Sermon Transcript
Today’s scripture reading will be from Mark 2:18 to chapter 3, verse 12. Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, how is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting but yours are not? Jesus answered, how can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them, they cannot so as long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, otherwise the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins. One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?
He answered, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat, and he also gave some to his companions. Then he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there.
Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, stretch out your hand.
He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Jesus withdrew his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. Because of the crowd, he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him to keep the people from crowding him, for he had healed many so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him.
Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the Son of God! But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him. Thank you, God, for your word.
Can I have that mic? Thank you. Well, good morning everybody. Am I on? Yeah, I think so.
Good morning everybody. Hey, before we get into the text of my message today, it’s my privilege to welcome just a really special family, the Vetrans, who are some of our missionaries that we support here. And I’m gonna invite up my brother, John Vetrans. Yeah. Hey, can we just thank the Lord for the Vetrans?
Yeah, come on up, John.
So, John and his wife, Esther, and their son, Johnny, is with them today, their daughter, Daniela could not be here. They are some of our missionaries that we support, and they serve in Romania, but they also have roots here in the Bay Area. And I’ve just been praying in preparation for this message about where to fit in a word from John, as he’s just my brother. And, yeah, come on up here, John. I just— I love these guys, and I so appreciate their heart and their ministry, and I’d love to pray for them.
But I also just think in light of this text, we’ve been talking over the last couple weeks about this new thing that we feel like God is doing in our midst collectively and individually. And so this text is speaking about the new work of the Spirit that God wants to do in our lives. And God is doing a really new thing in, in Romania right now. God is on the move and is pouring out his Spirit in a really fantastic way. So John, I just wanted to allow you to share for a few moments here about just what is God doing?
How are you seeing God work in and through you and your family and just in Romania as he’s pouring out his Spirit on folks in that area? Thank you. Thank you so much.
Hello and good morning. It is a privilege to be with you, and thank you for this wonderful opportunity to to stand in front of you and to, to say thank you and express our gratitude. And I mentioned in Sunday school, it’s one thing to write a note of thanks, but it is something else when personally, physically, we can express our gratitude towards you and the Bridges Church for enabling us to make a difference for Jesus on the other side of the world, over the ocean. And it is through your faithfulness and your love for the Lord that enables us to communicate and share Christ over And, you know, thinking of the passage that has been read, we’re so grateful and we are honored to be able to serve the Lord, especially during times like this, especially during all this crisis that we are seeing, global crisis, and we see, of course, political crisis, social crisis, we see spiritual crisis, and for sure we see moral crisis. Crisis, and more than ever, people need Jesus more than anything.
In the light of all this crisis that we see, even in Europe, we border Ukraine, and we’ve seen nearly 3 million refugees that have crossed the border into Romania. We border north and also at the south, and we see people that are desperate, and we share with them more than anything, yes, help them in a humanitarian point of view, We feed them, we take them to the doctor and all that stuff. But more than anything, they need Jesus. They need Christ because he’s the only one that can resolve the crisis in that part of the world. And you know, looking at the way God has placed us there at this time, we, we as believers, uh, I, I think that in times like this, Christianity, it’s put to test.
I think the Christian It’s put to test, his genuine relationship with Christ. Is his relationship and spirituality, is it authentic and real? Because more than ever, in light, in the light of all this crisis, we are called to make a difference. We can’t stay passive when we see all that is happening. And I remember Apostle Paul at one point, he says, we are ambassadors of Christ, and therefore we represent the interests of heaven.
Heaven here on earth. And you know, it is amazing, you know, when you look at Europe and especially, you know, with deep historical religious roots, there is religion, there is tradition, but there is no Christ. So more than anything, you know, we see churches built, we see religions developing, new cults and new forms of denominations that are taking— that are being born, but yet people don’t know Jesus Christ. And you know what is interesting? As we shared, uh, um, this last year with the Ukrainian refugees.
They are Eastern Europeans, Eastern Orthodox. They don’t know Christ because they don’t have the Bible. Some of them have never seen the Bible. They are— for the first time they had a Bible in their hands. So what is our responsibility?
Our responsibility, not only us on the mission field, but for each one who is part of the body of Christ to make a difference for Jesus Christ. And you know, I often share about Acts 1:8, and you shall receive power. If you remember, Jesus said, you shall receive power to be my witnesses. The power is not given to us to do whatever we want to do with it. The power is given to us to be his witnesses wherever we are— young and old, intellectual not very intellectual, whoever we are, we are called to be his witnesses.
And then he continues on and he says, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Romania. So therefore, yes, so therefore Jerusalem is here, is Los Altos. The responsibility of the believers here is to give and sacrifice and invest here at home. If Los Altos is strong, we are going to be strong in Romania. If we invest here and if we are faithful here and if we share Christ here, you know, we are going to be empowered to share Christ there.
So we want to thank you for, for your sacrificial giving and for your prayer support that enables us to serve the Lord. But I would say that the priority The priority is here because, you know, we’ve been away about 6 years or so this time because of this COVID and stuff. And when we come back, we’ve seen some things that are discouraging. I was expecting, you know, to see the church full of enthusiasm and passionate for Jesus. So I don’t know, some kind of rheumatism, I don’t know what’s going on, some kind of arthritis, spiritual stuff.
It’s not— I said, where is the enthusiasm and compassion for Jesus Christ. You know, if you would be, uh, in Romania, if you see people this last year, you know, in the last few years we’ve seen hundreds of people come to know Jesus Christ when they know who Jesus is. Because really, Jesus is the answer. He is the King of Kings. He is the Lord of Lords.
He has all the power and authority in heaven and on earth. And yet here in the book of Mark People, they had religions, they had the old stuff, they had their traditions, but they didn’t have Jesus. They wanted Jesus to be a patch. They wanted Jesus to be an add-on. They wanted Jesus to be a complement to something, some kind of a makeup to cover up, to cover up, you know, the sinful pimples of our face, to, to bring some beauty to come.
No, Jesus is not for that. Jesus has the power and authority. He can change, transform, and he did it in Romania, and he does it in Ukraine. We’ve seen people come to know Jesus in Ukraine. So you probably don’t know that through your partnership, through your love for Jesus Christ, you have invested in souls in Ukraine.
Now I’d like to share a little passage with you that is known, and it’s very special to me that it’s related to the one in Mark. But if you remember the passage, Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5, verse 15 through 17 says, be careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. I’m going to read it again. I don’t know if we can show that, you know, but anyway, it’s Ephesians 5 5. If you have your Bibles with you or telephones, open it.
Ephesians 5:15-17. Because we are called to be responsible members of the body of Christ, and he, the Lord, has expectations in times like this. Because I believe it’s all well, you know, when nothing happens, when banks don’t collapse, when the economy is straight, when everything is fine. But now, in times of crisis, God has expectations from us, and he says it here in this passage: Be very careful then how you live your lives, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
So I hope You know, sometimes I look at the ministry that God has enabled us to do in Romania. We’re not worth it. We are not worth— it is a privilege and honor. God can use somebody else, but he gives us the open door to make a difference for him. And we want to be faithful servants, making the most of every opportunity, to take advantage of every second and every moment that we have to share Christ.
When I go to Safeway, I go to Raley’s, I shopping, I speak with the guy there and I ask him if he knows Jesus. I ask him if he knows the Lord, the Lord of Peace. Nobody is going to bring peace in Ukraine. It’s not the billions of dollars, it’s not any kind of humanitarian help. It’s the Lord of Peace that will bring revival and change, and he will do it through us, using us, making the most of every opportunity at home, in our relationship with our wives wives and husbands and children, with our neighbors and colleagues, wherever we are, to take every moment that we have as grace and make a difference for him.
You know why? You remember there is the passage in 1 Peter, and you know what he says? He said we are holy priesthood, special holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices. And then he repeats that And in closing, I want to say, he says we are because we are, we are a royal priesthood, holy nation, people of God’s own possession, that it may proclaim the excellencies of him. So, you know, historically it’s expected from pastors, for those that are paid, from the Pope, from priests to, to, to serve the Lord and make a difference?
Well, you know, the passage says that we are all holy priesthood, royal priesthood, to proclaim the excellencies of God. What a privilege we have. And I want to thank you for giving us the privilege in Romania to make a difference for Jesus Christ. And we want to make the most of it, because one day we are all going to sit before the throne of grace and they’re going to give an account. Of everything we have and we are and we’ve done.
Thank you from our hearts for enabling us to share Christ, to share Jesus with the people of Romania in Eastern Europe. Thank you.
I just wish that John was a little bit more excited about God’s Word and about the Lord. No, this is my brother, and we just love him and Esther. And give thanks to God for your family. So often with our missionaries, you know, they’re off and about and doing so many wonderful works, and we feel like we just have such a relationship with you that’s been reciprocated over the years. A number of our folks have been to Romania.
My wife and I hope to come, Abel, one of these days to join you folks. But we trust these folks. We love these folks. And after the service, I’m going to ask if they would be out in the lobby so that you all can come by and shake their hands and give them hugs. Whether you’ve met them or not, you just are going to be encouraged around these folks.
And we’d love to pray for them. And we thank you for sharing in this ministry with us. God, we want to pray. I want to lift up the Vitrans. Thank you, Father, for my brother here, for my sister Esther, and their kids, Johnny and Daniela.
Father, you are at work in their midst, and I want to thank you that you are on the move in Romania, that, Lord, you are on the move in Ukraine. We pray for an end to this awful war. We pray, Lord, that you would feed and clothe and shelter, Lord, those in need. And we pray for a move of your Spirit, the likes of which this generation has never imagined, Lord, that you would do miracles in people’s lives. Father, we pray that you would refresh the Vetrans as they are seeking, Lord, to serve you.
May they not grow weary, Lord, in doing well. We pour out, Lord, our blessings on them and ask that you would fill them anew with your Spirit and that the fruit of your Spirit and of your ministry would be evident there, Father. We pray for those who do not know you to come to a saving knowledge of you. We pray, Father, that you would unite us as brothers and sisters in Christ, Lord, to be of one mind and of one heart and to recognize that our time here on earth is short so that we would make the most of every opportunity, Father. May we today, as your Word is spoken, as your Word goes forth, Lord, may it land in our hearts.
May we receive it. May our hearts be soft. And may, Lord, you do a new work in us and through the church, and would— for your glory, Lord, is what we pray. And all these things in Jesus’ name. And all God’s people said amen.
Thank you. Thank you, brother.
Super grateful. Well, friends, in light of this passage As we look at our passage today, I want us to think a little bit about remodeling. How many of you have ever done any remodeling in your home, maybe an office? Yeah, some of you folks. Do you like it?
Yes, no, maybe so? Anytime you remodel, you have to account for a few things. You have to account for some unexpected curveballs along the way. You might find more things to fix and to remodel than what you had planned. Planned, delays in getting materials, unforeseen costs, dealing with difficult personalities who have a different timeline than you might have.
And you also have to expect a bit of a mess anytime there’s a remodel. It can get so messy sometimes people have to get up and go somewhere else for a bit, whether stay in a hotel or with a friend or family member or get out of town. Now, what is the goal of remodeling? Should be obvious, right? Why do we remodel?
The goal of remodeling, typically— I don’t think this is new information to you all— is to remake something better than when it started. The goal of remodeling is not to keep everything exactly the same. Who does that? Who remodels something with the goal of the, the the after being worse than the before? Nobody.
You remodel because something gets old. Something gets worn or stale or torn or broken, and you want to give it some new life. You want to make it fresh. But in order for that to happen, you have to account for the fact that there’s going to probably be some destruction. And Sid, and disruption.
And sometimes God allows us, and you’ve— many of you have experienced this individually, collectively, in our lives, in the church, in the world, for us to go through a similar kind of a process where there’s this divine remodel, this divine refinement, some type of divine reset. And I’ve asked this question before, I’ll raise it up again: why does God do that? Why does God do this kind of remodel? Remodel work? He does it, first of all, if you didn’t already know this, to remind us or to tell us that he’s in control, ’cause sometimes we forget that.
But he also does it ’cause he’s seeking to remodel some things in our lives and in the world that are old and stale and ineffective.
We don’t want to admit it, but things in our life naturally move towards entropy. Not towards progress. Things in our life naturally move towards ruts and things getting crusty and calcified. So, there are times when a remodel is desperately needed, and yet, boy, we sure fight against it.
We sure fight against it. We’re like, I kinda like the way things are, God.
I’d kinda prefer you do your remodeling work in someone else or somewhere else. Else and just kind of like leave me out of it. That’s not the point of a remodel.
And so it doesn’t ever work to say, God, would you do a work of revival in my heart? Would you do a work of revival in our church? Would you pour out your Spirit on me and on our community? Would you answer prayers and bring people to you? And would you do miracles and a new work and yet keep everything exactly the same.
It doesn’t work to do that. Do whatever you want to do, God. Do whatever you have to do, but just keep everything exactly the same. Amen. Doesn’t work like that.
And yet that’s still typically our mindset, because to go through a process of remodeling in our lives means giving up a measure of control, and we love our control. Control. It’s going to be costly.
It’s going to be inconvenient. It’s probably going to be messy. It’s probably going to be a bit painful. And it usually means our plans get interrupted, and we’re not really big fans of that. Who wants that?
Do you want that? I, I honestly would prefer to not go through that. And And yet it’s precisely what Jesus came to the earth to do. That’s what this text is telling us. He didn’t just come to the earth to make a minor improvement here or a little tweak over here.
He did not come to just ensure to keep everything running the same as it had before. He came to do some radical remodeling. He came to do something completely new and different. I mean, I don’t know if you were paying attention when Austin was reading the text a little bit ago, but all that Jesus is doing in this passage and all that he’s been doing up to this point in our study of the Gospel of Mark is so completely new and mind-blowing and unexpected. Because now Jesus is saying that he didn’t come in order to just keep the status quo.
He didn’t come to just reform religion. No, what he’s actually claiming— and this is a really, really bold claim, incredibly audacious, that Jesus came in order to utterly and completely end religion. Did you catch that?
Jesus came to not reform religion. He came to end religion once and for all, but to replace it with something new and much, much better. As we heard a moment ago from Austin, for some this was welcome news. This is what they wanted. We’re at a place in our study in the life of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus appears to be at the height of his popularity with certain people.
He’s healing, there’s miracles, he’s feeding people. Look how enormous his popularity is in this text where it mentions people coming all the way from places like Tyre and Sidon. And you may not know exactly where that is. I’ll tell you, those 2 areas were 100 miles to the north. People were coming from over 100 miles away back then.
They didn’t need the internet or some other form of media for the word about Jesus to spread. This is what they were looking for, and Jesus was coming to bring it. But not everybody was as stoked as those crowds were. We looked last week, Pastor Dan shared about how Jesus was on a collision course with the religious establishment. And of course, they’re not gonna like it ’cause again, Jesus didn’t come to just reform religion and say, good job, religious people.
He came to end religion, and that’s a threat to them. And so, the religious leaders are taking issue that Jesus claimed to be God, and then because he claimed to be God, that Jesus would have the authority to be able to forgive people’s sins. Not only that, the religious authorities we saw last week are also upset offended by the particular people that Jesus chose to forgive. Surely, God, you would forgive these people but not these folks. And yet Jesus dared to consort with, quote unquote, sinners.
And now we’ve got 2 more confrontations or divine collisions here in this text that we’re looking at today. And as we do, we’re gonna see that Jesus is gonna keep doing 2 things. And I— this is how I just want us to think about this text today. The first thing he’s gonna to do, and he’s been doing it, is he’s going to expose the utter futility of religion, the utter futility of religion then and now. And second, he’s going to show us the new and better way that he came to offer.
So first, the futility of religion. Let’s start by looking a little bit closer at these 2 accounts, these collisions in this passage. The first one has to do with the practice of fasting. John the Baptist had some followers, they fasted. The Pharisees, the influential religious group during Jesus’ day, they fasted.
But when we read in the Bible about fasting, if that’s new to you all, this is not referring to fasting in a dieting sense like many do today. This is referring to, as scripture teaches us, to fast for the purpose of the spiritual practice of abstaining from eating or from some other activity that you would normally For the— for a period of time in order to focus upon the Lord and your relationship with the Lord. And the Bible presents fasting as being good. It’s beneficial.
I have a bit of experience with fasting. It’s always a really beneficial process. And the Bible presents fasting as a way of communicating to your soul that you long for and you hunger for for God more than you hunger for or need food. So it’s supposed to be about spiritual growth. It’s a good thing.
Now, the Old Testament Mosaic Law— do you know how many times they required you to fast? Once a year. Once a year on the Day of Atonement. The typical Pharisee, though, fasted twice a week. Aren’t you impressed?
That was kind of the idea. They would typically choose to fast on Mondays and Thursdays. Why Mondays and Thursdays? It just so happened to be the 2 days that were the busiest market days during the week. So if you fasted on that day, you could make a little bit of a show in public and let everybody see just how devoted to God that you are.
So their primary motive in fasting was in order to be seen by others, and Jesus said, I want nothing of it. The real problem though is that not that the Pharisees were fasting— Jesus isn’t anti-fasting— but rather, as we see over and over again, that they would take these biblical principles and commands and then they’d stack them with human additions and man-made traditions and restrictions, and then they’d raise these things up to the divine will of God as if to say not just, I’m different from you because I do these things, But rather, I’m different from you, and that makes me better than you.
You ever seen that at work in this day and age?
What they’re really asking in verse 18 is not, how is it that John’s disciples fast and then your disciples don’t? What they’re really saying is, if you’re so spiritual, Jesus, then why do you— why don’t you make your followers live up to our religious standards? Standards? Why do we have to deny ourselves and be miserable and suffer while your followers don’t? Why aren’t you, and why aren’t they, more serious about your religious commitment?
How did Jesus respond to them? Did he tell them, hey, you shouldn’t fast? No. To be clear, Jesus fasted himself. He actually assumed his followers would fast.
What upset him here that not that these folks would fast, but that they would bind other people’s consciences to feel guilty about not fasting. And then they would often do these practices in public in order to be seen by others, to earn the praise of men. And they seem to miss entirely the whole point of fasting in the first place by being so rigid and legalistic and ritualistic about it. Their fasting had grown old, stale. It is just a dry ritual to them.
So Jesus called them out on that.
Moreover, Jesus pointed out that, that his followers weren’t fasting not because they were anti-fasting, because this really shouldn’t have been a time for sorrow and mourning. Jesus is saying Jewish weddings in those days were exuberant celebrations, sometimes lasting up to 7 days or more. Imagine going to that kind of a celebration and you see the bride and the groom and the wedding party are just gloomy and miserable the whole time. What kind of celebration is that? In the same way, Jesus said it’s not going to make much sense for Jesus’ followers at this point in time in his ministry to grieve and to be gloomy.
Why? Because what they had been longing for, what they had been praying for, is finally right in front of them. So fasting at that particular moment would be inappropriate, out of the question. Why? Because the fact that the kingdom of God was present and it was moving and it was doing such powerful work and doing great things in people’s lives was and is worthy of celebration, Jesus is saying.
So the more pertinent question is not why Jesus’ disciples weren’t fasting. The real question is, why weren’t the Pharisees feasting? Why weren’t they celebrating celebrating? Why weren’t they rejoicing in the work that God was doing right there, right then, right in front of them? Now, there would be a time for fasting.
There would be a time in the future— and Jesus alludes to this in verse 20— when Jesus the bridegroom would be taken away from his bride, his followers. And he’s referring there to his imminent death. And it’s at that time Jesus said joy would be changed for sorrow, and celebration would turn to mourning. But that’s not usually what you expect at a wedding. Usually the guests eventually leave.
But Jesus is now interjecting this strange thought that one day the groom would be forcibly removed from the wedding. That time had not yet come, Jesus is saying. So their focus then and there should have been on enjoying Jesus in the present while he was still with them, and that’s what they were doing. Now, the second collision in this passage to represent for us the futility of religion occurs between verse 23 of chapter 2 and verse 6 of chapter 3 and had to do with the purpose of the Sabbath. At its most basic term, the Sabbath means stop or to cease, and typically it means to cease from labor or work.
And the Old Testament law of God dictated you had to rest from your work 1 day out of 7. What the religious leaders, and especially the Pharisees of Jesus, did was to saddle, though, this particular law down with various other regulations. Did you know that they came up with 39 different types of work or activities you could not do on the Sabbath? Aren’t you impressed? They wanted you to be.
So one of these forbidden activities was picking grain when you walk through the field. You couldn’t do that on the Sabbath. Another forbidden activity: traveling on the Sabbath, which the Pharisees had specifically defined. Traveling was walking more than 1,999 steps. I’m not joking.
So long before the Fitbit and the Apple Watch and counting steps, that’s what the Pharisees were doing. And boy, they were watching you. And it also appears that healing somebody on the Sabbath was also a forbidden activity. You’re doing work. If you’re going to heal, do it some other time, just not on the Sabbath.
So Jesus and his disciples here are guilty of a triple violation of Sabbath breaking. Now, the reason why Jesus gets angry— and I don’t know if you get angry over these kinds of things— the reason why Jesus gets angry is because this should have been a matter of common sense for them. Think Think about it. What is the Sabbath, the day of rest, really all about? Is it about not working in a legalistic way?
No, it’s about restoring the diminished. It’s about replenishing the soul. The Sabbath is about repairing that which is broken. And so, for example, to heal a man with a shriveled hand, isn’t that kind of what the Sabbath is all about? Not so to the minds of Jesus’ onlookers.
Why? One writer put it this way: the reason why the Pharisees were so upset is because their hearts were just as shriveled up as this man’s hand. So Jesus is understandably angry because they’re using these various spiritual practices as weapons. They’re using it as a way to exalt themselves over others and to look down on others. He’s angry because that when, when you become more focused on the legalism of a spiritual practice, then you begin to focus more on your spiritual worthiness before God than on showing mercy to others.
And then you become like— you start developing a critical spirit. You start getting into fault-finding and entitled, which is why these folks were so intently watching Jesus’ every move, so that they could find a valid reason to get mad at him. To accuse him, presumably with a legal charge. And he was angry with them because the whole point of the commandments about the Sabbath had been lost sight of, and because the rules mattered more to them than the actual reality. Now, we should ask, why were these Pharisees so insecure and anxious and uptight?
What was their deal really with fasting and with the Sabbath? Do you know why? Why were they so uptight and making such a big deal out of this? Why were they so judgmental about Jesus instead of actually caring about and rejoicing over the fact that this man with the shriveled hand was healed? The answer, my friends, to all of these questions is religion.
What is religion? Religion is when you put on man-made additions to God’s requirements. In order to make you feel or appear more acceptable to God. That’s something so many of us are familiar with. What ends up happening is that these requirements become more of man than of God, and because God’s name gets attached to it, it just looks and sounds more legitimate.
And all religions in the world are like that, without exception. All religions in the world are like that. They’re all essentially based on this idea that you relate to God by trying to be good. Christianity is not just different than that, it is absolutely and diametrically opposed to that. Religion is I give God something and then he owes me.
Why? Because I’m a good person. Christianity is that God comes in and totally remodels your heart and your life and gives you this complete salvation which you receive by sheer grace. In religion, you’re saved by being better than everybody else, and that’s why in religion you’re so concerned about how you stack up against others. You’re concerned with the details.
You want to know exactly what do I have to do, what buttons do I have to push. You’re not so concerned about the broader motives of the commands. You’re not so concerned about your heart. You’re far more interested in figuring out how you can assure yourself that you and God are okay with each other. And sadly, if you didn’t already know this, this is by and large the default mode of our hearts.
We’re so good at this. We’re religious.
It’s the default mode of our hearts.
Christianity though is absolutely different. In Christianity, you’re only saved if you’re willing to admit that you fall short of God’s perfect standard and are no better than anybody else, and therefore you can only be rescued by God’s grace. So what Jesus is saying here is that these are 2 vastly different spiritual paradigms: Christianity and religion. And one paradigm, the paradigm of human religion, you become so overly concerned with the details of God’s commands that you eventually just start going through the motions and you stop paying attention to your motives or your heart. You start viewing obedience to God as burdensome, as something I just have to do this.
And then what ends up is you get enslaved by it and your heart gets bitter. In the other paradigm, the gospel of Jesus, the exact same commands of God as in religion are now viewed and received as a gift, not as a burden. They bring freedom, not enslavement. Rather than being so concerned with details, you view God’s commands instead practices like fasting and observing the Sabbath as a way of showing how you can better love God and how to love others instead of being so absorbed and caught up in yourself. And God’s Word humbles you and it makes you say, I could never live up to this, and yet God loves me so much in spite of that, and therefore I just want to love him with my obedience.
Do you see the difference? Now, the larger point that Jesus is trying to make here is that these 2 vastly different parables paradigms are completely incompatible with each other. They do not work together. You don’t take religion and then throw on Christianity to it. It doesn’t work.
And he gives a couple examples of that to make his point about the stark contrast between the utter futility of religion and the new and better way that Jesus is making available to us. The first example he gives is of how foolish it would be to take a piece of shrunken cloth and put it onto an old garment. When the new piece becomes wet, it’s eventually going to shrink, it’s going to tear, it’s going to make an even bigger hole, and then the garment’s no longer usable and you just got to throw it out. The other example he gives is about new wine. In the ancient world, the skins of goats were stripped off as nearly as possible.
They were then filled with new wine, and their elasticity and the flexibility of the skin, as well as their strength, would allow the skin to stretch and to contain the new wine as it fermented and expanded. However, if you put new wine into old wineskins that had become old and brittle and weak and worn out, when fermentation takes place in this new wine, then eventually the expansion is going to burst the skins, and then both the wine and the wineskins get lost, and then all you end up with is some broken bottles and some wasted wine.
You see what Jesus is trying to do here? He’s using these examples as a way of helping us to understand that the old way of approaching God through religion was and is unusable.
It is unusable. With Jesus coming, he’s replacing it though with something far better. The new fabric of faith in Jesus cannot be interwoven woven with the tired threads of the religious system, and neither can the new wine of Jesus’ ministry be contained in old vessels. Jesus is saying once again, I did not come to do some simple patchwork in your life. I loved what John shared earlier here.
Jesus did not just come to say, I’ve got a hole in my life, so let me just patch that up a little bit. He did not come to be a patch.
Jesus did not come to update your life like an app on your phone. He did not come to be an additive to your faith. He’s saying, I’m bringing some brand-new stuff here, and it’s powerful, and it’s explosive, and it’s something different than anything that you’ve ever seen or imagined. I did not come to be an attachment. I did not come to be an appendage to the status quo.
Quo. I did not come to just be integrated into your life if you perhaps have some space to fit me in there. Now let’s be clear, what Jesus is not saying is that we should do away with fasting and that we should do away with observing the Sabbath or whatever spiritual practice you want to bring up. Jesus affirms those practices. Fasting and the Sabbath are beneficial, they’re good.
At the same time though, Jesus Jesus is saying he came to squash all of the rules, all of the regulations, the legalism, the dry ritualism around these practices. He’s completely blowing away this religion paradigm. And you can tell from this passage just how offensive that was.
How dare he? What gives Jesus the right to do this? The answer is in verse 28 of chapter 2 where Jesus says, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus could have said that he had the divine authority to change the Sabbath and to change fasting if he wanted to, but remember that the word Sabbath means to rest. It means to stop from work.
And so Jesus is saying, I am the Sabbath. I am the Lord of rest. I am the source of the deep rest that your souls needs. I came to fulfill the Sabbath, and I came to give you rest. How could Jesus say this?
Because on the cross, Jesus fully satisfied the payment for our sin.
Jesus cried out on the cross, it is finished. What is finished? The weariness and the exhaustion and the futility of religion. And of checking the boxes and going through the motions and of continually trying to prove yourself to God. Friends, you don’t have to do that.
You can rest today in God’s finished work. And that’s what it means to be a Christian. What does it mean to be a Christian? It’s not doing a bunch of things. Christianity is resting no longer in your approach to God but is saying, God, I believe in what Jesus has done.
And he fulfilled my need and my debt. He paid my debt. And so, I’m no longer gonna go through the motions, but I’m gonna ask you to give me a brand-new heart. That’s what it means to be a Christian. Jesus came to offer you not religion.
He came to offer you himself. He came to offer you a new and better way. So, what does that mean for you and me? I want us to try something a little different here.
Here praying about what it is that we could do to respond to a message like this. I hope that this is not just in your mind and it just stays there. I hope that this is something that God’s Word will continue to speak to you about. For some of you, I imagine that a message like this is a call for you to no longer put such emphasis on the activities of coming to church and of going through the motions, but of actually just recognizing that you have been going through the motions and you need to be revived.
You need a replenishment. You need a remodel.
I won’t ask for a show of hands. I imagine that that’s a lot of us.
I imagine that we come to church with the expectation to just receive from whatever happens up here on the stage, and then we leave and nothing is different. I imagine that we come with very little expectation that God would actually speak to us, that God would actually convict us of our sin— not show us other people’s sins, but convict us of our own sins and of where we fall And let’s just confess it and admit it.
For others of us, one of the best things that we could do is to just be still and know that he is God, as the Scriptures tell us to do. Some of you over the last couple weeks, we’ve talked about what happened here a couple Sundays ago at the end of the service where— because I feel like God was really stirring up a movement of his Spirit. Spirit for us to respond in prayer. Many of you came forward and were prayed for, and I think all that’s wonderful. Here’s what I would say: we so often look at that as being abnormal, and I’m telling you, friends, that should be the norm, shouldn’t it?
Shouldn’t that be the norm of church, where needs are met, miracles happen, lives are changed? Shouldn’t that be the norm? Shouldn’t that be our expectation? And I’m saying, if that doesn’t happen, what does that say about us if that’s not our expectation?
I just want us to be still for a moment. No music. We’ll have a time to respond in music here in a moment, but just want us to be still. And this is going to be hard for some of us. In just a moment, I’m going to be quiet and I’ll stop talking because I just want you to listen.
And some of you have not done this perhaps ever or maybe in a long time. And I just want you to sit and listen and ask God to speak to you. And then I want you to be quiet and shut off your mind and I just want you to listen. Can we do that?
Let’s try that. Why don’t you bow your heads. And I just want us to respond to this word, to this message. I don’t know what God is stirring in you. Heart, but let’s not just listen to it and then leave without responding.
Just sit and be still. Close your eyes. This is not the time to think about what you’re gonna do after church, your shopping list. Just take a moment, ask God to speak to you, and let’s be still for a few minutes.
Father, you know the meditations of our hearts, the noise in our world, and it’s so hard for us to be still.
And yet I feel like a text like this calls to attention idols in our lives, moments where we’ve gone through the motions, And perhaps miss the new work that you want to do in our lives. I pray, Father, that we would be sensitive to your Spirit, led by you, open to what you would have to do in our lives. Lord, do a new work. May we be open vessels for the new wine of your Spirit.
We pray for authentic faith, that anyone here, Lord, who does not know You, that they would call upon Your name and be saved, and that, Lord, You would help us to trust You for every single need.
Thank You, God, for what You’ve done here, and thank You for Your Word, and thank You for Jesus. It’s in his name we pray. Amen. I’m curious— I’m not going to ask for volunteers other than just how many of you felt like God was saying something in your spirit? Just— isn’t that incredible?
That should not be abnormal. That should be something that we just do and we’re open to as God has moved. And so let’s just continue to be sensitive sensitive to how he would want to minister to us as we gather each week. So Brad, come on up.
If there’s any way that I can be praying for you or anything after this service, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
