Luke 5:27-39

Hey, this is Pastor Josh Jaransky from Haven City Church.

We're a new church in Baltimore City.

We meet in Fells Point, Baltimore.

The following sermon was recorded on February 25th, 2018.

If you'd like to find out more information about Haven City Church, you can go to www.baltimorechurch.com, or you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

We'd love to hear from you.

Luke, sorry, Luke, Luke chapter 5, 27 through 39.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Says this.

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth.

Follow me, Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with him.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, who belonged to their sect, complained to his disciples, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus answered them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

They said to him, John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.

Jesus answered, Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?

But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them.

In those days they will fast.

He told them this parable No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old.

Otherwise they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the new wine will burst, and the skins the skins of the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined.

No new wine must be poured into new wineskins, and no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say the old is better.

God, we just look at this text and we want to ask you, Lord, what do you want to say to us individually from this passage?

And what do you want to say to us as a church?

We know that you've given us your Holy Spirit if we've trusted in you, that the very person of God dwells within us and can quicken us to these truths here.

So we ask that you would open up our eyes that we might understand real truth from your word for our lives.

God, we submit to you our stories.

Lord, you know the pain, uh, the anxiety, the things that we've struggled with this last week, whether it was sickness or relationships or lack.

And God, we just surrender those things before you.

You are the king of our lives, and we're ready to listen to you this morning.

Speak to us, we pray, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So last week, as we were looking at this text, we saw Jesus' ministry continuing in Galilee.

Now, Jesus is going to be ministering in the Galilean region up and up to chapter 9 of Luke.

There's a bunch of cities that surround the Lake Genezaret or the Sea of Galilee.

And Jesus is traveling from city to city to share the message of the kingdom.

He's also healing people.

And last week we saw Jesus do this miracle where he had Peter go back out into the deep of the water, and all these fish were brought into his net.

And then we looked at the miracle of the man of leprosy being healed by Jesus.

And the third miracle we looked at was the paralytic man who was lowered down through the ceiling, and that man was healed.

Amazing things that were taking place.

And one of the things, right before we looked at the paralytic man, we saw this reference to the scribes and the Pharisees being gathered in the crowd in this house that was packed.

And in fact, they complained in their heart when Jesus looked at this paralytic man and said, Your sins are forgiven you.

The Pharisees had an issue with Jesus saying this because they believed that only God could forgive sins.

And so there was a tension caused by Jesus saying, Your sins are forgiven you.

And so Jesus responded to the Pharisees and to the scribes by saying, What's easier for me to say, your sins be forgiven you, or rise up and walk?

And Jesus evidenced his deity that Jesus is not just a prophet, but that he is God by healing this man.

It backed up the authority of Jesus when he said, Your sins are forgiven you.

So the text that we're going to look at today, it has, we see the call of Levi in verses 27 through 28.

We find out that Levi is a tax collector, which he was probably Jewish, but he was hired by a Roman contractor to collect taxes from those who were fishermen and doing commerce around Capernaum.

We also see in this text in verse 29 through 32 that after Levi responds to the Lord's command to follow me, Levi throws a big party, and that goes right into the Pharisees and scribes again complaining about Jesus having this big party.

And then verse 33 starts a new thought, kind of on the heels of Jesus responding to the Pharisees.

And now it says that they're complaining or protesting to the Lord about the disciples not fasting in the same way that John the Baptist disciples fast and in the way that the Pharisees would fast.

And in response to this, Jesus gives three metaphors to respond to these complaints.

So just a couple, let's just spend a minute here just in the text, just unpacking some things.

So Levi, we don't know much more about Matthew other than that he's the son of Alpheus.

In the other gospel accounts, he's called Matthew.

Here, Luke calls him Levi.

He is included in the twelve.

So Matthew is one of the twelve disciples, and he writes the book of Matthew.

He was probably hated.

The tax collectors are kind of one of those groups that were lumped in with the prostitutes and the sinners, and then you got the tax collectors.

So there was both an economic grief that came from tax collectors, the fact that these guys could rip off people very easily, and people were taken advantage of by the tax collectors.

But then you also had a religious complaint against the tax collectors because their job required them to daily interact with Gentiles.

So the daily interaction with the Gentiles would cause them to be ceremonially unclean according to the law.

And so the tax collectors were just kind of, they were more ingratiated and approved of by the Gentile community than by proper Jews.

This is a repeated phrase as you go through the text.

Is this follow me?

We just saw it with Peter, right?

At the beginning of chapter 5, Jesus tells Peter, follow me.

At the end of John, after the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus does this miracle with Peter, where again, there's this multiplication of the fish, and Jesus encounters Peter and says to Peter, Peter, follow me.

Jesus is constantly calling people to be his followers.

Remember, we drew this contrast last week between drawing a crowd and being a follower of Jesus.

So we are already talking on March 25th, we're going to hopefully draw a crowd, right, for church, which would be great.

But Jesus isn't about the crowd, he's about drawing followers who are going to adopt his way, his new way of being human.

And Jesus says to Levi, follow me.

We don't know how many other times he's encountered Levi.

We saw last week that there were three or four other encounters that Peter had with Jesus.

And probably Levi's been somewhat exposed to the teaching of Jesus.

There's already this buzz about the miracles that Jesus is doing.

But Levi, man, when he hears it, it says that he dropped everything to follow Jesus.

Now, this whole idea of Jesus, of um the party that Levi throws, the gospel writers love this piece of who Jesus is.

Right?

It's a dearness, it's a beautiful, it's a it's a if you're gonna understand Jesus, you've got to love Jesus as the one who attended these events.

Do you remember the story of Zacchaeus, another tax collector, up in the up in the uh tree?

And uh he he converts to be a follower of Jesus.

He turns his life over to Jesus, and what does he do?

He throws a party for the Lord and he says to the Lord, here's a demonstration of my repentance.

I am going to pay back all these people that I have ripped off.

In Luke chapter 15, in Luke chapter 15, uh, when you have a chance, it's the whole chapter goes into the fact, it tells Jesus defends his attending of these parties because Jesus tells the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep.

Luke 15 · chapter mention Luke 15 · chapter mention

And and Jesus basically says, I am out to go get the lost, right?

The whole parable of the lost coin is life stops to find the lost coin.

The parable of the lost sheep is that the 99 are left to the side and that one lost sheep is pursued.

Jesus uses those parables to defend his attending of these events.

So what kind of event was it?

It was a party that was filled with sinners.

There was food, there was alcohol, there was a ragtag bunch of people that are attending this meal.

And the Pharisees look at Jesus at this and they say, What is going on?

You are defiling yourself by attending this event.

Another great passage, Matthew 11, 18.

Matthew 11, 18.

I didn't put it in my notes, so give me a chance to turn over to look at look at Matthew 11, 18, really quickly.

Again, Jesus, this whole thing comes up as Jesus is is explaining just who he is and his ministry.

Matthew 11 verse 18 says this for John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He's a demon.

Matthew 11:18

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look, a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

This is Jesus talking about his ministry, summarizing his reputation that he had amongst other people.

People were saying of Jesus that he was a wine bibber or that he was a drunkard.

Now, did Jesus ever get drunk?

No.

But he was a frequent guest at these types of parties, and it gave him the reputation that he was a friend of sinners.

And Jesus in Matthew 11, 18, what he's making the point of is nothing will make you happy.

You rejected John, the ascetic, who would fast and pray and was completely removed from society, and then I come and I stand in the very midst of society and you reject me.

Nothing will make you Pharisees happy.

You were completely rejecting the work of God.

So all that to say, this is who Jesus is.

We encounter him here in this situation in this setting.

And so I would encourage you, just as you consider this, you've probably been invited to settings that you as a believer may not necessarily feel comfortable going to, because maybe it represents something of your past life.

Maybe that setting it represents somewhere where you're afraid that you're going to get dirty spiritually by being there.

Now, look, if you're an addict or if you have some type of weakness, there is wisdom to abstaining from particular settings.

But it is important to understand that if you have that conviction that you personally are not supposed to be in that setting, it is not a rule for everyone else that they cannot be in that setting.

There are people who are called to go into difficult settings.

One of my favorite stories is the story of Ryan Rees, who was a music promoter of some of the most wicked bands on the West Coast.

He would set up these concerts and he was a mess.

He's a partier, long hair, just partied harder than everyone else, right?

He's a pastor's kid.

He'd gone away from the Lord, tripping out on drugs, and he was radically saved.

Had kind of like a Paul experience where God spoke to him and said, You need to come back to me.

And he turned his life over to Jesus.

And now what he does is he is an evangelist to these radical bands.

So the lead guitarists for corn.

Two of the musicians for corn have come to Jesus through his evangelism, through his witness.

And he's led a number of other of these crazy musicians that have really a reputation of almost being demonic in their music.

He has gone into their midst and he shares the gospel.

So if you go to go to a corn concert, the last time I heard, uh, Head, who's, I think he's he the basis for corn, he will, he's given a moment, he'll say, Look, I want to tell you about how my life has been radically changed.

Meet me over at the door after the concert so I can tell you about Jesus who's changed my life.

He does like an altar call thing after his concert on the side.

Now, I would feel uncomfortable in that setting.

I would, I am not a corn listener, right?

I was that sheltered homeschool kid that couldn't even listen to DC talk until he hit puberty, right?

I was super sheltered.

So I'm going to be ineffectual if I go to a corn concert.

I'll be like hovering under the chairs.

But God uses, he's using Ryan in this particular setting to be a witness to people who are far from God.

And so here we have an example.

Jesus, he's a friend of sinners.

Now here's the cool thing.

I had, I used to manage the um the website for Calvary Chapel, and I had there was a lady out here on the East Coast, and she's she she wanted, she saw us like um just kind of publishing um articles by Ryan in sharing about his outreach.

And this lady, she castigated us, and then I she castigated me for not taking his material down.

This man was wicked, she said.

How could he go to these events?

How could he go and be amongst these people?

She literally, she just would go to different churches on the East Coast to just uh badmouth me.

I would get phone calls when I was back on the West Coast.

I'd get phone calls from pastors who said, Hey, that crazy lady came to my church and just tried to say how terrible of a person you are this week.

So she didn't really have much of an impact.

But look, it still exists to this day.

Like people still want to play the role of the Pharisee in opposing God's work.

So Jesus is interacting with the Pharisees and they question.

So Jesus responds back to this challenge by saying, Look, the the physician is for those who are sick.

Right?

Do you remember one of the great themes of Luke?

The great theme of Luke, one of the great themes is that God has a plan, right?

And Jesus is that great plan, right?

And we know that that's the one of the great themes, is because Luke keeps referencing how the Old Testament spoke of Jesus.

Right?

And then we're also seeing the fact that Jesus' work continues after the book of Luke, right?

So God continues his work.

Here, when Jesus says, look, I I am sent to, well, he here he says the physician is for those who are sick.

We get that idea that, look, the plan of God is continuing, right?

Jesus has come as the great physician to heal people spiritually.

And that is going to keep going.

In order to benefit from the plan of God there, you have to self-diagnose yourself as one who needs the great physician, right?

The physician is of no use to the healthy person.

You don't need a doctor.

I didn't need a doctor this last week because I felt great.

I didn't even really think about the doctor a whole lot.

But if you're sick, you start thinking, oh maybe I need to go to the doctors and check in.

So these Pharisees, these Pharisees are literally not self-aware enough to realize that they are the ones in need of this spiritual physician.

Let's keep going.

Just want to summarize some of these main points, because this is really, really just a sweet, sweet thing here that Jesus is talking about.

So fasting, okay.

So fasting really quickly, which is the next part.

The Pharisees are complaining, they're upset about fasting.

And the fasting that these Pharisees are familiar with, remember the Jews would fast once a year.

Remember what the holiday was?

Yes, sir.

So they would fast, they were required to fast just one time a year.

Now the Pharisees would fast twice a week.

So remember the Pharisees are those who are like the adherents of the law.

They really would stick to the law, and they would add new laws to the existing law of 613 commands that God gave Moses.

So here is the Pharisees who are familiar with regular fasting, and they're looking at Jesus' disciples who are not fasting.

And Jesus says, You don't fast when the bridegroom shows up.

So we have three metaphors: the bridegroom, the new piece of clothes, and new wine.

And what Jesus is saying through this bridegroom picture is I'm the bridegroom, right?

John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the bridegroom.

In Isaiah, the prophet referred to God as the great bridegroom to the nation of Israel.

So Jesus is saying essentially, I am the bridegroom, I'm in your midst.

You don't fast during that time, right?

And you see in the text how he says there's going to come a time to fast.

And what he's referring to is uh on the crucifixion.

When those three days after Jesus is crucified on a Friday, raised on a Sunday, that's that fasting time that Jesus refers to.

But the bridegroom is present.

You see, fasting to the Jew referred to mourning.

In fact, right now, um it's the idea of Lent, right?

We're in the Lent season.

Our church tribe doesn't necessarily celebrate Lent.

We're not opposed to it.

It's just like you didn't come to me on Friday and get stuff on your forehead, right?

So um, but the idea behind Lent is uh a time of mourning, preparing your heart for the crucifixion.

And we we grieve over sin.

And that was the idea behind the fasting that Israel would do.

Well, if Jesus is in your midst, who is the very bridegroom, and you've been waiting for thousands of years for the bridegroom to come, and he shows up, it's not a time to grieve, it's a time to rejoice.

Now, fasting does continue into the New Testament.

We see that Paul fasted in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus anticipated that his followers would fast.

He says, when you pray, when you tithe, and when you fast, and he gives Jesus gives instructions.

Here's how you fast.

Don't fast by putting oil all over your head and looking really good, or instead looking really terrible, like you're grieving, like you're doing a show in front of people.

No, look, do it discreetly, is Jesus' uh instructions on fasting.

Some other time when we have a little bit more time, we'll talk about New Testament, New Covenant fasting.

But this is this is what's being referred to.

And then these last two uh last two metaphors, the new um Garment and the new wine.

All these metaphors are pointing towards the idea that Jesus is bringing in something new.

Do you get that as you're looking at this?

So we have the physician who's referred, he's referring to, hey, I'm available for the sick, and then we have the new wedding, right?

This new marriage that's taking place between the bridegroom and the bride.

We have the new piece of clothing, and we have the new um wine.

All of this stuff is pointing to something that if we zoom out, there's a bigger picture of what's going on.

And that's what I want to spend the rest of our time on, is just just going over some basics of what is the new thing that Jesus brings in.

What is Jesus introducing?

Because we're we're like zeroed in.

We're looking at the tree that's in the middle of the forest.

So what is Jesus bringing in that is new?

Well, we call it, actually we call it because Jeremiah called it the new covenant.

So I'm if you're taking notes, and I hope I hope you are.

This is if you were to ask me, what are six things, six of the most important things that you as a believer need to understand?

One of them is the new covenant.

It's in there in the top six, right?

This is such important, um, such important ground that we're going to cover really quickly.

Um, a covenant is found all the way back in Genesis.

Um, God's making a covenant with his people.

A covenant is a two-party obligation, right?

It's an agreement.

It's not just an acquaintance, but there is literally an agreement that obliges two parties together.

We have multiple covenants that are made throughout Scripture.

You have what is called the Adamic covenant.

It's spoken of in Genesis 1 through 3.

Covenantal language is not necessarily used there, but it's it's God revealing himself to Adam and saying, This is how you need to be as a human.

Here's how I've created you.

Genesis 1 through 3.

Then in Genesis 6, we get the Noahic covenant.

This is where God promises himself to act in a particular way towards humanity.

That's Genesis 6, 18.

Then in Genesis 15, we have the Abrahamic covenant.

This is where God says, I'm going to make a nation out of you, Abraham.

I'm going to reveal to you myself by making a nation out of you, and your nation is going to bring a blessing upon the world.

That's the Abrahamic covenant.

Then we have the Mosaic covenant in Exodus 19 and 20 through that material there.

That's the Mosaic covenant.

That's the one we're going to come back to in a minute.

It's also called the old covenant or the law, but Mosaic covenant.

And then we have the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7, 8 through 16.

Do you know what the Davidic covenant is?

That's where God says to David, I promise that someone from your line will always sit on the throne.

I will build you a house, is what God covenants to David in regards.

So there are ramifications that come from each of these covenants.

But the one that we are, I really want to zero in on, and the one that we live under, we have a covenant with us.

Did you know that?

We're under a covenant with God.

God's made a covenant with us.

And it's spoken of in Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34.

Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34.

Make sure you've got this because this is like huge, huge, huge.

It says this the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt.

What was that covenant?

That was the Mosaic covenant, right?

When God worked on Israel's behalf to bring them out of Egypt.

That was the Mosaic covenant.

But because they broke the covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.

This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord.

I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, Know the Lord, because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

For I will forgive their wickedness and I will remember their sins no more.

So Jeremiah the prophet looks into the future seven hundred years and says, There's going to be a new covenant that's coming, right?

Fast forward to Luke, we get to Luke twenty-two, and Luke twenty-two says this.

He took the bread, he gave thanks, he broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.

Jeremiah, seven hundred years in advance, spoke of this covenant, and then Jesus is sitting with his disciples for dinner, and he says, This is it.

This cup is the cup of the new covenant.

A covenant was made in blood.

You go back to the Abrahamic covenant.

There was the shedding of blood to make the covenant.

And so Jesus inaugurates, he says, When I die on the cross tomorrow, and my blood is shed, a new covenant is going to be inaugurated for my people, for my followers.

Well, that makes us really go want to go back to Jeremiah and go, what was in that covenant?

That's important.

If that's for us, if when we take communion, we're celebrating this new covenant.

What's in the covenant?

There's three key things here.

First of all, in Jeremiah 31, God promises that he will forgive people's sins.

I will forgive your sins and remember them no more.

The second thing in the new covenant that's promised is a personal relationship with God.

That's in verse 34, if you want to go back and look at it.

A personal relationship with God.

And then in verse 33, we see that this covenant will be an internal work of God.

That God's going to be at work in people's life internally.

Do you remember the law?

When Moses was given the law by God, what did God write the law on?

Tablets of stone, right?

It was written on these tablets of stone.

But God says, in contrast to that, in a different way, just as it was written on stone, instead the law is going to be written in your hearts.

God is going to work internally in his people.

That's different from the old covenant.

It's a new work that God is going to do.

So the key concepts of the New Covenant are forgiveness of sins, a personal relationship with God, and an internal and internal work that God does.

Now, when we get into the New Testament and we start kind of immersing ourselves in New Testament theology and learning different concepts, we read about the work of the Holy Spirit, we talk about the gospel, the gospel that's in our mission statement as a church.

We read about the work of the Holy Spirit.

All of these things are there.

And it's like, how do these things fit together?

So there are four grand concepts in the New Testament that overlap.

So you have the New Covenant.

This is God's formal agreement with his followers on what he is going to do.

That's the new covenant.

But then we encounter grace.

What's grace?

Grace is the activity of God under the new covenant.

Right?

So the word grace, sometimes you see new covenant concepts, but the term that's being talked about is grace.

God, in Peter, he talks about growing in the grace of God.

In Hebrews, it talks about being established in grace.

In Romans chapter 5, it talks about standing in grace.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Those are all concepts that flow from the new covenant, but grace is the activity of God on man's behalf.

Grace happens because the new covenant exists.

The third is the gospel.

We read a lot about the gospel.

How does the gospel fit into this picture?

The gospel is the message about the new covenant.

The gospel tells the good news, declares the good news about the ramifications of the new covenant.

And then we see the spirit, the work of the spirit, the spirit of God.

The spirit is the third person of the Trinity, making the new covenant real in our human experience.

Right?

So God gives us his spirit so that the new covenant is real in how we do life on a regular basis.

So you may be in a passage where Paul's like writing his letter to the church and he's going off on the Holy Spirit, right?

Well, that relates back to the new covenant.

Or maybe there's this emphasis on grace.

It relates back to the new covenant, right?

So all this stuff, all of those big themes go back to the new covenant.

Let me just finish off this whole talk on the new covenant by contrasting it a bit with the law.

Another word for the old covenant, which is the Mosaic covenant, is the law.

And the reason for that is because when God made the old covenant through Moses on Mount Sinai with the people of Israel, he gave them the law.

So again, when you're reading Romans, Paul is not going to say the old covenant sometimes.

Instead, he's going to say the law.

But it's referring to a system of relating to God where God requires absolute holiness.

In Deuteronomy chapter 9, it says this, 9-9.

Deuteronomy 9 · chapter mention

When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days, forty nights.

I ate no bread and drank no water.

The Lord gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God.

On them were all the commandments that the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of assembly.

That's Moses recounting the story of when the old covenant is given.

All these commands are given to the people.

The message of the law, the law says this.

If you're going to summarize it, the law says to us, you must be perfect, you must be holy, you must be loving.

That's the standard of the law.

There's no room for failure under the law.

Now the law was unable to make anyone perfect.

It demanded perfection, but it was not an instrument that could cause a person to be righteous.

In fact, people would try to follow the law, and they would find that they were only more condemned.

In Hebrews chapter 7.

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

Hebrews 7 says this, for on one hand there is an annuling.

You guys know annulling, right?

A marriage can get annulled, which means that it's put away.

Well, the covenant can be annulled of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness.

For the law made nothing perfect.

That's Hebrew saying it.

Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews says the law made nothing perfect.

On the other hand, there is this bringing of a better hope by which we draw near to God.

Hebrews 7 is talking all about the new covenant that God has made with his people.

Now the law cannot make anyone righteous.

It can't make you perfect and it cannot make you righteous.

And you know, we've talked about this in our church.

Righteousness is the key, right?

Sin isn't the key.

Righteousness is, right?

We need to be found righteous.

We are unrighteous because sin is present.

But what we need is the righteousness of God.

And in Galatians chapter 2, verse 16, it says that the law cannot make us righteous.

Galatians 2:16

He says this, we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

So we too have been have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law.

Because by the works of the law, no one will be justified.

Do you see that?

By the works of the law, no one will be justified.

That means by trying to clean up your act, by trying to observe the Sabbath day, or by saying, you know what, I'm not going to dishonor my father and mother anymore.

Doing those acts does not make you righteous.

It may clean up your act.

Those things are still good, but what you need is the righteousness of God.

And in Galatians, he says, no person is justified, made righteous by doing the works of the law.

So then the question is, well then how are we made righteous?

We look to Jesus, right?

Jesus is the one who fulfilled the requirements of the law.

Jesus did the law perfectly, fulfilled it on our behalf, and as we place our faith in Jesus, we then are counted righteous in God's eyes.

So it is not our acts that make us a righteous people.

It's our faith in God.

So as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we are not a more holy people, right?

That's not what we do.

We don't fly a flag that we're better than the world.

No, our banner is that we are a forgiven people.

Amen?

We are a people that we celebrate the forgiveness that God has brought on our behalf.

So we get into these spats on social media and you see the kind of the moral cultural wars go on.

And unfortunately, Christians get pigeonholed in this place where we look like we're trying to be better morally than everyone else.

And I would say to you, what our public message is as a church is that we are celebrating the forgiveness that Jesus has given to us.

We are all sinners that needed to the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ.

Amen?

So Jesus, Christ is, he says in Romans 10, Jesus, or it really he uses the word Messiah, Christ is the columnation or the fulfillment of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

The works that we do, the good acts that we do, do not put us in a better standing with God.

No, our faith in Christ, our belief in him, is what gives us the righteousness of God, and we're accepted in God's sight.

So let's bring this back to the text, right?

So Jesus is interacting with these Pharisees.

Instead, they're living it up.

They're going to these parties, right?

To reach those who are spiritually sick.

And the Pharisees are offended, they're upset.

Why is this happening?

Why are you allowing this to happen?

And Jesus is saying, a new thing is coming in.

Jesus isn't trying to patch up or work with Judaism.

Jesus is literally bringing in a new covenant.

It is a completely new relationship between God and mankind.

And so Jesus is signaling through these metaphors, I'm here.

I'm bringing in a new wine.

I'm bringing in a new garment.

I am the groomsman.

I am here to be celebrated.

How do we apply this to our life?

What does this look like for us on a regular basis?

I think that we can easily take on the role of the Pharisees, where we begin rather to than finding our spiritual security and our spiritual health in Jesus.

We look at ourselves and we can make a self-assessment.

I'm good.

I'm not spiritually sick.

I don't need, um I've got it figured out.

I can do self-improvement, I can improve upon who I am, and therefore God is happy with me.

Which is couldn't be further from the truth.

We are a people that are bent, born bent away from God.

And yet God has forgiven us.

And so it's a mindset.

Much of this is just a way of doing life, remembering that Jesus is our true righteousness.

Jesus is the one who has given us new life.

And so we are clean.

As we go into this week, as we're dealing with with the people we're praying for, five by five, turn over your bulletin.

The five by five, the people that God's put into your life.

We want to pray for them this week, right?

That's the that's the first thing.

It's like so so if you're still working on your five by five or and you're you're considering like who's God put in your life to reach, pray for them.

Pray that God would like show you who else do you want me to be just who have you put in my life that that needs the gospel message, who needs the forgiveness of Christ?

Touch base with them.

Like, how is this week?

Be praying this week.

Like, how is your week this week as you do this week?

How are you going to interact with these people on that list?

Like, what does it look like to just be the light of God to that person to just surprise them?

Right?

Surprise them with kindness once a month, invite them to special events.

I just want to refresh you guys in that whole mindset that God has put into your life people that need to know Jesus, right?

We've been doing this for a while.

We've been doing the whole, we've been talking through the five by five, and I just want to and continue to encourage you that this week you have people in your life that you already know their name, you've seen them before, you have built up a little bit of rapport with them, and you have the ability to to carry with you the person of Christ and let Jesus live through you encountering that person, right?

The way that Jesus encountered Capernaum and lived in the midst of these people, you have the ability to impact Baltimore and these five individuals.

I don't know what it's gonna look like, that's why you got the Holy Spirit, right, going with you this week into those settings, but He's He wants to work through you.

So we're gonna pray in just a minute.

Um the before we do pray, I just want to talk to you about number three here.

Surprise them with kindness once a month.

One of the things that you know that we've we've done as a church is that we've built a relationship with our local elementary school and middle school, right?

Which is City Spring Elementary School, which is just half a mile from us here.

They have 800 kids.

Most of them come from families where the average household income is$8,800 per year.

$8,800 per year.

That's that's the average household income.

800 kids are coming from that that community.

It is either it's like 96% black.

There's uh like a small Latino community there as well.

And we've done five or six things that have been really awesome with that this school.

Um, and that it's been like Holy Spirit inspired.

I was talking with my son this week about about this next thing I'm gonna talk about in a second, and just been like, man, I didn't even, we didn't even try.

Like these things, just like these these doors came to us.

Like the 180 frozen turkeys we gave away.

That was like some other church was like, hey, we got 180 frozen turkeys, you want to give them away?

I was like, Yeah, sure.

We'd love to, right?

So two weeks ago, I walked in there and and um the principal said, I said, it's time to do something special for the staff.

They got 90 staff working and running the school.

And I said, let's let's do something special again.

So we're gonna do coffee tomorrow morning.

We're gonna uh do coffee and bagels.

I'll get up at 6 a.m.

or 5 a.m.

to get to Ricers Town Road and get the um Goldbergs bagels, and then this time we have a coffee cart that's gonna come in and it's gonna be like an open bar coffee cart thing, concept, right?

For the staff, right?

Esper espresso drinks, coffee.

It's gonna be awesome.

Uh a little bit more expensive than last time, but it's just gonna, and and all we all we're saying to the school is like, we got your back, right?

We love you guys, we care about what you're doing.

You know, the the the Christianity that kind of I grew grew up in, um, not because of my parents, but just the other Christians that I was around, there was this dichotomy or this kind of war, culture wars between public schools and Christians.

And they found themselves kind of pitted against one another, where it's like the public school is the enemy of Christians because they stopped letting prayer into schools and they teach evolution and and um they're progressive with kind of sexuality.

But here's the thing that school, they're our neighbors, right?

They're not going to school at war with us, right?

Those 90 staff members over at City Spring, they don't hate you guys, right?

They're trying to stand in the gap for kids that are gonna eat their breakfast, their lunch, and some of them their dinners over there.

There, right?

And it's a hard job.

These a lot of these kids are unruly.

Every time I go in there, like the problems that they're facing, I think there was like some kid threw water on some other kid when I was in there, and you know, he's like got his shirt off.

I'm just like, oh my gosh, this takes a special person to be here.

So, anyway, we're doing that tomorrow morning, right?

So, would you pray?

This is that this is one of those things where we're gonna just surprise him.

I don't know if maybe but one or two of those um people in there that they've given their life to Christ.

Um they come from all over, right?

Um there's all different kinds of backgrounds in there.

But our message to them has been we love you guys.

We care, we're so grateful for what you're doing, and we just want to bless you.

The second thing that's gonna happen tomorrow or Tuesday morning is that they're announcing to their 350 kids that um they're taking all of them to go see the Black Panther on March 7th and 8th, which is awesome.

This is not um this is not necessarily a church event.

It's something I raised money for outside of the church.

If you want to contribute to it, don't tithe towards this event.

We still could use money for it, but if you want to give, um let me know, because uh the money can be routed through the church, but but it's separate, um separate giving that's kind of going towards this event.

But we want to bless these kids with this awesome thing.

So the kids are gonna find out on either Monday or Tuesday morning that um they're getting hooked up with this cool um opportunity.

And um all of that to say, the the goal is the the goal through you know going and going see a uh just a movie is like this was the request of the principal.

This was something that was put on her heart and just loving these kids, right?

She loves these kids.

Like these people, they're at work at six and they're going to, they're done, they are emailing me at seven o'clock at night.

Their life is committed to this place, right?

And this is something they they they as hard as it is, like they love these kids and they wanted to bless them with this movie.

And they don't have the resources, right?

They don't they don't have any money to do this.

And so God made it possible for us to come along and raise the funds to be able to send 350 kids to go see the Black Panther movie.

So pray for pray for that.

It's gonna be it's gonna be exciting, and you know, you know my heart.

Like I want I want people to know Jesus, right?

I was in there last last time I was in there, and the guy who's in charge of like a huge chunk of Baltimore schools was the appointment before me with the principal.

And she's walking out as I'm walking in, and he thinks he he sees me, he goes, Oh, you're the guy, you you've been such a blessing to this church, to this school.

You're doing a great work in the community.

We really appreciate it.

I don't even know how he knows the story about what we've done as a school, as a church.

But Jesus is already getting a good name through these little things.

So be praying for that.

I appreciate you guys that are that have participated in past stuff.

If any of you want a chaperone for the event, for the Black Panther event, let me know.

They could definitely use um help with that.

Uh chaperoning on the 7th and the 8th.

I think it's like midday on March 7th or 8th.

Just help because they got to walk the kids from the school all the way down to Harbor East.

It's the only theater within walking distance, is the way that we worked it out.

Okay.

So let's pray that Jesus is made known.

Andrew, you can come back up.

We'll sing a couple more songs.

God, we just um we thank you for Jesus that you are like the new, the new bridegroom, that you brought in the new covenant, that you're the new garment, that you're the new wine.

Jesus, we are so grateful that you were friend to the sinners because we're we are the sinners.

Like we are the ones that need the physician.

And so we are so grateful.

We are so grateful for you, Jesus, that you have been our friend.

God, I pray for each person here.

I pray that, Jesus, you would just be making your grace known to each person here.

Lord, we revert back to our relationship with you in and trying to like please you through the works of the law.

God, we can become legalistic and we just pray that, Lord, we wouldn't, that we would just be like rooted and grounded in your grace, the new covenant grace of God.

Lord, make yourself known through us.

We do pray for these two things going on this week with City Spring.

Bless these kids.

Let the let the truth of Jesus, let the truth of Jesus like penetrate in to the community that that City Spring represents.

I pray for these 90 staff that they would know that Jesus, you are their king, that you are their friend, that you are their physician, that you want to be their bridegroom, Lord.

We just commit them to you.

We pray that you would just put on full display your love for them.

And God, we pray that you would just uh make yourself known even through this movie event.

Make yourself known to these kids, to the parents, Lord.

We just we invite you to work in our community.

God, there are some very wealthy people just right across the street in these communities over here that maybe they do not have yet a sense of their own sin, but you've promised that your spirit is gonna be in the world to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

We're camped out, Lord, in this building in faith that you by your spirit are going to work amongst the wealthy, that you're gonna work in the poor, that you're gonna work amongst, Lord, the the black community, amongst the Latino community, amongst the white community, amongst the growing Asian community, this right here, God.

We are just looking to you, our eyes are upon you as we gather.

Lord, would you do a work we pray in Jesus' name?

Amen.

Let's worship.