Classic Friday: Weddings and Joy

Weddings as a Picture of Celebration

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Avendroff. I just officiated a wedding 20 minutes ago. It's exciting. I like weddings. I guess that could be a lead-in for today's show. Before we do get into today's show about weddings and such, you can write me, radio .com.

If you want to order the Cancer book or the Sexual Fidelity book in bulk, email me because we can get 40 off. I've gotten quite a few encouraging emails where people have bought 10 of them or 20 of them and they just hand them out.

I hope to be in California this summer. I think I'm scheduled for two or three men's breakfasts. Yeah, two or three men's breakfast. Each of them is singularly called a men's breakfast, but the men's breakfasts, the men breakfast, no, that's right, the men's breakfasts on Sexual Fidelity.

So I'm looking forward to those as well. Well, back to the wedding talk. When I officiate weddings, I, besides being a little nervous because I don't want to mess up the big day, I have the best proverbial seat in the house because I'm right up there by the groom when the bride walks down the aisle.

I don't have to look back and forth somehow looking at the bride and then looking at the groom to see his bride and then back and forth. I can look at the groom and the bride at the exact same time, he close, she farther away, approaching the front, the altar.

Why do we do altar calls at Bethlehem Bible Church? Because there's no altar. There are other reasons as well. And of course, the bride is gorgeous and the groom is handsome. The parents are normally happy.

I don't know if I've done too many weddings where the parents weren't happy. The friends are excited and the bridesmaids and the groomsmen, smiling, excited, happy, et cetera. I looked online earlier this week and I looked up groomsmen etiquette.

Now, lots of times I have to talk to the groomsmen and I tell them, you can have fun, but let's not have a bunch of shenanigans on the day because it is after all a worship service. And it's kind of tried if you think I forgot the ring or where's the ring and you do that whole thing.

Or if you lock your legs, you might pass out or don't stand in a fig leaf. Here's how you should stand. Here's how you're supposed to smile. There's lots of etiquette. But I looked online, it didn't say any of those things, but it did say under groomsmen etiquette 101, a beginner's guide.

Groomsmen number one should show up for all the pre-wedding events such as engagement party and bachelor party. Okay, good etiquette. Know where, when, and what is required of you, groomsmen. Be the groom's support system.

Make sure your speech slash toast is appropriate and thought out ahead of time written down. Have fun at the reception, but not too much fun. That's always wise. I looked at a couple other sites on groomsmen etiquette and not one of them said, groomsmen, be sad.

Don't smile. Be gloomy. Mourn a lot. Put on sackcloth and ashes. Don't eat dinner. Don't drink a thing. Did I forget to say, be as sad as possible? Not a one said that, right? I know. You belong in the circus, Spock.

That's true. I have to re up my game a little bit here on No Compromise Radio. I've got to get some more buttons that have different sounds on them because I just have, I don't know, I just don't really have that many anymore.

I rarely use that one. Weddings are a time of celebration. Weddings are a time of fun. Weddings are a time of joy. Feasting, eating, drinking, praising. They're times of joy. Now, our weddings typically are, we have the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, we have the wedding, and then we have the reception.

So it's like a night and then part of the next day. So all within 24 hours. Back in the Bible days, it was a seven day deal. Seven days of celebration. And you can imagine if you had a farm or you were a Mason or something like that, very, very difficult lives back in those days.

And to have a week off to celebrate, that was even probably better. Today on No Compromise Radio, I'd like to talk to you about Jesus and joy. Jesus, the groom, Jesus, the bridegroom. And of course, if you know your Bibles, and of course, No Compromise Radio listeners know their Bibles, you would realize very quickly that regularly Jesus is talked about as the groom and the church is talked about as the bride.

And today we're going to look at Luke chapter 5. And when Jesus is around, how should the groomsmen act? Jesus, the groom, is there. How should the disciples and the apostles conduct themselves? Should they be happy Jesus is around or should they be sad?

Should they be fasting or should they be celebrating and eating and drinking? When Jesus is around, should there be joy? What's the appropriate response when Jesus is around? Not only for those men, but we're also going to talk about in our own lives.

Since we have Jesus, should Christians be joyful? Since Jesus has been raised from the dead, and we have the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit in us, should we have joy? Should Christians be known for joy?

Should you, dear listener, be known for joy? I mean, can you imagine, is there a greater joy in the world knowing that the God of the universe knows you and you know him? Even though you might have trials, deep, dark, difficult trials, can you still have joy?

Should Christians be sad, joyless Christians? Now, certainly sadness is part of life, and so maybe I need to amend that. Should Christians be joyless? How is joy related to Jesus? I'm glad you asked. By the way, thank you for praying for me.

I'm feeling better. My neutrophils, something they measure in your blood, were really, really low. They were 6 ,000 in the past since I've started my cancer treatment. Nice number. It helps you ward off infections, and they dropped down to 700, so I had to take a shot.

The shot for two weeks just knocked me out, and I thought to myself, and I didn't say it to my wife until I felt better, is this what it feels like to die? I mean, just brutal. Three times a day I'd probably take a nap, and sometimes I'd have to lay down an additional time.

What happened was the medicine was causing my bone marrow to multiply, and it just zaps you. Anyway, my numbers, I just got taken a few days ago. The neutrophils are back up to 5 ,700, so I can now be around people again.

I mean, I stayed around. I just didn't stick around after church is what I didn't really do. But anyway, thanks for praying. I'm feeling better. The mental fog is gone, and we are back in the studio. I think there was two weeks where I didn't record a show, which that's kind of these days.

God’s Goodness Is Seen in Jesus

Now, when we study the gospels, lots of things can be seen, but here's one of those things that I want you to think about before we get into the passage. If I were to ask you, an unbeliever were to ask you, is God good?

Oh, you might immediately say, yes, God's good, and He does good. That's what the Psalms say. Can you give me some illustrations of God being good? Oh, baby's born, listening to wonderful music, sitting watching a sunset with your wife and children, grandchildren, taste buds, tasting.

Let's see. If I could have anything right now, what would I have? I would have an ultra rare fillet. I'd have a tenderloin that was just seared a couple minutes on each side and give me some salt. That's all I need.

If you want to cook it in butter, you can do that too. It's probably only 35 bucks a pound now. One of the things I like about tenderloins, when we have those every Christmas, that's our Christmas tradition.

Dad goes outside in the snow and grills the tenderloins. As our family gets bigger and inflation gets more extreme, we're talking hundreds of dollars type of thing. But anyway, when I eat a fillet, when I eat a tenderloin, I say to myself, sometimes I say it out loud too, and sometimes I say it on the radio, kings, Bezos's of the world cannot have a better cut of meat.

They can eat better. I mean, they might have fancy things that are made for them. I get that. But in terms of what's the best cut of meat in the world, I now am eating it. Popper Mike is eating it. So I don't have them all the time, but I like to have them sometimes.

What does this have to do with anything? It has to do with, is God good? We could list the reasons. But then your atheistic friend says, okay, you say God's good and you've listed some things. What about sickness?

What about cancer? What about trials? What about broken relationships? What about injustice? What about death? How can you call God good knowing those things exist, have existed, and will exist? What would you say?

What would be your response? Well, if you were Martin Luther, besides being blunt, you would say, if you'd like to understand if God is good, both the Christian that struggles with that because the trials in their life or an unbeliever, the answer to the question, is God good, is answered in the incarnate Jesus.

That's one of the reasons why we study the gospels, because we get to know the character and nature and essence of who God is. If you want to know what God is like, you take a look at Jesus. If you want to know what God thinks of you, you take a look at Jesus.

If you know what Jesus is like, you can understand, is God good? And the answer is going to be, yes, he is. That's one of the reasons why we're studying the gospels on No Compromise Radio and why I'm preaching through Luke here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Now, Luther, speaking of whom, had a small catechism, and it says this about Jesus. And we all see Jesus in Luke in this very way. Luther, I believe that Jesus Christ is true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man born of the Virgin Mary, and that he is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all my sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his most holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death, in order that I might be his own, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.

This is most certainly true. To know if God is good, you take a look at Jesus in the gospels. And as we do that, we see God is good. Jesus is good. Now, remember what happened in the gospel of Luke in chapter 5.

Jesus calls Levi, and Levi was a tax collector, a real dirtbag, a real scoundrel, a traitor, a Jewish person working for Rome. Rome's collecting taxes at certain places here in Capernaum, and you could make up taxes, essentially, if you were a tax collector.

You purchased the franchise from the Roman government, and then if the people couldn't pay, you could even charge them interest. And it just didn't work out very well for the Jewish people. They did not like tax collectors, and so they would talk about tax collectors and sinners.

If you were a tax collector, you were just basically nasty. Well, Jesus saves Levi and says, follow me, and Levi does, and then Levi has a big party at his house to bring all his fellow tax collectors and sinners in.

And the Pharisees say, they show up post-party, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus answered, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Eating and drinking, that's the issue. Fellowship of sinners. Of course, Jesus isn't celebrating their sin. He's celebrating Levi's salvation, that's certainly true. And he's eating and he's drinking, and he's calling these men to repentance.

Unlike sometimes when we're Christians and we're making money off people at a party, and we try to sell them Tupperware or Shackley or Amway or Pampersheff or something like that. Here, it's Levi spending his own money to try to bring in the riffraff, and Jesus is there eating with them and drinking with them and evangelizing them, of course.

He came for that very reason. He came to be around the guilty and the condemned and to wash them and to rescue them and to clothe them with his righteousness. He says he's a doctor, and doctors are around sick people.

He's a physician. Of course, Luke is a physician, and he understands that very well. So, eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. Eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. So, speaking of eating and drinking, and we have another issue here in Luke chapter 5.

Fasting, Mourning, and Extra-Biblical Rules

When it comes to eating and drinking, what about Jesus? Should we be fasting or should we not be? Now, we have people outside that are going to mow and cut the grass, and here I am trying to record a show.

I'm just going to keep going and see what happens. That's why my mind got blank. I'm trying to do something, two things at a time, and that's very difficult. It's almost impossible. I watch the old Mission Impossible, probably like that more than the new Mission Impossible, because I don't know.

There's no real storylines that I could think of, and I get all excited for the new shows, and then just, they're not that good to me. They're not good in my opinion. Jesus and joy, and now these Pharisees continue Luke chapter 5 verse 33, and they said to him, we're so happy you, the Messiah, have arrived.

We're thrilled. Yay, there's a fattened calf around. Let's kill it and celebrate. Break out the wine. Go tell everybody Jesus is here. This is the best day of our lives. No. 533, and they, the Pharisees, said to him, the disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.

Eating and drinking. See it? Eating and drinking. Jesus was accused of eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners. What about John? John fasts. His disciples fast. Pharisees fast. Anybody that wants to do what Pharisees do, they fast, going right to Jesus directly.

How can you be the rabbi, be the so called Messiah, and you don't fast? We're fasting. You should be too. Now, maybe they're asking in a nice way, but of course, they're trying to attack him, criticize him, discredit him, accuse him.

Hey, while we're at it, when it comes to eating and drinking, what about you? Pharisees fast. John the Baptist's disciples fast. Hey, repentance was associated with fasting back in the day, and we practice self-discipline.

We abstain from things. We're ascetic in certain areas, and by the way, we even paint our faces a little bit, make ourselves look really gloomy, gloomy, make sure we're unhappy. You are celebrating. We are fasting.

Sinners, happy. Pharisees, sad. Jesus, you're happy too. You're on the side of sinners. Of course, these confrontations with the Pharisees happen all the time. Jesus is a friend of sinners. And you see what's going on here in the gospel of Luke, as I call the gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Luke.

There's old and new. There's Jesus who has arrived, and is that going to change anything? We'll talk about fulfillment in a moment, our next show, but something's going to have to give, especially these Pharisees that do extra biblical things.

They had the Old Testament, and they knew what the Bible said about fasting. They knew that the Day of Atonement was the only day that they were required to fast and afflict themselves and mourn, but they just started adding other days, and they fasted on Mondays and Thursdays.

And they would say, oh, dear Lord, please deliver us from our persecutors and from the Roman oppressors. And we want to have our face white on Monday and Thursdays, so everybody would know what was going on.

And on Mondays and Thursdays, they regularly prayed at 12, three, and six. And we just add on rules, rule to rule to rule. Now, I'm sure you're familiar, if you are a listener to No Compromise Radio, that when it comes to fasting in the Old Testament, fasting was associated with trouble.

Fasting was associated with times of testing. Fasting was associated with times of sorrow. Remember, David lost his son because of his sin, and David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground.

If there was a big deal for the community, a calamity in the public realm, 2 Samuel 1, they mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

Fasting, mourning, fasting, mourning, fasting, mourning. Hey, the Ammonites and the Moabites are about ready to attack, and Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles, resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah.

You know very well the story of Esther, Queen Esther and all the Jews. They were going to be killed, and three days there was going to be a fast, so God might rescue them. Fasting, mourning, fasting, mourning.

I don't mean AM, morning, evening. I mean mourning, M-O-U-R-I-N-G. Jesus, we're mourning, say the Pharisees. We're oppressed. We don't have the Messiah. We're longing for him, and so we're going to mourn.

Why aren't you mourning? Even John the Baptist's disciples, they mourn. Well, they mourn for lots of reasons, maybe because he was in prison at the time, maybe because they're looking forward to the Messianic age.

Maybe these are ones that weren't obeying John to follow Jesus, but there's only one command to fast. It doesn't matter who's fasting. Leviticus 16, this isn't the Day of Atonement, and you can mark this down, dear listener, on No Compromise Radio Ministry, that a self-righteous heart, a sinful heart, always adds more rules.

We can have rules. You can give your kids rules. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you can be more holy if you do these extra rules. Instead of fasting once a year, our times of calamity, we'll fast Mondays and Thursdays.

Monday, Thursday, not quite. And even if you have good motives, let's say the Promise Keepers Men's Movement had good motives, seven more new promises to be added on to how many other laws do we have?

Let's say those were good intentions. They still add. Bad intentions, though, adding, adding, adding. You can remember the Pharisee in Luke 12. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. And consequently, they're sad.

Consequently, they're joyless. They are miserable. Mark 6, Jesus condemns this activity. When you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance in order to be seen fasting by men.

Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full. And maybe they are fasting because the Messiah has not shown up yet, and there's the Messiah in their very midst. Should you be fasting when the Messiah is right there?

Or should you be feasting? Most likely, the big party that Levi had was on a Monday or a Thursday. Can you imagine? Those strict Jews, those adding tradition to the Bible Jews, self-righteous, legalistic, exacting, precise, mourning, suffocating.

I mean, that's what legalism does. It smothers, legalism asphyxiates, it stifles, it chokes, it strangles, it throttles, it strangulates. It's like a straightjacket. It's like a boa constrictor, adding to grace, adding to grace, adding to grace.

Who was in control of Judaism at the time? If you say the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees, I'm just going to call them the suffocators. Sounds like a punk rock band. The suffocators. I see suffocators.

The Bridegroom, Joy, and Christian Life

So, Jesus asks a question, and it's a rhetorical question. Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? Now, he just talked about himself as a physician earlier. Now he's talking to himself, about himself, rather, as a bridegroom, as a groom, as we would say.

When the groom's around, are people happy or sad? I mean, if the groom was supposed to be there and he didn't show up, people would be probably panicking. But weddings are for celebrations, and you've got the happy couple, and you never go to a wedding and fast, unless it's some health thing, of course, or maybe the food's bad.

I've been to quite a few weddings, and not all, but a lot of the food at weddings isn't too good, even if it's an expensive place. And I don't know why the chicken just keeps on getting cooked or I don't know what.

Once in a while, I'm surprised, but sometimes I'm thinking, oh, so if it's at the restaurant type of thing, maybe not as good, catered by some individual, sometimes better. What does that have to do with anything?

Nothing. This is my radio show. This is what I want to talk about today. It's all about me, Mr. U-Planet. Jesus is there. The Pharisees think they should be fasting. Oh, oh, and do you think a Pharisee, if they went to a wedding, would fast?

Of course not. They would love to feast. Salvation incarnate, as it were, has arrived. People filled with joy like Levi and those sinners. And Levi's got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in his heart. Could there be anything more festive?

The ultimate celebration on earth, a wedding, picturing joy, happiness, and Jesus is there. Joy incarnate, we could call him that, even for the joy set before him, Hebrews chapter 12. You can't mourn if the bridegroom's with you, Matthew 9 of the Synoptic Gospel.

You don't even have to do anything during the wedding. You get a week off. It's like paid vacation. What about John the Baptist? What did he say? He who has the bride, John 3, is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, the best man who stands and hear him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.

So this joy of mine has been made full. Even austere John the Baptist, who didn't come eating and drinking, dealing with repentance, when he's with Jesus, the bridegroom, he knows what's going on. And ultimately, of course, John the Apostle writes in Revelation, let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.

The groom's with you. Why aren't you joyful? It'd be inappropriate to be joyful. No, it'd be appropriate. Jesus is the bridegroom. In the Old Testament, Hosea chapter 2, God is the groom. Jesus is God.

The God-man's right there. So now here's the punchline for Christians. We have Jesus. Holy Spirit, he gave to us. We're on this side of the resurrection. We'll go on to talk about when Jesus was killed, then there'd be a time to fast.

But he's alive now for us. We're not living back in that particular day. He rose from the dead. We are to be joyful. J .C. Ryle, bridegroom, it is a name comforting and encouraging to all true Christians.

It teaches the deep and tender love with which Jesus regards all sinners of mankind who believe in him. Weak and unworthy and shortcoming as they are in themselves, he feels toward them a tender affection.

It teaches the close and intimate union which exists between Jesus and believers. It is the closest of all unions, the union of husband and wife, the union of which it is written, what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

J .C. Ryle, a joyous occasion. Christian, are you joyous? Are you a joyful person? The philosopher in Germany, Nietzsche, I would believe in their salvation regarding Christians if they looked a little more like people who had been saved.

Well, my name is Mike Avendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And we today have talked about joy. You can count it all joy when you fall into trials, dear Christian, because Jesus has you and you have Jesus.

Jesus and joy, they're related.