PARABLES OF JESUS: New Wine

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information on our church, please visit GrahamProquay.org.

So I'm really glad to be here today for many, many reasons.

I miss my church.

I'm in a wonderful church, uh, as is yours.

But I'm glad to be here for many reasons.

Of course, it's a privilege to stand in the place of your pastor, Neil, who I never met face to face, but whose reputation precedes him and is such a good one.

We have a mutual friend, and I think that's why I'm here today.

And I know you're praying for him that this time of sabbatical would uh bring into his life great uh refreshment and re-energizing so he can come back and uh serve the Lord Jesus you with even more energy and wisdom and vigor than ever before.

You're a good people to let your pastor get this break.

It's necessary.

It increases a pastor's longevity, and it gives a pastor an opportunity to have an undistracted opportunity to hear from the Lord Jesus.

So I'm glad to be here in his place and uh pretty uh Psalm 116.

That's like my favorite psalm.

And so uh I really like you a lot now for reading that.

I wasn't sure.

I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my supplication.

I memorized it, not because I'm so spiritual.

I was desperate at the time I memorized it.

I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my supplication, because he has inclined his ear to me, therefore I shall call upon him as long as I live.

I remember uh that verse becoming meaningful to me one year after I came to know the Lord Jesus.

I come from an entirely different faith group.

Lance mentioned it.

I come from a Jewish background, very rich.

I don't regret coming from that background.

We had a notion of the transcendence of deity.

God was above, he's not our co-pilot.

We would never refer to him as the big guy upstairs.

Never such respect.

He's creator who spoke into existence all that we know.

We know this.

So I had this concept of the bigness of God, but not of the nearness of God, you see.

But that was a different thing.

We don't have that in Judaism.

In fact, he's unapproachably holy, and yet I approached him on the way here from Pearland on the road.

I approached him in a car.

I was I didn't have any special clerical garb.

It was just me.

I didn't have a quorum, um, no liturgy.

It was just me.

It's not even an American car, it was a Honda.

I'm driving, and I it was a real, real uh deeply spiritual prayer.

And my prayer was, oh God, you gotta help me to get to that place on time.

Because they were doing construction on Beltway 8 and rerouted us, and I thought, oh no, this is not a good first impression.

Show up for the 8:30 service like at nine.

This is not good.

So I prayed, and I had I can't tell you how marvelous that was for me as I reflected on the approach of built, the nearness of God.

See, he is Emmanuel, or he is a transcendent deity, but he came near.

But we never had this concept wherein you could just speak to God, you know, just the way you are.

You didn't have to, you didn't have to dress it up or anything.

You could just know flowery language unless you're prone to use flowery language.

I just spoke, it was a conversation with God, but the Most High God.

Oh, I didn't bring him down to my level disrespectfully, but I knew he came to my level one time so that I could have this contact with him.

So in my background, we didn't have this notion.

We had the notion that God is, but not that God is near.

In fact, we had the notion that God is angry because God has standards we cannot possibly live up to.

You know about the Ten Commandments, of course, but we Jews, we don't think that's enough.

You know, that's like for Gentile people, ten measly commandments.

So our rabbis very creatively have located in the Old Testament, which we consider the Hebrew Bible, in excess of 600 commandments.

You see, there's subsidiary mandates flowing from the ten.

So on any good day, you're not doing very good with God.

You're not getting good grades.

Those are commandments, not suggestions.

So we think God is perpetually angry at us, for we are violating his legitimate requirements.

So that sets us off on uh on a whole life of trying really, really hard to get God not to come near, but to back off, because our depiction of God, if we were artistically inclined, would be a God with a big long beard, kind of like Butch's, something like that.

A big long beard, an angry scowl, you know what I mean?

And he has like a clipboard and a red pen and he's grading you.

You're not getting good grades.

So our whole religious experience is designed to appease God by bringing to him offerings of good deeds and fasting and ceremonial observances and sacrifices of various kinds, whatever it takes in order to get God's anger to subside so that he'll let us live.

And I found out as I studied similarly inclined faith groups around the world that we Jews were not alone in this quest.

I want to do a fairly brief survey, a sampling of some other faith groups just to show you the same seems to be part of us, uh same inherent inclination to appease the God who was there.

Just about everyone knows about the God or God's there, someone bigger and out there.

And just about everyone knows they aren't doing too good in the eyes of that God.

So just about everyone is trying to appease him.

So I want to show you some faith groups, and let me just, I've been encouraged to do this, and I think it's a good word.

Let me just offer this little uh uh d um explanation.

What I'm about to show you on the screen, what you're about to see, is perhaps a little graphic, and uh let me apologize in advance.

My my goal is not to be overly dramatic or or or to shock you in any way, and so so I might need to apologize in advance.

Um, but I do want you to see what's happening uh in the world.

What I'm showing you are are real attempts uh uh to satisfy the the righteous demands uh uh uh of a holy God.

So you've heard of a people group called the Aztecs, uh I'm sure.

And uh the Aztecs, uh, quite a sophisticated, complex civilization, were engaged in manifold religious practices, just like I was in Judaism, all designed, they didn't have a notion of a singular god, a plurality of gods, all designed to cause these gods to back off and uh and and not wipe them out.

And so they persuaded themselves in order to show these gods how serious they were about appeasing them and satisfying them, they practiced early on human sacrifice.

And so they would bring the victim uh to a religious shrine like the one depicted, and uh they would remove that victim's heart and raise it aloft to the gods while still beating in the palm of the hands of the priest.

So they were really, they were not trifling with the gods, don't you see?

Something in them told them they were not self-generated.

Something in them told them their beginnings was due to uh uh the one who had no beginning, and something in them told them they better cause this god to back off or they're gonna be in trouble.

Well, there was a um, they're not the only group to practice human sacrifice.

Um here's a photo of a circular structure at a place in Israel called Megiddo.

Uh some of you perhaps have have seen it in Israel.

It's in a place called the Jezreel Valley.

It's right near the site we read about in Revelation where uh the last battle, the battle of Harmagedon, or the hill of Megiddo, uh takes place.

And uh I wanted you to see that circular collection of rocks.

It's uh perhaps 4,000 years old.

It's a Canaanite altar place, and on it children were sacrificed alive, they were burned alive to satisfy the wrath of the one of the premier Canaanite deities, a god named Molech.

Molech.

So that's at a place called Megido.

And then the Greeks also engaged in this horrific uh practice of human sacrifice to appease their pantheon of gods, and you see this depicted on an ancient piece of Greek pottery, for instance.

And then there are people groups who engage in much less extreme rituals also designed to satisfy the demands of their gods.

And so here's a depiction of goat sacrifice to appease the gods in Bali, uh, the adherence to this particular religious perspective, would gather themselves together and go to a high cliff and cast this living goat into the water.

They would feed it, you see, uh, to the gods.

Uh please accept this in essence, they would say, in our place.

This is a good faith offer to do better.

We know we have fallen short.

How about the goat instead of us?

Is that okay with you?

And here's a pigeon sacrifice in Haiti.

Uh, this kind of thing, animal sacrifice, is a very integral part of uh the voodoo tradition in Haiti and in other places.

And so this is another means of appeasing the gods.

And then here is a practice engaged in by uh uh still today a number of my uh homies, uh these are Orthodox uh else to put them, the Orthodox uh he's an Orthodox Jewish man, and uh on certain Jewish holidays, one in particular, you would grab a chicken by the legs, I'm not making this up, this is a real deal, still takes place, and you swing the chicken, unwilling chicken, I might add, around your head about three times, and in in so doing, somehow uh you're hoping you are able to transfer your sins onto the chicken, and uh the God who you let down uh this prior year will let you off his hook.

So that uh continues today.

And then many people, as part of their religious ritual, inflict pain upon themselves in order to deal with their um unresolved guilt and to satisfy their gods.

And so this man, for instance, from India is engaged in extreme self-deprivation.

He's uh denying himself all of the comforts and even the necessities of life, such as food and water and shelter.

Uh you know, think what you will, you you cannot think this man is not serious.

He is really serious.

He's quite zealous about the notion that he's fallen short of his gods.

And then here is a Hindu man uh literally hanging over a stoked-up fire uh on the verge of being burned alive in order to uh uh uh appease his God.

The practice still uh uh goes on today amongst certain Hindu groups.

And then there would be some people who, if you ask them, would tell you, yes, I am a Christian, and who, though they claim to be a Christian, still live, sadly, with such uh volume of unresolved guilt, they feel they must be punished.

What Jesus did, you see, is not enough.

We sang, Clyde, by the way, beautiful, thank you for worship.

We sang, nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood.

And they would say, Well, no, the blood is partially okay, but I gotta add to it.

And so there are folks here engaged in a practice in the Philippines, you could see, where they're volunteering to have an associate beat them on the backs with planks of wood until um their skin would be rubbed raw and blood would be drawn.

And once again, they're saying, Almighty God, we have uh committed infractions of your rules and you require all this of us, don't you see, in order to let us go free.

And then some people even engage in various aspects of crucifixion, such as this.

This kind of practice still goes on today.

What do all of these practices have in common?

Uh two things.

One, everyone engaged in it is saying, of course I believe in God or the gods.

Don't be only a foolish person denies his existence.

And then the second thing they have in common is that they believe his standards are so high and that he is so unapproachably holy, uh, the only way they can get his attention and uh not perish in his presence is to do this kind of thing.

If you had the opportunity to buddy up with one of these people, knowing of their sad, sincere yet sad quest to appease God, what would you say to them?

I happen to know what the Lord Jesus would say, because he said something to an entirely different religious group at an entirely different time, but a group that was similarly situated.

And what he said to them is in the form of a parable.

And I'm pleased to address still yet another parable today.

Your summer series has been on the parables of the Lord Jesus.

I've been listening in and have learned a lot.

It's a marvelous, marvelous undertaking.

And this is what the Lord said in a parable, a story with great depth of meaning, with regard to the kinds of situations I just shared with you.

And he said it in Luke chapter 5, verses 37 to 38.

Luke 5:37–38

Luke 5, 37 to 38.

And as those of you who have Bibles are turning there, because I listened in, I know there are Bibles provided you by this church at the end of the rows.

And so please be unashamed.

Help yourself to one if you'd like.

And I even know, I'm not taking liberties here, that if you don't have a Bible, uh, this church wants you to take that one as a gift.

They'll replace it.

That's just how much its contents mean to them and you mean to them.

So that Bible is offered to you as a gift.

I'm gonna take three or four myself before I leave.

Thank you.

So here you go, Luke 5, 37, 38.

No one puts new wine into old wineskins.

Why not?

See, otherwise the new wine will burst the skins, it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined.

But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

The people of the day understood the illustration, understood the analogy.

It was a wine-drinking society, it was the premier beverage of the day, it was the equivalent of water.

So they understood what the master teacher, the Lord, was getting at, but I'm not sure we do, 2,000 years removed from it.

So let me contemporize it a little bit.

Uh if you have uh an automobile that does not have a diesel engine, you don't want to put diesel into it, do you?

If you put diesel into a non-diesel engine, what what could happen?

Yeah, I agree.

It could really, it could go kaput.

Listen, uh, this happened to one of my daughters-in-law.

I have three beautiful daughters-in-law, and they graciously took my sons and we paid them for it, but it was worth every.

So one of my daughters-in-law was in a rush one day.

She pulls up her car to the pump, you know, to fill it up, and by mistake, she extracts the diesel pump.

Now you really have to be distracted because it's colored differently, isn't it?

It's green.

Also, it's a different size.

If you check it out, it's a different size.

So if you want to put your diesel pump into your non-diesel engine, you have to really want to do that.

You have to push it in.

You got to get it in there.

Well, anyway, somehow she did.

Uh, she fills it up and replaces the pump.

She gets in the car, cranks up the engine, and hears this horrific knocking, crazy clanking noise.

She puts it in drive, proceeds 15, 20 feet, it conks out entirely.

She has to have the car uh towed to a mechanic.

He said, I can tell you one thing, the fuel is wasted for sure.

It's all gone.

I have to drain it out.

You wasted whatever it costs you to put that in, but what's even worse, you may have so irreversibly damaged your engine I might not be able to repair it.

You may have destroyed it entirely, in which case it would cost you like lots of money to get a new engine in this.

You see, that's the illustration.

You don't put diesel into a non-diesel thing, and we would say, of course not.

Anyone knows that.

See, that's the familiarity with the parable they had in that day.

You don't put new wine into an old wine skin.

And here's why they knew you don't do it.

Um when a wine skin is new, it's flexible, it expands, and that's a very important thing.

Because when you put newly fermented wine into a wineskin, the fermenting process continues.

It doesn't end, it's a process, it's not an event.

So new wine continues to expand, it gives off pressure, and it continues to expand while put in the contents of a wine skin.

No problem if it's a new wineskin, because it has flexibility.

But if you take this still fermenting and expanding wine, put it in an old wineskin, an old wineskin, kind of like people, lose their flexibility.

They get kind of re rigid.

And what will inevitably happen is that the uh continuing fermenting process will burst the wineskin, and just as the Lord said, you will forfeit not only the wineskin, but also the wine.

And so the people knew, of course not.

We wouldn't do something.

So they sort of understood the illustration, but I don't think they got the meaning behind it because they were too intensely focused on getting the speaker.

They wanted to get Jesus.

They were the Jewish religious leaders of the day.

They wanted to get him, they didn't like him, they had contempt for him.

Could I tell you something?

He invited it.

He was in your face.

He said to religion, we're going to war.

That's what he said.

He said, man made attempts to appease my father apart from what I came to do.

Oh no, they don't mix.

You, oh no.

You cannot put that old wine into you need new wine.

And you can't put new wine into old wine skins.

So the Lord Jesus deliberately stirred up the Jewish religious leaders of the day.

So for instance, he did something, a few things that drove them crazy.

Here's one.

It's recorded in Luke chapter 5, verses 27 to 30.

Luke 5:27–30

It says, after that he went out and noticed a tax collector.

Not a good thing to be a tax collector in Israel.

They were Jews who served Rome.

Uh and Lance pointed this out, I think, last week.

The Romans didn't like the Jews, the Jews didn't like the Romans.

And so if you were a Jew working for Rome, you were exacting taxes off the backs of your own people, and you were giving it to the oppressive Roman government, and they'd give you a percentage.

So you were considered low on the totem pole.

Your people just did not like you.

So he noticed a tax collector, and the guy's name was Levi, in Hebrew we would say Levi.

We find out in one of the other gospels, this is Matthew.

And the Lord sees him sitting in the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me.

And this is remarkable.

And he, Matthew, left everything behind.

He got up and began to follow him.

And Levi gave a big reception for him in his house, and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who We're reclining at the table with them, and the Pharisees and the scribes, religious leaders, began to grumble at his disciples.

They said, Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?

Good night.

The Lord stirred all this up.

Let me tell you something.

He was no flower child.

Be careful about thinking.

Don't pin that on him.

Oh no, no.

He's the one who, remember, he overturned the tables and the temples.

It's the same kind of a deal.

He's challenging organized religion, which is an alternate route to God.

He can't let it be because he loves us too much to let us give ourselves with confidence to that which doesn't work.

It's false, it's fraudulent, it's a counterfeit.

And so he got them, see, no, no self-respecting rabbi, and that's what they thought he was.

Teacher means rabbi.

They called him Rabbi Jesus.

And they thought, what kind of rabbi is this guy?

He's hanging out with tax collectors.

You can get cooties by hanging out with people like that.

They actually believed that the tax collector could communicate his unrighteousness, you know, by osmosis to any self-respecting rabbi.

You would be excluded from worship in the temple.

You'd become ceremonially defiled.

And yet this rabbi Jesus is hanging out.

He's partying with tax collectors and sinners.

You see, they were going crazy.

Here's something else the Lord did.

Also, Luke chapter 5, verse 33.

Luke 5:33

Look at this.

They said to him, the disciples of John often fast and offer prayers.

The disciples of the Pharisees also do the same.

But yours eat and drink.

What are they up to?

See, the uh Old Testament, we call it the Tanakh.

The Tanakh tells us we should fast one day a year.

It's the day of atonement, or Yom.

Yom means day, kippur, the day of the covering, the day on which we ask God to cover for our sins with the blood of the Lamb.

You fast one day a year.

The religious leaders, Jewish religious leaders, say, oh God, you know, that's pfft.

Anyone can do that.

We're gonna up the stakes.

You require that we fast on this one day a year.

We're gonna require that our followers fast two days a week.

So in ancient uh Israel, the Pharisees required that there be fasting every Monday, every Thursday.

And that's why they're throwing this on Rabbi Jesus, because his boys are not fasting, his boys are partying.

And by the way, so should his boys and girls today.

Are you kidding?

We've been set free.

If that doesn't give you a reason to celebrate and rejoice and party, I don't know what does.

Anyway, they couldn't handle it.

They could not handle it, so they came after him.

Then he did something else, and this was like this was the end all.

Forget it.

They couldn't handle this.

He uh he didn't observe Shabbat, the Sabbath.

This is a major no-no.

And so in Luke chapter 6, verses 1 and 2, look what happened.

Luke 6:1

It happened that he was passing through some grain fields on a Sabbath.

His disciples were picking the heads of grain.

They were rubbing them in their hands and eating the grain.

But some of the Pharisees said, why do you do what's not lawful on the Sabbath?

What was not lawful?

Eating?

No, no, no.

You could eat on the Sabbath.

The unlawful part was the rubbing of the grain.

Why was that unlawful?

Because the Jewish religious leaders said it's a form of work, and all work, they said, is prohibited on the Sabbath.

You see what I mean?

And so they're saying, look at this.

How could you call yourself a self-respecting rabbi when your followers are violating the Sabbath?

The rabbis came up with 39 categories of prohibited work.

You couldn't carry, you couldn't ride, you couldn't cut, you couldn't draw, you couldn't write.

All these are categories of prohibited work.

Let me give you some specific examples, and I'm not making up one of these, though you will think I am.

Here's one, for instance.

Well, I remember when I was 13, we have a bar mitzvah, that means son of the law.

It's kind of a rite of passage.

If you're Catholic or Lutheran, it's sort of like confirmation or Episcopalian.

If you come from those backgrounds, you know, that's the time when you decide whatever you decide.

The faith of the fathers is your.

I don't know how it works.

But anyway, when I was 13 years old, all I know is I'm getting gifts.

That's what I know.

So it's in upstate New York.

It's winter, it's cold, it's in November, and my grandmother and grandfather, they were Orthodox Jews, so you don't ride to the synagogue on the Sabbath.

We lived a mile and a half away.

We walked, they were an elderly couple.

We walked hand in hand to the synagogue in the midst of a hailstorm on the way to this barmitzvah service, just so that we would comply with the laws and so not violate the Sabbath.

These are the things we do because we think God requires this of us.

In Israel, if you've ever been to Israel, if you're in Israel in a hotel, get in an elevator on the Sabbath, your room may be on the 14th floor.

You're stopping on every floor.

You are freaking out.

You think it's like the twilight zone.

You're saying, I didn't push anything.

Why are we on our stopping on floor two, three, four?

Because it is rigged up automatically.

It's called the Shabbat elevator.

A computer rigs it up so it stops on every floor to keep you from pushing the button.

Because if you push the button, you are engaging electricity, which is a form of prohibited work on the Sabbath.

I'm not kidding you.

On the Sabbath, the rabbis say you could spit.

And I don't know if you're into spitting, but if you are, I just want you to know.

The rabbis give you approval to spit on the Sabbath.

However, if you spit, you have to spit on a rock.

You cannot spit on the ground, so say the rabbis.

Because if you spit on the ground, that would be like the same thing as cultivating a crop.

That's farming.

Cannot do that.

On the Sabbath, you could take a bath.

Just want you to know that.

You can spit, you can clean, everything is cool.

You can take a bath on the Sabbath.

However, the temperature of the bath water can't be too hot because the steam rising up from it may run the risk of cleaning the floors, and that's a form of work prohibited on the Sabbath.

So you've got to control the temperature of the water.

I'm not lying to you too much.

Most of this is true.

The rabbis say that eggs laid on a Sabbath could not be eaten because the hens were working so as to do it.

Yep.

If a flea bit you on the Sabbath, you could not hit it, because if you did, it would be a form of hunting, which is prohibited.

Yep.

The rabbi said that carrying a load, a burden on the Sabbath was considered work, but then they had to define how much what defines a burden.

And here's what they said direct quote from high rabbis.

A burden is food equal in weight to a dried fig, milk enough for one swallow, honey enough to put on a wound, ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet, and on and on.

There are many beautiful aspects of religion, liturgy and singing and all the rest.

But I don't think the Lord wants us to be fooled by the external beauty of any alternative system as a means of being right with God through Him.

There is no alternative way.

Folks, when I tell you I'm glad to be here today, I'm not lying.

I mean not just here.

I mean in the family of like-minded ones who've come to the Lord Jesus without one plea.

I love the songs we sang today.

They were so grace-oriented, don't you think?

So freeing.

It's not about me.

It's not about me.

It's not the clothes I wear, it's not the sacrifices I make.

There was one song.

It was just magnificent.

I never heard it.

It says all this.

It isn't about this, it's about the merits of Christ.

How about this one?

What was that song we sang?

I almost didn't know if the words were right.

Clyde, what was the deal about I never wanted to follow?

It kind of freaked me out, bro.

I was thinking, what are you doing?

And then I saw, no, he rescued me.

He rescued.

I didn't want to follow him.

Nobody seeks after God.

That was just really, really that was worth the price of admission, I think.

Just that.

So this is a weight that religious people, myself included, are under.

But it's not just Jews.

You know, in later centuries, uh Gentile people drew up laws just as crazy as these.

I want to be an equal opportunity offender.

So in Scotland, for instance, in the 17th century, a man was brought to court for smiling on the Sabbath.

See that?

So I mean everyone's into this kind of a thing.

So you know what people are trying to do?

There are attempts made to harmonize uh Redeemer with religion.

A little bit of Jesus, a little bit of me, a little bit of Jesus, a little bit of my good deeds, a little bit of Jesus, a little bit of my religion.

You know what I mean?

Jesus, you did great.

You didn't pay at all.

Come on.

You need me.

I gotta contribute.

So this attempt to harmonite, harmonize Redeemer with religion, you see, that's like putting new wine into old wineskin.

You come up with a mutation of both.

You you have a mutation of the totality of what the Savior did, and you have a mutation of you and your virtue.

You think you can bring anything to the table.

You can't bring a diegone thing.

Are you kidding me?

What do you, what do I have to offer?

You tell me, what bargaining power do I have?

It's like new wine into old into old wine skins.

And the Lord came to replace religious rules and rituals with a personal relationship.

So you can talk to Jesus and your Honda on the way to church because you're stuck on the road and you're lost.

You could do that.

You don't have you don't need rules, regulations, vestments, incense, all the rest.

You don't, I'm trying not to be offensive, but come on, you don't need that.

You can say, oh God, I need you, I love you.

And oh God, you know this church thing, it's not really about me after all, anyway.

Is it?

Oh God, would you be glorified?

You can just have that conversation.

It is so the Lord came to make war with religion.

He did it again in Luke chapter 6, verse 6.

Luke 6:6

Listen to this.

Luke 6, verse 6.

Luke 6:6

It was another Sabbath.

He goes into a synagogue, he's teaching.

There's a man whose right hand was withered.

He was physically afflicted.

Scribes and Pharisees were watching him, not the needy man, watching Rabbi Jesus real closely.

Why?

They want to see if he's gonna heal on the Sabbath.

How heartless can you be?

There's a needy man there who needs to be ministered to, and their agenda is to trip up Rabbi Jesus to see if he's gonna dare do this on a Sabbath.

They did this so that they might find reason to accuse him.

And you know, I read this text, I feel like screaming out into the words, even though I'm centuries removed.

I feel like saying, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, excuse me for interrupting, but I know you have so much on your mind, so much to do.

You're like God and everything.

And so I just feel I need to tell you it's Saturday.

Don't do this.

Like what's wrong with Thursday?

Can't you heal this guy like on how about a Tuesday?

Do you know if you pull this off on a Saturday and it play right into their hands?

Don't be doing.

But I think he knew what day it was, don't you?

I don't think it was arbitrary.

I think it was strategy, contrived, orchestrated, just to show them, oh my goodness.

You have taken good things that God has given, and you've committed idolatry.

You've made these a means by which you could appease an unapproachably holy God.

You underestimate just how much you owe him.

You think you can pay a debt by not doing this and by doing that?

You think your dues and dotes will satisfy a debt owed an unapproachably holy God?

You cannot do that.

And so the Lord came to make war against this kind of thing.

You know, he was new wine.

He's the new wine.

Man-made religious traditions designed to win God's favor.

That's like old wine skins.

You can't you can't bring the two together.

What's it gonna be?

It's gotta be Jesus plus nothing, you see?

It can't be Jesus plus anything.

It has to be Jesus paid it all.

All to him.

I owe sin.

It left a crimson stain, but he washed it white as it has to be, that's what it has to be.

He said, I'm the way.

No one comes to the Father but by me.

And religion says, Well, thank you, but we prefer our way.

What's it gonna be?

New Y.

Not one drop of Jesus' new wine has any place in an old wine skin.

Don't blur the categories.

Are you kidding me?

Sometimes people say, When did you become religious?

I die.

No, ask me when I ceased being religious.

When I ceased doing things by the rules, make can't wait just a second.

Don't we owe then anything to God?

Of course, but the motivation is entirely different.

We don't do the things we do now because they're have-to's.

We do the things we do now because they're want-to's.

I want to be here today.

So do you.

I'm not getting roundy points with God by showing up for church.

I would die if I didn't have a means of saying thank you to the God who has everything.

That's why you read your Bible.

That's why you go to Romania.

That's why you give.

That's why you pray.

It's not a have-to, it's a want-to.

Oh no, we don't do this to win God's favor.

We respond to Him because we have His favor.

That's new wine, don't you see?

Don't tell me about religion.

I know it has beautiful aspects, but it's only a veneer of beauty.

It's prideful man's attempt to render, to nullify, to minimize the totality of what Jesus has done, null and null and void.

No, don't don't don't don't do that.

This is all new, this is new wine.

What keeps people from it?

I can't think of anything better than to be a Christ one follower of the Messiah Jesus.

I just don't.

September 5th, 1973, he rescued me.

I have never looked back.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I've had my ups and downs just like you or human.

But the good old days are not good.

Those aren't the good old days.

That's old wineskin.

Are you kidding me?

Why don't people want more of the new wine?

Well, I think there's a verse here in Luke chapter 5, verse 39 that gives us a hint at the answer.

Luke 5:39

It says, No one after drinking old wine wishes for new.

For he says the old is good enough.

Ah see it?

You get your taste buds uh accustomed to old food.

And when you when you insert in the mix something new, it's unpalatable.

And I just want to say to you to say same thing I say to me, keep drinking new wine.

You're gonna develop a taste for it.

So that any other kind of beverage, save the blood of Jesus, any other kind of outpoured liquid, not your blood, sweat and tears.

No, no, no.

That's not gonna work.

That's gonna become distasteful, and you're gonna say, Oh, Lord Jesus, thank you for your shed blood.

Thank you for thank you for a new wine.

How are we doing?

We should close.

But let me close with this.

An incident is recorded.

Same text, Luke chapter 5, verse 12 to 13.

Luke 5:12–13

Luke 5, 12 to 13.

The Lord's in one of the cities.

There's a man covered with leprosy.

Terrible skin disease, you know about it.

Leprosy.

You know what it meant?

You're ostracized from the community.

You're separated from friends and family.

You're contagious, not just literally, ceremonially.

You'll defile others.

You're out.

A man had leprosy.

When he saw Jesus, he f somehow he summoned up his courage.

He heard about this rabbi Jesus and he imagined maybe he'll love me, maybe he'll help me.

And so this was like hope was burst in his life for the first time because he had heard rumors that this rabbi was different than all others, and maybe he would, I don't know, maybe he would extend himself to me.

And so when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face, he begged him, he implored him, he said, Lord, if you're willing, you know what that implies?

I know you're able.

I just got to find out if you're willing.

If you're willing, you can make me clean.

And he, the Lord Jesus, he stretched out his hand and he touched him.

Are you kidding me?

He touched him.

He said, I'm willing, be cleansed.

You know why that's so remarkable?

Touched him.

The leper was untouchable.

Do you know if a leper poked his head in your home in the old days, your whole home would be condemned?

If a leper was coming down the street, saw you coming, the leper had to warn you of his approach by shouting, Unclean, unclean! Can you imagine going through life?

That's your identity.

Who are you, by the way?

I'm unclean, I'm unclean, I'm not fit for society.

I'm unclean.

And the Lord Jesus, no question about it, touched an untouchable.

He touched someone, untouchable by religion, untouchable by society.

The Lord said, I'm willing.

And that one touch, that was new wine, don't you see?

That one touch said more than all the religions of the world.

And that one touch did more than all the religions of the world.

That one touch said, I accept you just as you.

Oh, but God, do you know what I have done?

What I have said.

Do you know what I think?

Let me touch you.

Let me wrap my arms around you.

But won't won't you be defiled by me?

No.

You cannot transfer your uncleanness to me.

But I can transfer my righteousness to you.

Give me a cup of that new wine, will you please?

Don't you see that that is have you sipped a cup of that new wine?

You matter to me, the touch said.

I'm willing to be cleansed.

And in so many words, that's what he said to everyone here.

Who is a Christ follower?

Everyone here.

You matter to me.

I am willing to be cleansed.

Come near.

Religion.

Keep your distance.

Relationship.

Come near.

New wine.

New wine.

I have my days.

I have my moods.

So do you.

But I don't ever want the old diet.

You don't either.

Have you had new wine?

Maybe today.

Maybe today.

Come into my life, Lord Jesus.

Touch me.

Just as I am.

I got more stuff.

Oh, but then again, you know.

Transfer to me a sense of right standing with you I cannot have in any other way.

Help me to develop a taste for more of you for more of grace.

That's the word, isn't it?

Grace.

Jesus paid it all.

You know that one?

Jesus paid it all?

Let's sing that.

Let's sing that one.

Jesus paid it all.

Oh to him I owe.

Sin had left a crimson stain.

What do you do?

Big E.

Lord Jesus, that's the new wine.

Stained by sin are we, and you freely.

For the asking have washed it white as snow.

And if the Son has set us free, we are free.

Indeed.

Oh God.

For my fellow Christians in here.

Remind us of who we are and what we have.

Help us simply to live out what's already true for those not yet there.

As only you can, would you create even today an appetite for new wine?

And this we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hold your hands out like this if you could.

The God of wine beckons you.

He pours himself into you as something new and recreated.

He's removed all the barriers.

So we don't have to run anymore.

We can come near because he's come here.

So go now, ye people of the new wine.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.