Jesus Did Not Come to Improve Old Religion | Behold Your God Podcast

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Our reading is taken from the book of Luke, chapter 5, we'll begin in verse 17.

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We're going to read a passage that includes three events and a parable.

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And these three events and parable appear in all of the synoptic writers.

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You remember, the synoptic gospels, that's a name that we've given the gospels, that look through the same lens, so to speak.

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That's Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They're much more similar than John is to them. John expects you to have already read

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and adds material that often isn't contained in them. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of them mention all of these events and this parable.

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Now, that's a little uncommon. All three of them mention them together.

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All three of them connect the parable to these events. So, even though these appear in different places in the accounts, so we don't really feel that the writers are telling us, none of the writers say when exactly these three things happen.

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But because all three include them and connect them in the same way and in the same order, there's a theological reason behind that.

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In other words, they're giving us a topic, not Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of Jesus's life.

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So, as we look at this this morning, I want us to be looking really for what is the topic that we see in all three examples of Jesus interacting with the

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Jewish religion, and how does that help us to understand the parable? Well, let me begin reading in verse 17, and we'll read down through the end of the chapter in Luke 5.

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One day he was teaching, and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem.

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And the power of the Lord was present for him to perform healing. And some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of him.

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But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus.

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Seeing their faith, he said, Friend, your sins are forgiven you. The scribes and the

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Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this man who speaks blasphemies?

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Who can forgive sins but God alone? But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them,

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Why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier to say? Your sins have been forgiven you or to say, get up and walk.

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But so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

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He said to the paralytic, I say to you, get up and pick up your stretcher and go home.

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Immediately he got up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home glorifying

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God. They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God. And they were filled with fear, saying,

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We have seen remarkable things today. After that, he went out and noticed a tax collector named

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Levi sitting in the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me. And he left everything behind and got up and began to follow him.

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And Levi gave a big reception for him in his house. And there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them.

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The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?

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Jesus answered and said to them, It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.

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I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.

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And they said to him, The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers.

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The disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but yours eat and drink. And Jesus said to them,

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You cannot make the attendance of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?

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But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.

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And he was also telling them a parable. No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment.

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Otherwise, he will both tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old.

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And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out and the skins will be ruined.

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But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine, wishes for new.

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For he says, the old is good enough. Well, if you look back over the last few weeks that we've been looking at the life of Christ, let me go back about a month.

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About a month ago, we talked about the passage, about the fact that in the Gospels, we frequently find a self -description of Jesus.

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His favorite way of referring to himself was the title, the Son of Man. That's not a description of the fact that he's human compared to son of God divine, but rather he is the person that we read about in the book of Daniel.

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Coming to meet God in the clouds and equal with the Father, unashamedly brought before God and handed, though he is a man, handed the rule of all creation forever.

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A nation or an empire without any boundaries. And though it has opposition, it can never be overthrown.

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It will never end. That glorious being, that God man entrusted with the rule of all creation, we saw is the one that we read about in the scriptures.

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And then the next thing we talked about was this. Why did Christ come? The one that was no room was made for him in Bethlehem.

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We said, but he made room for us. And we just looked at some of the metaphors in scripture. How Christ came to make room for the sinner in ways that we so desperately need if we're to be rescued.

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But this week, I want to ask a question and answer it. And that is, why has Christ not come?

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What will Christ not do? The Son of Man has come. The Son of Man has made room for sinners.

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But what is he not come to do? I wonder if you've ever considered how significant a question that is.

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Not just what did Christ come for? Why did Jesus come? Who was he? But another very significant question, especially for us in a religious culture, is this.

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Are we aware of what Jesus Christ did not come to do? Are you aware of what Christ will never do?

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There are many religious people, and perhaps you're one of them. And you are no better off for all your religion and Bible phrases and knowledge and book studies because you've never rightly answered that question.

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You're still not sure what Christ did not come to do. Now, we're going to be looking at Luke 5 and then focusing particularly at the parable at the end.

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And remember what a parable is. A parable is just a common event in ordinary life that everybody was familiar with.

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And the common event was used to express one main spiritual truth.

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And so while there may be many small details in the parable, really, they're all united like little streams into one big river.

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They're all united into one big message. We get into trouble if we come to a parable and try to get many very different messages from the different details.

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So keep the details bundled together. It's like walking into a room, seeing a scene that's common that we see in everyday life, and then walking out and Christ turning to us and saying, do you know what

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I mean when I say that? And there's one great message. A parable is a wonderful tool.

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You did not have to be a Jew to benefit from it. You didn't have to have read a Bible to benefit from it.

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An irreligious person can listen to the parable and say, I understand what he's pointing out. So we're going to be looking at that at the end.

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But let me say before we even get into it, that strangely, the interpretations of this parable at the end, the cloth and the patch, the old wineskin and the new wine, the interpretations of this parable, there are different interpretations.

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And there are different interpretations, even among people that we generally read as a church, and I always read in looking at a passage.

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And I am in disagreement with people that I am almost never in disagreement with, but I think I have a good reason.

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So let me just make this point. Men like Matthew, Henry, and some of the other Puritans have come to this passage and said, what the parable is teaching is this.

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You cannot load a young Christian with too much too soon. So in other words, be patient with baby

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Christians. Now, that certainly is a biblical principle. We see that all through the Bible. We see it in the way that Christ deals with the disciples.

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We see it in the way Paul deals with the churches. There are some things that I need to tell you, but you're not ready to hear them.

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But is that what the parable is talking about with the patch, the new patch, the old cloth, the new wine in the old wineskin?

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I'm actually quite shocked that Matthew, Henry thinks that the main teaching of that parable is don't overload baby

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Christians. Others who follow Matthew, Henry, other people that we admire, like a

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J .C. Ryle, same thing. Now, there are many good teachers that disagree with them and would agree with what

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I'm going to try to present this morning. But I'm not often in disagreement with J .C.

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Ryle and Matthew, Henry. But I am this morning. Here's one reason. Let me give you two, actually. One is you will come up with a different interpretation for the parable based on how you see its connection with what goes in front of it.

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So Matthew, Henry and J .C. Ryle and some of the other Puritans have seen this parable as only connected with the talking about fasting.

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Why is it that all the other serious people in Jewish religion are fasting, but Jesus and his disciples go to parties and celebrations and they don't seem to be fasting?

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If you only connect it with that one passage in front of it, the few verses in front of it, then

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I can understand why they would say that. But I think that that's a mistake.

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I think that the parable, because it's linked in Matthew, Mark and Luke with the same three events, the healing of a paralyzed man, the calling of Levi or Matthew and the celebration that followed and the question about fasting, because all three events, every place this shows up, they're always connected with the parable.

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I think that it's better to connect the parable with the three events as a whole, that that's why it comes at that point.

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Another reason I don't think that the parable is primarily teaching that we don't need to overload baby

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Christians by putting too much on them too early or expecting too much of them too soon is that other places where Jesus Christ talks to baby

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Christians, some of his words are pretty shocking, aren't they? Things like this. If you don't love your mother and father more than me, if you don't love me more than you love your children, then you have no part of me.

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That's a lot to load on a person. Or things like this. If you want to follow me, you'll have to die and take up a cross.

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Deny yourself daily. When Christ talks to people about the cost of following him,

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I never see him kind of give the gentle answer at first and then later give a bit of a fuller picture.

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So I think that the best way to understand the parable will be to connect it to the three that go before it, and then that will help us to have the best understanding of it.

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Now, the parable is what I want us to focus on this morning, but in order to get the right interpretation, then

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I think we're going to have to look at the three events that lead up to it. Now, let me give you one more introductory matter.

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When we look at this this morning, we're going to see three examples of conflict or three contrasts between Jesus Christ and religion.

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That's how I would describe it. Jesus and the Judaism of his day. When I use the term religion,

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I am not meaning the religion that God is the center of, what we would consider true religion. The religion that God is the author of, the religion that God is the heart of, the religion that God is the goal of.

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True religion. That includes the true religion of the old covenant, which was designed to be temporary and now in the

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New Testament is flowing into a new covenant, which is everlasting. We're not contrasting,

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I don't believe primarily new covenant and old covenant. Jesus is not saying to the Jews, you just don't understand.

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The new covenant is so much better than the old covenant that the old covenant is worthless now and the new covenant is better and we can't mix the two.

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There is some truth to that. Paul talks a lot about how the covenants relate. But I think that what we're seeing is

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Jesus's rejection, not of the Old Testament, but of the Jewish adaptation of the

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Old Testament. In other words, modern Judaism in the first century, with all of its traditions that have been like layers of shellac, you know, just coding after coding of tradition, coding on top of coding until after centuries of this, their religion still has the right

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Bible they're quoting from, but they've totally missed it. In other words,

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I don't think that Jesus is criticizing the old covenant here. I think Jesus is criticizing the old covenant that in the hands of man has been adapted and has been warped and bent, and it's become a man -made religion and not the true religion that pointed to Christ.

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And one evidence is that the purpose of the old covenant to point us to Christ, to bring us to Christ, doesn't do that here.

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No, the Jews have their traditions which they've taken and they've added to the old covenant and kind of made their own version of religion.

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And when God Emmanuel is right in front of them, healing and forgiving and bringing joy, they look at him and say, what do you think you're doing?

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That doesn't match our religion. So don't think of this passage as New Testament versus Old Testament.

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And when I say religion, I'm going to be talking, what I mean is mere religion, any religion that has been crafted by us or adjusted by us to fit us, no matter how much

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Bible is mixed in with it, like the Jews. I think in all three examples here, we're going to see that Jesus is contrasted with religion.

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In a sense, we could say, here are three pictures of Jesus against religion and religion against Jesus, and then a parable at the end to show us why the two can never be mixed.

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Well, let's look at the events. The first of the three events is Christ heals a paralyzed, a lame man.

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Now, as I mentioned, Matthew, Mark and Luke all mentioned these events. And so each one brings some unique material to it.

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But for the sake of time, we're not going to add each one of these. We're not going to go back and look at Matthew, Mark and Luke for each one.

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So I'm just going to give you the summary of what they say. We've just read Luke. As we read all three, we find that Jesus is again back in Capernaum, which you remember is kind of the headquarters for his

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Galilean ministry, his ministry to the north, not down with the blue blood

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Jews in the south and around the capital city, but with the region of Israel that has a high mixture of Gentiles.

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And he has spent so much time in Capernaum that later he says that judgment will be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah than it would be for this city of Capernaum, because this place has seen so much of God and rejected it.

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Now in Capernaum, he's in a home. We're not really sure which home, but the home is packed with followers, with curious listeners and with the leaders of Judaism.

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That is the Pharisees and the scribes. Now, again, it's easy to put black hats.

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I mean, don't you do it? Have you ever put a white hat on a Pharisee? Never. I mean, that's like naming your daughter

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Delilah. You know, we just don't do that. We know about Pharisees. Every time they show up, they're the bad guys.

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But let's not be confused. Every one of you drift toward the camp of the

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Pharisees by nature. If you didn't, you wouldn't be in church. Being in church just makes you, it just pushes you that direction.

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And it's only by really being careful as a believer that we don't become the Pharisee. So what is a

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Pharisee? A Pharisee was a Jew that was extremely serious about biblical religion as much as they understood it.

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And they were really noticed, they were distinguished by separatism. They had nothing to do with the pagan cultures around them.

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Don't want anything to do with that wickedness. Neither did they have anything for the lukewarm

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Judaism around them. The Pharisees were as angry at their neighboring

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Jew who kind of just strolled through religion and didn't really pay attention to God as he was with the

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Greek or the Roman. So a Pharisee is an extremely serious religious Jew who separates himself from the contamination in the world.

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And if we were to use modern language, and the lukewarm church. What's a scribe?

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A scribe is an expert in the Jewish law. Now, it's hard for us to imagine how important that was to the people in the day.

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What a significant position it was. We have lawyers and we know that lawyers, they're brainy people.

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And they go to school a long time and they understand the ins and outs of civil law. But that's not what the scribe is.

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He's much more than that. A scribe is an expert in God's law. And for the Jew living in Israel, that meant every question of morality.

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What would be right in this situation? How am I supposed to respond? You could ask the scribe. And the scribe is an expert in the law.

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And he would say, well, now in this particular situation, he would tell you what he thought. You're supposed to do. But not just moral law, ceremonial law.

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How are we supposed to go about all this religion? And you would go to the scribe. He was the expert. And civil law.

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How are we supposed to be good citizens? And you would, with your legal questions, you'd go to the scribe.

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The separatists and the Bible rule experts are there.

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Now, the unique thing that we have here is this. Luke tells us that they are there from every village in Galilee.

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That's not normal. And from the southern region of Judea. And from the capital, from Jerusalem.

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They've all come at this point in time in the ministry of Jesus. What's happening? This shows up in Mark chapter 2,

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Luke chapter 5, Matthew chapter 9. As best we can understand, this is in the earliest parts of his

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Galilean ministry. In other words, I believe that what we're seeing here is this. The envious leaders of Judaism in the earliest days of Jesus's, you know, amazing popularity with the masses.

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I believe that they're coming and listening in hopes that still there might be some common ground between them and this new teacher.

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And they can kind of hook their sluggish Judaism wagon to this new, you know, thoroughbred horse,

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Jesus. And they can kind of use Jesus, add a little Jesus to what they've already got. And, you know, revitalize

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Judaism. Here's the most famous religious man in the land. And he's one of us.

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He's a Jew. And he's really serious about the Old Testament. He quotes it all the time. Maybe we can kind of, you know, grab hold of him in a way and use him.

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And at the end of the chapter, it becomes apparent from what Christ says that there is no way to mix what he is, what he comes to do with what they have.

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I think really the great lesson of the entire chapter, in case you miss it by the end, and I just really don't do a good job at all of helping you to see it, is this.

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The Lord Jesus Christ never came to improve the old religion, the old life.

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He came to wreck it and remake it, but not to be added to it.

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Well, he comes to the house and it's crowded. And we have the story of five men, four men and a paralyzed man.

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And obviously the paralyzed man, he's an adult. He believes that this

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Jesus of Nazareth is who he says he is or can do what he says he does or has heard of what he's done.

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And so he asks his friends and they all agree. And they're confident enough in Christ to make the long trip.

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And they carry their friend on a stretcher to Capernaum. When they get there, you can imagine the disappointment when they see that the house is too full.

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They can't get in. Jesus is in there, he's already teaching. Nobody will make room for a stretcher and four guys.

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And so they go up onto the flat roof and they take the tiles off of the roof. They disassemble the roof and they make a hole and they lower him down.

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Now, I know that we know this story because we've been in Sunday school, but can you imagine what it would be like in real life? What happened?

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What would you think if someone braved our roof? Not a flat roof. And suddenly you heard noises on the roof, you know, and I just decided to ignore it and keep preaching.

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And then wood started being ripped loose and dust starts falling and somebody lowers a friend down. And Christ sees the man and tells him, your faith has made you whole.

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He sees all their faith. Your faith has made you whole. And the Jews are shocked, aren't they?

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And in a sense, the response is understandable. Here's their logic. Who does he think he is?

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Only one being forgives sin. That's God. No preacher, no prophet can say you're forgiven.

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So either he's God or he's the worst kind of blasphemer and deceiver. And unable to believe that he really is the son of God, they believe he's a liar.

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Christ leaves that scene and goes to the next. After healing the man and demonstrating that the same power that's involved in healing a lame man, it's the same power that's required to forgive.

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And he has been given authority from the father to do both. The next scene that we see is he goes by a tax collector's booth, his little office.

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Now, the town of Capernaum is on the northern spot of the

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Sea of Galilee. And it's also on an international trade route. I don't know if we talked about this before, but there's a trade route between Egypt and Syria.

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And you have to go through Capernaum. And it was really one of the main east -west trade routes. And so when the merchants would come along this freeway, so to speak,

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Rome put a taxation booth there and appointed a Jew to collect taxes on every merchant.

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So that's why Matthew, or Levi is his other name, that's why Matthew is sitting there in his little tax office.

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And everybody that comes through with all this merchandise, he stops him and he taxes him. But you know from reading the

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New Testament that the New Testament almost always refers to these tax collectors as publicans, public tax collectors, and it lumps them with another group, doesn't it?

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Publicans and who? Publicans and sinners. Why? Because the tax collectors were seen as traitors.

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You work for the enemy taxing your own people. If we went to war and we were conquered in a war, all right, well, let's say that in World War II, Germany had won and we had

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Nazi officials spread throughout the United States, taxing, heavily taxing the

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United States to pay for Germany's war efforts. If you got a job, this lucrative job with the

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Nazis taxing your friends, you'd be seen as a traitor. But not only that, they were cheats.

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They would skim off the top. So they would tax more than Rome required and then they would just keep the extra.

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And so Matthew has a pretty big house. He has a big enough house to have a banquet at, to have a celebration.

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So here is a man that's a cheat and a traitor and he hears that Jesus is in town.

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I wonder how often Matthew has heard of Jesus of Nazareth since Capernaum was his capital, headquarters, so to speak.

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Had he heard what he'd done before? Do you think that Matthew had a gnawing in his heart?

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You know, I know that the religious people want nothing to do with people like me. I mean, the church folks hate me, but I wonder if this

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Jesus of Nazareth would be willing to talk with me. I wonder if he'd be willing to give me what he's given other people.

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Could he do for me what he's done for others? I mean, Matthew has everything the world has to offer.

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He's not paralyzed. He's not poor. He's not needy or sick. He's wealthy. Christ comes up to the taxation booth and simply commands

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Matthew to follow him. Matthew and Mark tell us that immediately he left everything.

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Luke tells us the cost. He left his business. This is the most costly response to Jesus Christ up to this point for a disciple.

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Remember James, John, Andrew and Peter? They were fishermen and they worked in the family business and they got up and left their boats and nets and followed

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Jesus. But you do know from later in the gospels that if they wanted to return, dad let him come back and fish again.

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But you can't imagine the Roman empire saying to Matthew, oh, you want to come back and get your job back now that you're tired of Jesus?

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Well, you can have your job back. I mean, that would have been filled by somebody else. So Matthew turns his back on all his occupation and follows

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Jesus Christ. Next scene. Matthew calls for a big celebration and he invites

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Jesus and his followers, but he also invites the other cheats and traitors, the other tax collectors and sinners and the irreligious.

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And they all come to his house and he throws this big banquet for Jesus because he wants his friends to meet this person.

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The wonderful thing about the picture here, and I hope that we are all clear on it. Matthew is not the impressive one.

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What a great guy. Matthew left everything. Matthew left it immediately. What a noble sacrifice.

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Do you think of it that way? Not at all. What a savior. He comes to a man like Matthew and the king of all eternity says, come, be one of my followers.

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One of my closest companions. And Matthew is the man that finds a field with the pearl of great price and can't imagine not selling everything to get this something that's so infinitely better.

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So Matthew throws a party. Having left everything for Jesus Christ, Matthew is the happiest man on the planet.

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He's unemployed and he's thrilled. The Jews are there. And as the party's breaking up, they start asking questions.

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If Jesus is so holy, why is he breaking all of our traditions and eating with sinners?

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He's contaminated now. Why does he hang out with the wrong people, with the people that won't come to church, with the people that cheat and steal?

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That's the question. The answer is pretty simple, isn't it? It's an illustration. Jesus says, the doctor isn't needed at the healthy person's house.

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He's needed at the sick person's house. I haven't come to call righteous people to repentance, people who feel that they're healthy, people that feel that their life is pretty good.

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I've come to call those people whose lives are ruined to repentance. The unrighteous.

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Third, question of fasting. It follows easily on the last scene. There's this great party.

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Matthew has left everything and instead of going and becoming a monk and, you know, and saying, I won't touch this,

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I won't do that. All my long list of don'ts just got longer because now I'm a real serious person.

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Instead, he's as happy as can be and Jesus is there rejoicing with him and telling the gospel to these other sinners.

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And so the Pharisees have a question. Why doesn't Jesus and why don't his followers fast like the rest of us?

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Now, the rest of us in this situation is two other groups, the Pharisees and the disciples of John the

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Baptist, who in their loyalty to John the Baptist have not left following John's teaching.

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It may be that John has already been put to death by this time. But whether he has been put to death or not, they're loyal to his way and they have not embraced the

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Messiah. So, again, we have men that are very serious about religion, but they're kind of missing the entire point of religion.

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Now, fasting. Is Jesus against fasting? No. The Old Testament had one day a year that everyone in Israel was commanded to fast.

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That was the day of atonement. All right. Other than that, the Old Testament gives us a lot of examples of appropriate times for fasting when the nation had drifted from the

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Lord and God had expressed his judgment against the nation and in desperation, they fast and they pray.

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All through the book of Second Chronicles, you see this repeatedly and that was appropriate. But by the time we come to the first century, the

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Pharisees had made a law out of fasting. If you're serious about God, like we're serious about God, you're going to fast.

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And it's not just up to you. When do you feel that it's appropriate? And it's not just the day of atonement. But the

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Pharisees went from one day a year being commanded as a fast to over 100 days a year, two days a week,

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Mondays and Thursdays, the Pharisees fasted. And apparently, the disciples of John the

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Baptist also followed this because they're really serious about religion. But Jesus Christ is not doing this and the followers of Christ are not fasting twice a week.

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Now, Jesus, they ask why? That's the question. Why don't you fast like us? And Jesus gives a really simple answer.

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He gives it in a picture. Imagine a wedding. And in the

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Jewish wedding, there would be all that preparation for a week long celebration. And the bride would be at her parents home with all of her friends.

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And the groom would be at his house, which he had gotten ready for his bride and all of his friends.

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And he comes and gets the bride and they go back to the house and there's a week long celebration. The groom has finally come.

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I mean, you think about the parables of the end of times where the groom is coming and it's, you know, it's the great celebration and the virgins keep their lamps ready.

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And so he uses that common picture. Everybody knows what a wedding is like. It's a week long parties and it starts when the groom gets there.

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Now, can you imagine a party where the groom arrives and all the groom's best friends are there and all of his uncles and aunts and all of his best friends for a week sit in a corner, moping, grumpy.

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They won't touch any food. They won't drink anything. No, we're fasting. It would be kind of awkward, like, well, actually, it's not really a good place to do that.

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It's not appropriate. It's a time to celebrate marriage, not a time to sit in the corner and be moping.

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So Christ gives that illustration. The Jews are fasting two days a week, but they don't understand what's right in front of them when

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God is at work. Jesus' followers are not fasting because it's not the appropriate time later in the

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New Testament. We do see in the book of Acts believers fasting. Jesus says, there will come a day when

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I'm taken away. Speaking of the cross and my followers will fast. There'll be times where their hearts are broken and they'll seek the

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Lord fasting. But he says, now's not the time. Now's the time that the bridegroom has arrived.

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And how would you expect the people at the wedding party to not eat?

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It's not appropriate. Not understanding Jesus is the groom, the husband of the church.

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Not understanding the timing, what he's come to do, even though they're seeing it happen all around them.

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In their blindness, they think that the best thing to do is fast. And Jesus says, no, it's not appropriate.

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Three examples of the clash between Jesus and religion. And then we come to the parable.

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All right. Are you still with me? Because all of that was introduction. But don't worry. The parable is very simple. We come to the parable and he says, nobody takes.

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We're going to say it's a shirt. You have an old shirt with a hole in it. And you love your old shirt. Do you know

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I have a shirt that is 31 years old? It's hanging in my closet.

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It's an old plaid shirt that Clyde Cranford, my friend Clyde Cranford gave me. And it's been my favorite shirt for years.

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I can't wear it now because it's got a bunch of tears and holes in it. But I won't let anybody throw it away because it's my favorite shirt.

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Now, imagine you have a shirt that has a tear in it or a hole in it. And you say, I know what I'll do. I'll patch the shirt and that way

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I can keep wearing it. Now, if you do that, Jesus says now this is the parable.

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Everybody knows this in the first century. You can't take a piece from a new cloth and sew it onto an old cloth.

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And the Bible gives us two reasons. One, the new cloth has never been washed and dried. It's not shrunk.

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So if you put a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloth when you wash it the first time and the new cloth shrinks, it'll just make a bigger hole.

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Second, Luke says it doesn't match. Not only would it tear a big hole, it just doesn't match the old cloth.

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Second part of the parable. If you have new wine, you don't put it into old wine skins.

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Just like if you have a new cloth, you don't use it to patch an old shirt. Now, back then they didn't have two liter

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Pepsi bottles, right? So they had animal skins. They took a goat or a lamb. And after they had butchered it, they took the skin and they tied up the leg holes and the neck.

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And they put a top in it. And this tan skin became a leather bottle.

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Now, in the early days, the leather can stretch. But as it gets older, it loses that elasticity.

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It can't stretch anymore. New wine is still fermenting. If you poured new wine into that wine skin, new wine into an old wine skin, the new wine expands.

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And as the pressure of the new wine expanding hits the old skin that can't stretch anymore, the old skin just bursts.

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And the old skin is ruined. Your old bottle is ruined. And the new wine just pours out on the ground and it's ruined. That's why

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Jesus says, we all know it. You put new wine into a new skin. As the new wine expands, the new skin, that leather is stretchy and it can expand with it.

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Well, that's the parable. Everybody recognizes that. What's the lesson behind the parable?

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Who Jesus is and what he is bringing will never be able to be used as a patch for your old life.

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And who Jesus is and what he brings will never be able to be contained in your old ways, whether it's religious or not.

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But really, all of us are religious. Think of the Jews of Jesus day. They want to add this new

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Jesus or at least parts of them, you know, kind of clip out a little section, add parts of this new teacher to their old legalistic traditions.

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And they want to sew it on there, but it won't match. Or they want to take a little bit of Jesus and kind of top off their

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Judaism, which isn't quite full. Do you ever use the word top off? I talk the phrase top off. I talked to my family this morning and said, do you know what

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I mean if I say top off? Who knows what I mean if I say top off? All right, good. OK, I don't think it's that.

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I don't know if it's British. I don't know where I got it from. I make up stuff sometimes. But do you ever go to the gas station? Like over the

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Christmas holidays traveling, you stop at the gas station because everybody needs to go to the restroom. And you look at the tank and you say, well, we still have two thirds, but let's just go ahead.

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And while we're here using the restroom and getting another drink, let's top off the gas tank. Or if you go and you have coffee at a restaurant, the waitress comes along and says, you want me to top that off?

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You want me to fill up the rest of the way up? The Jews are not going to be allowed to take the fullness of the

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Messiah and use it to just top off that last inch of their religion. Well, that's them.

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But that applies to more than just them, doesn't it? This applies to the whole world. This applies to every generation.

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The Muslim cannot add Jesus Christ like a patch to his flawed religion and hope that it'll work.

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What happens if you do that is that the new cloth that you cut it from, Luke says, well, you ruin the new cloth.

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You just cut a hole out of it. So true Christianity added to Islam would just ruin true

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Christianity. And would it help Islam? No, it would just make it worse for the Muslim trying to mix

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Jesus and Allah. The Roman Catholic cannot take his good works to Jesus and say,

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I have all my good works and I'd like to add a little bit of the fullness of Jesus Christ. But the

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Roman Catholic system cannot contain the fullness of the Son of God. How do you make room for a

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God like that who just immediately declares a man perfectly, fully forgiven for every sin, past, present and future?

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It just doesn't fit their system. It would explode it. So it doesn't fix Roman Catholicism to add a little bit of more

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Jesus to the top or to sew a patch of Jesus on it. It just ruins true Christianity. And makes the

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Roman Catholic more miserable. What about us? Let me take two examples, two categories.

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Since we're in church, we probably fall into one of two categories if we're not true believers.

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One is we are using religion as a system to make us better people, you know, to kind of fix you.

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You're using Jesus and the Bible and all of its principles and Proverbs and promises and comforting thoughts and warnings to make a better marriage, to make better kids, to make a better church, to make a better world.

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But you're doing it by trying to take Christ and to top off your system of good works.

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Another group here this morning, if you're not that group, then, you know, you're ready to rejoice in your heart.

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You say, yeah, you legalists, you can't add Jesus to your silly rules.

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We're free in Jesus. He's come to make us free. And you want to sew a patch of Jesus onto your cloth of self -indulgent

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American religion. Jesus is here to make me happy. I'm not using Jesus to become a more moral and straight laced guy.

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I'm using Jesus to become a happier guy. I get everything the world has and Jesus too.

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And you want to sew him as a patch. He doesn't match. And you just have to warp the true

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Christ to try to make him fit. Now, let me spell that out a bit. And maybe we can recognize ourselves.

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How can you add Jesus to a old system of religion that you're using to make you a better you, a better dad, a better mom?

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Whether it shows up in a bunch of rules for the homeschooler or whether, you know, a bunch of rules for a church.

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How can a religion with its rules and self -made and adjusted, you know, ethics where you take parts of the

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Bible to make a better you like a scrub brush. How can that ever contain the fullness of Christ?

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Think of the verse we used in our prayer meeting this morning. But by God's doing, you are in Christ who has become to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

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So that just it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. I mean, where does that fit in a system of rules?

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God, I'm doing better. I'm trying harder. And next year I'll do even better. And I've read a new book on how family is supposed to be.

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And I'm going to put that down like a grid over top my family, like a like a fence around my children.

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And they're going to do better. And then you read a passage where Paul says Christ is all and in all

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Christ is our life, where he talks about the exceeding glorious riches of Christ.

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Where does that fit in the system of rules? It just blows it up. Now, let's be honest.

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If you're using Christianity to make you a better you, one of the most offensive things about Christ is how rich and free he is with the worst of people.

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Here are people that have not done anything good that you've been doing good and you've sacrificed and they've just ignored it.

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And here's a group of people that have been doing everything bad. And you, you sacrificed and you kept yourself away from the really bad.

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And one day the person that did didn't do anything right and did do everything wrong and ruin people's lives around them, ruin marriages, ruin children, ruin grandchildren.

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But one day God breaks their hearts and they come to God through Jesus Christ and they are adopted and cleansed and holy more than you after a lifetime of doing it all right and avoiding all the wrong.

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Don't we deep, deep down find ourselves reacting to the parable of the, of the vineyard owner who went out and hired a bunch of people in the morning for, let's say for $100 to work the whole day.

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And then there, there was still room for more workers. And so at noon, he went out and said, anybody else want to work?

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Actually, I'll pay you the same amount I'm paying the other guys that started at eight this morning. I'll pay you 100 too. And then an hour before closing, there's still room for more workers.

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And he goes out and says to people, you want to come and work the last hour of the day? You lazy bums that ignored the first invitations.

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But if you'll come and work the last hour, I'll give you the same as the group that came in at eight o 'clock in the morning.

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Don't you feel it? Don't you feel the Pharisee in you rise up and say, what? No, no, no, no,

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God. I deserve better. Of course, in that parable, the picture of God's justice is there, isn't it?

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Did he pay the people that came in at eight in the morning what he told him he'd pay him? Yes. So he was fair. But with the person that came in at noon or the person that came in right before closing, he was gracious.

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You always know that you have a real that you are trying to use religion to patch your life or to fill it up, top it off, to make you a better you.

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When you find the freeness and the fullness of Christ offensive as you see him, just pour it out on people that don't deserve it.

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But what about the self indulgent? How can Christ fit that? I come to Jesus and I say,

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I want a Jesus of grace. Well, wonderful. He is a Jesus of grace. I'm not one of those legalists.

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Wonderful. Jesus doesn't like legalists. And you come to Jesus and say, I'd love to add a little bit of more

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Jesus to my already pretty full life. I've got everything I want, but I'd be glad to have everything

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I want in the world and a little Jesus. Would the patch fit?

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Could the container hold him? What are you going to do when Christ says things like Paul says in Galatians?

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You are free in Christ and don't let anybody take your freedom. Oh, we rejoice. And then the very next chapter, he says, and never, ever use that freedom for you in a way that ever damages anybody around.

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You say, whoa, whoa, whoa. What about my freedom? I mean, what will you do with those passages where Paul says you once were a slave of sin, but you're no longer a slave?

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Yes. Now you're a slave of Christ. What? How long does the self -indulgent, easy believism of American cultural

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Christianity, how long does the patch of Jesus fit before it just tears a bigger hole?

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Because Christ authoritatively commands me to die to myself, to take up a cross, to treat others as more important than I think of myself, to lay it all down, to risk everything for him.

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And then here's this self -indulgent religion that I tried to patch. It just tears it to pieces.

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If we tried to add Jesus and all those wonderful reform doctrines to a self -indulgent life, it ruins the gospel.

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It just makes you more miserable. I've never seen anybody add Jesus to what they already had and become happier.

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Have you? They just become more miserable. I mean, Jesus just wrecks their plans.

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And since they really don't embrace Christ, they don't get Christ either. So they don't get their old life and they don't get the new

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Christ. We could really say it this way. The Lord Jesus Christ has never come to improve your old religion or to top off your old selfish life.

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He's come to wreck them, to ruin them, to throw them aside.

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But he has also come to give you something new, a whole new garment, the whole new wineskin to give you a new nature, to make a new you in a new realm ruled by a new ruler.

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And the new you is designed to be able to contain something of the fullness that comes from God.

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Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians chapter three, that we could know the love of Christ. It's beyond knowing that, you know, the height, the length, the breadth, the depth, we can't measure it.

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But we can experience it. Or all the fullness of God dwelling in him. Colossians chapter two, sorry, not

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Ephesians two, Colossians two, all the fullness of God dwells in Christ bodily and you are full or complete in him.

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It's like this infinite ocean pouring into the humanity of Christ. All the deity without exception, without restraint and from this

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Christ pours this infinite supply of fullness on us. And we're like a little teacup and it just pours in and overflows.

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One warning. Look at verse 39 of Luke five. And no one after drinking old wine wishes for the new for he says the old is good enough.

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Luke is the only one that mentions this. Matthew and Mark don't. So let's not skip it. If you come to Christ with a system of rules that you've been hoping in to make you a better you, your marriage a better marriage, your kids better kids.

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And then you come to Jesus Christ and you realize he won't add himself to my system.

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He expects me to drop all confidence in that and put all confidence in him.

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And that cost is more than you're willing to pay. I mean, you're willing to give up bad stuff, but not this good stuff.

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Be careful. Christ warns us you'll be like a person that drinks enough of the old wine and you say, you know what?

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I mean, I'm sure the news better, but look, this is good enough for me. I'm pretty happy the way

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I am. And you will be forever damned without Christ, satisfied with the old.

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You don't have to be an old legalist, do you, to do that? How many of our young people have honestly stated when asked, why are you not following Christ?

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And their answer is my life is pretty good as it is. I mean, you know, your children in a Christian home and you're treated well and you say, well,

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I don't have Jesus, but, you know, I'm pretty happy. You think that that's a new thing, like that's a bold, honest statement.

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Let me just let me just be really bold here and say something you've never heard before. The old is good enough, but it's been said for 2000 years.

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It's what the Jews were saying. And if you come to Christ with a self -centered

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Christianity, where you've adjusted it so that it's all about you being happier and having the happiest life, not the most holy life, but at least the happiest life.

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And you find out that Jesus Christ will not be added to that. And you're going to have to lay down your rights to what you think you deserve and trust

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Christ to be your happiness. And you think that that cost is too much and you say, well, actually.

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I'm happy enough. I mean, sure, some days are not so good, but I'm happy enough. I'd rather have what

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I have right now than give up what I have right now and risk it for Christ. So Christ gives a warning at the end of Luke.

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What do we do? We wake up.

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We open up the scripture. We read about Jesus Christ. All he is is offered to us.

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All he has done is for us, but do not believe the lie that you can take parts of him and patch the old life or that you can take some of him and top off the empty religion.

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He has come not to improve you, but to wreck your old schemes and to make you new.

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Let's pray. Father, we pray that that simple and shocking statement that Christ made to the church people of his day would grab hold of us.

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Thank you that you heal a lame man and forgive him fully for his sins.

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Even though Jesus is the only one in the room that understands how wicked and hell -deserving sin is.

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Thank you that you call a man who's a cheat and a traitor to his people. But when you call him to follow, he follows and you make him the happiest man in the world, even though he's lost everything the world offered him.

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And thank you that there is such joy in you that we would have to say that there are just some times where it's inappropriate to walk around with a gloomy face.

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Religion never gave us anything like that. But you, God, you have, you are.

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And so we ask that you give us such grateful hearts, we who have tasted the goodness of the

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Lord. And for those who stand outside, looking in, who hold the door shut and say, not here, not now to Christ.

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Would you let the words of the parable haunt them until they throw the door open and give up every other hope and grab hold of Christ, expecting him to be as full and new as he says he is.