Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hello everyone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is Pastor Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.
Evan Pederson: Please join me in prayer.
Evan Pederson: Holy Spirit, make us hungry for your word, that it may satisfy us, lead us, and bring us life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Evan Pederson: Amen.
Evan Pederson: Today's scripture reading comes from Luke five.
Evan Pederson: Please remain standing if you are able.
Evan Pederson: After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me.
Evan Pederson: And leaving everything he rose and followed him.
Evan Pederson: And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.
Evan Pederson: And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
Evan Pederson: And Jesus answered them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
Evan Pederson: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Evan Pederson: And 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.
Evan Pederson: And Jesus said to them, Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
Evan Pederson: The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.
Evan Pederson: He also told them a parable.
Evan Pederson: No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment.
Evan Pederson: If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old.
Evan Pederson: And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.
Evan Pederson: If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.
Evan Pederson: But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.
Evan Pederson: And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says the old is good.
Evan Pederson: This is God's word.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Thanks be to God.
Evan Pederson: You may be seated.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Thank you, Evan.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, good morning.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This last Tuesday and this last Wednesday were kind of uh events in the church calendar or community life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Last Tuesday was Fat Tuesday, and then it was Ash Wednesday.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So now I don't know if you guys participate in Fat Tuesday or Ash Wednesday, but if you don't know what those things are, those events, Fat Tuesday is a party where all I would say the sick, the sinners, the saints, they come together to celebrate, to have fun, to try to squeeze out all that life has involved in it.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And in that, uh, they're trying to do that before the big decrease of the Lenten season of Lent.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so Ash Wednesday is the next day, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: They're celebrating this Tuesday, this big event.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And then it leads into Ash Wednesday, which is a sober ritualistic service that starts the season of Lent, as I said.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So when I used to work downtown, I uh I would try to engage in this practice.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Um, I would go to St.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Luke's and I would walk along uh from one point of downtown to another, and I invite the people in my office.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I did this because I wanted to deepen my faith.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And me inviting others was two reasons.
Pastor Jason Dunn: One, there are people who practice faith in my office.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I wanted to help encourage them in their faith, but I also wanted to expose those who did not know Jesus to faith.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But after the service, and now I don't know if you know what happens in the Ash Wednesday service, actually, they take the palm branches, certain traditions, and they burn them and they make ashes out of that.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And they take these ashes and they put the sign of the cross on your forehead, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so after the service with my friends and colleagues from the office, we had a decision to make.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Like, what do we do with these ashes?
Pastor Jason Dunn: What was this?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Was this a ritualistic cross on my head to be worn as a badge?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Was this a superstitious relic that was wrong to wipe away?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or do I leave it on there and try my best to explain?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Oh no, this is a symbol of my intimacy with Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But I think the honest question beneath those was for me was for how do I control what others think of me when they look at this cross on my head?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or maybe even more true, how do I control what God thinks of me?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Will God love me more if I keep this cross on my head?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Or will God look away from me if I wipe this cross off my head?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Historically, the in the early church and church tradition, Christians developed this pre-season to Easter to prepare themselves.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It was a time of repentance, it was a time of renewal, a desire for Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It involved fasting and it also involves other disciplines in their lives.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It was also a time that was for instruction, for new believers, uh, catechisms, catechim catechism communicants, rather, who would study for a year and they would enter in this season and then they would be baptized on the Easter Vigil service.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So at the time of Jesus, Judaism was just capturing, I mean, Christianity when Jesus came was just kind of capturing what Judaism had already been practicing.
Pastor Jason Dunn: You had John the Baptist, who was calling for a baptism of repentance.
Pastor Jason Dunn: You had the religious leaders fasting in the name of God, some of them doing it twice a week.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We read that in Luke 18, which uh Will was referencing.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And our text says that the Pharisees and John's disciples fasted often.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In fact, if you just think about it, most religions include fasting as a practice, as a way to get to God, as a way to build yourself up to God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So fasting was not a new concept, it was a part of the religious practice, it was a part of this religious way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So why didn't Jesus' disciples fast?
Pastor Jason Dunn: What's the role of fasting in our Christian life?
Pastor Jason Dunn: If Jesus said on the cross that it is finished, what work is left to do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: If it's all mercy and grace, why are we working so hard in this life?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, we're going to explore those questions through our text through these two points: the old way of life and the new way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If you have your Bibles or advice or a bulletin, turn with me to Luke 5, starting in verse 29.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: What's going on here?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Well, this is the setting, the calling of Levi or Matthew and the other gospels to come and follow Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And who was Levi?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Levi was a tax collector.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He was working as an agent for the enemy.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He was profiting off of a system of oppression as this tax collector.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I was trying to think through what does that look like in our day and age?
Pastor Jason Dunn: The only thing that came to my mind, or a lot of things came to my mind, but one that I'll share is a predatory lender, a debt collector in our day, who's profiting off of the least of these who are stuck in this cycle of poverty.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So this is who Jesus was hanging out with him and his friends.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is who Jesus was calling to himself, the enemy of the people.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Do you feel the scandal in that?
Pastor Jason Dunn: The people at the party were unwanted by the religious leaders of the day.
Pastor Jason Dunn: They were unclean, unfavored, and unchosen by those who were under Roman occupation.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Then comes Jesus, the bridegroom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And this is a story of radical conversion for Levi.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And we'll look at that more in our point number two.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But this angers the religious of that day.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This angers them and it confronts them.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I think it confronts us too to see a religious leader sitting with sinners and tax collectors, sitting with the enemy of the people.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's like having a predatory loan officer sitting with Billy Graham's treasury and having a meal, and you're trying to understand what's going on between these two people.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So what do the religious do?
Pastor Jason Dunn: They grumble and they question.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look down with me at verse 30.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and the sinners?
Pastor Jason Dunn: People usually grumble when they think they deserve more than they are getting.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is the story that we learn in the book of Numbers, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: We went through the book of Numbers.
Pastor Jason Dunn: God's people was freed from slavery in Egypt, and now they're wandering their desert and they were wanting to go back.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And they're grumbling to Moses because they think they deserve more from God than the manna that's falling from the sky.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And people usually question when their way of life is being challenged.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We question because we think our way of life is working.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We question because we think our way of life is actually superior and sufficient.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so the Pharisees, the scribes, and even John's disciples, they continue to ask these questions of Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: They continue to question him and challenge him about the way of life, particularly around fasting and prayers.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look down with me at verse 33.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And 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.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Now Jesus, he answers in a clever way, but in a very clear way.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He answers with a question, which is like the Jesus thing to do, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Jesus said, and continue on, verse 34 to them, Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
Pastor Jason Dunn: So when the bridegroom is here, you don't fast, you feast.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus' presence actually changes the way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus furthers that answer with the parable about the garments and about the wine and the wineskins.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So what is Jesus talking about?
Pastor Jason Dunn: I'm going to focus just on that latter part of that illustration about the wine and the wineskins.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I believe the new wine is the teaching that Jesus brings in his ministry.
Pastor Jason Dunn: That this message, that the kingdom of God is at hand.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's breaking into time, in time in Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And this brain breaking of the kingdom requires a new container, a new vessel for it to be contained.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And the new wineskin, I believe, is the new way of life that Jesus brings.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It holds the new wine, it holds the new teaching of grace and mercy of Christ.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The old wineskin container is the old way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The old way of life that seeks self-righteousness in the form of control before others and before God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If you're receiving the new wine in the old wineskin, what happens?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look at what he at verse 37.
Pastor Jason Dunn: No one puts new wine into old wineskins.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.
Pastor Jason Dunn: What happens when the new wine is put into old wineskins?
Pastor Jason Dunn: It bursts the skins.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The wine is spilled and wasted, and it destroys the vessel.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The point is this the old way of life, the old wineskins, couldn't hold the new wine, couldn't hold the new teaching in Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I want to tell you a story about Eugene Peterson, who is like a spiritual father to many of us probably in the room.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Early on in his life, uh in his seminary days, he was in New York City and he befriended this man named William or William Asa.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He was German, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And uhsa loved to talk about religion, and then Eugene loved to talk about art, and so they became fast friends.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But the thing is, Asa grew up in Germany under the war effort of the Nazi regime.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so he experienced the ways that Christians were complicit in that story, the ways that Christians failed to the death of six million Jews, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And to this tragedy of this world war.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so this pitted up inside of Asa kind of this hate for religion.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But regardless of that, they were friends.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And uh Eugene asked them to paint him a self-portrait.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so Asa agreed, and uh they kept on doing that over weeks.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I don't know how long it takes to do a painting, but weeks, maybe months.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But uh, Asa would never show Eugene the portrait.
Pastor Jason Dunn: One day, Asa's wife comes in and screams in German, sick, sick, and he responds, Asa responds to Eugene and says, No, not sick, but no mercy.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And what what was going on there?
Pastor Jason Dunn: What she saw was this shriveled man, this ghostly figure of Eugene Peterson on this canvas.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And she couldn't make sense of it.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But this is how Asa was making sense of the old way of life, the old religion that leads to death.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It leads to a squeezing out of grace and mercy, it leads to a squeezing out of morality.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And in a way, Asa was trying to tell Eugene Peterson a warning.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If you become a pastor and go down this path, this is who you will become.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But what he didn't realize is that Eugene also understood that there is this new vessel, that there is this new way of life, the way of life that leads to intimacy.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And so Eugene kept that painting as a warning, as a reminder to choose a new way of life, not to continue down the old path.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Old wineskins and old rigid, unflexible ways to do life can squeeze out the mercy and grace of the soul.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And we're not so different than they.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We wonder if our religious obedience can be a badge of self-righteousness, or we wonder if our disobedience can be a badge of unrighteousness, like a scarlet letter.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We have the same problems as the Pharisees and the scribes and the disciples who asked the question of fasting to Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Fasting in the old way of life can become a badge rather than a bell to wake us up of our need of Him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Obedience in the old way of life can become a ritual rather than a relationship to intimacy and freedom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We tend to hold on to the old way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Why?
Pastor Jason Dunn: I think it's because it works for us.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It seems to be a superior and sufficient way of life, a way of life to control.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We feel like it gives us at least enough life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I will say not a full life, not an overflowing life with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But it seems to be like enough life in the old way.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The old way, I will call it, gives us a muted life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And we think it's good.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Have you ever tried to drink wine out of a Dixie cup?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Something doesn't fit, but we think it's good.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is what Jesus is getting at at verse 39.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look at we in your text of chapter 5 of Luke.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he says, No one after drinking old wine desires new.
Pastor Jason Dunn: For he says the old is good.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We need to be careful of our religious badges, our inflexible religious structures.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The old way of life does not get in the way of communion and intimacy with our bridegroom, Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So here's a diagnostic question for you all, and one I've been sitting with this week.
Pastor Jason Dunn: When do we tend to grumble?
Pastor Jason Dunn: When do we tend to question?
Pastor Jason Dunn: When we do grumble or question, I wonder if there's a connection to our controlling way of wanting to go through life in the old way that leads to a muted good.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus isn't only answering a question about fasting, though.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I think he's trying to expose a deeper issue that that old way of life isn't just a muted good, but it leads to death.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And by its control, it squeezes out the grace and the mercy from the message of God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So I have a question for you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: What kind of container or vessel have your hearts and your lives become?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Are they ready to hold the new wine, the teaching of grace and mercy from Jesus?
Pastor Jason Dunn: And this leads me to my second point: the new way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The new way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In one word, it's intimacy.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Turn with me to verse 27 in Luke 5.
Pastor Jason Dunn: After this, he went out, this is Jesus, and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he said to him, Follow me.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is a story of radical conversion.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I wish I had stories about radical conversion that only in two words somebody would leave everything and follow me.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus just says two words.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And to celebrate his radical conversion, his leaving the old way of life and entering into this new way of life, Levi, he throws a party.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But this conversion, as I've already said, and this celebration, it challenges the control and the constriction of the old way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It challenges the self-righteous and honors the sick and the least of these.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It challenges the ways that we self-righteously build our own kingdom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We self-righteously, and that leads to, that challenge leads to, as we build our own way, it leads to that grumbling and questioning.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Look with me at verse 31 and 32.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And Jesus answers them those who have no need of physician, but those who are sick, those are the people that Jesus is coming.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I've been thinking a little bit about this.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's painful actually sometimes to go to a doctor because you actually have to admit and be honest about your own health.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The Bible tells us that we are dead in our trespasses.
Pastor Jason Dunn: That's the reality of our health.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The sinner needs to come to Jesus in repentance and belief.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The old wineskin prevents is anything that prevents seeking healing.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The old wineskin is anything that causes us to avoid repentance.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The old wineskin is anything that keeps you saying to Jesus, No, this way, this old way, it is good.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It is good news to hear that there is a physician who says to us instead, follow me.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The physician who comes with skillful hands and removes the heart of stone that's within all of us and replaces it with the heart of flesh.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus says, I know the way that leads to true life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It is all what we want to hear when we realize that our old systems, our old way of life, aren't working.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus chooses the sinner who repents, not the self-righteous who builds.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Repentance doesn't just happen once, though, but it is a new way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We say with the psalmist in Psalm 139, search me and know me, O God.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Find any grievous way within me.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We ask, and this is what Will said earlier.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Why does he participate in fasting?
Pastor Jason Dunn: It exposes something inside of us, it exposes our thoughts, exposes the self-righteousness, the ways that we try to build in the old life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We must examine ourselves.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is a call for the new way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Repentance is a part of that.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The new wineskin, though, as we understand it, it's flexible.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's urging self-examination and openness to sanctifying grace of the new wine.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We see that faithful following to Jesus, when Jesus says, follow me, it means receiving him as the bridegroom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus says in John's Gospel, and I just kind of quoted this, paraphrased it, but he says in John's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: No one comes to the Father except through me.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In him is the new way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He's the bridegroom who has come with new wine in his blood.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And this is why he says in verse 38 of our text, the new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus' earthly teaching and ministry established a new reality.
Pastor Jason Dunn: When the Holy Spirit came in Pentecost, if you're following along in our Bible reading plan as a community, we're going through the book of Acts, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Early on, when the Holy Spirit descended in Pentecost, what did they say?
Pastor Jason Dunn: They were filled with new wine in Acts chapter 2, verse 13.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So the reality is Jesus isn't fighting against Moses, but rather against the Pharisaic Judaism of that day, the Pharisaic Judaism that's in our own hearts.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus doesn't abolish the law of Moses, but can came to fulfill it in himself.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Something new is bursting forth in a new covenant in his blood.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's the fulfillment of that to which the old covenant, the old sacrificial system that we've been preaching through, That they were all pointing to.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's a fulfillment in which God's role of God's amazing grace kind of comes really forefront in the glorious person of Jesus Christ, who we're called as who is called as our bridegroom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is why Jesus quotes Hosea in Matthew's gospel, recounting the same story of the calling of Levi in this parable.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus says, Go and learn, teaching, go and learn what it means that I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We need new teaching and a new way of life to be healed from our sickness and led to the wedding feast, where there is intimacy awaiting for us with the bridegroom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So where does fasting then fit in that paradigm for the believer, for you, for me, for what Will was talking about earlier?
Pastor Jason Dunn: We live in the already but not yet reality.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Kingdom of God has come.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But there are ways it's not here in his fullest expression.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is what Jesus is getting at in verse 35.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus says, the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Yes, he's alluding to the crucifixion and his death.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And then those days they will fast, but he's also alluding to the real to the reality that someday Jesus is going to be ascended on heaven after the resurrection.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And he's going to send the Spirit.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The Spirit will be sent to us.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But there's this already not yet reality where we still deal with the brokenness.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Now, much of my story of fasting is probably much like yours, or I hope it is, with failure and maybe some successes.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I was zealous in college.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I came to came to know the Lord right at the beginning of college, and I would fast for a week on end.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And then I would gorge myself at uh all you can eat pizza at CC's.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It was like not a good idea, and I don't think I was getting it, but I was just, I think I was actually doing it in the old way, and I wasn't experiencing this communion with God in the new way.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Now, sometimes I think fasting is a good idea, and sometimes I I come to the day when I'm gonna fast and I'm like, oh yeah, this is great.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is intermittent fasting, this is healthy for you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But I don't think Jesus is talking about like a diet regimen.
Pastor Jason Dunn: When we what I've come to learn though, in my failing to try to fast is that in the new way of life, fasting isn't a way to prove my holiness, but it allows this hunger to kind of come up inside of me to be a reminder of my need and my dependence on Him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Somehow fasting actually declutters my heart and makes room for something else to grow.
Pastor Jason Dunn: That something, I think, is intimacy with Jesus.
Pastor Jason Dunn: That something is a new strength from him to carry on in grace.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And we need strength to fight the good fight.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We need strength to throw off every weight of sin that so easily entangles.
Pastor Jason Dunn: But it only comes through weakness, recognizing our dependence through fasting.
Pastor Jason Dunn: If you can't deny, I've heard this said, if you can't deny the body through fasting, then you won't be able to deny the flesh in transgressing.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So it teaches, it trains our body.
Pastor Jason Dunn: For the believer, a discipline can become a desire.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It exposes you, as well said earlier, and it opens you up.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Right now, the elders of our church have been invited to fast on Wednesdays during Ramadan for our Muslim neighbors, creating in us an intimacy with the bridegroom, I hope, but also an intimacy we want to see fall afresh on those who are not yet believers.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And what I'm hopeful for is that we all grow in that intimacy with Jesus, that we might see the kingdom of God moved in our prayers.
Pastor Jason Dunn: This is also in our text, but there is something they had right when they said a question about fasting and prayers.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Fasting and prayers that go together.
Pastor Jason Dunn: And I long to see these small hinges of our prayers and fasting open these large doors of salvation and intimacy for those who do not believe.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Small hinges can open large doors.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The bridegroom has come and the bridegroom is coming again.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The new wineskin and the new way of life leads to an ache for him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Fasting is not an achievement, it's a posture.
Pastor Jason Dunn: God, I want you.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Alicia Britt Cole, who writes a Lenten devotional, and I'll put the quote behind me, says this.
Pastor Jason Dunn: My fasts are more love offerings than disciplines, though it certainly requires discipline to maintain them.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In short, I ache.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I ache for my bridegroom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I ache to live every waking moment conscious of his presence.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I ache to live aware of his past and present suffering.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I ache to live unattached to what man counts and measures.
Pastor Jason Dunn: The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus, as the bridegroom, has you, and he has me, the bride, the church.
Pastor Jason Dunn: In the new way of life, we have intimacy with him.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and his gospel for us, for those who are outside, and also for us who believe.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It is good news.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It's a new way to live.
Pastor Jason Dunn: He himself is an is presenting to us an intimate opportunity of relationship with him, in which we ache for the fullness of the kingdom to come, where we get to see Jesus face to face.
Pastor Jason Dunn: I'm going to close with a simple confession, and this is our hope.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Christ has come, and that has made a big change in the way that we move in this life, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: There's something that has been broken in.
Pastor Jason Dunn: So the old way of life we put down.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We take up this new way of life in Christ.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.
Pastor Jason Dunn: It says this in Revelation about the marriage supper of the Lamb, which we fast towards, right?
Pastor Jason Dunn: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Let us pray.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Father, we are grateful for your love for us, in that you sent your son, the bridegroom, the bridegroom, to ransom a people, to ransom your bride, to be an inheritance by your blood.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Jesus, you are the one who has us as a bride.
Pastor Jason Dunn: You're the one who has purchased us in your blood.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We are not our own.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Spirit, we ask you that you would fill us up with new wine, help us to throw off the old way of life and move us toward love in a new way of life.
Pastor Jason Dunn: We give you the glory.
Pastor Jason Dunn: Amen.