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September 14, 2021 12:00 am
Seasonal beginning to get a little irritated with the fact that Jesus wasn't acting spiritual fitting their profile of wasn't playing by the rules. Fact is beginning to expose the fact that there spiritual resumes are deceptive, not real, saying to make themselves up here more impressive master the art of acting spiritual without being spiritual way to supplement and aid you as just a part of your religious experience or is he truly transforming all-consuming Savior that he claims to be. Jesus is the only way to heaven. But there are people who want just bits and pieces of Jesus teaching just enough to act spiritual welcome to wisdom for the heart stay with us today as Steven David explores one of Jesus. Many earthly encounters with the Pharisees, the truth, he offered brings true freedom to all who believe will encourage you today. This message is called acting. All spiritual without being spiritual by the time Jesus seen in the first century Judaism had become a race to enhance your religious resident. The Pharisees seem to be winning the right to say what I want you know was one will record after not allow longer your prayers will allow your list of rules. I got a longer one than you to the Pharisees godliness was related to Joyal S&S, you couldn't possibly be happy and holy.
At the same time one of them had to go you good Jesus comes along and begins his ministry at a party.
The wedding feast and creatively supplies what they need and want to keep going. Does it run out the average person on the street love being around even children flocked to one intimidated by her freedom of the Pharisees were beginning to get a little irritated with the fact that Jesus wasn't acting spiritual, he wasn't fitting their profile of piety. He wasn't playing by the rules. In fact, is beginning to expose the fact that there spiritual resumes are deceptive, not real things to make themselves appear more impressive master the art of acting spiritual without being spiritual at all to say that you comply and I can play we can be good and because it's a danger and a temptation for us all is not just point the Pharisee that's got to do work in our own hearts today. What is it look like to act all spiritual, even when you're not spiritual battle was the theme of what happens next were going to the gospel by Luke slowly were now chapter 5 at verse 33's return there if you have a copy of the text is what happens next. They said to him, the disciples of John fast often and offer prayers and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. Now keep in mind the disciples of John the prophet, the baptizer are sincere effect Old Testament fasting accompanied repentance and this is the theme of John's preaching repentance and so was very fitting is combined with confession and in repentance, fasting, by the way, is never commanded for the church in any New Testament verse we see the early church.
Fasting, but not confession and repentance, but for wisdom and direction. In other words, keep this in mind. Fasting took place because they were focused on praying and didn't want to stop the wasn't some mystical magical way of self punishment. Dark self deportation or self discipline that now to really get God's attention now are skipping one not for the Pharisees and their disciples. They were just Masters it that putting on the show. Give me a little background. According to Leviticus 16 which is the only single command in the Old Testament for the nation to fat was always related to the day of atonement once a year, but by the time of Jesus the Pharisees that decided that truly godly people really spiritual people didn't fast want to hear, but twice a week top that one twice a week and it was always related to gloomy remorse.
See they considered it a sacrifice of their bodies to God, you're in trouble when you start thinking in those terms. This is a way to get God's attention because I've given up something it wasn't just a way to get God's attention.
It was a way to get everybody else's attention to because the two days they decreed for fasting were Mondays and Thursdays and Mondays and Thursdays happen to be market days in Israel so were getting it the most people possible to see us skipping our meals. Many of them would Rob ashes on their cheeks wiping their faces to make themselves look gaunt, as if they had actually been fasting for days. You did not, they would refuse the loss they they would wear to shovel closing, as if they'd stayed in it for days because her fasting people in the marketplace with God might be given the approximate use of the spiritual guy. Trouble is there given the impression as well that true spirituality you have to be silent.
It had to be serious if not Joyal. We have our parallels today. Don't wait. One author wrote on this text. One Sunday morning. We were sitting in church by the young family little girl one point little girl in front of them turned around and began smiling all the people behind her.
When her mother noticed he grabbed her arm and said in a loud whisper stop that smiling wording gave her little SWAT it's better not suggesting that you know you let your kids make a racket church. My mother could reach across four boys lined up on that you and just by snapping her finger. That was the voice of God's judgment was. I grew up in a church maybe you know my age or older or whatever you know it did so it was mine was no formal with a touch of starch, that way I guess. The pastor spoke without ever getting too excited tone really never changed all that much depraved and sincere man of the Lord read Scripture.
It always sounded, like a eulogy sway was. I'll never forget that moment I was a junior in college and had a part-time job in the evenings, mopping the floor of the florist shop. Large floor shop there in town.
When I got there would be empty out nobody's their Loctite open up, but the radio was always going and they had to do what we would call today elevator music.
So realizing no one died a couple nights into this job and I could go over this. I went over there and I begin turning the knob of the radio. That's when radios had dogs that you could turn in, I came across a guy was preaching he was compelling. I found myself listening and then he did something in his sermon that I never heard a pastor ever do in the pulpit.
He laughed.
He laughed. I stopped. I couldn't believe it. Who is this guy laughed.
I got remember I was in college that was 15, 20 years ago. It was different, but I made sure from then on I showed up at the flower shop every night in time to turn on the program and listen to what I later learned was a program called Insight for living with Chuck's window towards teaching.
Had we heard it would be like that sprinkled with wit. He often handle his detractors with sarcastic humor. There are times I can imagine Peter doubled over with laughter when Jesus, it just said yes it was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53 five but he was also filled with joy and he prayed to the father and the great high priestly prayer Lord father the Lord prayed would you with the joy I have over will spell out. I think joy is a close companion with laughter. That's many times how it spills out and listen from our study thus far in this gospel. I think it would be safe to say that the one thing you would never expect to hear from a Pharisee's laughter that happens to be, by the way, a large part of Jesus's answer to them.
Would you notice in verse 33.
They said you know why don't your disciples as I guards you know why they not gloomy like we are one Mondays and Thursdays is wipe that smile off your face@notice is responsible for 34 Jesus said to them, can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them. In other words, how you stop smiling. Jesus is saying that he's Pharisees.
Your disciples are at a funeral march, my wedding for yes is three days of mourning and sorrow and fasting because there is a funeral coming. The Lord goes on to essentially prophesy. Look at verse 35. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from you and you will fast in those. This is a reference to the church age. The last 2000 years following Christ's ascension back to heaven. When Jesus rose again from the dead.
The celebration began all over again and it hasn't stopped. Yes we have days of sorrow and suffering, but were not waiting to get to happen to smile.
Thank you.
Read the letters of the New Testament.
Joyful Thanksgiving becomes the undergirding attitude of the believer.
Now, Colossians 317 joyful singing which we experience becomes the practice of the church in every generation since sent from going back to then until now.
Ephesians 590 joyful responses alert world something different about you guys what was going on over there please. Smiling, happy, you might not be acting spiritual Paul writes to the Thessalonians that even during great affliction you have this remarkable distance. Disposition of joy. First Thessalonians 1. Six. Why why because the bridegroom is with us. That's why he will never leave us nor forsake us. He was 13 phone. How does O'Brien feel on her wedding day never been one to have anything they feel artists probably maybe this you have all the answers about it on the next day and beyond the but all is eclipsed by the joy of seeing her groomsmen. The one she has given her heart why the was about to watch her walk down that aisle. He is our room. We are his bride. Jesus ties the joy of disciples to the joy of a wedding now back up just a moment in the days of Jesus couples did not have the ceremony and then whisked away for a honeymoon. They stated the father so why because that's where the goods built on those that tell his brother there they can live their own family compound after the ceremony.
The feasting begins. There at the father's house.
Sometimes it lasts a week, sometimes more, depending on the wealth of the father. How wealthy is our father. How long will our celebration last forever.
Forever the bride and groom would would dress traditionally has a king and a queen they would borrow clothing, find clothing from friends and relatives and jewels as as well. They would be given makeshift crowns to where during that season of festivities as if they had been coordinated to royalty. All this is a picture of our future as his bride.
The Lord is going to send it any moment take us away where to the father's house. He's been building sorry ready.
John 14 you will grow as royalty were to be given crowns to where they are not believe we really are being needed into royalty Revelation 20. All that is why the clips saying whatever you might be going through today.
This is how you give thanks, sometimes through tears is that you say sometimes through tears as I go through adversity with joy. You're on your way to the father's house and the marriage supper of the Lamb, Martin Luther, the reformer once wrote the Christian should be a cheerful person if they are the devil is tempting them tempting them, the why take their eyes off the bridegroom, maybe even today to close down the aisle, up and away to the father's house.
Jesus is essentially saying here the Pharisees into your disciples wrote a funeral minor.
The wedding is her fasting minor feast. It all depends on your group now without alerting to take a little deeper in to understanding whether or not happy with the fact that he's happy you. Verse 36. He also told a parable no one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment if he dies, he will tear the new piece from the new will not match the old that I just cut right to the chase. What he's essentially saying is, Jesus is not come to patch up Judaism.
He's not that I had a little bit a nutrient to an old way the robe of messiahs redemption isn't to be caught and and patched on to something that is old and on its way out he has a new row of righteousness which we where John Phillips wrote it colorfully this way is that Jesus is going to darn some new religious idea into the threadbare system of a worn and fading Judaism. This teaching cannot be tapped on the rabbinical rambling is teaching is new and vital and refreshing but want to know a lot of this is religion. To this day a little faster this in a little patch of that outcome up hello patchwork, I think I'll take a little bit of Jesus and all I demand to my life and I know unbelievers you think you have a little bit of Jesus we why does golden rule will keep that when I use a kind of a decent guy like outcome overlooks. I think he thinks he's God in the flesh. It's a little bit much, but we like the fact that he was a moral man so my options my backpack just in case I need him.
Jesus is not an option. He's the only one the only truth. The only life everything else phase along the same lines or delivers a second I was racially diverse 37 no one puts new wine into old wineskins because the new wine will burst the skins. It will be spilled, skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins under this kind was a little grossed wineskins back then were made from goatskin sheepskin the neck area would become the neck of the container. The skin would be scraped and cleaned and treated. But over time the skin would age and become brittle. So you would put new wine into an old brittle wineskins because I knew wine as it ferments geese transform sugar and alcohol releases carbon dioxide and new wineskins can stretch to contain that increased volume, but an old wineskin is not a split apart and you lose everything. I get a cut to the chase, what Jesus is saying is that the gospel message of the new covenant is going to grow is going to expand to take everything in the Old Testament was prophesied in this going to be bigger greater grandeur that we can imagine David Bob tried to dissuade Jesus is essentially revealing that his teaching is new you knew. We call a new dispensation in epic of time a new approach to God now without sacrifices and priests and temples and ceremonies. All of the old covenant was a shadow that is now fading as the sunrise of the new covenant is donning. This is the message of Hebrews makes it very clear spells it out in chapter a listen to this.
In speaking of a new covenant, P Jesus makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. What is it mean to you today that you don't need a priest to enter into the presence of God means you know you don't need to wait till Saturday to confess your sins, you can assess I'm innocent Jean… I can confess it because it was wrong.the weather comes to my mind, my trying you don't have to sacrifice it all to atone for your sanity. Trust to find all and complete and sufficient sacrifice of Christ once for all your your walk with God is restricted to diet or ceremony or circumcision.
You are free in Christ. It is his work now know why in the world. When this entire audience at this point that I'm tired of acting on time to keep in the rules. I've made up.
I want this freedom is why I want the real thing. Jesus tells them no one's is why they won't take it when he does in verse 39 is equivalent to rather blunt proverb you pulls it out of secular society equipped. No one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says the old is good enough. It is a characteristic of the human heart to resist anything new what I've been doing is good enough for me. I don't try something new. I don't want to do something new. I will not eat green eggs and ham. Not an ounce now with a mouse. Not all trading on a tree. Let me be as good theology. I just slip I found in my ministry. It is rare for older people to accept Christ doesn't mean the grace of God is diminished. It doesn't mean that the spirit is less powerful, they are more likely to say, as many have said to me this is the way I am. This is where Ben telling me my whole life's been wrong. You think you are, let me be. People want to cling to their comfortable religious traditions. They have no interest in something new and fresh and vital and certainly something so radically like changing the Satan strategy.
The longer he binds the longer he lines the heart of an individual to their old ways, the tighter those chains draw around their heart enslaving them and will take them over to the Corinthians, the God of this world is blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image the very being the embodiment of deity.
Now you know that stay here in the dark.
It's comfortable, lies in applying your eyes if you do anything add something to your resume to make you feel better make you look better that he turned on for a new lease you don't want a new life. Jesus says here, by the way is our message to this day the church's goal is not to make unbelievers comfortable with her patchwork system of religion and was just getting to try Jesus Christianity is nonbelief new life. Jesus is not a little patch to add to your closing of self-righteousness. Jesus is an entirely new wardrobe will never forget a few years you having the rare experience of giving the gospel to limited come see me with questions to been attending for a few months she been a faithful Roman Catholic all of her life. She did miss confession. The mass services prayers festivals, the candles, you name it.
She did. She had questions. I turned her attention to the Scriptures where I showed her this new and Living Way, Christ, the sufficiency of his atonement that a relationship with God through Christ is possible because Christ has done everything and now offers independently of any work we might do less any of us boast because if we got in by any of our work, we would boast quite never forget seeing tears begin running down her cheeks as the spirit of God opened her eyes big smile on her face. Even though tears were coming down. She repeated over and over again. I can't believe it's free. I can't believe it's free. I can't believe it's free to pray to receive the gift of forgiveness and everlasting life through her all sufficient Lord, it was close with this garment of Christ which become broken and transparent, humble discover this new wine. This new rope is being offered to us as a bride absolutely free. Jesus paid it all and thanks for joining us today. You've been listening to wisdom for the heart. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey Stephen is the pastor of the shepherd's church in Cary, North Carolina. You can learn more about us. If you visit our website which is wisdom online.org. Once you go there you will be able to access the biblically faithful resources that we offer the complete archive of Stephen's 35 years of Bible teaching ministry is posted to that site and can be accessed any time free of charge. We also post each day's broadcast.
There may be a day when you can't listen when were on the air and when that happens, you can go to our website to keep caught up with our daily Bible teaching ministry again all of that is available@wisdomonline.org. Stephen has one more lesson in this current series and that's tomorrow here on wisdom