change the law or the prophets
In fact, what Jesus came to do was what Jeremiah the OT Prophet described
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.
Notice in the New Covenant, God is not changing the law… rather what he is doing is placing the law on the hearts of his people instead of on stone tablets… and he does this so that the Law that is written on our hearts will be obeyed and loved by those who he has called
This is why Paul wrote this:
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Christ came to do something that the law could not acomplish… For Jesus died for sins, sent his Sprit and he did this so that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us! (in other words, so that we would obey the commandments of God by the power that the Spirit supplies)
Take what Paul wrote to the Galatians concerning that of keeping the Law in order to be saved…
1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
What is he saying… If you take the work of Jesus and add a little bit of law to it in order to be saved… then the old wineskin will burst, and the new wine of the new covenant will be ruined! Jesus didn’t call us to be legalistic trying to keep the law in our own strength that we do not possess, rather he called us to free us from the weight of the law that we could not carry.
So you cannot have a little bit of law sprinkled into that of the gospel. For the old form of righteousness by works never saved anyone, and so do not look to the works of the law for salvation, but instead look to Jesus who has come to call sinners and forgive sins.
But make no mistake… the work of Jesus on the cross and that of the Spirit in our hearts does not contradict that of the law…
The first part of Galatians 5 describes what we call legalism
while the later part of Galatians 5 frames out the work Spirit as the gospel is applied to those who have been forgiven by grace
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
The last phrase ‘against such things there is no law’ is such an important phrase
It means this…when we are filled with the Spirit of God after being saved by grace… God’s people will be marked by a new way of living that in no way contradicts or disobeys the law…
Or to use the Prophet Jeremiah’s language… the law itself becomes written on the hearts of God’s people
So what do we do with all this…
we look to Jesus who did something new that no man or law could ever do
Who came to die as our ultimate sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins
Jesus, who is our new and final great high priest who indeed is intersecting for us
who has come to liberate us from sins penalty and power
And we do not take offense at him but instead we rejoice. For Jesus our bridegroom is with us.