Something Old, Someone New: The Bridegroom King

This is Amazing Grace

Welcome (Jason Wells)

We Are Servants—save the date for our Ministry Fair on August 21!

TableTalk, tonight at 5:30 PM—Joel Whitcomb, don’t grumble with one another

Five Identities Sermon Series—beginning next Sunday

Scripture Reading (Matthew 9:14-17)

Prayer of Praise (God is relational), Louise Bright

The Reformation Song

Behold Our God

Prayer of Confession (Judgmentalism), Jeremy Collins

Blessed Assurance

PBC Catechism #30

How do we grow in practical holiness?

While this growth is a gift of grace, it also requires the believer to actively, intentionally, and persistently fight sin through means such as prayer, Bible intake, and meaningful involvement in a local church.

Pastoral Prayer (John Rogers)

SERMON

The story is told of a woman who lived in a cold-weather climate where good food was often scarce. The woman suffered from poor health and in this part of the world it was not easy to get the type of nutrition she needed.

Her health continued to decrease, until her doctors eventually suggested she travel to the tropics. Perhaps the warm weather and the better food would hasten her recovery.

A few weeks after arriving in a tropical paradise, the sick woman wrote to a friend saying, “This is a wonderful spot where I have access to all the good and nutritious food I could ever need. If only I could find my appetite I’d be well in no time.”

Within a few weeks the woman passed away.

In the end, it wasn’t a lack of food that took her life, but a lack of hunger. [1]

Many in this room are suffering from the same problem spiritually.

We are dying, not because we don’t have spiritual food, but because we’re not spiritually hungry.

Christians in America have access to more spiritual food than we could ever imagine...

Books, podcasts, commentaries, videos, online training, Christian music, etc.

You don’t even have to ever leave this church building to have access to more spiritual food than many of our brothers and sisters in the world will ever see in a lifetime.

Sunday School, sermons, TableTalk, bookstall, discipleship groups, fellowship groups, etc.

The problem is not a lack of spiritual food, but a lack of spiritual hunger.

So what do we do about it?

The best way to cultivate spiritual hunger is to remember who Jesus is and what He came to do.

Turn to Matthew 9:14

Last week, someone approached the disciples to criticize Jesus for eating with with the wrong people.

This week, someone approaches Jesus to criticize the disciples for eating too much.

But underneath the complaints about feasting and fasting, we see an amazing glimpse of who Jesus is and what He came to do.

Three Stunning Statements:

1) A Staggering CLAIM (14-15a)

9:14—Then the disciples of John came to [Jesus], saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

First met John the Baptist last September in Matthew 3

Since that time, John has been arrested (Matthew 4:12), but he still has followers

Like most good Jews, they included fasting as a regular spiritual discipline

But they’re concerned because Jesus’ disciples aren’t fasting

Jesus’ response includes a staggering claim...

9:15a—And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?”

“Don’t fast when I’m around”

In the OT, fasting was usually associated with sadness and sorrow

Jesus says, “when I’m around it’s time to feast, not fast”

Can you imagine someone having the audacity to say, “there’s no need for anyone to be sad when I’m in the room!”

“What about cancer? Wars? Corruption? Tornadoes and tsunamis?”

“Nah, wait until I leave and then you can be sad.”

This is absolutely staggering. But even more staggering is the reason why the disciples shouldn’t fast around Jesus...

"I am the bridegroom”

Have you ever been to a wedding where people dressed in sackcloth and ashes, wept while the bride walked down the aisle, and fasted instead of feasted after the ceremony? Sometimes you feel like you’re fasting when you’re waiting for the bridal party to finish their pictures, but you know food is on the way.

Jesus says, “I’m like the bridegroom at a wedding party. Don’t fast when I’m around. Feast!”

But why is Jesus calling Himself a bridegroom?

About 800 years earlier, God made a promise to His people...

Hosea 2:16-20—“And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call Me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. . . . And I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.”

Jesus says, that day is NOW!!! I am the Bridegroom who has come to capture the hearts of God’s people forever.

The best way to cultivate spiritual hunger is to remember who Jesus is and what He came to do. Jesus is the Bridegroom who has come to captivate the hearts of God’s people.

2) A Surprising PREDICTION (15b)

9:15b— “…The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

Look at these words carefully and you’ll see that Jesus makes two surprising predictions...

i) Jesus Predicts the Cross

"Taken away” carries the idea of sudden, violent removal [2]

Another form of the same word is used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) in...

Isaiah 53:7-8—He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

This is just one of many instances where Jesus predicted His death before it happened. How could He know? Because He was born to die!

Jesus didn’t die as a hapless victim of religious or Roman oppression. He was sent by the Father to die as a substitute for the sins of His people.

EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL

ii) Jesus Predicts the Church Age

The Church Age is the period of time between the ascension of Jesus and the return of Jesus

“...and then they will fast.”

When? Of course, Jesus would rise from death in victory! But 40 days later He would ascend into heaven and be physically absent from His people. That’s the then.

Who? All of Jesus’ followers from the earliest disciples until the day He returns

Don’t move too quickly past this. Can you imagine someone coming to PBC for membership, sitting down for a membership interview, and saying “I’m going to be here for a little while. And while I’m here you’re going to have amazing potlucks. But then, when I leave you won’t ever have another potluck again, as long as this church remains.”

I know that’s a bit silly, but think about the surprising nature of what Jesus is claiming here. He’s saying that He’s going to have followers long after He’s physically gone. And His followers are going to behave in certain ways long after He’s physically gone.

Before we move to the final stunning statement Jesus makes in our text, let’s stop and think about what Jesus is saying about you and me...

Closest thing you’ll find to a command to fast in the New Testament! Jesus predicts that His disciples will fast!!!

That’s why the earliest Christians are seen fasting in the book of Acts, and throughout church history ever since.

Do you really want to say, “don’t include me in that prediction, Jesus!”?!?

Donald Whitney — Fasting is “a Christian’s voluntary abstinence from food for spiritual purposes.”[3]

Not going to say much more about fasting (go to the website and listen to the sermon from May 15 if you’re interested), only to say that cultivating spiritual hunger takes discipline.

It takes discipline to read your Bible… pray… faithfully attend church… give… serve… evangelize

1 Corinthians 9:24-27—Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Next week we’re taking five weeks to review our five identities as a church. Why? Because these things don’t come naturally! We need to discipline ourselves! It takes effort!

Fasting is one important way to exercise discipline in your Christian life!

The best way to cultivate spiritual hunger is to remember who Jesus is and what He came to do. Jesus is the Suffering Servant who died to save His people. And He’s the conquering King who’s coming again to rescue us from sin and death forever.

3) A Sweeping IMPLICATION (16-17)

Jesus gives two illustrations to make one point.

I’ll explain the point Jesus is making, then show you in the text.

Here’s the point: The old forms of Judaism cannot contain the newness of the Kingdom.

9:16—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.

Young people: explain what a patch is :-)

New cloth that hadn’t yet shrunk shouldn’t be used as a patch for an old garment

Over time the new cloth will shrink, and the patch will tear loose from the garment, making the tear even worse

Christianity is more than a patch on the garment of Judaism. It’s something new and better!

The old forms of Judaism cannot contain the newness of the Kingdom.

9:17—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.”

Wineskins were ancient bottles made out of the skin of various animals.

SHOW WINESKIN IMAGE

Old wineskins had already been stretched to the limit. If you poured new wine in them, the skins would burst as the wine fermented and expanded inside them.

Christianity can’t simply be poured into the wineskins of Judaism. It’s something new and better!

The old forms of Judaism cannot contain the newness of the Kingdom.

But what does that mean exactly?

Fasting

Jesus isn’t doing away with the discipline of fasting. But Christian fasting can’t be poured into the old Jewish way of fasting either.

Told you earlier, OT fasting was largely marked by sadness and sorrow. It was a longing for a Messiah who had not come and a salvation that hadn’t been experienced.

We fast with a more hopeful longing. Because we’ve tasted the salvation of the Lord, we fast longing for more of what we’ve already experienced.

Mexico City Churros—I can tell you about how delicious they are, but if you’ve never tried them you can’t long for them the same way I can!

Sabbath

Jesus isn’t doing away with the idea of a day of rest. But a Christian “sabbath” can’t be patched onto the old Jewish way either.

First, as far back as the book of Acts the early Christians set aside Sunday to rest and worship, to commemorate the resurrection

Second, the Sabbath ultimately points us to Jesus, who gives us ultimate rest from our labors.

When we read the OT, we look at it through the lens of the NT

I could give you more examples, but I don’t want you to miss the point...

Jesus is making a stunning statement about who He is. He’s taking religious practices that have been around for thousands of years and He’s transforming them in light of Himself!

The best way to cultivate spiritual hunger is to remember who Jesus is and what He came to do.

I began with a story about a woman who died not because of a lack of food, but a lack of hunger.

When Kerry died at 33-years-old it was different.

It wasn’t a lack of hunger that killed her, but hunger for the wrong things. For years she lived almost exclusively on junk food, leading her to develop stem cell disorder, bone marrow failure and severe anemia. Until her body was completely depleted of folic acid and vitamin B12. [4]

If you’re not hungry for Jesus because you’re hungry for the wrong things, perhaps what you need is exactly what Jesus prescribes in our text this morning.

Not the fasting of the old wineskins of Judaism, but a new fasting that rejoices in the Gospel. A fasting that doesn’t earn God’s love but rests in the reality that in Christ we already have it. A fasting that longs for Jesus to return, because we’ve seen who He is and what He came to do. A fasting that lets go of food and clings to Jesus until the day we see Him face-to-face.

He Will Hold Me Fast

Benediction (Revelation 22:20-21)