Stubborn Inflexibility (Part C)

You know if anybody if you consider yourself you know perfectionist will be perfect and not beating up others. Okay, because when you're perfectionist use.

We tend to demand others come up to our standard and if they don't think will suffer.

Don't be that way your perfectionist keep a person you know you need to have all you tease across and I started to do that, but don't go jumping down on anybody.

I think some husbands in particular can do this to their wives. This is cross reference radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston.

Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the gospel of Mark. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching today.

Pastor Rick concludes his study called stubborn inflexibility as he teaches through Mark chapter 2 Romans chapter 2 Paul says in that day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel quote unquote Christ is the standard not you, not somebody you you can't say you know I'm not that bad of a person. Look, I'm I'm not in jail both people and present their bad then going to hell, but I've never done that or I got I've never been good court.

What I would work if the inmates were the standard not God is the standard you have to have righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees and is matched with Jesus Christ and you can do it. So you need him to help you as we read in second Corinthians 5 is reconciliation. His righteousness is reconciliation is based on his righteousness, becoming our righteousness.

He is the one that saves us cannot save ourselves so sinners that he is dining with that this every body were all sinners, we can be sinners saved by grace are not up to us. That part is up to us. Marion chapter 1 of Luke's gospel and that beautiful song of hers.

She says, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, right what would be wrong with who would find a fault with that. The only sour note comes from those who were stubborn and inflexible. Who refused to hear what the Bible says so clearly instead of receiving the blessings they look for ways to counter them. Instead of receiving crisis. Wow, that's what he just said is pretty deep what he just did this is amazing is miraculous. Maybe I should start listening to him and stop trying to find ways to point out that he's wrong or trying it. Or maybe I should stop trying to find ways that he agrees with sin as we see the day all over the Internet. People taking the word of God telling you it doesn't mean what it clearly says unfortunately vulnerable little lambs lap up the poison in the war zone. Verse 18 the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting then they came and said to him, why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast your disciples do not fast. So now he says again. Verse 18 the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting, we cringe when we hear that John's disciples and the Pharisees together challenging Christ. We would like to have read that John's disciples said well will ask but when I with you because John was raised up to go against the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and all the religious element that was crushing their own religion, their man-made rules previously in verse 16. The Pharisees asked Jesus disciples to explain Jesus behavior here there asking Jesus to explain the disciples behavior. So what Marcus captured my computer.

I think without even trying. Just telling the story like it is with the captive for us is that the matter what Christ did. He and his people were going to be attacked, molested, to this day, this does not make it easy for Peter writes that the second letter is no does not make it easy for them but use our righteousness as a cloak to do evil want to pull their teeth take away their charges of hypocrisy that are launched against you and other things like that so now again they ask Christ's John's disciples. We understand while they why they fasted a probably a locus like John, any chance the faster they took it with really what businesses, what business is it of anybody else whether I faster not. I don't fast to you before you and you don't fast to me for me why you even asking me this question is not your business has to be the act. I would've said that you read Matthew chapter 6 on your prayer closet is no one's business. Your prayer routine and things like this find to save some, but I'm praying for you. I guy pray but is not like this being thrown up into your face being judged by others. You know the law required the Jewish people to fast only one day out of the year, the day of the total that was that. Everything else was elected, she did. Are you wasn't you know compulsive verse 19 Jesus said to them, can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them as long as they have the bridegroom with them.

They cannot fast well we one reason why we fastest.

Of course, subdue the flesh as we can draw closer to God that distractions will be minimized well. There were already as close to God is to get in this world. He was walking with them is his apostles. His disciples, so you could have said what we faster draw close to God why they don't need to fast on right here to get any closer and closer get my personal space 68 show hundred years from now what is he talking about 6 feet. Anyway, this was a time of happiness, not heaviness walk around all Solomon everything like they were doing of Jesus that you will be like to put oil in your head will look at me on as all right as you are not oil on your head again. Egger Ray, thank you he says is not appropriate all the time. Imagine bacon fast ladies I know you've not been to bacon fast with glad because it's a guy thing is nothing wrong with feminism is been stealing our women for decades now trying to dictate to you what a woman should be. We go to the Scripture to find out who we are to be men and women anyway imagine showing up to bacon fast full will beat you up takeout back and slap you around me. Do you know forward food to fight back. There was just something the wrong we can all understand that he's saying I'm hearing on the type of fasting. Verse 20 but the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days he know how this was going and he had read the Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 in the other sections in the prophets said spoke of this Messiah is death.

He knew what Isaiah had to say because he gave it to Isaiah to write authored rejected by humans, but received by God. He knew that he would have a violent death the hands of religious people and nonreligious people like Wyoming pilot was religious to a narrow Roman kind of way. Paganism.

Let's talk a little bit more about this fasting because it has its place in our life.

It can put an edge on our prayers.

It can help us, but if not handled right.

It's a difficult tool to use when I used to work on bridges and buildings. There was a tool called a power vein and it was used to lean to make a whole larger so if you you wanted to put bolts in the whole the whole building together the whole lineup you'd use this tool and if you did not use this power vein the right way. It could kill you. I'm you could certainly beat you up and smiling as I got stories and I you know I would love to tell, but we're not here to hear my stories.

Ointment made any way fasting is that tool it works in its proper place. But you have to use it the right way and the consequent of not using it the right way is not good for us as a difficult tool. It can impart a false sense of maturity. I must be mature because I'm back, I haven't. I never needed all the old and send them like 80 minutes which is quite a feat in our society. If you need help fasting just invite us overcome all your food and then you will have to fast anyway.

It can make the user feel that God is not obligated Loki suffered all day.

You gotta let me end this is a serious prayer request. I've got before you. How can you say no, look at my puppy can become habit-forming, then degenerate into meaningless routine. You just fast all the times and I just fasting announces loss to which, but now you're afraid to let it go because somehow you think if I list fasting. I'll go backwards in my feet I will be mature anymore just fasting. We do this with anything in our faith course fasting can make us feel self-righteous all fast what you only fasted for half a day fast like today's. Whatever making is critical of others that self-righteousness you know if anybody of you here consider yourself you know perfectionist will be perfect and not beating up others. Okay, because when you're perfectionist use.

We tend to demand others come up to our standard and if they don't they will suffer. Don't be that way you're perfectionist keep your personal you need to have all your T's crossed and I started to do that jumping down on anybody. I think some husbands in particular can do this to their wives and it is not right. Continuing with my list of concerns with fasting. Fasting can become a genuine substitute for holiness.

You can't substitute holiness. But you think you're doing because I fasting I don't have to be loving. I don't have to do the other things that I'm required to study the whatever all the gumbo I've been fasting so it can make us legalists. The evidence is in the Pharisees. This was something they bragged about Luke's gospel chapter 18 verse 12 this is the Pharisees speaking in the parable of Christ I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. Again, it's nobodies business how much you give well-liked administrators have to know records of course church will know how to move funds around the pastor should never know what somebody gives what people try to use that you know what I did.

I don't care what you give, you don't give you get the Christ which is the vehicle in that process. It is our righteous money laundering system because folks will feel self-righteous.

You know that money can give a person a sense of a lot of power and if you have a lime you can have. If you've never had five dollars. All of a sudden you have five dollars you really think you're the boss now I am going by. When I first had five dollars. I felt that I could buy Washington and should maybe move, but is only like six anyway fasting. Be careful. It's part of our faith, but don't miss use that tool verse 21 no one souls a piece of unstrung cloth on an old garment or else the new piece pulls away from the old and the tear is made worse when he says no one is a known fact he brings them into a part of everyday life… Nobody does this, and they all would know that the new piece of cloth. What was was what Christ was doing what we now call Christianity was a Christian, yet, but he was in the transition.

He was phasing out Judaism, not the moral law, not the theology of God with the ceremonies and the rights those things were being done away with because he was going to fulfill them. They would never be again a need to bring a bowl to the house of God and slaughter written present its blood for propitiation of sin because he is the Lamb of God, and he covers it all and it is a continuous flow.

The old garment here patched and worn out is the Judaism so he's saying I'm not here passes up. I'm here to bring you new garment Hebrews chapter 8 verse 13 in that day, he says, and partly positive if it is, it is likely Paul writing this I believe so he says in his Hebrew letter is telling the Hebrews stop. Stop it with the Judaism Christians now you're no longer to practice the laws of Moses.

The ceremonies and rites.

In fact, if you still bring the sacrifice of the double price is not benefiting you you lost in your sins, telling the Jews to stop being Jews ethically the loan will be Jews according to the flesh but spiritually it's a new covenant. This is what Jeremiah said right out Hebrews 813 and that they says a New Testament he has made the first obsolete. The Old Testament now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. And that is that system of salvation. That's with the gospel.

The gospel comes longest.

Okay God has refilled the types and the symbols and the prophecies have been fulfilled in Christ.

And they're not hard to find he was refilling them even as they were listening to him speak now Judaism wanted to preserve these things that no problems with themselves. Incidentally, because they conform to themselves, they had become self-correcting because the Scripture wasn't doing it anymore. Their ideas about what other rabbis said that became their system and their standard of correction, not God's word because we God says in the Old Testament. I desire mercy didn't show any unless it was a family nepotism, verse 22 we gotta finish this up and no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the skin wineskins.

Wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined with must be put into new wineskins is another fundamental bill within this before I get to the immediate point if you change churches, which nobody here would ever have a reason to do if you change churches, though in all seriousness yet to be flexible with the with the essential truths about how the church as a part of their policies. You know, maybe of maybe that pink heart will know that's a bit much. That's not forgivable, but maybe you know they have communion last day of the month and you want to go there to judge and will not be of the church. That's why it's okay, lighten up a little bit below wineskin.

Be flexible with things that you can be flexible with here. He's making a clear declaration that the old dispensation is now being replaced with the new wine, the Holy Spirit wineskin represents the believer, you can't pour the Holy Spirit into the old nature else is going to destroy you have to be a new creation.

We all know that verse in second Corinthians, because we love it so much.

If anyone is in Christ is a new creation.

Old things are passed away. All things become new.

And that's part of the lesson is a rookie mistake here to not be flexible as Christians in the minor things of life as rookie because it is posted early in the synoptic Gospels.

Verse 23. Now it happened that he went to the grain fields on the Sabbath, and as they went to his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. Verse 24 the Pharisee said to look why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath, they found a reason to packet any passerby. That's how they were again, they were never loving. They were nasty customers. Almost all the time and here it is a see the men walking to the Greenfield on the Sabbath day on Saturday and they take the handful of the grain and they rub it together in a blow off the husk and they they chew it is delicious. They had a problem with this because in their heads. This was work will I mean does more work involved in getting putting up close on in the morning than doing what these men were doing no better stop there, get more into that moment. Verse 25 and he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need, and hungry. He and those with him. This irritated Christ irritated him because they felt a man could be sick to the Sabbath. If there was a mean to means to heal him on the Sabbath. He had to wait till the next day, no matter how much you have an abscessed tooth with these guys around – no, you have to wait no way I'm going what we call postal okay sorry to all postal workers.

All right. Well, here again trivia and got to hold of them, not truth. He wasn't going to tolerate it if they were going to try to interrogate them. He's going to stand up to them and they thought he was supposed to submit these men were breaking no rule of the Sabbath from God. They were breaking the rules of the rabbis verse 26 how he went to the house of God in the days of Abbaye thaw the high priest and ate the shewbread which is not lawful to eat except for the priest and also gave some to those who were with him so he cites precedence here, and essentially since were running low on time. He's saying this when humans have a need.

There are less laws that must yield to higher laws of the Scripture as a matter of fact, the priest worked on the Sabbath. They doubled their offerings on the Sabbath. When we go went to Leviticus. Remember all the work.

The priest had to do in slaying the animal presenting the part-time as a law hauling water bringing the wood getting the fire stoked there's a lot of work was involved in bringing a blood sacrifice. There were those hats because they were out in the sun all day. There was no shade of the temple and Moses day or Solomons you are out there working in the sun and so they were just but they excuse that kind of stuff. In fact the Scripture even suggested they bake the bread the shewbread on the Sabbath day but it wasn't convenient for them to remember these things. So Christ says I'm going to give you some precedence. David was in need.

He was hungry. These men there hungry baby did not break the law.

They did not give them the fresh bread they gave in the old bread that was for week he broke it in a lesser scent that was for the priest to eat with the priest gave it to David will be getting this in Sam Samuel soon that priest Ahimelech actually the father he was between a rock and hard place and David showed up in the cost of his life. But anyway, back to this verse 27 and he said to them, the Sabbath was made for the man-to-man out for the Sabbath. It is a sort of a parting shot is all by the way, by the way the Sabbath was made for the man. What did they say when they heard that. Now there are some scholars that challenge that was not in the original manuscript. I don't agree with them what is right.

Either way you look at it Sabbath was not made for the sake of the Sabbath was made for God's people and to keep them centered with the Lord. And so here he is again confronting their battle with the Bible ignoring their supposed authorities. Verse 28 therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. That's a pretty big saying you saying I rule the Sabbath and everything else, why didn't they protest one of one of the Pharisee said I'm one of the Sabbath would not of been the Pharisee anymore you been dead. Why did they not come after Christ. They were afraid of. You couldn't just rosemary, they would get so used to the miracles.

Eventually they get the Romans to do it when it came to rest in the broadest small army with with with them. Of course he saw them, and he could see the lights as he descended from Jerusalem to their Gethsemane where he was. Anyway, this Sabbath they will close with this is an important point. He is Lord of the Sabbath and he was intending at this point to abolish the Sabbath. The Sabbath was always on the seventh day the last day of the week. That's how the Jewish week ended. We now begin the first day of the week is out there worship Calvary horses brought to us the resurrection of Christ, which happened on a Sunday because of the resurrection of Christ, will the day of Pentecost fell on a Sunday and then the giving of the Holy Spirit. The church met the early church to this day the church meets on the first day of the week and we are arrested in a person and not in a day. Prices replaces Hebrews chapter 4 gets into that so just a quick review they complained why he ate with sinners wasn't separated enough for them. They complained why didn't fast the challenge is his devotion. They complained that he ate on the Sabbath day they challenge his obedient problem was all of those challenges were sent there were rules and not in God's words and word and this is just the confrontations getting warmed up. This confrontation is going to last into the days of the apostles.

Thanks for tuning in to cross reference radio for this study in the book of Mark cross reference radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia to learn more information about this ministry. Visit our website cross reference radio.com once you're there you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast.

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