Superiority of Christ's Covenant Luke 5:33-39

Well, good morning to everyone, and I see that all the ones that I see out here are the ones that are faithful, and we thank you for being faithful to Faith Bible Church.

Few announcements. We want to mention this coming Saturday is again our

Men's Fellowship Breakfast at 9 a .m. We always have a blessing when we come out as men and discuss the

Word as well as having a discussing over the food, right? And it's always a blessing to do that.

And our biblical counseling course is continuing, meeting on the second and fourth

Saturday of each month at 11 Saturday morning.

So, put that on your calendar. And next Sunday is what?

Palm Sunday. The following Sunday is Resurrection Sunday, so keep that on your calendar.

And the thing to remember is Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, we will not have

Sunday school, but we're going to have a fellowship here at the church with a few snacks, so just come for a time of fellowship at 10 o 'clock to 11 o 'clock, and then we'll have our regular

Sunday morning service at that time. So I thank the Lord for the blessings that he gives us.

As you notice, the church has been decorated with the new signs that says,

I'm the resurrection and the life. Thank the Lord for that. I said, whenever I see that,

I always think of a song that I learned when I was in Sunday school as a youngster.

Have you ever heard I am the resurrection and the life? So if you know it, sing it with me.

I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, yet shall he live.

And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never, never die.

It's a good song to remember coming up Easter, is it not? And let's just open in a word of prayer.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the blessings that you that we have because of what you did for us.

You paid the price, Lord, that we might come before you. And you've covered our sin,

Lord, and done away with our sin. And we thank you for that today. We pray,

Heavenly Father, that as we listen to your word today, that it might be refreshing to us, encourage our hearts.

We pray, Heavenly Father, for those of our group who are in care facilities and need your help and guidance and encouragement.

We would just uphold them, Lord. And we thank you that you do love and care for them, even in that situation.

We pray for pastor as he brings your word. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would give him liberty to say the things that you've laid on his heart from your word,

Lord. And we'll thank you and pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Good morning.

Good morning. The greatest team to be on is Team Jesus. And let's sing to our

Heavenly Father. Please stand. The devil thinks he's won.

He's wrong. Let the Lord speak to us, and let's continue to sing to him. I'm going to be reading from Jeremiah, chapter 31, verses 31 through 34.

That's Jeremiah, chapter 31, verses 31 through 34.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day, that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant, which they broke, though I was husband to them, says the Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.

After those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their minds, I write it on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,

Know the Lord, for they all shall know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, says the

Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of these words. Please turn with me to Luke chapter 5, verses 33 through 39.

Luke chapter 5, verses 33 through 39. Then they said to him,

Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers? And likewise those of the

Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. And he said to them, Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away and from them, then they will fast in those days.

Then he spoke a parable to them. No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one, otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.

But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new, for he says the old is better.

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we are thankful that Jesus brings us the new covenant.

We're not grafted into the old covenant, but we are brought into his new covenant, which is far superior.

Father, we pray that we would see the beauty and the glory of the new covenant and appreciate

Jesus' supremacy and sufficiency. In Jesus' name, amen.

Now, it's important to go over what the new covenant means. What Richard read to us this morning from Jeremiah 31 is the only passage in which the phrase new covenant is explicitly mentioned.

There are other passages in the Old Testament prophets where the new covenant concept is there, where God is making his own people clean with water and the

Spirit. Think about Ezekiel. But Jeremiah 31 is special in a sense where the phrase new covenant is explicitly mentioned, and the differences between the old and the new covenant are distinguished.

The first major difference between the old and the new covenants is that there is an inner heart change, that God writes the law on the heart of his people rather than on the stones like the old covenant.

That means the person changes from the inside. Their will, their desire is changed because they're made into a new creation.

That actually allows them to obey because over and over again, the law written on the stone tablets did not help

Israel whatsoever. Second, the people of the new covenant will have a direct connection to God.

And under the old covenant, the old covenant people were the Israelites, the ethnic

Jews. And among the ethnic Jews, there were the faithful ones, but there were also the unfaithful ones, and the examples are too many.

Therefore, the Levites and the priests, their jobs were to teach the unfaithful ones, you have to know

God. You got to know God. Because they were grouped into God's people just by their ethnic background, not their faith.

Under the new covenant, people will not need an intermediary like the Levites and the priests because they will all know

God. How the new covenant people will be grouped is based upon their relationship with God directly.

And third, forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins is expansive and deeper under the new covenant.

Now, the sins were covered by the blood of the bulls and the goats under the old covenant system.

However, it was limited to only certain types of sins. For example, adultery.

There was no sacrifice for adultery. You died. That was the punishment.

But under Christ, a better sacrifice, even adulterers are forgiven.

And that could be said for many of the sins in which the Old Testament sacrificial system did not have a sacrifice for.

Right? Witchcraft, apostasy, homosexuality, all those sins can be forgiven in Christ upon a genuine repentance.

Those are the main differences between the old and the new covenant. And needless to say, the new covenant is better.

It is not the second best option as God was as if he were scrambling to find out, oh no, the old covenant didn't work because the

Israelites did not follow through. Let me come up with the second best option, plan

B. And it was not even an equal replacement. Right?

It wasn't as if, okay, this tool broke. Let me just replace it with a similar thing.

The new covenant, according to both the old and the New Testament, is far superior.

It is a better covenant. And that is the covenant in which God inaugurates through Jesus Christ.

While the old covenant was inaugurated through the blood of beasts, the new covenant is inaugurated through the blood of Christ, God's own son.

Right? That's why when we do take communion, it's the cup of the new covenant.

Now, this text shows us the distinguishing factors of the new covenant compared to the old.

Now, it is true that there are some continuities. We do worship the same

God of the Old Testament as Christians. We do believe, we do interact with God in faith, just like the

Old Testament saints have. And we do pursue holiness and obedience to God's commandments.

However, this text focuses on the vast differences between the two covenants.

And why this is important today is because there are sects, denominations of Christianity, that want to still go under the authority of the old covenant.

Now, I don't want to put a blanket statement for all of these denominations, but one in particular are the

Messianic Jewish culture. And, of course, there are Messianic Jews who do not submit to the old covenant.

But here's an example. A lot of the Messianic Jewish people, although they believe in Christ, they follow the dietary regulations.

They still distinguish what's clean and unclean in terms of food. For example, pork is unclean.

Beef is clean. Shrimp, unclean. Salmon's clean.

And that's according to the Levitical law of the dietary law, right? However, even though they know that it is not through their dietary restrictions that they're saved, and they will let you know that's not how they're saved, the fact that you submit yourself to a category of the old covenant in which it has been replaced completely by the new covenant, because under the new covenant all things are made clean, is an implicit distrust of the supremacy of the new covenant to fall back into the categories that have been replaced completely by Christ.

Because Christ proclaimed all foods clean. And he showed Peter three times the vision of all the animals made clean again through Christ.

To fall back into that is to not live under the authority of the new covenant completely.

And this is important because as the new covenant people, we have to admit that Christ's covenant is far superior.

You all have a deeper access to God than any of the Old Testament saints because Christ died for you and the

Spirit of God dwells in you. You have the capacity of knowing

God at a deeper level that even David and Abraham longed for.

And that sounds almost like a false teaching to say. But Abraham was longing for this day in which

Jesus would come. You're under a better covenant. And that's why today's text, it asks the question, what is the nature of Jesus' ministry?

Jesus came, when Jesus came, the transition was definite from the old to the new.

So the question is, what is the nature of Jesus' ministry? First, Jesus' ministry completely changes any existing paradigm.

Jesus' ministry completely changes any existing paradigm. Now last week, the religious elites questioned

Jesus' eating and drinking with the social rejects such as the tax collectors and sinners.

This week, the religious elites will challenge the fact that Jesus' disciples are eating and drinking, period.

Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the

Pharisees, but yours eat and drink? Now first, it is important to understand the significance of fasting practiced by the first century

Jews. Fasting here was not done for weight loss or bringing down the blood sugar level.

That's why we fast. So we have to take off the modern lens and put on the first century lens.

In the Old Testament, fasting was a significant practice. One, it was practiced during the

Day of Atonement. That one day in which the sin of Israel was forgiven upon the high priest entering the

Holy of Holies to make the atoning sacrifice for the whole nation. Second, fasting was a desperate call upon God's deliverance and mercy.

For example, Queen Esther's fast for God's people when she knew she had to step up to ask the king to request for the king to change his mind regarding the decree to kill all the

Jews in the empire. They fasted. Third, Israel fasted for four days each year to remember the

Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, Zechariah 7 .3. And by the first century, everything has escalated in which the

Pharisees, the disciples of Pharisees, were actually fasting twice a week,

Mondays and Thursdays, to intercede for the nation of Israel. So fasting has become a more consistent, a regular practice of piety.

Which means, needless to say, if anyone was religiously good, if anyone was religiously holy, quote -unquote, fasting was required.

In fact, the disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of Pharisees both fasted regularly.

Despite many of their theological differences, John the

Baptist's disciples were not a fan of the Pharisees at all. They had their differences, but they were united on the importance of fasting.

Hence, it was rather scandalous that Jesus, who claimed to be from God, who was doing many signs, and who was forgiving sins with the authority of God, and he did not make the disciples fast.

And when they asked him the question, Jesus does not give a simple yes or no answer. Rather, he answers with another question.

Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?

Jesus' question here is not seeking a new answer, but the question is asked expecting a negative answer.

The bridegroom language sets the proper context of why Jesus' disciples are not fasting.

In the Old Testament prophecies, the day of restoration of God's people, remember

God's people Israel and Judah, they were scattered because they got judged for their rebellion.

When God would restore his people, it was often described with a wedding metaphor.

In fact, the text that Richard read to us this morning had this marriage metaphor. God was, though God was, a husband to them.

So, this wedding metaphor, God is the bridegroom, will restore his bride, his people.

And Isaiah 54, 5 gives a great illustration of this.

It shows God's people the reason for them to not be afraid or ashamed during the end days.

For your maker is your husband. The Lord Almighty is his name.

The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He is called the God of all the earth.

Now, there is a hint that when Jesus is calling himself the bridegroom, this is more than just Jesus calling himself an important figure.

There is a divine underlying divinity here. Because God is the one who calls himself the bridegroom.

Now, what it's saying is when God comes to restore his people, he will come as the bridegroom.

In fact, even John the Baptist knew this in John 3, right?

When he stepped out of the way for Jesus as the friend of the bridegroom rejoicing at the wedding.

John 3, 29. And Jesus' answer to the question about fasting is not that fasting is insignificant, right?

That is not his answer. But rather that fasting is inappropriate when the bridegroom is present.

That fasting is inappropriate when the bridegroom is present. The presence of Jesus among his people is more important than the act of fasting.

That is his claim. The coming of Jesus is ultimately the answer to the fasting and intercessions of the

Old Testament saints. Jesus is the promised bridegroom to redeem

God's people that the prophets have been proclaiming.

And before this bridegroom, only the joyful celebration is the appropriate response.

That is what Jesus is saying. It's not to say that fasting is done and over with.

It's not to say that fasting is not significant. But it's to say that there's something more significant here.

And that's a person. Now, verse 35 then foreshadows a sorrowful scene at the wedding.

The departure of the bridegroom. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them.

Then they will fast in those days. This verse hints at the death and departure of Christ from his people.

The physical death and physical departure. What he's saying is one day

Jesus will not be among his disciples. He will not be with them. And during that time until the bridegroom comes back again for total restoration, fasting will be necessary for all believers.

And in fact, we do see the early church in the book of Acts fasting when

Jesus has ascended. Now, whether he is present with his disciples or his disciples are awaiting his future coming, everything centers around the person of Christ.

Jesus is the standard. Jesus is the compass north. Jesus' response is paradigm shifting.

Jesus' response to the disciples of John the Baptist and Pharisees is not a simple, fasting is no longer important under the new covenant, but rather the coming of Christ in the new covenant totally changes how fasting ought to be viewed.

And that's because of the importance and the weighty glory of Jesus. Jesus is above the rituals, even the most important one.

Now, this is important today because the temptation and the tendency is still there to try to fit

Jesus into a box. The disciples of Pharisees and the disciples of John the

Baptist could not figure out how Jesus did not fit into their paradigm of religious piety.

Well, if you are close to God, well, if you are really devoted to God, you would make your disciples fast.

Jesus did not neatly fold into their box. And what

Jesus teaches us is that he is beyond the religious paradigm. Rather, he is the one who determines it.

He is the one who has authority over it. Any existing practices and paradigms must be viewed through the lens of Christ, through the reality of Christ.

Whether men's tradition or even Old Testament rituals, commanded by God, as Christians, our standard is still

Jesus Christ. When we read the

Old Testament, we cannot just stop at the Old Testament context and move on, but must follow the thread that connects to Jesus and how he has fulfilled it.

Now, as Jesus answered, this does not mean we do away with the Old Testament, right? Jesus did not say, no, since I'm here, fasting has no significance.

Because after all, he commanded, well, when the bridegroom is gone, they will be fasting.

But those practices must be viewed in the light of Jesus' death and resurrection.

I'll give you an example. The Old Testament saints often fasted without knowing that God will deliver them at that moment.

When the Babylonians attacked and they were fasting, they didn't know.

It depended on each case. Unless the prophet had specifically said, yes, you will be delivered, there was no assurance.

And there were many enemies who attacked Israel over and over and over again. And sometimes, in God's judgment, they fell.

They were taken away. However, for the New Testament saints, we fast with greater hope and greater scope.

Greater hope and greater scope. First, we have a greater hope knowing that God has delivered us from sin and death because Jesus bore all of our sin on the cross and suffered the judgment that we deserved once and for all on our behalf.

That's the greater hope. We fast knowing that we will be delivered.

We fast knowing that sin doesn't have any grasp on us. We fast knowing that death is not the end, but the beginning of a better life.

Sinless life. We have to view the

Old Testament practice with the lens of what Jesus has accomplished. This is not to do away with the

Old Testament. Not at all. It's to see how it has been accomplished in the intended end, as how

God has intended it to be fulfilled. Second, we fast with a greater scope because Jesus' accomplishment on the cross guarantees not just the redemption of the

Jews, but the total restoration of the world. When we fast, unlike the

Pharisees who fasted for the restoration of Israel only, we fast knowing that God, through Jesus Christ, will restore the whole world.

One day, this world will not see death anymore. One day, this world will not see wickedness.

One day, there won't be tears shed because of abuses and oppressions.

That's why we fast. Jesus completely replaces the existing paradigm.

We have to view everything in the Bible with Jesus in mind, in terms of how he has fulfilled it all.

Second, how does

Jesus' coming affect the existing paradigm? How does Jesus' coming affect the existing paradigm?

Jesus' new covenant ministry sufficiently stands on its own and cannot be combined with any other.

Jesus' new covenant ministry sufficiently stands on its own and cannot be combined with any other.

Now, from verses 36 to 39, Jesus uses two metaphors and one proverb to drive his point home regarding the impact of his new covenant ministry.

The first metaphor describes the attempt to combine the old and the new garments together.

No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one, otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.

This metaphor shows the two effects of attempting to combine Jesus' new covenant ministry with the already existing one.

It's not only that the attempt to combine the new and the old will tear the new garment and also tear the old garment, but trying to combine the old and the new will not match.

There are two impacts. It destroys the garments, both, right?

Why would you tear a fine new clothing to fix the old? But not only that, they don't even match.

What it's saying here, that any attempt to combine the old covenant with the new covenant will ruin both.

And second, the new and the old will not match whatsoever, just as the new garment sewn onto the old will not match.

It will be glaringly obvious. The irony of this metaphor here is intentional.

The absurdity of this metaphor is intentional, right? Because no one in the right mind would do that.

But the solution to fix the old causes even a bigger problem.

That's the emphasis that Jesus is making, right? This metaphor is not to tell you how to be a good tailor.

This metaphor is to show the horrendous outcome of trying to fix a problem by combining the new and the old together.

Just as the attempt to fix the old with the new destroys both garments, in the same way,

Jesus emphasizes how His ministry cannot be combined with the existing tradition.

Christ completely changes how a person approaches God. Christ brings in a new era.

Christ brings a new dispensation. Because Christ brings the new covenant. Any attempt to combine the old and the new covenants together will not only be impossible, but will be ruinous.

The second metaphor expands the teaching of the first further. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled.

And the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

Now, for those of you who are rusty at winemaking, that includes me, the ancient people made wine in a pouch made out of animal skin.

And as you know, with leather, animal skin, it expands. And it expands because the wine inside ferments.

The fermentation process creates the expansion of the animal pouch, the wineskin.

Now, as the wine ferments, the expanded pouch becomes brittle.

It's no longer as strong as it first was after the fermentation.

The structure of it has changed, even chemically. This means the old pouch would lose its integrity and could not be reused again for newer wine, because the newer wine still has to ferment.

Hence, pouring the fresh new wine into the old pouch shows the absurdity of attempting to combine the new covenant with the old.

The new wine is wasted because the old wineskin will burst.

You can't drink that if it's on the ground. And the old pouch is furthermore destroyed.

You had a perfectly good pouch that could have been used for the old wine. Now you can't even use it anymore because it's burst.

What Jesus is saying, the gospel cannot be contained in the Jewish traditions, or it will destroy both.

It just won't work. Then Jesus ends with a proverb, and no one having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says the old is better.

Some translations don't even have immediately there, which packs a bigger punch.

And that's because there are different variations in the ancient texts. Now, this is important, first of all, to know that a proverb is not the law or epistle, but a generally true statement.

A proverb is a generally true statement. What this proverb tells us is that those who are fond and familiar with the old, the old covenant, generally will reject the new, without even giving it a chance.

They won't even taste it, because they'll say, no, the old is better, the old tastes better.

And in fact, this was generally true in the book of Acts, right?

Paul, anytime he entered a new city, he visited the synagogues first.

And that's because Paul, as he says in Romans 1, to the Jews first, and also to the

Greeks, also to the Gentiles. He knew that the

Messiah came for the Jews first. However, most of the times when he visited the synagogues to proclaim the gospel of Christ, he was driven out.

They didn't even want to hear it. Right? That is the reality of this generally true proverb playing out.

Those of the old covenant did not want to hear it. Now, that's not an absolute statement, because the first Christians were, in fact, the people of the old covenant, right?

The apostles were all Jews. Paul was a Jew. So, it's not to say that no

Jews are saved. It's that those who have tasted the old generally don't want to try the new.

And what this tells us is that Jesus' messianic ministry is not an appendix or an addendum to a book that's been finished.

Jesus' new covenant is not an errata, right? There were some errors in the earlier edition, so we're going to correct that, and then we're going to republish it.

Second edition, right? To the modern audience who might not like to read,

Jesus' messianic ministry was not a software update. It was a complete change in the system.

There wasn't a choice of, yeah, I don't want that software update. My phone runs just fine with the old software.

I'll choose to run it that way. It was not a choice. After Jesus came, you either received

Jesus or you didn't receive God at all. And what it shows is that Jesus' new covenant is a complete change, and His messianic ministry stands firmly on its own.

The gospel cannot be added to an existing paradigm, but is sufficient on its own.

Jesus' sacrifice on the cross totally replaced the whole sacrificial system of the old covenant.

Jesus' blood on the cross stands alone, unmixed with any of the animal sacrifices, right?

When we sin, we do not have to kill an innocent animal because Jesus' blood is enough.

That's what it means. He is fully sufficient. The gospel is fully sufficient. And in the same way, we must resist any temptation or teaching that attempts to mix the gospel with the obedience of the law in order to be justified.

And I say this because just because you're a Christian doesn't mean the

Old Testament's irrelevant to you. When you're a Christian, you relate to the

Old Testament differently than the Old Testament saints. And in fact, every false religion requires some sort of return back to the old covenant, a going back of it.

I'll give you an example. Catholicism. Remember how

I told you, Jeremiah 31, that Richard read this morning? Specifically said the new covenant would not have intermediaries, that there wouldn't be someone coming between you and God, but that you would know

God personally and directly. The Roman Catholic Church, over time, has put in the intermediaries back.

And those are the priests, bishops, and the pope. For the

Roman Catholics, it is a requirement that you go to a priest ordained by the

Roman Catholic Church to confess your sin in order to receive the forgiveness from Christ.

The priest is the intermediary between you and Christ. And not only that, it becomes more heretical when we consider what the pope is called.

The pope is the vicar of Christ, as if Christ needs a human representation by a fallen, rebellious human being.

They've put a lot more intermediaries than the Jews even had, with the hierarchy of priesthood.

Second, Mormons have their own dietary restrictions, slightly different from the

Levitical dietary restrictions. But the fact that they have dietary restrictions to keep themselves pure and clean means that Christ's blood is not sufficient to purify all completely.

It's no longer about Christ's sufficiency, but about your obedience.

It is about you. No longer Christ. Either way, when we add to the all -sufficient

Christ, this text tells us we lose Christ completely. The moment we view and act upon the fact that we might need to add something else to Christ, you lose

Christ, too. And Paul drives this point home in the epistle to the

Galatians that we studied over the summer. What he says is, even the most significant

Old Testament practices cannot be added to the gospel. And anyone who does so, whether an apostle or an angel, let him be condemned.

Let him burn in hell if they attempt to add to the gospel. That's some strong language.

And Paul will go through all the significant

Old Testament practices that were held highly.

Sabbath obedience. Remember, in the Old Testament, you don't follow the Sabbath.

That meant death. Paul says, if you have the gospel, you do not have to do that.

You're not saved through the Sabbath obedience. Circumcision.

That was the external marker of the covenant membership in the

Old Covenant. That was really important. Abraham started that, the pinnacle of the

Old Covenant. Abraham, Father Abraham. Paul says, if you're requiring that in order for salvation or sanctification, you don't have

Christ. And same with the dietary restrictions. And that's because the finished work of Christ on the cross is sufficient and can stand alone.

And at any moment, if we try to add our own action into the salvific work of Christ, we stand accursed.

That means only Jesus' gracious, atoning sacrifice on the cross saves us from sin.

It is no longer the type of food we avoid. It is not the types of clothes we wear.

And it's not how much money we give. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ alone that is sufficient to stand alone.

Let us pray. Father, we are thankful that we are living in the time of the new covenant in which we only depend on Jesus alone.

Help us to not try to add any of our works, our deeds, any of it, back into it as if we needed to, as if Christ's sacrifice was insufficient.

But help us to completely trust in Jesus' sacrifice alone, lest we lose the gospel.