If you would join me in Mark chapter 2, Mark and chapter 2, we're kind of following Jesus and So far, it's always been someplace that he's going. Tonight, I just felt like we better not skip over this little chunk here. So I'm not sure. The text seems to imply he hasn't gone anywhere. He's kind of in the same dialogue, you might say, between the Lord and the Pharisees, those who are fussing about Levi getting saved and the resultant celebration that takes place afterwards. And let's go to verse 18, shall we? It says, And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast. And they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? That's why I think it kind of flows because they're not fasting because they're feasting. They're celebrating with Levi. And the fact that he's gotten saved and he's left, you know, his waywardness and he's come back to where he needs to be. And he was one of the six who's now been intended to by the great physician. And they're celebrating that. But, you know, the Pharisees, they're not happy with anybody's anything. They're just not happy people. They're sad. They're kind of miserable. And so it seems they've come to Jesus now, and they have a new accusation. And they're trying to draw in, even off John the Baptist, to kind of lend some credibility to their complaints. I mean, even John the Baptist's disciples are fasting, and the Pharisees are fasting, but your disciples, they're not fasting at all. 19. 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. But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment, else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred. but new wine must be put into new bottles. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day and for the privilege to be here tonight. And I ask you would just guide and direct now as we come to your word, give me clarity of thought and speech and what it is you have for us tonight that we might know how to take your word and make an application into our own lives. Would you guide and direct please? Work now I pray in Jesus name Amen Now it makes sense that John the Baptist disciples would be fasting in Matthew. I think it's chapter 9 the parallel passage Jesus there the term uses if the bridegrooms with them that they cannot mourn Now that makes sense, because John the Baptist at this time is in jail. He's not going to get out, he's going to be executed, he's going to lose his head. And so it makes sense that John's disciples are fasting, they're mourning, they're concerned about their teacher, their master, that he might be released and no harm would come to him, and so they're fasting. Fasting shows up quite a bit in the Bible. It basically means to abstain. To abstain from food, primarily. It could be all food, some fasts were a complete fast, like Jesus in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, no water, no food, no bread, nothing, 40 days. Sometimes a fast was just your normal food, so you're like on a prison diet. Glass of water, crust of bread, and that was it. Kind of a subsistence almost kind of diet. But either way there was a sense of abstinence. Now what's interesting is in the Old Testament there is only one commanded fast. And that's on the Day of Atonement. Leviticus 16 29 talks about Afflicting your souls. It's about Abstaining from anything. It's the day of atonement. So it's a day that you're remembering You're a sinner and you needed redemption and deliverance by the Lord and if we stop to think about our sin That's a grievous thing Okay, I don't think we ought to dwell there Maybe that's why the Lord only commanded them to do one fast He didn't want them dwelling on the negative sides of life constantly and getting lost in the sluw of despond. But certainly in the Day of Atonement was a day to fast and be right with God so that as you give that sacrifice it becomes very precious to you what he's done as you remember that. Now that's not the only fast that happens in the Old Testament. That is the only fast that God himself commanded in the Old Testament. There were many other times that the people fasted. In 2 Samuel, let's look at a few of these. 2 Samuel chapter 12. Oops, there we go, that's Kings. 2 Samuel chapter 12. And right away you'll realize this is During the life of David, David's messed around with Bathsheba, and that was very bad, and she's pregnant, and he's trying to cover it up, and Uriah gets conveniently killed in battle by David's direction, so in essence David David murders Uriah by the hand of another, by the hand of his enemies, but it's murdered nonetheless, and he takes Bathsheba as his wife, and he thinks he's got away with it, but the Lord's not very pleased. In fact, the Lord is not just not pleased, He's displeased. And in chapter 12, that's when Nathan comes and rebukes him, thou art the man, and David confesses. Part of what happens though to David is the child that Bathsheba is bearing is going to die. It says, verse 9, Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of his son. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel. David confesses, verse 13, I have sinned against the Lord, Nathan responds, how be it because by this deed thou has given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. Verse 16, David therefore besought God for the child and David fasted. He's not commanded, typically a fast is not something that God's commanded us to do. It is something that we feel compelled to do. Because there is a need, there is a burden. Maybe there's some grievous sin and we feel overwhelmed with the guilt of our sin or overwhelmed with the difficulty of the circumstance that we may be in. Jonah chapter 3 and verse 5, the whole city of Nineveh fasts. Why? Because the prophet Jonah said, three days and you're all dead. And they're like, Well, we don't like that idea very much. We better get right with God. And the whole city is fasting. Okay. Because there's a great burden upon them. Esther chapter 4 and verse 16. Okay. Mordecai says, you need to go to the king and plead for your people. And she's like, well, I can't do that. I've not been asked. And if you're not been asked to come to the king, if you go in front of the king, it's off with your head. He said, yeah, well, that's what you're up here for. Time to do your job, basically. And she said, okay, then you get everybody together, pray and fast. It was a great burden, it was a great need. So fasting is something that we do because we feel a burden and a pressure, which is probably why the disciples of John the Baptist are fasting. They feel a great pressure because John the Baptist is in jail. and he's not gonna get out, it doesn't look good for him. So they're in great turmoil. Jesus' disciples are not fasting because Jesus is with them. I mean, people's lives are being changed, they're celebrating. How can you fast in a mournful way when you have an attitude of celebration? So they don't go together, okay? We might say, well then how come the Pharisees are fasting? Because they're just ritualistic. That's why they're fasting. The Pharisees fasted every Monday and every Thursday. It's just what you do on Mondays and Thursdays. Kind of like for other folks, fish on Fridays. It's just what you do. It's what you do. When I was in college, Newt, my friend, he's like, you know what, we really should fast. And that sounds real spiritual. Okay. Oh yeah, we really should fast. We never determined why we were fasting. I mean, what was the real point of it? Other than this general sense of the spirituality of fasting. So, okay, once a month there was a designated fast day. And we kind of participated. I found it interesting that typically the fast day usually fell on the day before potluck Sunday. So we knew the next day we could really stuff it in because we were hungry. I mean, they did it. I don't think I had any kind of a spiritual sense in my brain at all. I'm not sure that was actually fasting. Not biblical fasting. I was abstaining. But, just to be quite honest, I didn't have this huge spiritual burden pressing on my soul. Other than, Newt's gonna ask me if I was fasting and I don't want him to say no. That's not really a very spiritual reason. So the Pharisees are fasting just out of mechanical duty. So here's what I want you to recognize. First thing in this passage, and that is the tradition is being challenged. Nothing wrong with traditions. But sometimes we do things just because that's what we always do. And they don't really have any meaning. We do them out of routine. We drew them out of duty. We do them out of habit. We don't even think about it, we just do it. And we have to be careful of that. Like the Pharisees, who were fasting Mondays and Thursdays. Maybe that's when the Pharisee's on the corner and he's praying to God, I fast so many times a week and that dirtbag over there on that corner, he's a real sinner, you know, I'm not like that guy. And it's like, well, you're dotting your I's and crossing your T's and minding your P's and Q's and you're doing everything right. And externally you look super good and that guy is like a total loser, dirtbag, scum, scum person. But the Lord says that guy went away justified and the Pharisee did not. Because he was filled with his own righteousness. Filled with himself. Isaiah chapter 58 verses 5 and 6 are an interesting highlight on the idea of fasting. Because the people start to fast and the Lord says to them, I'm just going to paraphrase it, the Lord says, is this a fast that I told you to do? Are you doing this just because it makes you feel spiritual? Because if that's what you're doing, it doesn't mean a hill of beans. Because you're doing a spiritual function, some sort of religious ceremonial activity, but what I really want you to do is to do right by your neighbor. and help the poor, and live righteously, but you think by getting your nose counted in this fast, you're sort of compensating. Now this is important for us because we can look at the Pharisees and say, oh, they had all these legalistic things they did, and they thought that they were so righteous, boy, those self-righteous Pharisees, but sometimes we can fall in the same trap. And we can think, because we're checking the boxes, and I'm not against having a list, I mean, I think you know that, I think that's okay, to have some guidelines that are set in your life, that's good. But keeping your guidelines doesn't make you righteous. Christ is the one that makes us righteous. It's not our righteousness, it's His righteousness. He just expects us to emulate that in our daily lives. Now, in this passage, then, Jesus responds about the bride chamber, and as I said, perhaps that's a help for the you know, the disciples of John, but also I think for his own disciples, because remember Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter six, I think it's verse 16, there it is, it says, when ye fast, just like he says, when ye pray, pray like this, our Father which Art in heaven, hell will be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus says, when you pray. He expects us to pray. He also says, when you fast. So there is a time coming for fasting. Now I don't, I'm, that's kind of a popular thing nowadays. is fasting, like, I got a, I get this email, I don't even know how they got my email address, but from some preacher thing in, I don't know, it's Oregon or someplace that direction toward the West Coast, that, you know, the secret power of the preacher's life is fasting. So, come and we're gonna do fasting and that's gonna give you something like, it's like the secret weapon. Now I'm not, that sounds like I'm being critical. I probably ought to fast more than I should. Really that's a confession that I ought to be more burdened than maybe I am. But I don't think going through the function of abstaining from food somehow allows me to tap into a hidden spiritual power source. Otherwise, we could have revival tomorrow, couldn't we? Yeah, everybody in this room, let's all commit to fast, and we're not going to have snacks tonight when you go home. You're going to abstain from all snacks, no breakfast, no lunch, no dinner, no cheating, because we know that's the secret source of revival, and it'll BOOM! It'll come down tomorrow night, because we're all skipping our Cheetos. Does that sound right? No, there's something wrong with that. Because spiritual power isn't a tangible earthly thing. It's a spiritual thing. Now I'm not negating the importance of fasting or being burdened. From time to time I have fasted for the right purpose because I needed to hear the Lord on a certain topic or I was burdened for a particular person. And so I committed to fast, you know, whatever, okay. The point is Jesus says, when ye fast. He didn't say if ye fast. He says, when ye fast. Now, following what he says here, if the bridegroom's gone, that's a cause for fasting because we want the bridegroom to return. As the picture goes, who's the bride? The Christians, right? The church. We're the bride of Christ. Well, who's the bridegroom? Christ. Is Christ here right now? No. Are things like super righteous and holy right now? No. You think maybe it might be time for us to do some fasting if we're really concerned about living righteously and victoriously for the Lord, that we might impact lives for eternity? And the obvious answer is yes. Okay. So now we have to kind of examine our own lives and see where are we at with that. I don't think it's as simple as, well let's just pick Mondays and Thursdays like the Pharisees. I don't think it's like that. It's not a ritualistic mechanical function. The tradition challenge. But Jesus then goes on because it's not just that he's challenging traditions for the sake of challenging like he's being some sort of revolutionary or a rebel or whatever. but there is a change coming. The Gospels bring us to the end of a time era of the prophets and all of that and the law and there's a lot going on but All of that is pointing to Christ, isn't it? The law is our school, Master Paul said. So that's all pointing to something God wants to do, and that he's working to do, and that's why Jesus has come, because he's going to fulfill all the law, all the requirements of the law. He's going to fulfill those, and he's going to establish a new covenant. So, the Gospels, chronologically, in the history of humanity, that is a transitional period. When that's coming to the end, John the Baptist is considered the last of the prophets in the Old Testament vein of prophets. So he's the end. So that kind of era is ending and there's something new coming. There's the working through the nation of Israel, that's the great object lesson, and now is going to come the fulfillment of the object lesson, which is for God so loved the world. It's all people now. So Jesus is trying to help them recognize something new is coming. Look at verse 21. So here we have the traditions are challenged but I want you to see next the tearing is preventable. What do I mean by that? It tells us a little parable about an old garment. And it's got a tear in it, it's got a hole in it, it's got a whatever in it. And the guy who owns it, sews a patch on there. That makes good sense. I had this sweater years ago. I loved that sweater. That was such a... Oh, what a nice sweater. And I would wear it here at church. Betty Stief was the financial secretary at the time. The problem was there were, the elbows were like gone. There was like raggly sort of string. I couldn't see them, that didn't bother me any. It was a great comfy sweater. I think it really bothered Betty. She's like, let me take that sweater and I'll fix that for you. All right, if that's really important for you. I never got my sweater back. She took care of it all right. That thing's gone. That was my favorite sweater. It's gone. So if you just stitch, I'm going to get a new piece of cloth, and I'm going to stitch it on there, and I'll cover the hole. OK, those of you who are into that kind of stuff, is that going to last very long? No. Because all those threads are already loosened up, aren't they? So the new piece of cloth is going to cause a strain on that new seam and it's going to make the whole... Now you just don't have dangly threads. You've got a patch flapping in the wind. So it's worse. And that's what Jesus says. He's talking about, you don't take a new piece of cloth and sew it on an old garment because it's going to make the tear even worse. Then he tells another parable. These parables go together. A tearing is preventable and a tragedy is also preventable. There doesn't have to be the tragedy of loss. And no man put his new wine into old bottles else the new wine doth burst the bottles and the wine is spilled and the bottles will be marred. But new wine must be put into new bottles. Obviously, he's not talking about glass bottles. He's talking about the kind of containers used in that culture at that time, which was a skin, a wine skin. It might be one that's stitched. It might be... This sounds really disgusting. It could be a sheep stomach. That sounds really gross. But over time, wine skins become brittle. Psalms 119 talks about the bottle and the smoke. And the idea is a wineskin that's hanging in the house and it's subjected to the heat and the smoke of the fire at the hearth in that home. And that heat and that smoke causes the skin to dry out. And if you fill that skin with new wine, meaning freshly squeezed grape juice, like fresh, you went out there barefoot, stomped away and made juice, and you fill that skin up with that, as soon as you break the skin of a grape, fermentation begins. It's a natural process. Which is going to cause expansion, because there's all kinds of stuff going on there. So if you stick that in an old skin that's dried out, it can't withstand the pressure of the expansion, and therefore not only do you lose the skin, because now it's damaged beyond repair, but you've lost the wine. Both are lost. Neither one needs to be lost. That's what Jesus is saying. Now, is he really talking about skins and wines and sweaters? No, it's illustrating something. And what he wants them to recognize is, listen, let me say it this way. The law was good. Paul tells us it was good and righteous. It had a purpose. Okay, go back and read Romans 6, 7, and 8. He talks about the law is good. It was a schoolmaster out of Galatians. It helps us recognize our need for a savior and all those kinds of things. But it's only good to a point. And after that is satisfied, then you can't bring it forward and put it in a new system. That's not going to work. The law was the purpose of pointing you to the need of grace. It was not a means of receiving or earning grace. Paul says in Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. The very next verse is, I do not frustrate the grace of God. when we try to pull some sense of, not even necessarily the Jewish law, although that was certainly what Paul was dealing with oftentimes, but we try to pull some sense of, you know, I'm validating my Christianity by my obedience and by my checking boxes and, you know, keeping the standards and so on and so forth, okay? And I'm all about, that's fine, I think we ought to have standards, we ought to look right, do right, have boundaries, that's all good. But none of that makes me worth going to heaven. It doesn't validate me. There's a lot of very religious people who live very clean social lives who are not qualified for heaven. And they live a cleaner, more restricted, more controlled life than I want to live, but they're not going to go to heaven because they're not believing in Jesus. They're believing in themselves. Even if you put Jesus' name on that, you can't bring those together. That's not how it works. Now we're frustrating grace because we want to claim the image, the face of grace as Jesus while clinging to the guidelines and the restrictions of my own self-righteousness. And I'm denigrating the law. and I'm dismissing Christ at the same time. I'm losing both. There's loss on both sides. And there doesn't need to be. I can read the Old Testament and I can glory in all that the law says and see its illustrations and its object lessons and what God was trying to teach and say, wow, that's phenomenal. Praise the Lord, I want a ham sandwich. Right? Man, God was teaching him a lot of good stuff there, but I'm sure glad I don't have to follow that sort of stuff. We have some harder stuff to follow, and that's be ye holy, for I am holy. Boy, if all I had to do was check a box, that would be kind of simple. But I have to surrender. That's what I have to do. And that's harder than just checking a box. If it's just keeping a list, we can get a little self-righteous, we can get a little puffed up. Look how good I do. Man, I'm really, I am one disciplined person. But that's all about me. And now I've missed it because it's supposed to be all about the Lord. What Jesus is teaching us here is listen, at the time in which he's walking upon this earth, he's dealing with people who are used to this restrictive, that's all they know. And the scribes and Pharisees and the chief priests and all those people, they're not helping them because they've just added to the list. And Jesus is trying to help them. You know, you gotta break out of these lists. Not do your own thing. You have to do what's right. But you have to do it because you want to love the Lord. You want to live for him. Because he's gracious and he's not judgmental. And that he, and that he, he's critical of you. The Messiah was going to the cross. For us. Because we can't go there. And so, rather than sew a new patch on my old life, see that, that's the final application. When you come to Christ, it is on his terms. You have to, putting off the old and embracing the new, Ephesians 4.22. Put off the old man, you have to put on the new man. You have to let go of the past. Forgetting those things which are behind, Paul says. I'm reaching forth for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I can't drag my old life with me and just sort of buff it up a little bit. Because it's the old. I have to have the new. Father, we thank you for your love and grace. Would you help us? And we might recognize how important that is that we come to you. You're the Savior. And we can't earn it. We can't be good enough, righteous enough. We need the Savior. And that's how our lives are used for your glory. Would you help us with that, please? Father, you know the needs of every person that's here tonight, and I ask you would just guide and direct in each life, work for your glory, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.