The Patched Garment

see also

Matt 9:14-17

Mark 2:18-22

Luke 5:36-39

Theme: New days require new ways

· Matthew – represents the new wineskin (New Testament believer)

· Jesus – (in the Person of the Holy Spirit) represents the new wine.

Background:

· Jesus CALLS Matthew to the ministry – a despised TAX collector!

Luke 5:27 (NLT)

27 Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him.

New wineskins HEAR God’s Voice

Luke 5:28 (NLT)

28 So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.

New wineskins OBEY God’s Voice

· Old wineskins stay put and question / reason God away / defend themselves / justify their prejudice and inactivity

· Jesus has DINNER with Matthew - at his house! – with his tax collector friends!

Luke 5:29 (NLT)

29 Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them.

· Meal = relationship, more than food

Luke 5:30–32 (NLT)

30 But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?”

31 Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.

32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”

Luke 5:33–39 (NLT)

33 One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”

· The right question can be asked the wrong way – genuine inquiry vs looking for a fight. – tone of accusation, sarcasm, or religious pride.

· Comparison in order to belittle the other while they inflate their own egos

New wineskins Evangelize vs scrutinize

· Jesus begins to correct / challenge / rebuke the religious community’s attitude.

34 Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not.

· Bible study technique - Identify the characters

· Wedding guests – disciples, Groom = Jesus, who will marry the Church

· Theme: Enjoy life today

35 But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

· Jesus prophesies His death

· Ecc 3 – there is a season (time for everything)

36 Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.

· Jesus now begins to teach through a Kingdom parable

· Symbolism:

o new garment = true believer, flexible, sensitive, responsive, submitted, humble, dedicated, sincere – even without much knowledge or experience.

o old garment = religious attitude, legalism, performance, works, earning vs receiving / wages vs reward / law vs grace / traditions of man / “this is the way we have always done it, and always will”

o Unteachable, unbendable, inflexible, stuck in their ways, ingrained behavior, not interested in anything new (even oppose it) – especially the gifts of the Spirit and speaking in tongues

o the two see the Kingdom differently – worldview vs fashion, trends or styles

o the two cultures are incompatible

37 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins.

· You cannot slap a “Jesus sticker” on an unsanctified life.

· Burst – I believe if God were to “show up” the way He wants to, His glory and manifestation would probably “blow up” mainline denominations – even Pentecostal churches!

· Hagin – most churches would not recognize the Holy Ghost even if he wore a red hat and rode a bicycle down the aisle

· Having a form of godliness but denying the power… (2 Tim 3:5)

· Religious hypocrisy does the most damage to the true Christian witness and evangelism

· Few people want to go to a dry church (hymns).

38 New wine must be stored in new wineskins.

Mark 2:22 – “New wine calls for new wineskins.”

Pandemic called for radical change in the church world – many were not ready

We can change the Gospel METHOD, but not the MESSAGE

39 But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”

· This is the Stubbornness of the acclimated – accustomed – comfortable – familiar

· Some even leave a church that’s on fore to return to a nice, quiet, non-correcting, non-confrontational setting

· Stuck in the past – while the world passes them by