OPEN: I’ve noticed over the years that kids love jokes that are plays on words. For example, when I was a kid (now I never did this myself, you understand), but I’ve known kids who would call a neighbor and ask: “Is your refrigerator running?” (pause). When the person on the other end of the line said “Yes”, they’d laugh and say “Well, you better go and catch it before it gets away."
Another of my favorites was “How do you get down off an elephant?” Well, you don’t get “down” off an elephant; you get down off a duck.
And one I’ve always enjoyed:
“Pie are square?
No, pie are not square.
Pie are round.
Cornbread are square.”
Now I’ve told you those silly jokes so I could ask this one:
“When is a door not a door?” (pause)
“When it’s ‘ajar’” (a jar)
Essentially the joke is saying:
A door is not a door – when it is “something else”.
And that concept – that one thing can become “something else” - lies at the very heart of our story this morning.
In Luke 5 we read about Jesus at the beginning of His ministry.He has been teaching, and healing throughout Galilee, and He’s in the process of gathering the 12 men who are to become His closest followers. And now, He’s stopped at the booth of a man that Luke calls Levi (Matthew) to ask him to follow Him.
Levi was a tax collector.
Now for those of you not familiar with Scripture, tax collectors were NOT well liked back then. Their job was to collect taxes for Rome, hated occupiers of their homeland. And these collectors of Roman taxes made their living by taking a little extra off the top for themselves. And if they thought you could give a “little” extra – well, so much the better. There was not court of appeals. Whatever these men said you had to pay – you paid - you had no choice.
Thus, the Jews hated these tax collectors and viewed them as little better than prostitutes.
Even the Romans really didn’t like them. According to one of my sources (Amtract Dictionary of the Bible) Rome looked on them as being on the social plane as pickpockets and thieves.
Nobody liked these guys.
And, I suspect, when Jesus found him, Levi was tired of it all. He was tired of being rejected and turned away. Tired of being hated and spat upon.
I can picture him being a sad and lonely man who just wanted out – but he didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to change WHO he was and WHAT he was. And even if he did, nobody would let him forget what he had been, and how he’d made his living.
But Jesus didn’t care what Levi had BEEN.
He only cared about what Levi could BE.
And so Jesus has the audacity to associate with this man, but He even asks him to become his disciple and follow Him. Why, He even goes to a great feast Levi puts on for Jesus. And, of course, Levi invites a number of his friends - and of course his friends are mostly tax collectors.
Now the Pharisees are enraged by this.
How could this teacher, this Rabbi in Israel, possibly associate with such despicable people!
It helps to realize that the Pharisees were VERY religious people. Unlike the Sadducees (who were the other major religious group in Israel), the Pharisees believed that the Bible was THE word of God. I contained no errors. And they knew the Old Testament Scriptures far better than you or I ever could. They studied it day and night, examining even the most obscure statements and arguing with one another of each passage’s meaning.
In addition, they regularly attended worship and they faithfully tithed of their income.
If they were alive today, they could be religious leaders in practically every religion in this world. In fact, they could be preachers, teachers, or elders in most any congregation in the land…
But they really wouldn’t be Christian leaders.
The reason?
A Christian is a follower of Christ.
Christians MUST have the same priority as Jesus.
In Luke 5:31-32 Jesus said "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Or as He said in Luke 19:10 “… the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
Jesus came for only ONE reason:
He came for the sick… the wounded… the broken.
He came for the sinners and prostitutes and the misfits of society.
He came to seek and to save the lost.
And He expects His people to make that same priority theirs.
ILLUS: In the 3rd-century, a skeptic named Celsus made fun of Origen (a Christian leader of day) "When most teachers go forth to teach, they cry, ’Come to me, you who are clean and worthy,’ and they are followed by the highest caliber of people available. But your silly master cries, ’Come to me, you who are down and beaten by life,’ and so he accumulates around him the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity."
And Origen replied: "Yes, they are the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity. But Jesus does not leave them that way. Out of material you would have thrown away as useless, he fashions men, giving them back their self-respect, enabling them to stand on their feet and look God in the eyes. They were cowed, cringing, broken things. But the Son has set them free."
That’s our goal - our objective - to rescue the cowed cringing, broken things of society.
But the Pharisees neither understood - nor did they want to understand - that idea. They were highly moral men and they weren’t about to associate with anyone who didn’t share their same morals.
Now, Jesus uses the oddest parable to illustrate His point.
Look again at Luke 5:36-38
“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.’”
Now, what on earth does that mean?
Well, let’s take the first part of His parable.
“No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one.”
Once we become Christians God does not want us hanging on to the old garments of our sinful past and just putting “patches” on the holes. The New Testament teaches us again and again that we need to take off the OLD garments of our past and put on the NEW garment of Christ.
Turn with me to Ephesians 4:22ff
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to PUT OFF your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to PUT ON the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Your life before becoming a Christian was like an old dirty garment.
When you became a Christian, you threw that garment out. You were washed in the blood of Jesus and you put on a whole new clean set of clothing.
Now this is more than a quaint mental picture God’s painted for us.
Look at Ephesians 4:25
“Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”
• What old garment am I to take off? Falsehood. Lying.
Now if that’s all I did – if I just took off that dirty garment – I’d be standing around buck naked. God wants me to put on a new garment.
What new garment am I to put on?
Speaking truthfully to people.
Look at Ephesians 4:28
“He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.”
• What old garment is a thief to take off? Stealing.
Now, if he stops stealing, is he no longer a thief?
NO. He’s just out of work for awhile.
What he needs to do is “put on” getting a job. But he not only needs to get a job… he has to change his entire attitude toward money.
He used to think “what’s yours is mine”.
Now, God wants this man to make money so he can give it to others. To “share with those in need” so that instead of believing “what’s yours is mine” he now believes “what’s mine shall be given to others in need.”
Lastly, Ephesians 4:29
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
• What are we to take off? Unwholesome talk – cursing, gossip, put-downs, insults talking about people behind their backs.
• What are we to put on? Talk that builds others up.
Christianity calls for us to live our lives an entirely different way.
John Smithson once said:
“Before I came to Christ, I practiced sin and committed acts of righteousness. Now, I practice righteousness and commit acts of sin.”
In other words, before he became a Christian his garment was sin. And every once in a while he’d do an act of righteousness.
But once he became a Christian his garment was the desire to please God. And every once in while he’d do acts of sin.
Christianity is about more than “patching” the holes in my life. It’s about putting on a whole new way of thinking and living.
Now, that’s NOT how the Pharisees did things.
The Pharisees were all about patching over the holes in their lives. That’s why in Matthew 23:27 Jesus condemned them by saying:
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.”
When these Pharisees made changes in their lives – their changes were for show. They painted the outside of the tomb of their sinful attitudes hoping no one would notice.
When it came to sin, the Pharisees’ philosophy was:
“If you can’t see it – it doesn’t exist.”
“If I can patch the hole… the hole isn’t there anymore.”
ILLUS: A couple of years ago, George Faull, (8/13/07) wrote about this in unique way:
We heard that if you eat a Snickers candy bar, even though it contains many calories if you drink a diet soda at the same time - since it contains no calories – it cancels out the calories of the candy bar.
I like the sound of that.
But that’s not true is it?
In fact, it’s down right silly.
But wait a minute. Some Christians act like that is true about other things:
• Telling lies is cancelled out by going to mid-week Bible Study
• Being a rebellious wife is canceled out by going to church regularly
• Verbally abusing your wife is canceled out by teaching Sunday School.
• Sleeping around is canceled out by giving a gift to the church.
• Gossip is canceled out by supporting a missionary.
• Unforgiveness of an enemy is canceled out because you’ve kind to the poor.
• Hatred of someone who did me wrong is canceled out because I love Jesus.
• Grumbling in church or at home or work - is canceled out by the fact that I do a good job of supporting my family.
• Having a mean argumentative spirit is canceled out because I love gospel music.
George was talking about people who’ve patched their lives with good deeds and good intentions. And because of that, they’ve become white washed tombs – filled with death and decay.
As Christians, we don’t want to try to patch over our past evil thoughts and actions. We want to repent of them/ confess our sins to God… and try not to do those things again.
Now there’s a 2nd aspect of the Pharisees’ “patching” theology. They figured people were acceptable to God as long as they didn’t tear too big a whole in their lives (no patch could cover it).
Thus, Levi would never be acceptable to God.
The hole was too big.
ILLUS: At one church I served I was asked to leave (among other things) because I’d baptized a child molester. Now I understand their revulsion at what the man did. If he’d done it to one of my kids – I’d have shot him.
But, while in jail, this man repented and wanted to become a Christian.
The problem for the church I was serving was that many believed the hole in this man’s life was too big to be patched. They didn’t mind having moderate sinners become Christians. But some people could never be forgiven.
But Jesus said “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
There were people in that church who figured:
If you had a spiritual cold, they’d baptize you, but if you had a spiritual cancer – they’d take you out back and shoot you. Like the Pharisees, they failed to see that Jesus could heal the sick and the broken of this world.
Now, there is one more parable Jesus told in this text:
“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.” Luke 5:37
In His first parable Jesus was telling us that He wanted us to change on the OUTside. He wanted us to change how we lived and acted.
In this 2nd parable, Jesus was saying that this change was going to be on the INside as well. Something “new” was going to be poured into this container.
In Ezekiel 11:19 God had promised
“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”
You see, God’s plan was to place something new into our lives. And that “new thing” was His Spirit. Acts 2:38 tells us that when we believed and were baptized into Jesus, God placed His Spirit inside of us.
But this Spirit wasn’t just some dormant lump lying inside our souls.
John 16:8 says that God’s Spirit is constantly at work in our lives, convicting us
of our sin
and of our need of righteousness
and of the fact that there is a judgment coming
God’s Spirit is changing us from the inside out because – if all that happened when we became Christians was that we changed our lives on the outside - we’d still be filled with old dead bones and uncleanness.
But God needed that change in us to take place on both the outside and the inside.
His Spirit has to fill us on the inside but WE need to commit to change on the outside.
We have to respond to His offer of salvation by
realizing we’re sinners
repenting of that sin
and then dying to our past and burying that dead old body in the waters of Christian baptism and rising up a new creature.
That’s God’s plan.
And God’s plan is very clear on the idea that
• it doesn’t matter what sins you’ve committed
• it doesn’t matter what you’ve done for a living
• it doesn’t matter where you’ve been in your life.
All that matters is that you don’t want to live like that anymore!
THEN God can make you new again.
As 2 Corinthians 5:17 promises us “… if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
CLOSE: In some churches in China, they welcome new believers by saying,
"Jesus now has a new pair of eyes to see with,
new ears to listen with,
new hands to help with,
and a new heart to love others with."
