New
Matthew 9:14-17
This week I had breakfast with our youth intern. Joe proudly announced that he and Cheryl are expecting their first child and that the due date is in February. As we talked, our conversation turned to all of the new things that will be happening in their lives over the next months and years. Joe and Cheryl will adjust to new schedules and new priorities in their lives as they become parents. They will need to learn new skills, and purchase new products. They will experience new joys and new concerns. Their lives will never quite be the same again.
There is nothing quit so wondrous in this world as a new baby. I remember the birth of our children. I looked in wonder at their tiny hands and feet wiggling and reaching for a new world. I thought about all of the experiences they would have in life: learning to crawl and then walk, swinging on a swing for the first time, eating their first birthday cake, getting their first big bed, and heading off to school for the very first time. But as children grow, the newness of these things begins to wear off. Things become commonplace and predictable. The bumps and falls of life start to destroy some of the wonder and spontaneous joy that so many children possess. We all grow tired, and weary, and more skeptical or perhaps even cynical with age. We lose our newness.
As I spent time in devotion this week, I was struck with how often the Bible speaks about newness and new things.
I am about to do a brand-new thing. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness for my people to come home. I will create rivers for them in the desert! (Isaiah 43:19)
"The day will come," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife," says the Lord.
"But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day," says the Lord. "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their family, saying, ’You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will already know me," says the Lord. "And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins." (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their hearts of stone and give them tender hearts instead, so they will obey my laws and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart. (Ezekiel 36:26)
After supper he took another cup of wine and said, "This wine is the token of God’s new covenant to save you—an agreement sealed with the blood I will pour out for you. (Luke 22:20)
What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making all things new!" And then he said to me, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true." (Rev. 21:5)
When we study scripture we see that Jesus came to make us new. He gives us a new commandment: That we love one another. He promises a new covenant that will be written in our hearts. He prophesies of a new heaven and a new earth where we one day will rule with Him. Christianity is not just evolved or patched-up Judaism, it is an entirely new work of God on earth in the hearts and minds of men.
There are 2 Greek Words in the New Testament that are translated new.
‘Neos’ has to do with chronological newness. Some things are new because they came after, or are most recent, like when you purchase a used car – but it is new to you and so therefore, you can say “I have a new car”.
‘Kainos’ has to do with qualitative newness. In that case we may say, “I have a brand spankin’ new car. Just off the assembly line.” It is not only new chronologically, but it is new qualitatively.
It is that second idea of newness that Jesus speaks about in Matthew 9 and that I want to speak about this morning.
Our theme this morning could be summarized in this way:
Jesus doesn’t do extreme makeovers, He totally recreates.
One day the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?"
Jesus responded, "Should the wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Someday he will be taken from them, and then they will fast. And who would patch an old garment with unshrunk cloth? For the patch shrinks and pulls away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger hole than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. That way both the wine and the wineskins are preserved." (Matthew 9:14-17)
Last week we saw Jesus celebrating with Matthew and his friends. Matthew had been radically transformed by Christ, and in his joy he had thrown a party where all the guests were the riff-raff of society. This deeply offended the Pharisees who believed that if you were truly a Holy Person, you wouldn’t let yourself be sullied by contact with those who were full of sin.
Now the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus, and they too are a little confused at what Jesus is doing. To them, John had preached a gospel of repentance for sin – a call to a holy life, a life of separation. John’s disciples and the Pharisees were committed to living a somber and serious life of religious duty.
But here Jesus was partying with the populace. Why wasn’t he fasting? Why wasn’t’ he mourning for the sins of the people? Why weren’t His disciples making a sacrifice of fasting for the nation?
Jesus answers their questions with 3 quick illustrations.
The first illustration comes from a wedding party. No one throws a wedding party, and then expects the quests to go without any food or drink. You have a reception, and you celebrate with the bride and groom. Jesus was declaring that He was the bridegroom. He had come to call His bride His own. The church would become the bride of Christ, and the ministry of Jesus was the preparation for the wedding, and a celebration of this new marriage. When Jesus would die and depart from his bride, the church, then the church would fast and mourn and grieve until He returned.
The second illustration came from the closet. When you have an old piece of clothing, it is not a good idea to patch it up with a new piece of cloth. As soon as you wash the garment, the new piece will shrink and tear away from the old garment that has already weathered a lot of washings and has shrunk as far as it is going to shrink.
The third illustration came from the common practice of fermentation of wine. Wine was a staple drink in Palestine. Most wine was not kept in bottles, but in animal skins that had been dried and treated. The new juice would be poured into a new wineskin and sown shut. As the juice began to ferment and expand in the skin, turning into wine, it would stretch with the new pliable wineskin. But if you put this new wine into an old, dry and hardened skin, when it would begin to ferment and expand inside the skin it would literally tear the skin apart and both the wineskin and the wine would be lost forever.
What is the meaning behind these three illustrations of Christ?
1. You cannot continue to live under both law and grace.
This is true of both people, and of churches. Throughout the centuries there has been a tendency among well meaning people and well meaning congregations to try and mix grace with legalism.
You cannot live under both at the same time.
The law served a very important roll in the life of God’s people. Paul says that it acted as our tutor showing us the impossibility of living a life of holiness apart from God, and demonstrating to us that we desperately needed a savior who would forgive us of our sins. Paul, himself, had been someone who knew all that there was to know about legalism. He had lived as a Pharisee, a keeper and defender of the law, and he had lived so zealously for God that he even saw it as his responsibility to kill anyone who opposed God.
But then God grabbed a hold of Paul and showed Him his grace. Paul, the chief of sinners, came to know the love and forgiveness of the Lord, and it revolutionized his life. As a fully devoted follower of Christ he sought to set the Gentiles free. He urged the early church to not add the requirements of the law and the binding contract of circumcision to their new grace-filled faith.
Holiness was not to be driven by a series of external requirements and regulations, but by an internal dwelling of the living God in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would right His will on the hearts and minds of His people. Believers would long to please the Lord, and live lives of holiness and consecration, not out of duty, but out of love.
But as believers we know that we can fluctuate in our own walk with Christ between law and grace. There are times we love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and living a holy life of service to God seems a total joy to us. There are other times that we feel far and distant from God, we don’t sense the presence of His indwelling Spirit, and our service becomes one of duty and drudgery and religious ritual.
Are you living under law or under grace right now? The question goes to the heart of our relationship with the Lord, and the motive behind what we do. Fasting for example is a wonderful and good thing. If burdened by the spirit of God to fast for the sins of the world and to seek the face of God for His working and presence in our lives – then fasting can be a moving and meaningful practice. But fasting can also become a ritual. If we fast every Tuesday, simply out of religious habit, without our hearts and souls committed to seeking God and His kingdom, then it is a legalistic and lifeless practice.
Coming to church can be a joy-filled experience of gathering with God’s people to worship the King and to encourage our fellow-believers. But if we come, because we feel we ‘have to come’, then it slips into ritual and legalism and steals the joy out of our lives. What is our motive? Where is our heart?
And even churches can slip out of grace and into legalism. The 7 last words of the church have been written as this: “We have always done it this way!” Churches can be steeped in tradition and ritual and lose the life-giving direction of the spirit of God. We can do the same old, same old, and get the same old results.
But God is in the business of creating and doing new things. God creates life. God takes dead things and resurrects them. God can and will take a church that is willing to move from legalistic boundaries to grace-filled fields of harvest. Are we a church that is willing to go in new directions, to try something new, and willing to trust the Lord for things we’ve never seen happen before? Or do we keep doing the same things, expecting the same results, with no sense of faith or joy?
Do you want God to do something new in your life? Do you want Him to do something new in this church? Or are you satisfied with the law of the past? It’s time to move into grace!!!!
Remember: Jesus doesn’t do extreme makeovers. He totally recreates! You cannot live under both law and grace.
2. You cannot patch up your life and hope for the best.
When I was a young boy I had a problem with clothes. I was extremely overweight, and my family was very poor. My mom rarely bought me new clothes, but she would constantly patch and repair my old clothes. Something would tear and she would sow it up again.
This was a never ending experience of shame and embarrassment for me. I can’t even count the number of times that I would sit down at my desk, or bend over to pick up something, and my paints would tear down the seam of the crack revealing a flash of white underwear to everyone in the class. I learned early on that no matter how much you try and patch up an old pair of paints, it never lasts very long.
How many of us go through our days trying to cover up the dead and decaying parts of our lives with a patch? We have a problem with sin: perhaps it’s our outbursts of anger, or our impatience with people, or maybe it’s our tendency to open our mouths and stick our foot in, and we think – all I really need is a little patch job. If I could just get a little bit of control over this area, then I would feel better, or do better, or be happier.
But God isn’t interested in our patch jobs. When Jesus came to Palestine, He wasn’t interested in taking Judaism and patching it up so that it could last a little longer. He wanted to create an entirely new way for people. The old had served its purpose and now it was worn out and ready to be discarded. Now God wasn’t going to right his law on scrolls of paper, but on the hearts of people. Now God wasn’t going to continue to accept animal sacrifices for a covering of sin, but His Son was going to be the final sacrifice taking away the sins of the world. Now God wasn’t going to speak through His prophets and those who were occasionally filled with the Spirit, He was going to fill all people with His Holy Spirit and men, women and children alike were going to be able to prophesy of the Lord.
God isn’t interested in patch jobs. He isn’t interested in your attempts to patch up your life either. Our “if only’s” just don’t cut it in the new covenant:
- If only I could try just a little harder
- If only I could have victory over that one besetting sin
- If only I could compensate for my sin, but doing good over here
God doesn’t want a patched up Dave Hicks. He was a new creation. God doesn’t call me to get better. He calls me to die, and to be born again. God doesn’t ask me to try harder, he challenges me to consider myself crucified with Christ – and now it isn’t me who lives, but Christ lives in me.
So much of our frustration as Christians is that we try to live lives with patches on them, instead of throwing out the old garment, and becoming clothed with the new garment of Christ. It is Christ living His life in me. It is the Holy Spirit filling and controlling me. It is the living sacrifice life that Christ calls us to.
Are you still trying to live a patched up religious life? Or have you died to trying and now you are letting Christ live His life in you? This is the challenge that many people have struggled with understanding. It is what led A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Alliance to a new beginning in his ministry and Christian life. He came to a crises moment as a pastor and a Christian when he realized that despite all of his trying, he could not live a life pleasing to the Lord. He would fall time and time again. Like Paul, he did the very things he didn’t want to do, and the things he wanted to do, he did not do.
It wasn’t until He understood the crucified life, the Christ-life that He was set free to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and not in the struggle of the flesh. It was Christ in Him, not a new cloth patched onto an old garment.
Have you given your life to Christ? Have you died to self, that He might make you new?
Remember: Jesus doesn’t do extreme makeovers. He totally recreates! You cannot live under both law and grace. You cannot patch up your life and hope for the best.
3. In order for God to do something new in you, you must be made new.
I find it interesting that comparisons are often made in the scriptures between the Holy Spirit at the wine of the New Covenant. Paul urged the Ephesians: “Don’t get drunk with wine, but instead be filled (controlled) by the Holy Spirit.”
Do you wonder why your Christian life seems so ineffective? Do you struggle with the sense that you are not growing or changing at all? Does the presence of the Lord seem far away? Is your prayer life dry and lifeless? Do you find it hard to understand God’s Word and how it relates to your life? Do you find it hard to even remember the last time the Lord spoke to you?
God will not pour His new wine into old wineskins. He must do an entirely new thing in your life. You must be willing to die.
Without death, there is no life. You can’t bring out the same old patterns of religious activity and lifeless ritual and believe that now God is going to do something new in your life. You can’t continue to live a life of self-centered pampering and believe that now God is going to turn your life around. God doesn’t work that way.
Before He can re-create, He must destroy. Before He can bring forth a new crop, the seed must be broken and dissolved. Before he can change you, you must be born again. And as a born-again believer, a new creation in Christ, before you can see Christ transform your life – you must die to self.
Remember: Jesus doesn’t do extreme makeovers. He totally recreates! You cannot live under both law and grace. You cannot patch up your life and hope for the best. In order for God to do something new in you, you must be made new.
This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: "Plow up the hard ground of your hearts! Do not waste your good seed among thorns. Cleanse your minds and hearts before the Lord, or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins. (Jeremiah 4:3-4)
I said, ’Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of my love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’ (Hosea 10:12)
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