Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

Introduction:
Someone once said the seven last words of the church are these: “We never did it that way before.”  It is a fact of life: people resist change.
·    A Chevy man is not interested in test driving a Ford

·    A John Deere man wouldn’t think of getting an International Harvester Tractor

·    A person who was raised rooting for the Packers isn’t going to root for the Bears or visa versa.

The same thing is true in the church.  Those who have had their hearts lifted by traditional worship will resist new forms.  Those who have found comfort and strength from a particular version of the Bible will remain suspicious of modern translations. Those who have been raised in a rules-oriented church will find it difficult to get used to a grace-governed church family.  When we hold something dear and precious, like our religious faith, we resist change.  The more precious the tradition, the more we dig in our heels against change.
This is one reason why the Pharisees had difficulty with Jesus.  They had been raised in a religious culture steeped in tradition. The routine was majestic and comforting. There was security in the familiar. Ritual and faith were seen as one and the same.
Jesus came onto the scene and people begin to flock to Him.  But Jesus was to the Pharisees and the disciples of John different in His ways.  He spent time with sinners and tax collectors and even ate in their homes; But this was not the only thing that bothered them.  He healed people on the Sabbath day (considered work by the Pharisees), He ignored the rituals that were the foundation of religious life.  He did not engage in the usual practices of spirituality they were used to.  The Pharisees didn’t like this. And in our text this morning the Pharisees team up with the disciples of John the Baptist to address some of these offenses.  This same account is also found in Matthew 9:14-17 and Mark 2:18-22.
Luke 5:33-39 “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.” “Jesus answered, “Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? “But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” “He told them this parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, 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 wineskins. “And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’”" NIV
Specifically, they asked him about fasting and prayer.
Fasting - highly regarded act of worship
The Day of Atonement was celebrated with a fast, Lev.16:29,31
A 4-day fast commemorated the fall of Jerusalem, Zech 7:3,5; 8:19
Fasts were associated with repentance, 1 Kings 21:27
The Pharisees fasted twice a week, on Monday and Thursday (Didache 8:1 - early Christian work written in Greek, called also The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Dates for its composition suggested by scholars have ranged from A.D. 50 to A.D. 150. Discovered in 1875)
Why does Jesus’ disciples (Jesus) act differently?
A.    It is not the time to fast!
He compares himself to a bridegroom and his follows as his guests.
It’s not the time for fasting but for celebration!
You do not fast at a wedding.
A picture of God’s relationship with him people in the OT.
Isaiah 54:5-6 “For your Maker is your husband- the Lord Almighty is his name- the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit- a wife who married young, only to be rejected, says your God.” NIV
Isaiah 62:4-5 “No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” NIV
Jeremiah 2:2 “”Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: “‘I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown.” NIV
Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2:14-23; Ezra 2:15-41
(No where is the Messiah referred to as a Bridegroom)
But in the NT a picture of Christ’s relationship to us:
Matthew 22:2 “”The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.” NIV
Matthew 25:1 “”At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.”
Luke 12:35-36 “”Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.” NIV
Ephesians 5:22-33 “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church- for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” NIV
Revelation 19:7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” NIV
Revelation 21:2 “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” NIV
Just a comment - not the time then but maybe it is time now!

B.    A new era
Let’s take this imagery father.
When a man and woman become bride and groom they are entering a totally new period of life.
Engagement is a time for evaluation and preparation. X of transition
Marriage: a whole new phase of life.

Emotional and physical bonding
Mental consultation, collaboration, negotiation and mutuality.

From the human side of life there is a totally new reference point!
The same in our relationship with Christ!
He is our reference point.  It is his view that should become ours.  It is His will that we should seek.  It is his direction, his purpose, his motives, his characteristics that should become ours.
C.    A new way of ordering spiritual life.
1.    Jesus is like a piece of new cloth!
In those days no seamstress would sew a piece of new cloth on an old garment.  When washed, the new piece would shrink and tear the old.  The patch that is supposed to fix the garment would end up ruining both!

The new era that Jesus brings cannot be pasted on top of the practices.   Jesus doesn’t come into our lives merely patch us up.
2.    Jesus is like new wine!
New, unfermented wine cannot be poured into old wine skins.
Wine bottles in the 1st century were not made of glass, but leather from goats or sheep.
Unfermented grape juice poured into already stretched out leather containers would break them as it fermented.
As wine goes that would be a disaster.

Jesus is saying that what he brings can’t be combined with the traditions of the Pharisees.  Jesus brings a new era and a fresh approach to God that can’t be mixed with their old traditions.
Jesus is the fulfillment of the OT pictures and promises but the good news he brings is message that can’t be combined with the practices of Judaism or that of the Pharisees.
Jesus’ presence requires a new way of living, with new forms and a new spirit.  EVEN WHEN THE BRIDEGROOM IS GONE THE FASTING THAT IS DONE WILL BE DIFFERENT.  IT WILL ALWAYS BE DONE IN HOPE OF CHRIST’S RETURN!
Jesus isn’t poured into our lives, or doesn’t pour himself into our lives to fill up and give meaning to our old ways of living.
He pours himself into our lives to stretch us and mold us and push us into a totally fresh and new way of living.
Ephesians 1:22-23 “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” NIV
Ephesians 3:19 “and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” NIV
Ephesians 4:10 “He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.” NIV
Ephesians 5:18 “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” NIV
3.    Some people may prefer the old wine!
Jesus is alluding to the probability of being rejected.
People may be satisfied with the old wine.
They were unwilling to change their thinking and open up to him.
Nicodemus was not.
The woman at the well use not.
Mary and Martha were not.
The disciples were not.
After time to watch and time to reflect these and many more followed Christ.
How about you?
Spiritual Formation Process

To help us with our choices:
Disciplines of Abstinence
Solitude
Silence
Fasting
Frugality
Chastity / sexual modesty & purity
Secrecy
Sacrifice
Disciplines of Engagement
Study
Worship
Celebration
Service
Prayer
Fellowship
Confession
Submission
Fasting
Abstaining in some significant way from food and possibly drink.
This discipline teaches us a lot about ourselves.
Reveals how much our satisfaction / happiness depends on the pleasure of eating.  Fasting is meant to move us toward total dependence upon God by finding in him a source of sustenance beyond food.  We learn that it is not by bread alone that we live but also by the Word of God (Matthew 4:4).  We discover the “other food” few in our culture know about.  In fasting we practice self-denial that all believers are called to (Matthew 16:24).  And we learn how to suffer happily (James 1:3-5).
“When a person chooses fasting as a spiritual discipline, he or she must, then practice it well enough and often enough to become experienced in it, because only the person who is well habituated to systematic fasting as a discipline can use it effectively as a part of direct service to God, as in special times of prayer and other service.”