Mark 2:18-22 New Wine
Intro:
How do you picture Jesus ? Serious ?
Focused
? Sorrowful ?
A) Oh I think that He had
that side of Him – but I also think – that He enjoyed
having a good time
B) Gospel Road – { Hookie
movie – Great scene
C) That is a side of Jesus
that people usually don’t want to consider –
1) Jesus having a good time
!!! Jesus enjoying people
D) Reminds me of the preacher who was preaching on
the passage that Jesus was a Man of sorrows acquainted
w/ grief
1) Never smiled
never laughed - always serious - Little
girl NOT TRUE
2) Children -
came …… wouldn’t have come
E) It is True that Jesus was grieved by man’s sin -
yet He also rejoiced in seeing sinful men like Levi - come to repentance!
Well
that is where we find Jesus here in Mark Ch. 2 – Levi throws a party – all his
heathen friends
A) Jesus is the Guest of
Honor
B) The religious leaders
take offense – How could a true spiritual man hang out w/ people like this?
C)
It was this type of behavior that gained Jesus a reputation of being a glutton
& a drunkard – a friend of tax collectors and sinners
How did Jesus
respond to this accusation ? V.17
"Those who
are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
"I have not come to call the righteous,
but sinners, to repentance."
D) The
scribes and Pharisees saw Levi and his friends as condemned sinners,
1) but Jesus saw them as
spiritually sick “patients” who needed the help of a physician.
Well after
this encounter v.18 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were
fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John
and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”
A)Along
w/ alms giving & certain prescribed prayers, fasting twice-a wk. had become
1 of the 3major expressions of orthodox Judaism in Jesus’ day.
B) The
Pharisees looked on these practices with great seriousness
1)
They were careful not only to follow them faithfully but to do so as publicly
as a testimony to true godliness
C)
When they gave alms, they blew trumpets
“in the synagogues and in the streets” in order to “be honored by men” (Matt.
6:2).
When
they prayed “in the synagogues and on the street corners,” they did so “to be
seen by men”
A) And when they fasted, they
“put on a gloomy face” and neglected their “appearance in order to be seen
fasting by men”
B)
It was all an outward show of external rituals which they paraded as badges of
godliness
C) Now what They were suggesting was: if Jesus was
really a spiritual guy like them - he wouldn’t be so Happy .
D) He wouldn’t be celebrating w/ sinners – He would be
fasting like the “SAINTS”
E) Jesus response is
interesting
V.
19 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.20 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away
from them, and then they will fast in those days
In those days a
wedding would usually last 7days, & the bridegroom would choose his best friends to be responsible for the
festivities.
According to the Talmud, there is one time a man
is absolved of duty, even prayer: at a wedding ceremony.
The only duty a man had at a wedding ceremony was
to rejoice.
Thus, Jesus is saying, ‘This is not the time to be
fasting.’ This is a time to be REJOICING
By using this image, Jesus was saying to His
critics, “I came
to make life like a wedding feast, not a funeral.
I don’t know
when Christianity began being associated with grumpiness, Drugery – Not
Christianity
Not RELIGION -
/ RELATIONSHIP
Redlands Pizza Place – Prostitutes – Religious –
God hates
religion - Relationship -
Not
called to a Funeral but a wedding feast -
A) If you know
the Bridegroom, then you can share His joy.”
B) Pharisees
projected a religion of stuffiness –
1) Rituals / Routines –
2) So Jesus
came to do a new thing !!
JESUS PRECEEDED TO GIVE TWO ILLUSTRATIONS showing how He came
to do something new
In the First illustration Jesus used a garment 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old
garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made
worse.
There are those who suggest
that Jesus came to reform Judaism.
A) Jesus was illustrating that he had not come to
try & patch up the old religious system - can’t patch up the old
B) Can’t put a new patch onto old Levi’s - wash
stretch & tear
1) The problem wasn’t that the old system needed
fixed or patched - but that a new system was needed entirely
C) Not patching up the old –
1)
Personal Application -
In Scripture, garments were sometimes used to picture
character and conduct (Col. 3:8-17). Put off old man - put on the NEW
A) Isaiah wrote about a “robe
of righteousness”
B) But Some people instead of receiving the Robe of
Righteousness that Jesus offers to those who believe in Him
1) try to
create their own “patchwork” religion
C) Like a man wearing a worn out coat w/ holes - they try
to patch up that old coat –
D) Instead of allowing the Lord to give them a new
one .
1) Patch
it up w/ Church attendance ! - patch it up
w/ Charity work –
E) Then comes the New Years Resolution Patch - Stop
drinking – stop
smoking - start exercising - New Me / but it is all external -
F) Still
wearing an old worn out coat ! – Still Sinners
1) Still separated from God –
Jesus says It is not a patch that you need but a whole new
coat
A) Jesus does a work on the inside that affects your
life in every way - seen on the outside !
B) He didn’t come to patch up the old Rabbinical
system - Nor does He want to patch up your old life
1)He came to do a New thing & to give you a new
life !
In the 2nd illustration - He gives further
insight into how this takes place
22 And 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."
A) Wine was often stored in animal
skins that were specially prepared for that purpose.
B) Now Old wineskins would eventually dry
out and become hard , and if someone put
new wine into them, when the wine began to ferment
C)
they couldn’t handle the stretching & the expanding & they would crack
and burst open ,spilling the wine ... out.
C) The only suitable container
for new wine is a fresh wineskin.
D) PT. Jesus came to
usher in the new, not to unite with the old.
1) Something new is happening.’
E) The question then arises: What
did He mean when He declared in Matthew 5 that He came not to destroy the old,
but to fulfill it?
Perhaps the answer is best illustrated
with an acorn. A) If I set an acorn on the ground and hit it repeatedly with a
hammer, it would soon be destroyed.
B) If, on the other hand, I
bury it in the ground, it would likewise be destroyed.
C) But in the second case, its destruction would bring about fulfillment,
1) for it would bring forth a
whole new tree.
D) So When Jesus said,
‘I have come to fulfill the Law,’ it was in the sense of the buried acorn.
1) That is, once the Law
shows us we’re sinners in need of a Savior, its work is complete — fulfilled in the Person of our Savior,
Jesus
A) Jesus would establish a New
Covenant in His blood - written on human hearts, not on tablets of stones
B) He would promise to indwell those who followed Him w/ the Holy Spirit
1) who would enable them to walk in God’s ways
C) The Christian life is not a
mixing of the old and the new; rather, it is a
fulfillment of the old in the new.
1) When you trust Jesus Christ, you
become part
of a new creation
New
Wine – New work in these days
A) Still centered around the
Word – sensitivity to the HS –
B) But at the same time –
New in Flavor –
1) You are the New wine
skins -
C) Fellowship – Worship –
1) New Life into the Church
One last thing: Wineskins
tend to dry out – but they are not ruined – Soak in water – Renewed
A) Soak in the Word
Rom. 12 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
A) The word Transformed = metamorphosis
- caterpillar becomes a butterfly same creature - whole New thing - not
crawling but flying
B) How happen - One a leaving of the world - system & mindset
C) Two a renewing of the mind - How
is our mind renewed - when we soak in the water of the word
D) Want to stay flexible -
open to the H.S. moving in your life - soak in the word !