Luke 5:33-39 with Aaron Searles

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So we'll start off with a question. When was the last wedding that you attended? I want you to think about the last wedding that you attended. And now as you think back on that wedding, think about how you found out about that wedding. Think about the invitation. Think about the save the date. You know, some there's been some changes in our custom and in our culture. Now, this doesn't obviously happen in every wedding invitation, but now you'll get a wedding invitation and you'll get some homework when you get your wedding invitation. And I just always think about all the printing costs and the time and the diligence and details that now go into the wedding invitation. It's so you know pretty and printed well, and you get this card, and then I don't know about you, but sometimes now you get inside your wedding invitation, you get another separate card that's usually has a little postage on it, so they had to pay whatever the postage is because they want you to tell them what you want to eat at their wedding, and you get to select chicken or fish, chicken or fish. So you gotta mark, you know, chicken or fish, and then you gotta mail back your selection, and then you get to look forward to is this gonna be dry chicken or good chicken or uh cordon bleu or whatever, or um, you know, fish. I never ever ever choose fish. And it's great when you get steak option. I choose the steak option. Love the steak option. So you get to send back your card with your meal selection now to go to this wedding. And again, we can all agree in common sense, in logic, in wisdom, that you wouldn't choose a chicken or fish or steak option and then show up to that wedding fasting on that day. You wouldn't show up, you know, telling everyone, I'm not eating today, you know, sitting at whatever you know, banquet or table or church, you know, table in the round or whatever in the banquet hall wherever the reception's at. You wouldn't say, Oh, I'm fasting today. I'm not enjoying the feast that's going on. You wouldn't do that. Well, this is what we're talking about today. Jesus is confronted with a question about fasting, and he's questioned about you know what to do and when to do it, and there were religious and cultural and spiritual things going on in this story that we're gonna be reading about today. But Jesus is questioned, he's challenged, really, and his response in an amazing way, and in kind of a subtle way, but I'm gonna highlight it and emphasize it today. You know, I don't know the uh experience or moment or how people respond to the moment to what Jesus says, but he, in a sense, subtly declares his divinity in his response. And he does it in a variety of really interesting ways, and he also teaches us about the time that he was living and ministering and revealing who he is, and also I think some why, answering the question why we fast and how to fast. So I've got roughly three points today. Why do we fast and how do we fast? So two things on why and one on how we fast. So before jumping into that though, it seems as um, and we can confirm this looking at the other gospel accounts of this conversation, this discussion, this kind of questioning going on, that Jesus, if we remember from last week, if you were here or just kind of reflecting, Jesus calls Levi. Uh we we also understand he was good, he went by the name Matthew, and there's again debate on if that's uh a nickname that Jesus gave him or not, but it means gift of God. But he calls Levi, and Levi's occupation was a tax collector. And Jesus calls him from being a tax collector who he's working in his tax booth to be a disciple of Jesus. And tax collectors were the most hated men in society. And so Levi responds from being a betrayer of his people, uh, associated with people that were, in a sense, stealing and taking from the people, uh, using kind of the Roman government, the Roman Empire, to take from his own people, known as a betrayer, known as like a loan shark. And now he has been called and he responds to Jesus to follow Jesus. And Levi responds in a way, in a in a gratitude, and he throws a party for Jesus, and he invites all his friends, all his tax collecting friends. And Jesus is criticized at that party by the Pharisees for eating with what they call sinners and tax collectors. So that's kind of the context and the situation that we're still in as we jump into this passage. Now, again, we're going to read another issue, read about another issue, a question that's got layers to it, because it comes from what I will call friends instead of critics, like the Pharisees. But before jumping again into this verse, a little more context. Are you loving all the context this morning before we jump into the first verse? Okay, so in this time there were uh there was abuse in fasting. There was misunderstanding, a misapplication, a mispractice of fasting in this time. And one commentary said this those who supposed that their fasting brought a self-achieved holiness, a works righteousness, despite the fact that the prophets warned against such thinking. So this is common at the time. There was an expectation that you were fasting. Again, Pharisees at the time declared that you had to fast twice a week. Imagine not eating twice a week because some religious leader told you, and you would all do it on the same day. So there was some community religion pressure being pushed upon you. And fasting was interpreted, this was an aha, this was an insight that I didn't realize, that I now realize, that fasting at this time was connected to mourning. I didn't know that. So some Pharisees viewed it as also a sacrifice, a mournful offering of one's flesh to God that would gain God's attention. Again, and the overall effect of this was to view true religion as solemn, joyless, and gloomy. And some Pharisees would whiten their faces to affect and look like they were starving, and they would refuse to wash and wore their clothes in disarray, a spiritual means of suffering, or always looking uncomfortable. Like this is how they interpreted and understood how to be, you know, devout and be to be more spiritual than everybody else. So they looked the part and they were trying to communicate how spiritual and religious they were. And so, what to me, this this shouts over and over and over again, and I mean this in a negative way, I recognize this word can go either way, but what to me this shouts is religion. Religion, religion in this time. So again, now with this context, this cultural context, with what's going on in the first century at this time, let's jump into Luke chapter 5, verse 33. They said to him, John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking. So there's two comparisons going on here. There's comparison to John the Baptist's disciples, and there's comparison to the Pharisees' disciples. And I originally thought when reading this that this wasn't John the Disciple's question, but if you again look at other gospels, you can see this is actually a question coming from John's disciples. And my original thought was this was religious shaming. But your disciples don't fast. Kind of an accusation. So why are you having a good time, Jesus, with these sinners and tax collectors? Why are you eating and drinking and feasting? You should be mourning and lamenting in the state that like we're at. You should be religious like us, Jesus. I thought you were who you are. But this again is coming from friends. This is coming from John the Baptist's followers. And again, we got to give some mercy and we got to give some grace and some understanding to John the Baptist's disciples and his followers because, you know, they were seemingly to create, you know, making an accusation here. But we also need to remember that John himself was kind of separating himself from society. And he was living in a very, very different way from the rest of society. And his calling was, again, a calling to repentance. Again, John the Baptist seemed to be in the wilderness. He wasn't in the mix necessarily of the community eating and drinking, like Jesus is right now in this story. John the Baptist calling his ministry was to prepare the way, to alert everyone in the land of Jesus. The Messiah is coming, and the way to be alerted is repentance, to get ready for the Messiah, and as John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God. This eating and drinking that Jesus is doing at this feast would have been very different for John the Baptist's followers. So it makes sense to ask the question. This is very different from their experience. And I think Jesus, he responds in a way, in a warmth and a teaching moment. He takes the opportunity to teach. Now it's also important to remember Andrew. Andrew was the brother of Simon, who was later called Peter, nicknamed Peter the Rock. But Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist. So he had this switch from following John the Baptist now to Jesus. And so he's in the mix of this, and we know that from the calling of the fishermen. So now verse 34. Jesus answered them. So again, this question, this kind of accusations made, like, and this is how Jesus answered them. Jesus takes the opportunity to address the comparison, to correct and teach. But also Jesus does something again. He makes a declaration. And you can just kind of glaze over it. You don't, we can, we cannot see the impact of a word that he uses in this moment. One of the questions that we're asking in this Luke sermon series, a question that I really felt God put on my heart as we go through verse by verse through this gospel, is to ask this question. Who is this Jesus? Who is this Jesus? What is his character? What is his power? What does he know? What is he doing? And when we have the obvious sermon series title, Christ Our Confidence. If we ask this question, who is this Jesus? we will get that answer. Christ is our confidence. But the word that Jesus says would, from my understanding of when he says that should make the ground shake. There should be a shockwave that goes throughout the feast and the party when Jesus says this word. When he compares himself to the bridegroom, that was a massive word to use and to compare himself. Again, this is the author of life, God's word says. This is the breather of Scripture, Jesus in the flesh. Again, asking the question, who is this Jesus? Jesus is saying, I am the bridegroom. Again, Christ is our certainty. So Jesus, by referring to himself as the bridegroom, again, we can just kind of glaze over this, but what he's actually declaring is that he is God. How'd you get that, Aaron? How are you making that connection? Well, we need the Old Testament to do that. We need the Old Testament to understand when Jesus refers to himself as the bridegroom, that he's actually declaring himself as God. We know that from the prophets, Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 2, God refers to Israel as his bride. Thus, he is the husband. He's the bridegroom. Isaiah 54, 5, he refers to himself as husband. Ezekiel, we can see in scripture, he talks about how God rescues and marries Israel. We also know that Israel is compared to a unfaithful or prostitute. And last week we we Jesus quoted, we talked about how Jesus quoted Hosea. And I want to quote now Hosea chapter 2, verse 19 through 20. We do not have this on the screen, but I do want to read this. This is what the minor prophet Hosea says. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. Through this minor prophet, God is saying, I will be in covenant with you, like a marriage. And there's this bigger symbolism and representation and story going on here throughout Scripture. But there's something also really neat, and it's a principle we can take away from this spiritual practice of fasting. And I would say this is kind of my first main point here, the purpose of fasting, okay, why you should fast, the purpose of it, the reason for it, the motivation, the spark in your heart to fast is this. It's to be with the bridegroom. To be with the bridegroom. And again, we get this from what Jesus is saying. If you're with the bridegroom, you don't need to fast. That's what he's saying. I'm the bridegroom. We're at the wedding. You don't need to fast. You don't need to devote a day to not eating to focus on me. I'm here. I'm with you. I'm talking to you. The feast is on, the reception is on. Eat the chicken and the fish and the steak. I'm here. In other words, if you're with Jesus, walking with him, talking with him, being transformed by him, like Levi is now, like the disciples are, if you're being transformed by him, you don't need the spiritual discipline and practice of fasting. In this moment, that's in this scripture.

unknown 16:22

Okay?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

So I'm not talking about now, we're talking about as we're reading this story, this moment in time. Jesus is speaking to that. But again, the principle of fasting, the reason, the why you do it, is to be with the bridegroom. So again, back to cultural historical context. Jesus refers to these friends of the bridegroom. You wouldn't ask them to not eat the chicken, the fish, and the steak because they're at the wedding. The first century Judaism marriage custom was there was no honeymoon right after the wedding, but they had what I call a stacation. And they would have a week-long party with all their friends, they would come over and hang out with them. And while this party was going on, they were attended to. They were honored by people, by chosen friends that were called guests of the bridegroom. So you would, I would relate this to your best man and your and your maid of honor. You wouldn't ask your best man or your maid of honor, you can't eat at my wedding. You can't do that. That would be, that wouldn't make sense. That wouldn't make logical sense. Jesus was equating his presence to a justified reception or feast that Matthew is now throwing for all his friends. That's what's going on here. So verse 35. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them. In those days, they will fast. So the time will come. We know the time comes. We know the gospel happens. Jesus dies for us. He dies on the cross, as we sang about today. The blood that washes us white as snow. Jesus died for us. The time will come. We know that he conquered death on the third day, and we know that he ascended into heaven. The bridegroom is at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. But we also know that we're in, in a sense, those days of fasting. And we can see in the book of Acts that they fasted, that the early church was fasting. So I like to think about it. So we are kind of in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 29. Now, just to tell you, there's only 28 chapters in the book of Acts. We're in the last chapter. Now we're obviously not inspiring and writing scripture down. It's done, the Bible's done. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying we're the continuation of the book of Acts. We are the local church. We're the bride of Christ. We're God's kingdom on earth. We're his citizens of heaven. There's a neat church planning network called Acts 29. But we, in a sense, are in that season. We're in those days. So why we fast? I'm going to tell you why we fast now. There's some reason, even in the book of Acts, for why we fast. And I'll get into all the reasons at the end as we conclude. But here's why we fast. We fast, and in Acts chapter 13, it talks about the calling of Barnabas and Paul on a missionary journey. While they were praying and fasting, they heard the Holy Spirit call Barnabas and Paul onto those missionary journeys. So we fast for calling. We fast to hear direction from God, to hear where God is calling us. If we don't know where God's calling us, seek the bridegroom through fasting. Acts 14, 23 talks about praying and fasting when appointing elders of the church. So calling and elder appointment, leadership appointment in the church. We fast. So this is why we fast. So some reason, again, again, the heart motivation, the direction to fast is to be with the bridegroom, to be with Jesus, to hear Jesus, to be close to Jesus is why we fast. This is the motivation, the heart that we need to have. And why we fast is for calling and leadership in the church. And Jesus also teaches us how to fast. He does this in Matthew chapter 6, verse 16 through 18. It says this, and when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. Does that sound familiar from the context that we just talked about? Don't look gloomy like the hypocrites. For they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. So they're putting like makeup on so everyone knows that they're fasting. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, this is us, by the way, this is what how we want to fast. Anoint your head and wash your face. That your fasting may be not be seen by others, but by your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. So here's another principle for fasting. Fasting is only for the bridegroom and to be done in secret. If we're fasting to be close to, to know what God is speaking to us, to know the direction that God wants for us in our life, we don't tell anyone about it. We do it in secret. It's for him and only him. It's for my Relationship. It's for your relationship with Jesus. So when you go to that wedding and you don't tell everyone, oh, I'm fasting, I don't want the chicken, the fish, or the steak. No, we celebrate because we're with the bridegroom. We're at the wedding. But when we do fast, we do it in secret. So when we feel called to, when we have that desire to hear God more clearly, to be discerning maybe a difficult season, maybe, maybe there is mourning in a sense of what's going on in your life and wanting to hear God, we keep it a secret. And it also kind of requires logically we need to think ahead if we want to keep it a secret. We've got a plan. We've got to do it in such a way where we're not having the awkward conversations. So we want to do that because it's only for the Lord, not for what I'll call the esteem of man, not for religion, not for putting on a face of, hey, look at how many times I'm fasting. Okay, so that's just the heart motivation of why we fast and we get that from the Lord. Now, verse 36. He told them this parable, and so Jesus now is going to kind of make two points, two parables in this moment. No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. So confession. I don't really know, or didn't really know what this was talking about. Got to learn a little bit. You know, I took seventh grade home economics class. I made a pretty good satchel with a pull string when I was in seventh grade, so I can stitch pretty good, but I did not understand this. So what's going on here? What's Jesus saying here? This is again a parable, a story to make a point. You know, when you have, when you're combining these two garments together, you, in a sense, by not by taking something from the new and and putting it into the old, you're ruining both of them. You're wrecking both of them. You know, over time that old garment won't won't age as that new patch. And so there isn't that flexibility and adaptability that we'll see in the next parable. There is a rigidity and a stubbornness to that old garment. And so I think what Jesus is saying here, what's going on here, is he isn't kind of fixing and you know problem solving the Old Testament Judaism in the temple. It's about the new covenant now. It's about the new life in Christ. And so he's not, he's he's not abolishing the law, as he said, he's fulfilling it. He's satisfying it. He's taking care of the sin. Again, all of the temple sacrifice is pointing towards Christ, is point pointing towards the Messiah. None of the blood of sacrifice satisfied the weight and the canceling of sin. Only the blood of God, the innocent sacrifice, takes away sin. So all of it is pointing towards Christ. And Christ satisfies. Christ fulfills the law in himself. Verse 37 and 8. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins, otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins. The wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined. No new wine must be poured into new winesk. So new wineskins can flex when new, when new wine is fermenting in those wineskins. So old wineskins are rigid and they won't flex, and so again, as it says, they will break when the new wine expands. So again, you can't mix these two things together. So the same principle as the old garments being sown with new fabric is happening here. Jesus is again the new covenant as we celebrate it. Every time we read that passage from 1 Corinthians 11, we remember the new covenant in Christ. This was prophesied by Jeremiah and said by Jesus at the Passover meal. To remember symbolically and to have a moment in your life on the regular to remember the price that was paid for us. This is why we take communion together as a community, to remember his body broken for us and to remember his blood that was shed for us. This is the new covenant, as Jesus instructed us and told us. So we celebrate that, we remember that, and we proclaim his death until he returns. He is the new covenant. And as we know, Jesus says, tear down this temple and I'll rebuild it in three days. They were upset about that when they heard that. They mocked him about that. Jesus atones again for all our sin by his blood on the cross. Jesus taught Nicodemus and us that we don't fix the old but be born again in Jesus. And as it says in Scripture, we are a new creation in Christ Jesus. Verse 39. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say the old is better. So again, what this is speaking to and kind of enforcing here is there is a stubbornness. And I think as humans, we all have this. We can be stubborn, we can be resistant. This is a timeless human condition that we all need to deal with, of not being stubborn, not resisting the new. As we encounter people in this world, we come to them with good news. It's a change. It's a transformation, a complete transformation. But if someone is stubborn in their ways, stubborn in their beliefs, they won't hear the new covenant. They won't hear the good news of Jesus. So we all need teachability, humility, and be transformed by Christ into be a new creation. That is his work in us and transformation. You know, the stubbornness of religion, and again, I mean this in a negative way. So I belong to the Christian religion. So I'm not saying that that word is all wrong, but I'm saying the religion in the sense of, you know, the arrogance and the pride to think that my efforts, my you know, my religious duties and acts is somehow makes me more favored than anybody else. And that was the mindset of the Pharisees and the religious. They thought they had it figured out. They thought if I do this checklist, if I fast twice a week, if I do these things, if I follow the law perfectly, and then I add on to with the commentary, the Talmud and the Mishnah, and they add on all these extra laws, then I'm good with God. I don't need whatever good news you have. I'm good with God. I've got it figured out. That's religious thinking. Instead of the mercy and the grace and the forgiveness, the gift of righteousness that God gives us that we cannot earn. It takes a humility, it takes a teachability to say, nothing in my own effort will make me good with God. Only by what Jesus has done for me can I now be forgiven. My faith in his grace makes me a new creation in Christ Jesus. So Jesus is speaking to that stubbornness. So, in conclusion, to end today, I want to read to you another prophecy from the minor prophet Zechariah. And if you remember Zechariah, he was the prophet that prophesied about the Messiah riding in on a donkey, that that would be a sign. And that's not what we're reading today, but just so you know, and then there was another prophecy. He talked about how the Messiah would be like a rejected shepherd. Okay, this is God's word. But I want to highlight something. You may not catch it, but it's interesting to close today. Zechariah 8, 18 and 19. And the word of the Lord, and this is about approximately 500 plus years before Christ arrives. And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore, love, truth, and peace. So this again gives more understanding and context to the fasting that was going on. So these fasts that were happening on these certain months were actually fasts of mourning for the destruction and the occupation of Jerusalem, for the destruction of the temple, for the murder and death of leaders. They would have these fasts and mourn their suffering, what God, what they were going through. And again, Zechariah, now, I just think this is cool, is prophesying that these fasts are going to turn into, for the again, the house of Judah, seasons of joy and gladness. And I think I underlined cheerful feasts. Well, again, if we go back to the party where Jesus is being questioned, the party, the eating and the drinking, where the Pharisees are accusing from the side what Jesus is eating with these tax collectors and sinners. This is the party. This is the feast. The bridegroom is here. So of course, when the bridegroom's here, we don't mourn anymore. We celebrate. Because our Savior is here. Our Savior is with us. Again, these fasts were connected to those very difficult times that the Jews went through. So now we're in this day, 2,000 years after Christ. Why do we fast? We fast, again, our heart motivation is to be with Christ, to be in personal relationship with Jesus. And we also fast for calling, we fast for uh church leadership, we fast for discernment when we seek the Lord and what we're doing in the seasons that we're in, when we're facing big decisions and challenges. You know what I felt like laid on my heart is, you know, if you have noticed that you are in what a lot of Christians call a dry season, if you're feeling distant from God and your relationship with God, I would say fast. I challenge you to fast, to take a day. One, I think it's healthy to just recognize like I'm not feeling close to God. I'm not feeling that tenderness and that closeness to Jesus like I've felt in my life. And and I hunger for him. And I want to be close to Jesus. I want to be, I want to hear his voice. I want, I want to be on fire for Jesus. I want to be ignited and I want to be passionate for Jesus. And I recognize like I can't like muster that energy and strength up. And so I know that I want that. So one thing we do, and we do this in secret, is we fast. And so that's my challenge to you. Keep it a secret. Do it only for Jesus. Don't let anyone know that you're fasting because you hunger and thirst for the Lord. You want to be close to Jesus. So again, why we fast? We fast to be with Jesus, to be with the bridegroom, calling, you know, wanting to be close with Jesus, and we do it in secret. Let's pray. God, I we just thank you for this day. We thank you for just this opportunity, God, to worship you, to learn about you, God. I I pray um for this church, God. I pray for us individually. I pray for us, this part of the bride, your bride, God, and this larger story that we're all a part of. God, I pray first and foremost that if someone doesn't know you in this room that doesn't have a relationship with you, God, I pray that they would repent, God, of their way of doing it, their religion, their sin, and give their lives to you, put their faith and their trust in you as Lord and Savior. God, you died on the cross for them. You conquered death by your resurrection. And you again now sit at the right hand of the Father, interceding. I pray that you would minister to those people, reveal yourself to those individuals if they don't, and I pray that they would pray to you to receive you as their Lord and Savior, God. I pray for this church, God, again, individually, that we would all hunger and thirst for you, God, to notice um, you know, when we're feeling distant or dry or not close to you, God, that we would by your strength, God, by your the fruit of your spirit draw nearer to you. I pray that we would be close to you, God. I pray that we would, in a sense, be passionate and on have zeal for you, God. And I pray that we would pursue you, Lord, as you have pursued us. So we, God, we just recognize and we humble ourselves before you. We know that we need you, God. We know that we need your direction. We know that we need your protection and your provision, your favor. And we love you, God. It's all for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.