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Beloved congregation of our Lord
Jesus Christ, one of life's special blessings and comforts is the
presence of dear loved ones. It changes everything, really.
Maybe children, you can remember a time when a dear loved one,
maybe a relative or perhaps a friend was coming to visit on a holiday. They had a holiday and they were
coming to visit you, and what a time. What a time that was. It was
a time of joy, a time of celebration, A time when life was totally
different and wonderful. And you felt it when they left.
You missed them and you could hardly wait till they came back
again. But imagine for a moment that
they had come and you hardly noticed. Imagine you just went
on with your life the way you always did, as if their presence
made little or no difference at all. Maybe that's hard to
imagine. But you know, that's how many
people live in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. They live
as if His presence makes little or no difference. They just go
on with their lives the way they've always done. That can happen. It can happen sadly even in the
church, even among us. We can live or be tempted to
live as if Christ's presence is not really all that significant. We can fail to appreciate it.
We can fail to long for it. We can be more concerned with
formal outward religion rather than with the presence of Christ. We can look to other things for
salvation and for satisfaction instead of relying only on Christ. We can treat Him as nothing more
than a nice add-on to our lives instead of being totally submitted
and surrendered to Him. This can be a struggle even at
times for Christians, sadly. The Bible speaks about Christians
losing their first love, their love for Christ. We can develop
an apathy, a coldness, a carelessness toward Christ. we can struggle
to appreciate the great significance of His presence. Well, that is
what we see in our passage this morning in Mark 2, verses 18
through 22. Verse 18 tells us that the disciples
of John, meaning John the Baptist, and of the Pharisees used to
fast. In other words, they would often
go without eating for a period of time and maybe without drinking
as well. The Law of Moses only required fasting once a year
on the Day of Atonement, but the disciples of John and of
the Pharisees did it more often. It was a regular practice for
them. In fact, the Pharisees, in Jesus'
day, they fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, as
a sign of their supposed devotion to God. But they noticed that
Christ's disciples didn't fast. In the verses before, we read
about the feast that Levi gave for the Lord Jesus and his disciples,
and they were eating there, and even eating with tax collectors
and sinners. They didn't fast, and that raises
a question, a concern in the minds of these people. Verse
18 says that they come and say unto Jesus, why do the disciples
of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast
not? It may be that there was an implied
challenge to Jesus in this question, on the part of the Pharisees
at least, but either way, the question shows they did not rightly
understand or appreciate the significance of Christ's presence. The answer that Jesus gives in
verses 19 through 22 makes that clear. And we'll look here just
for now at verse 19, where Jesus replies, and Jesus said unto
them, can the children of the bride chamber fast while the
bridegroom is with them. As long as they have the bridegroom
with them, they cannot fast." Christ's point is that His presence,
just like the bridegroom's presence at His wedding feast, makes fasting
inappropriate and even impossible. In other words, Christ's presence
changes Everything. And the following verses just
drive that home as we hope to see with the help of God. So
our theme is the presence of Christ changes everything. How
so? Well, first of all, it calls
for great jubilation. Secondly, it signifies a wonderful
salvation. And thirdly, it demands a spiritual
transformation. That's what we hope to see from
our text. So the first thing the Lord Jesus teaches us here
is that his presence calls for great jubilation, great joy. Look again at what he says in
verse 19. is with them. Can the wedding
guests, in other words, that's what the children of the bride
chamber are, they refer to the wedding guests, can they fast
while the bridegroom is with them? And the answer should be
obvious, of course not. Fasting is usually a sign of
grief, a sign of sorrow, sometimes because of tragedy or sickness
or because of a threat or a danger of something bad or because of
sin. And of course that would be completely,
fasting would be completely out of place at a wedding when the
bridegroom is present. Jesus confirms that, he goes
on to say, as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they
cannot fast. And then in verse 20 he adds
these words, In other words, the absence of Christ, not his
presence, calls for grief. His presence calls for joy, and
not just a little joy, but great joy. Great jubilation. I mean, think
about the joy of having Christ with us. What an extraordinary
joy that is. Jesus compares it to wedding
guests, the bridegroom's friends, having the bridegroom with them.
That's a wonderful thing. Weddings are among the most joyful
events in life. They're not a reason for fasting,
they're a reason for feasting, for celebration, especially at
the reception. In fact, to fast at the wedding
feast would even be an insult to the bridegroom. It's true
even in our day, isn't it? When you've been invited to a
wedding reception, usually you arrive before the couple comes,
and what do you do? You don't go to the... the servers and say, well, can
I have my dinner, please? No, you wait for them, you talk,
you visit, but when they come and dinner is served, then you
eat, you're expected to eat. After all, the dinner's been
paid for. Imagine going to a wedding reception and fasting as a sign
of grief, of sorrow, refusing to eat any of the food when the
bridegroom is there. What an insult that would be.
Not just to the family of the bride and groom who probably
paid for the meal, but to the bridegroom himself. It would
be acting as if his marriage is a tragedy. Treating it like
a funeral. Well, that's not proper, is it?
Children, it's maybe a comparison that you might relate to. It
could be a little bit like your parents giving you Brussels sprouts
for your birthday dessert instead of birthday cake or ice cream
or something like that. We just don't do that. At least
I assume we don't. It's not proper. That's what
Jesus is saying here. It's not proper to fast and be
sad at a wedding when you have the bridegroom with you. Having
the bridegroom with you calls for extraordinary gladness, not
sadness. But how much more when we have
Christ with us? That's the point. Having Christ
with us, having fellowship with Him, experiencing His presence
calls for extraordinary gladness, like the joy of the bridegroom's
friends having the bridegroom with them. What greater joy can
there be? When Christ has called you and
has saved you out of your state of sin and misery and made you
His disciple, His follower, and you experience His presence,
that calls for great jubilation. Or maybe you're thinking, though,
that sounds a little extreme, but it's not. The joy of having
Christ with us is not just an extraordinary joy, you see, it's
a well-grounded joy. The Old Testament speaks of God
several times as the bridegroom or the husband of his people.
In Isaiah 54, verse five, we read these words spoken to Israel
as God's people, for thy maker is thine husband. The Lord of
hosts is his name. And Isaiah 62 verse 5 speaks
of God rejoicing over his people as a bridegroom rejoicing over
his bride. And so when Christ here compares
himself to a bridegroom, what is he saying about himself? He's saying he's more than just
a man. He's also God. He's the Lord. And that means
that when Christ is with us, we don't just have a man with
us, we have Emmanuel. We have God Himself with us. the Lord of hosts, the Almighty
God. And He's with us in love, in
grace. He's with us as a divine bridegroom. He's with us as the one who's
come with almighty power to seek and to save the lost, His lost
and sinful people from their sins, and to marry them and to
love them as His bride. Doesn't that call for great jubilation? I mean, isn't that what we need?
Isn't that what you need? What real hope do we have without
that? If we're without God, we're without
hope. That's why trusting in Jesus
is so important. Because when you trust in Him,
you're connected with Him. You're united to Him. We have,
when we trust in Jesus, we have Him with us, and that changes
everything, because when we have Jesus with us, we have God with
us. Then we have hope, real hope,
because then He's with us as our Savior, as our Bridegroom,
as our Husband. Oh, how important trusting in
Jesus, how important it is to trust in Him. Are you? Oh, when you are, that should
fill you with unceasing joy, even with great jubilation. That's
what the presence of Christ calls for. And the Lord Jesus actually
emphasizes that because he speaks not only of the joy of having
his presence, but also of the grief of losing it. Look with
me again at verse 20. But the days will come, he says,
when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then
shall they fast in those days. In other words, he's saying the
disciples will lose the presence of Christ for a time. And when
that happens, they will grieve. That's a certainty. They shall
fast. They will grieve. And they will
grieve deeply. That's what fasting signifies.
It signifies a deep grief, a deep sorrow. And that makes sense,
doesn't it? If there's no greater joy than
having Christ with us, then there can be no greater grief than
losing him. In some ways it's like when a
dear friend or relative whom you don't see very often has
been visiting for you some time but then has to leave. Or when
a dear loved one passes away. It makes you very sad, doesn't
it? You feel their absence. You feel it in the pit of your
stomach. You feel deeply the grief of
losing them, of not having them with you anymore. Well, that's
a little bit what it's like to lose Christ's presence, only
more so. The days will come when the bridegroom
shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those
days. Jesus may be referring here to
his arrest or perhaps to his ascension, but either way, he's
highlighting the grief of losing his presence, at least physical
presence, mainly to show how much joy having it calls for.
Well, what does this all mean for us? A couple of things. In one sense, it means we should
always be joyful when we're Christians, even when life is hard, even
when the fig tree does not blossom. You see, when you're a true Christian,
trusting and following Jesus Christ for your salvation, then
He is with you by His Holy Spirit. He's promised that, and He's
promised also never to leave you or forsake you. He is with
you always. And that should fill us, in one
sense, with unceasing joy, even with great jubilation. But at the same time, we don't
yet experience the presence of Christ in its fullness, do we?
What's more, we don't always sense His presence here. It's
true that Christ never leaves or forsakes His people, but He
can take away the sense of His presence. He can withdraw His
blessing personally and even also as a church. Sometimes He
does that to test us or to humble us. Other times He does it to
discipline us because of some sin in our lives. And when that
happens, that calls for grief, doesn't it? that calls even for fasting at
times. The Bible never condemns fasting as such. In fact, it
gives several different reasons to fast, but certainly losing
the sense of the presence of Christ, the presence of God,
is a reason to fast, isn't it? When the bridegroom is taken
away, then they will fast. They will go without food for
a time. Do we? Don't misunderstand. Not as a
work to earn God's favor. That's not possible. That's how
the Pharisees fasted. And that's wrong, but as an expression
of our grief at the withdrawal of God's sensible presence with
us, of his blessing, Do we ever fast and pray as an expression
of our longing for Christ to come and save us, for Christ
to come and restore us, to revive us, to visit us, to make His
face shine upon us once more? Do we ever fast and pray for
the Lord to return in His glory? Do we ever do that either personally
or even as a church? I ask myself this question, this
has been a learning passage for me as well. Or could it be that we do not
care that much for the presence of Christ? We
don't care enough to go without food for a period of time. Or shouldn't we? After all, the
presence of Christ changes everything. It calls for great jubilation.
There's no greater joy than being in His presence. Shouldn't our
lives show, as the hymn goes, that I'd rather have Jesus than
anything? Shouldn't we be wholeheartedly
committed to Him? Are we? Well, maybe you struggle with
that. Maybe you struggle to be wholeheartedly committed to Jesus
because you struggle to believe that he's enough. Don't I need
something else? Well, that brings us to our second
point. The presence of Christ not only calls for great jubilation,
it also signifies a wonderful salvation. That's what Jesus
is essentially saying in verses 21 and 22. Look with me at what
he says there. No man also sews a piece of new
cloth on an old garment. Else the new piece that filled
it up takes away from the old, and the rent is made worse. And
no man puts new wine into old bottles, or literally wineskins. Else the new wine does burst
the wineskins, and the wine is spilled, and the wineskins will
be marred. But new wine must be put into
new wineskins. What's Christ doing here? Well,
he's using two illustrations common in his day to point out
that his presence signifies a wonderful salvation. You say, how so? Well, for one thing, his presence
signifies a full salvation. You see, the piece of new cloth
in verse 21 is a picture of the presence of Christ. And Jesus
says that no one sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment.
In other words, you don't patch an old robe that's got a tear
in it. You don't patch it with a new
piece of cloth. Now, I don't know if you still
put patches on clothing. I remember when I was younger,
my mom would often patch the knees of my pants when I was
young, because I'd wear through them like nothing else. But whether
you still do that or not, the point is you don't patch old
clothing with a brand new, unwashed piece of cloth. Why not? Well, because brand new cloth
always shrinks the first time it's washed. Unless, of course,
now you can get pre-shrunk clothing and all of that. But normally,
that's what happens. Maybe you've experienced that.
You've bought some new clothes at the store, and you tried them
on there, and they fit just perfect, but then you brought them home,
and you washed them, and then you put them on, and they were
too small because they had shrunk. That's what happens to new cloth
the first time it's washed. And that's why you can't use
it to patch a hole in old clothing. Because what will happen is the
new cloth will shrink and it will pull away from the old garment
and make even a worse tear. In the same way Jesus is saying,
He's not an add-on. He's not a patch that we can
just add on to our existing lives. It's not like our works or our
man-made rules and traditions, whether it's fasting or something
else, whatever it is, makes us partially right with God and
Jesus just comes in and fills in the holes. No, that won't
work. Christ's presence doesn't signify
a partial salvation. It signifies a full salvation. He's not like a patch. He's like
a brand new robe. That changes everything, you
see. Because when you have Him, that means you have everything
you need. You are complete in Him. He is enough. There is nothing
lacking in Him. With Him is perfect righteousness
and holiness. With Him is fullness of grace.
With Him is steadfast faithfulness. With Him is full forgiveness
of all your sins. With Him is total cleansing and
renewal. Yes, with Christ you have everything
you need. Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians
1 verse 30. Christ Jesus of God is made unto
us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. He is all-sufficient for your
and my salvation. How liberating that should be,
that is, and how that calls for our joyful, wholehearted commitment
and devotion to Christ. Is that how you're living? It
should be. It should be how all of us are
living. You see, His presence signifies not only a full salvation,
but the only salvation. That too is part of what this
picture is saying, isn't it? If you try and put a new patch
on an old garment, you'll end up with no garment at all because
the new patch will shrink and the tear will become worse. Well,
in the same way, you can't be saved by Christ plus something
else. You cannot. And the picture in
verse 22 reinforces that. Just like the new piece of cloth
in verse 21, the new wine is a picture of the presence of
Christ. And Jesus makes a point, new wine, you can't pour new
wine into old bottles. Children, don't think here of
glass bottles like we have today, but think of bottles made out
of animal skins. Sort of like big leather canteens. Usually these animal skins were
goat skins. And over time these skins, they
would wear out and they would become brittle. You probably
know what old brittle leather feels like and how there's no
more flex to it. And when wine is new and fresh,
it's often still fermenting and expanding. And so what do you
think happens then if you try pouring new wine into old, brittle
wineskins? Well, Jesus tells us the old
wineskins will burst because they can't stretch anymore to
handle the pressure of the new wine as it expands. And then,
as Christ points out, the wine is spilled and the bottles, the
wineskins, will be marred or ruined. You can't put new wine
into old wineskins. And in the same way, you cannot
be saved by Christ plus something in you, or something you do. Whether that's Christ plus fasting,
or Christ plus circumcision, or Christ plus prayer, or Christ
plus good works, or Christ plus anything. No, the only way to
be saved is by Christ and Christ alone. He is the way, the truth,
and the life. No one comes to the Father but
by Him and by Him alone. Christ must be all or we have
nothing. How important that is to remember.
And yet how easy it can be to forget, even in Christian churches.
Just think of the New Testament letters, how often we hear the
calls, the warnings, the reminders to look to Christ alone for salvation. You think of what Paul writes
in Colossians 2 verse 8. Beware, lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him
dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete
in him. Or think of Paul's letter to
the Galatians. The Galatians were living as if Christ wasn't
enough. As if he wasn't, they needed something else. He wasn't
the only way of salvation. As if they also needed to be
circumcised and keep the law in order to be fully saved. And
Paul warns them over and over and quite sharply even in his
letter to the Galatians. He warns them against that. And
in Galatians 5 verse 1, he calls them, as he starts to bring his
letter to a close, he calls them to stand fast, therefore, in
the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, he goes on,
I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, in other words,
be circumcised in order to contribute to salvation somehow, Christ
shall profit you nothing. Picturing, perhaps, that spilled
wine on the ground. Verse 4 of Galatians 5, he says,
Christ is become of no effect, no effect, not just a little
effect, no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law. You are fallen from grace. And his point is that our salvation
is in Christ, and in Christ alone, his presence signifies the only
salvation there is. How important to remember that. That's what these pictures in
Mark 2 are highlighting. And they're calling us to put
all our trust in Christ for our salvation. Not in anything else.
Not in our feelings. Not in our experiences. Not in
our baptism. Not in our good behavior. Nothing. Those things, yes, they're good
in their place, but as our saviors, they're no better than old, torn
clothing and brittle wineskins. Salvation is only and all in
Jesus Christ, in His perfect life of righteousness, and in
His perfect satisfaction for sin, in His death on the cross. The presence of Christ really
does change everything. It signifies a wonderful salvation,
a full salvation, the only salvation. What a call that is to all of
us to put our trust in Him for our salvation, to be joyfully
and wholeheartedly committed to Him. But maybe you're not
yet convinced, or maybe, again, it seems too extreme. Well, let's
briefly notice one more thing that Christ teaches us here about
His presence. It not only calls for great jubilation and signifies
a wonderful salvation, but it also thirdly demands a spiritual
transformation. And here I'm thinking just of
the last words of our text at the end of verse 22. Jesus has
just explained that if you put new wine in old bottles, it will
burst the bottles, so the wine will be spilled and the bottles
ruined. And so what are we to do then with new wine? Well,
Jesus tells us, new wine must be put into new bottles. Notice that word, must. It's
a strong word. The new wine requires, it demands
new wineskins in the same way Christ's presence demands new
forms. And that's true not just generally
in the sense that the coming of Christ demands new forms different
from the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Old Testament, but it's
also true personally in the sense that Christ's presence with us
and in us demands a whole new life. In other words, it demands
a spiritual transformation. It demands a new nature, a new
heart. In other words, regeneration. One of the Pharisees, a man named
Nicodemus, had a hard time understanding that. But it's true. Jesus made that clear to him
in John chapter three. Nicodemus had come to him by
night, and as a Pharisee, he thought that he was okay the
way he was. He thought that religious works and covenant membership
basically guaranteed salvation. But Jesus made very clear it
doesn't. We need a new nature. We need
to be born again. Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. And Christ went on to explain
that he wasn't talking about being born again physically,
but rather spiritually. Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
You see, the problem is that no matter how religious we are,
No matter what religious works we may do, we are all spiritually
dead by nature. We cannot do anything in and
of ourselves that pleases God. We need the Spirit to work in
our hearts, to give us a new nature, a new heart. We need
Him to raise us up spiritually from the dead, together with
Christ, to work in such a way that we repent and believe in
Jesus. We cannot know the presence of
Christ without that. I read something in my devotions
this past week, a quote from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and he
confirms this. He's speaking about a passage
in Romans, but he says this, the thing that ultimately matters
is this, have we received the new nature? Have we got the life
of God in our souls? Are we partakers of the divine
nature? You can be highly moral, he says.
You can be well-versed in Scripture. You can argue about it. You can
teach others, and you can preach to others. You can do all these
things, even more than the Jews did, and still be condemned. It's the state of the heart that
matters. Have we got the new heart, the
clean heart, the heart in which the Holy Spirit dwells? That,
he says, is the thing that proclaims we are truly Christian. Just
as new wine must be put into new bottles so we cannot be saved
without regeneration. And that's the work of God. That's
not meant to make us passive. It's not meant to give us an
excuse for not being saved. No, it's meant to make us understand
we have nothing truly good in ourselves. And that should humble
us. That's what it's meant to do.
It's meant to show us how desperately helpless and hopeless we are. How foolish any and all reliance
upon ourselves really is. It's meant to drive us to the
Lord. Yes, even to Christ, who came and lived and died and rose
and ascended into heaven to give his Holy Spirit so that sinners
might indeed be born again and be given that new nature. The
point is we must go to Christ. We have nothing in ourselves.
There's no other way. There's no other way to be saved. Christ's presence demands regeneration,
but it also then demands a new life. It demands conversion. A life of repentance from sin
and faith in Jesus Christ. That's the fruit of regeneration,
of being born again. And Jesus also pointed out our
need for this. In Matthew 18 verse 3, Jesus
says these words, and become as little children,
you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." You see what
he's saying? He's saying, my presence demands
conversion. It demands that you trust and
follow me. That's the only way you can have
me with you, now and forever. His presence demands a spiritual
transformation. Have you experienced that? You may not be able to point
to a specific time when that happened, but that doesn't matter.
What matters is are you living in the way of repentance and
faith in Jesus? Are you wholeheartedly committed
to him? That's what his presence calls
for. It changes everything. Has it
changed you? How wonderful when it has, because
then He is with us, and He is even in us by His Spirit. And
even the Father through Him is with us. We experience his presence
even now, not in its fullness, no, but it's there. It's there,
and that calls for great jubilation because it signifies a wonderful
salvation. And then even death, even death
is not something to be afraid of. It's something even, in a
sense, to look forward to because it means we'll be with Christ
in an even closer way, which in Paul's words is far better. And not only that, but Christ
will also one day return in glory, and He'll make all things new.
And then we, together with all of God's people, the rest of
Christ's bride, will have Christ with us forever. What greater
joy can there be than that? The presence of Christ changes
everything. Let's live them together in joyful,
wholehearted commitment to Him. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, we thank you for the
coming of Christ. and his life here on earth 2,000
years ago, we also give thanks for his presence through his
Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives, the hearts and lives of
all who repent and believe by grace in Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to appreciate the
significance of Christ's presence. Help us to rejoice, even with
joy unspeakable, even when we do not yet see the Lord Jesus,
but whom we love, even in the midst of grievous trials. And
Lord, help us when we also experience times of chastening
and discipline when we lose the sense of your presence with us,
that we would not be careless about that, or not look to other
things to satisfy, but that we would go and humble ourselves
before you. praying and even at times fasting
as an expression of our longing for your presence with us again,
for your blessing upon us again. Lord, we think of what Moses
prayed when you promised that your presence would go up with
them and how he pleaded that promise and said, if thy presence
does not go up with us, do not carry us up from here. Because we need, we need Jesus,
we need Christ. Lord, grant that every one of
us would realize that and cling to him and follow him in repentance
and faith. Bless us in our fellowship after
as well, that you'll be present in our conversations, you'll
be present also in the classrooms, with the teachers and with the
students. And bring us back again this
afternoon. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.
The Presence of Christ Changes Everything
- It calls for great jubilation.
- It signifies a wonderful salvation.
- It demands a spiritual transformation.
| Sermon ID | 102724171937338 |
| Duration | 36:38 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Mark 2:1-22 |
| Language | English |
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