Our scripture reading from Luke chapter 5. I'd like to begin at verse 33. Then they said to him, Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink? And he said to them, can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them and then they will fast in those days. Then he spoke a parable to them. No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one, otherwise the new makes a tear and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins and both are preserved. And no one having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says the old is better. May this word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Father in heaven, your word is truth, and your word is life-giving, and your word speaks to us of You. We ask, Lord, that we may see You this morning, that You might be exalted in our midst, that Your Word might be opened to us, that our hearts might be opened by the powerful work of Your Spirit to receive with meekness the engrafted Word. And I pray that You would be glorified in our midst. Father, sanctify these sinful lips to that end. In Jesus' name, Amen. This account follows the account of Matthew, the tax collector, which followed Jesus healing the paralytic, which follows the cleansing of a leper. And in all of the gospel accounts, these events follow each other. And I can't say for sure, that these are all chronological, but in comparing the different gospel accounts, we can, I think, put some order to them because some of the gospel accounts do have words of context that say immediately following or then and so on. And so this, but what is clear is that this this account of these people coming to Jesus and asking about fasting, it follows in the, if not chronological, at least in the thematic context of Jesus and his disciples feasting, partying with Levi and his friends. The Pharisees are growing more and more offended by Jesus, by his rebukes of their self-righteous practices and disparaging thoughts, by his authoritative teaching that was different from what they were used to or what the people were used to. His authoritative teaching was drawing these large crowds. People were coming to him from all over. And Jesus was also offending the Pharisees by His exercise of divine power as if He was God Himself. Of course, He was God in the flesh. But they were offended at these things. They were offended at Him. And that offense, that bristling, that they experienced turned to anger, turned to seething anger, and turned to a strong desire for revenge. By the next chapter, chapter six, just a little bit later, a few paragraphs later, after Jesus heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath day, they are filled with rage and they are conspiring together how they might get rid of Jesus. That's why Jesus teaches about the danger of calling someone a fool. He said in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Rachah, shall be in danger of the counts. But whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hellfire." Because the anger that results in murder begins in the heart from being angry with people without a cause. And the Pharisees are certainly those who are angry at Jesus, who are upset at Jesus without a cause. It was their pride that was being hurt. Instead of rejoicing that a greater than Moses is here, instead of rejoicing that many, many people, great crowds are coming to Jesus and being taught in their pride, they want to hinder His ministry. And so many of them, you know, descended upon Jesus with a critical ear after Jesus had healed the leper. after He healed somebody who represents us in our pollution, somebody who is completely polluted. They descended upon Him, remember, and they are there with a critical ear. They are waiting to see what He will say that they can catch Him on. And then Jesus forgave the sins and healed this paralytic, somebody who is like us in the sense of being totally helpless and unable to come to Christ on our own power and our own will. But not only did He heal him, He also exercised this divine prerogative to forgive sins. And they recognized that by Jesus exercising something that only God can do, that Jesus was himself claiming to be God. And so they reacted even more strongly against Jesus. And when Jesus is then rejoicing with Levi and Levi's friends at their coming and feasting with them, glad that they want to know more about Jesus, the Pharisees judged Jesus, holding Him in contempt because He wasn't up to their standards. They were those who fasted. and afflicted themselves. And Jesus is here feasting. They made sure to stay away from sinners, and publicans, and tax collectors, and people that were loyal to the Romans. And here Jesus is not only associating himself with them, he's actually going to their parties and feasts. But Jesus is too popular and they're too clever to attack Jesus directly. They don't even publicly question him. If you look at some of the other gospel accounts, It's the disciples of John that come, and in Matthew it's the disciples of John and of the Pharisees that come. So they're not coming directly themselves. There's a bit of devious maneuvering and underhanded scheming going on here. They are seeking in a deceptive way to bring some division, to pit John's disciples against Jesus' disciples and create a bit of a conflict in the hopes that this will discredit Jesus, that it will hinder His ministry if they can bring conflict, if they can bring division and disagreement. between these two groups of people. And so they apparently have gone to John's disciples. So somehow there's been some collusion together. And you can just imagine the discussion of the Pharisees with John's disciples. Hey, this is Jesus. You know, his disciples, they haven't fasted in a long time. And look, look at them over there at Levi's, this loyal, this betrayer of the Israelites, this publican, this tax collector, this person that takes our wealth. They're over there having a good time with him, feeding their faces, drinking wine. That's not right. Here you are fasting, afflicting your souls, and they're over there enjoying themselves. Something like that. Something to stir them up. And so, John's disciples along with the disciples of the Pharisees approached Jesus to ask this question. How come your disciples don't fast? How come yours eat and drink? The disciples of John, they fast often, and they make prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same thing. They fast often, and they make prayers, but yours don't. Now, the same question can be asked with very different motives. And I don't think that John's disciples are asking out of an improper motive. They wanted to know sincerely. Remember, John was an ascetic. Jesus himself said that John came fasting. John came not eating and drinking. And he said, the Pharisees said, didn't like him. And then Jesus came eating and drinking and the Pharisees didn't like that either. But the point is John was different in this point. He was somewhat of an ascetic. He ate locusts and wild honey. He lived in the desert. He was a rough man in that sense. And Jesus' disciples are not that way. And so they genuinely want to know. Why? What's the difference? But the Pharisees are in it for a different reason. They are using this genuine desire to know, to ask a question. They are using it for underhanded and dishonest purposes. They're there seeking to bring discontent, to create strife, to agitate. This is the question of an agitator, someone who's trying to create division. And Proverbs 26 talks about this. It compares the tail bearer to wood in the fireplace. If the wood is removed, the fire goes out. And in a similar way, you know, these kinds of people that ask these agitating questions or tell tales create strife and division in an organization. And when they are removed, the strife goes away. And the Pharisees are here seeking to create some division, they are stirring up trouble, they're agitators. But their plot succeeds, at least initially. They persuade the disciples of John to come to Jesus and to ask this question. Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink? These questioners don't accuse Jesus of breaking the law on this point. And Jesus, interestingly, doesn't condemn the Pharisees for their practice. on this point, like he does other times when he accuses them of following the vain traditions of men or substituting the traditions of men for the commandments of God. Jesus doesn't give that answer. because there was a command to fast. Not like the Pharisees were doing it, but there was a command in the Bible to fast. There's only one command actually in the Bible to fast, and that was in the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement. In the Pentateuch, in Leviticus 16, Leviticus 23, and Numbers 29, each of those three deal with the Day of Atonement. The children of Israel were commanded to afflict their soul. It wasn't a command to fast, but it was a command to afflict their soul. And to afflict, to afflict your soul, or to afflict means to put the body or soul in some pain of some kind, some kind of distress. And fasting does that very effectively. We talk about hunger pains. Fasting is a way of afflicting our body. And Isaiah 58 connects this affliction of the soul with fasting. Isaiah says to the people, he's quoting the people saying, why have we fasted? and you have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls and you take no notice?" Isaiah is quoting the people's question to God back to them. You know, why have we fasted and you haven't noticed? And there's a parallel there, fasting and afflicting You see, the Jews were commanded to afflict their souls on the Day of Atonement because the Atonement, Day of Atonement, pointed to Christ's sacrifice that would atone for sin. A sacrifice that would pay our debt for our sin. And in making that atonement, which is what the Day of Atonement looked forward to, In making that atonement, Christ was smitten by God and afflicted. To smite is an old word that means to hit. To hit. To strike. And because if you're striking with a sword or club, that can result in killing. It also has the sense of, it can be used to kill. To smite, somebody could be a way of saying killing them by hitting them. Christ was smitten by God and afflicted. Christ was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. And by his stripes, we are healed. And so a part of the Jewish then observation of the Day of Atonement, which was once a year, was that they were to afflict themselves. They were to afflict their souls as they look forward to Christ's coming and Christ's sacrifice and Christ's work of atonement where God would smite him and strike him and afflict him for their sin and for our sin. And so, we have to distinguish then between what is commanded worship and what is voluntary vows, what is voluntary worship. There were many times in the Old Testament that God's people voluntarily afflicted themselves in addition to the time that they were commanded to do so as a part of their observance of the Day of Atonement. Remember David, we just read a few weeks ago, when God said that He would take David's son, that was his first son with Bathsheba, because of his sin of adultery and murder. God said he would take that son, that son wouldn't live. And remember, David fasted for a week in the hope that God would be merciful to that son. David afflicted himself in the hope for God to hear him. or Esther before she went into King Ahasuerus, King Xerxes. She fasted and she called for all the people, all the Jews to fast as well, that God would hear their cry. Nehemiah fasted many times that God would hear his cry regarding the state of his people in Israel as they came back from exile. Ezra fasted as a group of people were going to leave. Remember, he didn't want to ask for help or protection from the king because he had said God would be our protection. And so they had a time of fasting that God would hear their petition for protection. Daniel fasted, afflicted his body. He ate no pleasant food, in one case, for three weeks. He denied himself the pleasure because of the condition of the church and he, out of his desire for God to hear him, He afflicted himself, he fasted. And so Jesus does not condemn the Pharisees or John's disciples for doing this. Even though what they were doing was in excess, it was not what was specifically commanded. It wasn't forbidden. In fact, it was something that was often practiced by God's people. But it flowed out of their devotion to the Lord, it flowed out of their desire to be heard. It flowed, it flowed out of a. Out of true worship. Of God. In fact, Isaiah in that passage and in Isaiah 58 goes on to describe why God didn't notice their fast, they were fasting for God to see it and notice, and God didn't notice. And Isaiah says, why? Why they ask. They ask, why have we fasted and God hasn't seen while he says, in fact, in the day of your fast, you find pleasure and exploit your laborers. You fast for strife and debate and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You're not fasting, he says, to make your voice heard on high. You're not fasting out of out of sincerity and a desire for God to hear you. He, Isaiah says, this isn't a fast that I have chosen. This isn't an acceptable fast. See, the fast I have chosen, Isaiah says, is to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free and that you break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and that you bring into your house the poor who are cast out when you see the naked that you cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light will break forth in the morning, and your healing shall spring speedily forth, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. The, you know, the disciples, the Pharisees were fasting for incorrect reasons. They weren't fasting to be heard by God. They were fasting because that was how they thought they made themselves righteous and acceptable. True worship has to flow out of our relationship with Jesus Christ. And so Jesus answers here this question by essentially saying that he is the bridegroom. He says it in the form of a question. Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? He's associating himself with the bridegroom, that he is present with them. And that fasting would not be appropriate when the bridegroom is present, when He is there with them. Not everything that is good is good in every circumstance. So you can do the right thing for the wrong reason. It cannot be flowing out of a relationship with Jesus Christ and out of a sincere desire to be heard by Him. But even if it's good, it's not good in every circumstance. What would you say if in the week of the wedding all the groomsmen are fasting and afflicting themselves? This is a time for rejoicing. This is a time for gladness. So not everything that is good is good in every circumstance. What's good at one time isn't necessarily good at another time. And so when we are in a right relationship with Jesus Christ, then our worship and our devotion flows out of that relationship and is appropriate to the time. James talks about singing psalms to somebody who is sorrowful. You wouldn't do that. You do what is appropriate to that time and place. So Jesus is here. Jesus, this bridegroom, The husband, the one who provides for us, the one who loves us, the one who cherishes us. Jesus is saying, essentially here, that he's the bridegroom, he's our bridegroom. And his disciples aren't fasting because he, as their bridegroom, is with them. Now, what do we bring to this this relationship? This is Jesus is speaking here of a relationship that's far more intimate than a king and his servants. It's far more intimate than even than the creator and the creature. This is the relationship of a husband and a wife, the bridegroom and the bride. We bring our sin to that relationship. Jesus comes as our bridegroom and He assumes the legal liability for our sin. He assumes the punishment, takes the punishment for our sin. He gives His life to pay the debt of our sin, imputing His righteousness to our account. He gives us His name, His protection. He seats us in the heavenly places together with Him. so that we are said to reign with Him. He prays for us. He intercedes for us before the Father. He is with us. He dwells with us. And so, for all these reasons, It's not right, it wouldn't be appropriate for his disciples to be afflicting themselves. Of course, Jesus as the bridegroom, his relationship to the church is to be the pattern, is to be how we as husbands are to relate to our wives as well. But Jesus goes on to say, the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away and then they will fast. Jesus alludes here to something he says in more detail in John 16. He says, a little while and you will, he told his disciples, a little while and you will not see me. And again, a little while and you will see me because I go to the father. And the disciples don't understand what he's saying. And they ask him, and he says, Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said a little while, and you will not see me again a little while? You will see me most assuredly. I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy. Their sorrow when he went away, because that's what he would be doing, they would then weep. It would be an appropriate time to afflict their bodies, but it would be a short time, and then he would come back. This fasting, Jesus never, He doesn't say, yes, you must, or no, you shouldn't. But rather His answer is, we have to do what is appropriate to the time and the circumstances. We have to do what is appropriate to the time and the circumstances. And the same thing isn't always the appropriate thing to do in all circumstances. but also what we do do has to flow out of our love to God. All the things that we, our church attendance, our reading the Bible, our praying, all the good things that we might do. These things have to come from a right heart. They have to flow out of our relationship with Jesus Christ. They have to flow out of our love to Him and not simply because by doing these things we can somehow earn our righteousness. But I think Jesus is also preparing His disciples for change. There are going to be some big changes that come. And Jesus is preparing His disciples for that change. He gives two parables about putting new wine in old wineskins, or putting new cloth onto an old garment. Now most of us are probably not patching clothes. That doesn't seem to be a thing these days. I think older generations did that a lot more and this parable probably is a lot more relevant. I don't know if... It's very rare that we wear patched clothes, at least that I see anybody wearing patched clothes. It used to be a much more common sight, but anybody that does that understands that you can't put a brand new cloth on top of an old garment. There's nothing there to sew it to. And when you wash it, the new garment is going to shrink. The old garment is already shrunk. And so you have this, you have tearing. Or new wine in old wineskins. Old wineskins are inflexible. And when new wine is put in them, and it gives off the gases of the fermentation, it breaks the old wineskins. Or Jesus says, no one having drunk old, implication there, wine, no one having drunk old wine immediately desires new. Change can sometimes be difficult. Change can sometimes be difficult. And there were some big changes that were coming. Big changes. These changes were so large and so big that it was the cause of the first ecumenical assembly, ecumenical council, was over how do you handle these big changes that are coming. No one having drunk old wine immediately desires new. We tend to be reluctant to change. That's generally our nature. If we're content with, we have something that's working, something that we're comfortable with, then we're reluctant to just change it. Change for change's sake isn't good either. Proverbs warns about that. Don't be associated with those who are given to change, that are just changing for the sake of changing. But we can also, and this is where I think Jesus is cautioning, we can also be reluctant to change. what has not been commanded or forbidden by God. We can be reluctant to change patterns that are good, that were acceptable, that were appropriate at the time, but maybe the time for them has changed. And so what Jesus is talking about here is what we talked about in our confession of faith this morning. this change of administration from the Old Covenant to the New. The Old Covenant, they had all these feasts, the Day of Atonement, where they would afflict their soul. They had the sacrificial system. They had circumcision, as we read. And so, when under the New Covenant, there's a different administration. There's different signs. Instead of circumcision, there was baptism. Instead of all these feast days, like the Day of Atonement, looking forward to Christ. We have the one Sabbath on the first day of the week, looking back to Christ's resurrection, for he rose on that day. And so, you know, this was a cause of a lot of discussion, a lot of disagreement, even among God's people. Remember the disciples at the church in Antioch had this division. When Christians, when people are converted, when Greeks are converted, when Gentiles are converted, do they have to get circumcised just like the Jews did? And some people said, yes, God requires His church to be circumcised. And other people were saying, no, that's the old wineskin. We have to put the new wine into new wineskins. We need to do... things have changed. And there was, remember, this big, big disagreement. And they weren't able to resolve it, and so the church resolved then to send these representatives, Paul among them, down to Jerusalem so that they could have a council, a worldwide council, and discuss this matter. And you remember what they concluded. They concluded, yes, there has been a change. It's fine for the Jews to continue the practice of circumcision. But the Gentile Christians, there's no requirement for them to be circumcised. There's no need for them to be circumcised because this is a change, the change in the way of doing things. And Jesus, I think, is preparing his disciples for for that change. No one having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says the old is better. That's speaking of this reluctance to change. You know, Peter had the same reluctance. He is ministering to the Jews. They thought the Messiah was for the Jews. And yes, Jesus said, go to the Jews first. Paul always went to the synagogues first and only after they rejected him and kicked him out of the synagogues did he go to the Gentiles. But Peter is a member at a house in Joppa and he has a vision. He goes up on the roof to pray and he has a vision. And God lets down these unclean animals and tells Peter, kill and eat. And Peter said, no, I have never done this. God is telling him to change. And Peter is resistant to it. He said, I know I've always done this. I've never killed an unclean. Nothing unclean has ever crossed my lips. So here's God telling him, Peter, kill and eat. And Peter's saying, I can't change. I've never done this. This is new. This is this is hard. Three times this happens. And then at the same moment, these messengers from a Gentile come to the house and they ask for Peter. And you remember the story how Peter goes with them to the house of Cornelius and he begins to preach to them the gospel. Because he understood that Jesus was telling him by this that the gospel was to go to the Gentiles as well. And the Holy Spirit falls on these Gentiles. And everybody's amazed that the Holy Spirit would fall on Gentiles. In their way of thinking, this was just for Jews. The Gospel, the Messiah come to save Jews, not the Gentiles. The Messiah come to put all the Gentiles under their feet, they thought. I mean, these were very deeply rooted ideas and it's very difficult to change their thinking. But when Peter sees the Holy Spirit fall on them, they're amazed. But he says, can we forbid water to baptize them if the Holy Spirit has fallen on them, just like He fell on us, came to us. But even this, the word gets back to to the Jews in Jerusalem. And they they want to know, Peter, how come we heard that you're with the Gentiles? How come you're in the Gentile houses? How come you're preaching to the Gentiles? And Peter has to give an account of what happened. And he has to explain to them how the Lord came to him and said, no, Peter, there's a change coming. Rise, kill and eat. And after he says that, tells them what God told him in this vision and how God said, what God has cleansed you must not call common. And he recounted in detail all the story of how immediately after that these people showed up from Canaan. It was only then that they were satisfied and they were like, OK, OK, there's a change. So Jesus here is, I think, preparing. The disciples for this big change that that is soon to come as the old dispensation is is passed and the new dispensation, the covenant of grace is administrated with different signs and in different ways. And so he gives them, I think, a little, a parable to illustrate that. Now, you know, we can think of this ourselves and think of all the things that we do out of custom. There may be nothing wrong with those customs. They were probably good customs at the time they were implemented. They were the right thing to do. But things change, circumstances change. People change. The context changes. And sometimes we need to change. We need to change what we're doing. So that we're not putting new wine into old wineskins. So that we're not putting new cloth onto an old garment. So I think it's very appropriate then to ask ourselves. On the one hand, we don't want to change just for change's sake. We don't want to change just because we're tired and we're bored and think that in that change we're going to create excitement. Or if our relationship with the Lord is dry and cold and stale, That's not because, that's a condition of our heart. Changing the external circumstances and to try to bring excitement back in isn't the answer. But sometimes change is necessary. Sometimes there are, when circumstances change and things change, then we have to make changes to what we do. You know, and that can be hard. It's hard in your family. You have a way of doing things. Well, sometimes that might need to change. And in a church, we can become accustomed to doing things a certain way. And we can begin to think that that is the only way that you can do it. Essentially, this is what grew up with the Pharisees. They got into this habit of fasting twice a week. Remember the Pharisee that is at the temple, he said, I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. He had gotten into this habit as if this was pleasing to God, but that's not commanded in Scripture anywhere that you fast twice a week. It might have been a good thing to do in the days of Daniel, in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra, in the days of the exile. It is a good thing to do in the day of Esther when she was about to go to the king. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's something that has to be done every week. And so you see, we can elevate these practices that in themselves are good and in the right time and place are appropriate, but it doesn't mean that they're always appropriate. And we have to be willing. We have to be willing to examine our practices and why are we doing them and is there a change that's necessary for good reason. The practice that was started at one time was a change when it was started. You think about that. You know, some people hold up the King James Bible as the only Bible that we should use because it's a, but at some point there was no King James Bible and people started to use it. And if they had applied the same logic back then, they wouldn't have started using the King James Bible because that would have been, that was a change. things change, language changes. It might be time to have a translation of the Bible that is closer to our language. This is just one example. There's nothing wrong with the King James Translation. It's a wonderful translation. But things change, language changes, the circumstances change. And we can't simply say, well, because this was the words that people spoke 400 years ago, that these are the words that we have to keep speaking now. We have to be, we can't be like Jesus. We're having drunk old wine. We don't want the new. We say the old is better. It's not always true. It's not always true. Our worship and what we do has to flow out of our love to God. Yes, it has to be in accordance with what is commanded, but there are many things that are either specifically commanded or forbidden. Our worship, our practice of good things has to flow out of our relationship to Christ. And, you know, as families, this is the same could be true. As churches, it's true. We might do things differently than another church. As families, we might do things differently than another family. And our goal isn't to be doing something that another, like another family does just because they do it that way. we might need to change. Or one generation, maybe you grew up in one generation with certain practices in your home about what it meant to be a Christian and how you gave expression to that faith. And those may have been very necessary and good at that time, but things change. And so we have to be willing to look at those practices, those habits, those traditions. and say, are these the right ones? Is this appropriate? Or are we putting new wine into old wineskins? Or have we drunk old wine and are unwilling to desire new because we say the old is fine or the old is better? Sometimes these kinds of changes in our habits, in our patterns, in our traditions. We need to embrace them. We need to embrace them. Jesus' point here in all of this is that there is an appropriate time and an appropriate place and not everything that is good is always appropriate or always fitting for that occasion. And what has to be our guide is the Word of God and our relationship, our love for Jesus Christ. What we do has to flow and be motivated by our love of God and our love for Him and our desire to worship Him. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, We thank you for the richness of your word, the body of the deposit that you have left for us so that we are sufficiently equipped for every good work, everything that you call us to do. Your word gives us the instruction that we need, the guidance that we need. So that we are thoroughly equipped. And we ask Lord for wisdom to rightly understand and to rightly apply your word. To be willing and open to the changes that you bring in our lives. that we might not cling to the past simply because it is the past. But Father, may we cling to you. May our hope be in you. Through all the changing times and seasons of our life, of our country, of our culture. Lord, may we cling to you. May our eyes be upon you. May our heart be fixed and established in you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.