New Wine Skins

After Jesus called Levi to be his apostle, he went to a dinner with a house full of tax collectors and sinners. That's like throwing gasoline on the fire after inviting one tax collector to join him now. Jesus goes to this feast with a multitude of tax collectors and sinners now and the scribes and Pharisees saw this, they were fit to be tied in the course of his earthly ministry, Jesus came in contact with Jewish religious leaders many times in their meetings were never friendly because the Pharisees refused to recognize him for who he was today and Renewing Your Mind, Dr. RC Sproul takes a look at one of those meetings, which serves as a reminder to examine our own lives. Are we willing to give up our preferences for the king this morning were going to continue our study of the gospel according to St. Mark were in chapter 2 I will be reading verses 13 through 22. Then he went out again by the sea, and all the multitude came to him and he taught them and as he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus sitting at the tax office they said to him, follow me, so he arose and followed him know what happened, as he was dining in Levi's house that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many, and they followed him. When the scribes and Pharisees saw him eating with the tax collectors and sinners. They said to his disciples, how is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners. When Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician with those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting then they came and said to him, why did the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast. And 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 but the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them and then they will fast in those days no one sews a piece of un-shrug cloth on an old garment or else the new piece pulls away from the old and the tear is made worse. No one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.

US ears to hear the word of God, let them hear.

Please be seated as early as the second chapter of Mark the gospel writer alerts us to the gathering storm that is approaching the ministry of Jesus, and he gives us insights into occasions that provoke conflict between our Lord and the religious leaders of his day. In verse 13 we hear of the calling now of the fifth disciple that Mark gives reference to, in this case it is the disciple known as Levi, who is also known in the New Testament as Matthew and let's read the contents of that call. Jesus went out again by the sea or speaking here of the Sea of Galilee and all the multitude came to him and he taught them.

This is good news because remember he left their presence briefly because the people were more concerned and he is feeling power then and listening to him teach them and preach the coming of the kingdom of God and we remember that he told those people that his mission was to teach and preach and so because he was not able to do that earlier he left Capernaum and now is back and he is resuming that teaching ministry, but we are told that as he passed by the crowd and the sea where he had been preaching. He saw Levi, the son of Alpheus sitting at the tax office, just comment briefly on that there wasn't a building they are by the Sea of Galilee.

That was the County tax assessor's headquarters. The tax offices in this part of the world at that time would've been little booths or shanties that would be crudely erected along the busy byways of villages and cities particularly were commerce was involved near the border. And as I've told you earlier Capernaum was a place of no mean substance and was very important as a resource for the fishing industry and it imported fish to various nations round about. And so it would be strategic for the tax collectors to set up a way station there along the sea of Galilee.

Also keep in mind that the Jewish people were subjected to a very heavy and oppressive tax levied by the Roman empire and there were taxes on property.

There were taxes on commerce and the way it was set up was this the people bid for the opportunity to be a tax collector, and if you won the bid for being a tax collector. You would in that bid set a number that you believe that you could accumulate in terms of monies received from those taxation and if the government liked your projected bid. You could be selected as a tax collector, and this is the way it worked. You had a quota. And when you filled out quota everything that you could garner at Bob that quota became yours so that the tax collector worked on a commission basis. Now again, though this was Roman in origin. The Romans sublet this taxation industry to their vassal kings and so within Israel. The tax collectors would report to the Jewish kings as well as to the government of Rome and this system of taxation was one that was one of the most greedy and corrupt that the world has ever known. Approaching what goes on in our country. I would guess, but in any case, this was a lucrative business for anyone who was able to be a tax collector, and all that person who was Jewish had to give up was his Jewish identity, his social status and his membership in the synagogue because if you were a tax collector in Israel and you were Jewish you are seen as a Quisling as a traitor.

In fact, anybody who dealt with you as a friend would be considered unclean, you would automatically be expelled from the synagogue be disgraced in your family and would be a social pariah. Despite that, you would also at the same time be exceedingly wealthy and so it was scandalous that Jesus would walk up to this whole shanty and look at the tax collector and their Jewish man by the name of Levi and say to him, follow me, that Jesus selects a tax collector to be part of the 12 was is unthinkable as one could imagine. It's not by accident that this episode is placed in Mark's gospel so close to Jesus healing of the leper as scandalous as Jesus touching the leper was was even more scandalous that he would invite into his company a social leper like a tax collector. Well, to make matters worse, we are told that after he called Matthew into his entourage and Matthew arose and followed him.

We are told that he then went to dinner in Levi's house. There were many tax collectors and sinners who sat together with Jesus's disciples know we read this closely in the original. They're not just sitting there reclining because this is not your average dinner. This is a feast and it's a feast perhaps of celebration. But not only Levi but the whole company of tax collectors that are associated with him the whole group of hated people and the arm Ha'aretz the people of the land are invited to this sumptuous feast where obviously Jesus is the guest of honor and again that's like throwing gasoline on the fire after inviting one tax collector to join him now.

Jesus goes to this feast with a multitude of tax collectors and sinners now and the scribes and Pharisees saw this, they were fit to be tied. They said to his disciples, how is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners know when the Pharisees called people sinners what they were thinking of are the rank-and-file Jews who were not committed to the in depth study of the things of God that were not deeply committed to understanding the law of God and so they just sort of went the way of the culture and they followed the customs of the day rather than the details of the law. The Pharisees were named the Pharisees because they were the separated ones. They were the ones most committed to keeping the law of God, and they grew to the position that they believe that salvation came from segregation. That is, they segregated themselves distance themselves from anybody who was loose in their moral life. And so it was important for them to maintain their holiness and their sanctity to have no dealings with people who were sinners there Christians like that who actually believe that there some point of sanctity of avoiding any contact with unbelievers or with pagans. I got a story that will get your attention. Several years ago somebody called me up and they said their husband loves to play golf and he would love to play golf with me and this person said I'll pay for it if you'll take my husband out for a round of golf at Heathrow country club for his birthday so be happy to do it so I took him out for 18 holes of golf and then after the round we came into the men's grill and was time for him to leave and he saw me than sitting with my friends at the club, many of whom are in this room this morning and are now members of this congregation, but with the time were not believers. And this man was so upset that I was friendly with these people that he took upon himself to call the Board of Directors of leg in your ministry and lodge a complaint that I was mixing with these people and the occasional race on a doing I was an occasion when I took him out to play golf and that's the way it goes folks and but I psych I just couldn't understand I don't understand because this was how Jesus did his ministry he can just keep himself in a convent or in a monastery somewhere he was, where people are where pain exists because he cared about the people were not supposed to love the world were not supposed to imitate the world, but we have to minister to people who are in the world and that's how Jesus did his ministry, but the religious establishment of his day just couldn't stomach the Jesus who was supposed to be a rabbi would actually have dinner with tax collectors and sinners and so they came to the disciples of Jesus and said was he doing when Jesus heard of that. He gave the answer to those who are well have no need of a physician with those who are sick. What good is that Dr. who only associates with well people and it's one thing to be involved simply preventative medicine but also when we are sick, then we call the doctor and Jesus.

And what could be more silly then for of Messiah, the son of God, to spend all of his time with the righteous. Now there's some irony here that's obviously dripping from the words of Jesus when he says to the Pharisees, those that are well don't need a physician just those who are sick and I come not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.

We could have tacked on the end of that.

Parenthetically, like you, but he didn't, but that implication was there in his answer know if you really want me to spend time with the sick.

I'm in a come to your house next Mr. Pharisee because they were the sickest of the sick in that time, but didn't really satisfy the enemies of Jesus. We read then from Mark's account that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees were fasting.

Remember two things about John the John was an ascetic he came out of the wilderness. He was given to a practice of self-denial and he also had disciples who followed him. We encounter them in the book of acts.

People who would earlier, become disciples of John the Baptist and then later became the disciples of Jesus, but they along with the Pharisees were involved in fasting now in the Jewish law.

The law of Moses. The only time fasting was required of people was during the days of atonement during Yom Kippur. However, there were customs that developed over the centuries among the Jews were favored by the rabbis to fast on other occasions, particularly on occasions of national import occasions of morning and so on, but also fasting became associated with repentance.

If somebody was guilty of a severe sin, and they came to repentance. They would manifest their repentance by going through periods of fasting.

Now, in the case of the Pharisees. They made fasting a duty twice a week can only from sunup to sundown, not for 24 hour periods, but they fasted two days a week and they saw that as a badge of their personal piety and so now these Pharisees see Jesus associating with sinners and the like that but that his disciples are not fasting. What's with that. Will Jesus doesn't criticize fasting. He gives a place for fasting in the kingdom of God.

But there is a time and a place for everything and what Jesus think this is not the time the fast why he makes this metaphor of the bridegroom and reminds them of what happens in their own culture at the time of the wedding weddings in Israel did not last 20 minutes or 1/2 an hour and then followed by a reception that went on for a couple of hours and then everybody went home a wedding feast, as we see in Cana lasted for a week and it was a time of eating and drinking. The last time anybody would ever want to be involved in a fast was when they went to wedding feast is not the time the fast. It's the time the party is the time to eat.

It's the time to drink. That was what the culture was about. Jesus said nobody fast and awaiting as long as the bridegroom is there. There's no fasting. Everybody rather is rejoicing.

Everybody is celebrating nowhere in the Old Testament, beloved, does the Bible refer to the Messiah as bridegroom, that image just isn't there. The bridegroom in the Old Testament is God and the bride is the nation Israel, but in the New Testament, the bridegroom is the son of God and the bride is his church.

And so, again, Jesus is claiming more than his Messiah ship here when he refers to himself as the bridegroom he say on the son of God. And when I am here bringing to the kingdom and as long as the bridegroom is in your presence. This is the time you people should be celebrating, not fasting because the kingdom has come in your midst oh you not going to have the bridegroom with you. The day is coming where the bridegroom will be snatched away from you is obviously referring to his own execution and departure from this planet.

Then he said will be the time to fast while I'm here, it's time to feast remarkable metaphor that we have here. Then he switches his metaphors and he says no one sews a piece of un-shrunk cloth on an old garment or else the new piece pulls away from the old and tear is made worse right I don't understand this because I don't men close, not a model so but apparently that if you have a garment than that you've washed it several times and it's all done shrinking, and then you'd rip a hole in it if you put a new piece of cloth in it that hasn't been preshrunk and is still going to be shrunk. The new match up perfectly to the hole in the put it in the washing machine that's reported his next thanks Cindy and then and then that piece of Frank's what happens. Not only does it tear loose but it exacerbates the tear in the closet. Nobody does that even sprawl wouldn't do that if he had the soap ants, which fortunately doesn't and then he uses the illustration of the wineskin again in the ancient world. The usual standard of skin that was used was a goatskin and they would get a new goatskin or wineskin put new wine in it and when you put the new wine in the goatskin.

The wind would ferment and it would put gases that would emit from the fermentation that would cause an expansion of the wineskin, and it would stretch the wineskin, but new wine, went with new wineskin because new wineskin had room for the expansion, but every Jew in Israel understood that you didn't put new wine in old wineskin because he will wineskin it already been stretched to the max and if you put new wine into the old wineskin and that new wind begins to ferment and begins to expand what happens. The wineskin is pushed to the breaking point. In verse you lose the wineskin, and you lose the wine and so Jesus said look, you can't take the new and force it into the old structures because the old structures won't be able to bear it.

Thanks.

Not condemning the Old Testament here is not condemning the law of God, but what he is condemning are the traditions that have developed among the Pharisees and among the scribes, but Jesus challenged so I come with good news. I come with the breakthrough of an entire new situation, your king is here and that's new. You can't deal with this came unless you make room for him by getting rid of the structures that would make it impossible for you to receive this. Happy new year folks. It's a new year. That happens every year, but Christ doesn't come every year. This is something that is so transcendental he knew that you cannot receive Christ into your life without being made new yourself the newness of Christ is what transforms you and if you try to be a Christian and keep your old wings won't work first and you lose precious wine has come to us it's impossible to simply add Jesus to our lives like he's some sort of exercise program or a get rich scheme.

No new wineskin is required as the apostle Paul puts it in Ephesians, we must put off the old and put on the new were glad you joined us for the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Each Lord's day were making our way through the gospel of Mark and today Dr. RC Sproul helped us to seek that to follow Jesus requires radical change. A completely new life would like to help you in your personal study of Mark's gospel and that when you contact us today with your donation of any amount. We will send you Dr. Sproles expositional commentary on Mark. This hardbound volume has almost 400 pages of RC's easy-to-read explanation of this gospel.

It's a great study companion as we continue this verse by verse series every Sunday. Request your copy with your gift@renewingyourmind.org.

Next Sunday we will continue our exposition of Mark's gospel is our hope that the what we learn here transforms our lives are called to follow Christ with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. I pray that all is well and I hope you'll join us again next Sunday for Renewing Your Mind