July 12, 2026 - The Gospel of Luke - Week 11 - New Wine Kingdom

Welcome in everyone.

My name is Jackson, and I'm one of the pastors of Highland Scripture Church.

On behalf of our team, I just wanted to say thanks for taking some time to journey with us through the scripture.

Our hope is that these words would cause you to think carefully about this Jesus we proclaim and that you would choose to trust him in your day-to-day.

As always, if you're in the Asheville area, whether you live here or you're visiting, we'd love for you to come join us at the corner of Livingston and Depot Street in person at the Dr.

Wesley Grant Senior Southside Center.

Our prayer is that God's words would equip you for every good work that He's prepared for you to do today.

How do you respond when God begins doing something new?

How do you respond when God begins doing something new?

Do we readily embrace new things with joy and anticipation?

Do we fight God about it and cling to our idols of comfort?

Do we even recognize when God is up to something new?

Years ago, uh most of you guys know when I was in college at Montreat, I ran track there.

Um triple jump was my thing.

That was my specialty event.

And uh many of you guys know that after I started at Highland, I continued to train and compete after college.

My my entire first year uh that I was here at Highland, uh, I was still training, was still competing.

But some of you guys will know this.

What most of you don't know is that during that time, the goal for me was that I was training for the Paris Olympics in 2024.

That was the that was the stretch goal.

Um if I didn't make Paris 2028, that was the that was gonna be the next thing.

That was my focus.

That's where I had my my eyes fixed.

And that fall of 2022, um, after being here at Highland for about a year, while not quite there yet, all the signs were pointing up.

It looked like the the trajectory was was where I needed to be.

I had hit new personal bests after college, but what I jumped that fall was was had surpassed all of my official bests.

I was the fastest, the strongest I'd ever been.

I felt the best.

And I had some drills that that we were doing that measure your your Olympic uh that jumps coaches, Olympic jumps coaches and athletes and data analysts all agree, like, hey, this drill, as you measure over time, you kind of average it out.

This kind of gives you a picture of of where uh where you fall, what your body is capable of putting out in a triple jump.

And much to my surprise, I found that I was there.

And it and what was what was a goal of mine that was that was a kind of a pipe dream for years and years and years of like this would be cool, it started to become a real possibility.

But then over that past year, you know, Highland had had moved here to the grant center, and we essentially relaunched the church by accident.

Uh, I was a full-time associate pastor.

Peyton and I had just gotten engaged a couple months before.

We were planning our wedding, preparing to uh to begin our lives together a few months before.

I started to feel uh and sense God's calling into the financial space and ministry marketplace.

How was that gonna look?

So I was studying and learning and discovering what's this going to look like.

I was working a couple of side hustles to get out of debt before we got married and was training 15 to 20 hours a week on average, five to six days between the gym and the track.

And if you haven't learned this yet, your body keeps the score.

Long story short, there's one day that fall I was heading home from a staff meeting, and for the first time, only time it's ever happened, had a full-on, full-body panic attack.

Only time it's ever happened.

I started to just spiral in my in my truck.

Intrusive thoughts, couldn't get a hold of them.

Um, and then you know, I kept it together just enough to get home.

I I lost complete control of my body when I got home.

Hyperventilating, every muscle in my body locks up, couldn't move a muscle.

I'm hunched over in my truck, hyperventilating.

I like I'm I'm weeping for no apparent reason.

I don't know what's going on, and I'm just spiraling, just losing it.

My roommate, I was hunched over and could just reach my phone.

And it took me about five minutes to dial my roommate who was just down the street at work, and he was able to come home and literally had to physically carry me into the house, like just everything shut down.

And it caused me, it's the only time I've ever had this happen, but it caused me to start doing some soul searching.

Started counseling, really hard conversations with mentors and important people in my life, and the the consensus was Jacob, something has to change.

Your body is screaming at you, something has to change.

About two weeks later, I'd been I'd been just continuing to pray and seek the Lord's direction on what needs to shift, what needs to move.

And I'm driving home from a conference that was in Georgia, and the whole way I'm just like, Lord, I don't want to get out of this truck when I get home and not have direction.

Something has to change.

Lord, would you would you speak?

And my GPS, because of some traffic, had taken me the scenic group.

And so I'm in the literally in the middle of nowhere, somewhere.

I don't even know what if I was still in Georgia or had made it to North Carolina yet.

I'm in the middle of nowhere.

And the only thing that's around me are barren trees.

It's the middle of November, and so all the leaves have fallen off, and every corner that I turn, barren trees.

Barren trees, barren trees, and it just gets louder and louder, and I can't shake it.

Barren trees.

And I could not stop thinking about these trees, and I've been praying and asking God to speak.

And I said, Lord, are you trying to speak to me right now?

What is it about these stupid, barren trees?

And while not audible, as clear as day in my mind, as clearly, and it was not my own thoughts, it was so clear that trees have to let go of old leaves in order to bear new fruit.

And I just began to weep as I drove in my truck because I knew the Lord was saying to me, Hey, I know that you've had this dream for a really long time, but I've got a different calling for your life.

That's your dream.

The track has served its purpose.

I blessed you in it.

It bore fruit.

You had my pleasure in it, but it had its season, and that season is now over.

And I'm taking you on a journey, Jacob, and where I'm calling you to go, this can't go with you.

But what if it didn't take my body shutting down on me and screaming at me to get my attention in order for me to start asking questions?

What if I was paying attention and what if I looked around and there were signs that were so obvious all around me of where God was leading me and what he was calling me to do?

Maybe if I had been paying attention, would I have seen God doing something new earlier than I ever recognized in that moment?

If you've been following Jesus for a while, as many of you have, you will have learned this by now.

But if you're new to Jesus, or you're still questioning this, you're kind of back and forth, you're on the fence, I'll just tell you, Jesus loves new.

He loves new.

He loves to do new things in ways that are different from the little boxes that we like to put him in to try to contain him.

And in Luke chapter 5, we're going to see this on full display.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Let's read it together.

Luke chapter 5, verse 33.

Luke 5:33

Then they said to him, John, John's disciples fast often and say prayers, and those of the Pharisees do the same, but yours eat and drink.

Jesus said to them, You can't make the wedding guests fast while the groom is with them, can you?

But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them.

Then they will fast in those days.

He also told them a parable.

No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment.

Otherwise, not only will he tear the new, but also the piece from the new garment will not match the old.

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, it will spill, and the skins will be ruined.

No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.

And no one, after drinking old wine, wants new, because he says the old is better.

Now, this passage that we just read, it occurs directly after in Luke chapter 5, what Jason preached on last week.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Jesus approaches Matthew, the tax collector, at his money-changing table, and he calls Matthew to follow him.

Matthew gets up from his money table, leaves everything, and begins to follow Jesus.

And then Matthew hosts a great feast with other tax collectors and sinners, as the Pharisees described them just a few verses before.

And right before we read this passage, Jesus is pressed by the Pharisees for why does he even socialize?

Why does he, why is he even caught dead at this table with such outcasts?

And now this is really important to paint the picture of the scene.

Luke 5.29 says, Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining at the table with them.

Notice it doesn't say that the Pharisees were reclining at the table.

They were not guests.

Who were the guests?

The tax collectors and the others.

Okay?

So how do we know that the Pharisees weren't the others?

Because how they pressed Jesus, the the uh the very nature of the question is that they would not be caught dead at this table.

So why does Jesus they're trying to question his credibility?

So the Pharisees are present, but they're not guests.

How does that make any sense for us?

So we have to understand that in this time, how a feast, a banquet at someone's house actually worked back in that day.

Homes of any size in that culture, but especially homes of prominence and wealth like Matthew's home would have been built around a central courtyard right out front, and the house would be built around it.

And when somebody hosted a banquet, they would host that meal in one of two places.

They would either host it in a room that faced the courtyard with a courtyard view, and it would have a big open window for light and for ventilation to keep the air moving.

Or if the crowd was big enough, they would host the banquet out in the courtyard itself.

Okay?

So it was either uh right in front of the banquet or it was in the banquet.

And the door to the courtyard would be left open, okay?

Their meals were much different than how we do it in the West.

When we're having somebody over at our house, whoever is invited is invited, and once they're there, we shut the door and we and we close it, and like we do our little thing out here, but that's not how they operated.

They would leave the door open to the courtyard, and most of these homes were right in the middle of town.

So you've got people that are walking by constantly in the middle of this meal.

Whenever someone hosted a banquet, it was a semi-public event.

Everybody saw what was happening in this in this uh in this courtyard or in the room adjoining.

In both Jewish and Greco-Roman Roman banquet customs throughout history, they describe what would have been uh sort of a second tier, if you will, of attendance.

People who were not the guests themselves at the table, but over time, throughout the meal, they kind of stood at the margins, near the doorways or in the courtyard, watching, listening.

Sometimes they would catch over some leftover food.

Maybe somebody would invite them in and they would become a guest, but they would uh they would engage in conversation with the guests.

It was this like semi-public interaction that was going on.

And this was especially true when a rabbi was present at a meal because teaching often continued throughout the meal and after, and so bystanders would come to listen.

They would notice, hey, rabbi so-and-so is teaching at the banquet.

Go and tell everybody at home, Rabbi is teaching at Matthew's home.

And so this crowd would begin to collect and they would want to gather to hear a rabbi teaching in any setting.

What does he have to say?

So now you can kind of see when you got a picture of the context, how the Pharisees might take notice and how they show up on the scene.

They come in off the street to observe a feast.

This was quite common.

And if you read Luke's gospel just straight through, just in the English and go straight into verse 33, it sounds like the Pharisees that show up are the ones asking this question about fasting.

Because Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, he addresses their question, and then Luke says, Then they said to him.

Okay, so we read it in English, we we know how it makes total sense why we would think that the Pharisees are the ones that are talking right here.

And if you look at Mark's gospel, it tells the same story in Mark chapter 2, verse 18.

Mark 2:18

It says this.

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.

People came and asked him, Why do John's disciples and the Pharisees' disciples fast?

But your disciples do not fast.

But Matthew, the one hosting this banquet, adds more context.

He says this in Matthew 9 14.

Then John's disciples came to him saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?

Now I want you to see this because I want us as a church to see how we study our Bibles instead of just skimming and just reading through.

Because if we just look on the surface and we just go from verse to verse, it seems like there might be a contradiction.

It doesn't quite seem to line up.

It seems like maybe there's different people that are talking, asking slightly different questions.

But if you look at the whole of the passage, the context, the exact same, the timing, the exact same, the subject of the question that is asked, the exact same Pharisees and John's disciples.

It's all the same.

And Jesus' parables that he tells in this passage, the exact same.

But think about this.

Mark is writing his gospel based on eyewitness testimony.

Mark himself is not there.

He's asking questions and he's jotting down the stories to those who were there.

So Mark is writing his gospel based on eyewitness testimony, but he himself wasn't present.

Now it makes sense that as he's jotting this down, that the descriptor of the word is pretty vague.

Okay?

Some people asked him.

They asked him.

Somebody there.

When Luke writes his gospel, most scholars agree that Luke used Mark's gospel as one of his primary sources and where he was collecting the story.

So Luke doesn't clarify the ambiguity where Mark goes, they asked him, just somebody.

Luke doesn't clarify and just says, they asked.

But Matthew, not only is he an eyewitness of what happened in that moment, this was happening at his house.

He was hosting this banquet with Jesus and all these people.

And Matthew, who was there, adds more context and color to the story.

Not only had the Pharisees wandered up to this feast, but so did John the Baptist's disciples.

And it was John's disciples that asked this question Why do we and the Pharisees fast often?

But your disciples, they don't fast.

Jesus said to them, You can't make the wedding guests fast while the groom is with them, can you?

But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them and they will fast in those days.

I want you to notice that in his response, Jesus positions himself as the bridegroom.

Okay?

That's really important.

Here's why this is significant.

Because throughout the Hebrew scriptures, which his hit the crowd that has gathered, these people would have had memorized it when they were very, very young.

Okay?

They knew their Bibles, they knew their Old Testament.

And throughout the Hebrew scriptures, the bridegroom is a title that belongs to Yahweh alone.

For the sake of time, I'm not going to read all of these, but let me give you a few examples.

Isaiah 62, Hosea chapter 2, Jeremiah chapter 2, Ezekiel 16, Isaiah 54, Isaiah 61, Jeremiah 3, Malachi 2, Psalm 45 are all scriptures where God himself is referenced as the bridegroom.

Hosea 2 · chapter mention Jeremiah 2 · chapter mention

Just as a groom takes his bride, God commits himself fully to his people in a permanent covenant.

Okay?

By framing himself as the bridegroom in this story, Jesus is ruffling some feathers because to his Jewish audience that's present, he is implicitly saying, I am Yahweh.

I am the bridegroom.

And with that statement, he is also saying, I am the promised Messiah that has been prophesied.

The one that you have been waiting on, I'm him.

Jesus responds to the reason that John's disciples had been fasting in the first place.

They were fasting because they were waiting on the Messiah and they were preparing themselves and other people for the Messiah's arrival.

That was the whole purpose of their ministry.

And Jesus was saying to them, I'm here.

The one you have been waiting on, your Messiah has arrived.

And now is not the time for fasting.

There will come a time for that again.

But right now is not the time to fast.

It's time for us to feast.

The Messiah has arrived.

Now imagine being John's disciples hearing this.

I imagine this would have been very difficult for them to hear and process because think about this.

They had been fasting in the wilderness with John for a long, long time.

They had been following and being discipled by John the Baptist, and no doubt John is teaching them why they are fasting so often.

And these men over the past few years have learned this is what it looks like to follow God.

Fasting and faithfulness were had become equal.

This is what it looks like for us to remain faithful to Yahweh.

God has called us to this practice.

And now Jesus, the one they had been waiting on and prophesying and calling people to repentance in preparation for, is here and says, Now is not the time for fasting.

How do you respond if God asks you to stop doing the very thing that he had previously asked you to do?

How would you respond?

I recently heard a story the past couple weeks of a couple of their name, some of you may have heard of them, I don't know.

Their name is Bob and Linda Lodick.

And uh Bob has been a uh Christian financial educator for about 20 years, close to it.

Uh blog, wrote a book, courses, podcasts, all the stuff.

And years ago, God spoke to Bob one day and called them not only to give generously as they had been had been teaching people for years, but to begin giving extravagantly and sacrificially.

And at the age of 31, God called Bob and Linda to begin giving their age as a perception.

Percentage of their income.

In case you missed it, that's 31% of every dollar that they made.

They turned 32, began giving 32% of their income.

And they did this for years and years and years without telling anybody.

And they had pure hearts because they didn't want to platform their generosity or anybody to think like, hey, look at us, look at us.

But over time, uh, Bob began feeling the Holy Spirit's conviction over that.

And the Lord said to him one day, I need you to tell this story and encourage my bride.

You've seen so many miracles that I've done through this, and how how I've used you to provide for other people and things that people have been praying for, just miraculous stories.

The Lord had done so many amazing miracles in their own finances and stories of how the Lord worked through their generosity, and God was calling them to start sharing that story, even when they didn't want to, of how powerfully they had seen him move.

And the story caught fire, obviously.

And over time, they became known in their circles as the couple who gave their age as a percentage of their income.

It's pretty like self-identifying, pretty like stake in the ground, this is who we are, right?

But around age 40, they've been doing this for nine years.

They're giving 40% of their income away.

They begin having this odd sense.

They begin sensing the Lord to tell them that He was telling them to stop giving their age as a percentage of their income.

God was actually asking them to give less than what they had been giving.

Some of you are asking the Lord to speak right now.

But the amazing thing is they didn't want to stop doing it.

They began to love it.

Something had shifted in their hearts.

This was something they looked forward to doing.

And they learned how to live on less than they made, and they were giving generously, and they heard so many stories, and they got to share with it, and they began to love this, but over time something began shifting.

And they said, as they began praying through this, the Lord was revealing to them that they had started to build an identity around giving their age, that it had become part of who they were.

It began to do something in their hearts that God never intended.

They were starting to miss the point.

And what began as God's call to trust him with miracles ended up becoming a distraction from the very one who called them to do it in the first place.

What about you?

Is there anything in your life, anywhere in your life, maybe even good things, maybe even something that at one point that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God called you to do that?

You had a burden, but it has now distracted you from what God is doing in your life right here, right now.

I believe someone in this room this morning who God is calling you into a new season, much like I have, much like Bob and Linda had, where you have been called into a new season that is going to require you to shift how you do things.

Some things are going to have to change, a new schedule, new priorities, new responses, new practices that align with where God is moving in your life right here, right now.

Where is the Lord calling you to?

Like Jesus says to John's disciples, do not let yourself become so fixed on the practice that you've become so accustomed to, but let my presence, let that determine your steps.

Let that determine your response.

When God asks something of us, church, let us not become so absorbed with the thing that God has asked us to do that we miss the possibility that that thing may have only been for a season.

God says to us right now, I'm moving over here and I need you to come with me.

I'm inviting you into this now, this new season, this new thing.

I need you to go with me.

That thing was good and right for a season, but the season has changed.

It used to be a time for fasting, and that was appropriate, and that's what I was calling you to, but right now I'm here.

I've arrived.

It's no longer a time for fasting, but it's time to feast together.

But if I'm gonna feast, I have to come to the table.

Church, if you are going to feast, you have to come to the table.

I've got to be seated where Jesus is.

I've got to be soaking in his presence.

I've got to feast on his word.

I've got to sit in his presence.

He is the bread of life.

I've got to be so locked into who he is and what he's doing and what he's saying and where he's already at work in my life that I cannot miss it.

Every day, seeking his face and seeking to be so close to his side that the moment that I notice him taking a step, I recognize it and I'm ready to move with him in obedience.

Is there anywhere in your life this morning that you have become so used to the practice side of this?

That you started to lose sight of where his presence is.

Jesus addresses the very reason that John, John and his disciples, even fasted in the first place.

And there's a shift that needs to happen, but he doesn't stop there.

Verse 36.

He also told them a parable.

No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment.

Otherwise, not only will he tear the new, but also the piece from the new garment will not match the old.

And no one who puts no one puts new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins.

It will spill, and the skins will be ruined.

No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.

And no one, after drinking old wine, wants new, because he says the old is better.

The Pharisees, they had begun fasting for a very different reason than John's disciples, partially as an adherence to the law that God had given under the old covenant in the Old Testament.

But the funny thing is that the law that God gave only mandated one fast day every year.

And that was the day of atonement.

It was the only time that it was mandated.

Throughout, there were many, many times, things developed.

There were times of prayer and fasting where the king would call people to prayer, the priest would call people to prayer and fasting.

Those times of mourning, all sorts of things that became customary.

The only place where it was mandated you must fast was in uh at the Day of Atonement.

But if you know anything about the Pharisees, is that they had begun, they had become so focused on keeping the law that they wanted to go above and beyond anything that the law ever actually mandated that they do.

They actually began to add laws on top of the law so as to not accidentally overstep.

So God put the boundary marker here.

So they said, hey, we're gonna put this and this and this and this and this here, and you got to keep all of those.

And now we feel real safe that we're not overstepping his boundary right here.

They began to add to it.

So even though the law was only mandated one day of fasting, the Pharisees actually began fasting twice a week.

And they mandated it.

Jesus actually references this pattern in a parable later in Luke's gospel.

Luke chapter 18, the uh uh parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Jesus says this the Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week, and I give a tenth of everything that I get.

And later rabbinical sources actually confirm that this twice a week pattern, it was a real structured practice that the Pharisees did and mandated.

Jesus wasn't just coming up with an example to make a point.

This was something that they were really doing.

But for the Pharisees, this was something more than just out of devotion to Yahweh.

Their going the extra mile, if you will, became a public display of self-righteousness and pride.

Look at us.

Look at the religious leaders, at how much better we are than all of you who do not keep the law, you tax collectors, you sinners, adulterers, and the list goes on.

Look at how righteous we are.

Look at how well we keep the law.

We're not even anywhere close to breaking it.

Look at how devoted to Yahweh the Pharisees are.

And in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6, he says, Whenever you fast, don't be gloomy like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive, so that their fasting is obvious to people.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

And while he doesn't uh by name directly address the Pharisees in this verse, Jesus frequently calls out the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, self-righteousness throughout his entire teaching ministry.

And most scholars agree that this is a subtle reference to the Pharisees that were present.

When they fasted, they made it obvious.

All the attention was turned to them so others would see that they were fasting and take notice at how much they devoted themselves to keeping God's law.

Look at us, we fast twice a week.

Look how righteous we are.

What is Jesus getting at here in Luke chapter 5?

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Obviously, wine was a big deal in their culture and something that they were very familiar with, but their wine was not bottled the same way that we would uh bottle a bottle of wine in a glass bottle.

When they would press the wine and it was ready to begin the fermentation process, they would put it in a wineskin.

And this it's this little wine container made out of sheepskin.

And this is what a fresh wineskin would look like.

You kind of see it, it's ready to be put together.

And they would put the wine into this wineskin and they would store it in this wineskin while the fermentation process uh was happening and it became ready to drink.

And a new wineskin was made out of sheepskin, so it was very flexible, it was pliable.

And as the wine fermented, the wineskin itself could stretch a little bit.

It could expand and it could withstand the chemical process that was going on inside of the wineskin.

As the yeast converts the natural sugars into the alcohol and releases carbon dioxide gas, that's why if you pop a wine bottle, it's got the pressure behind it, and it pops because that pressure has built up inside it.

The new wineskin could be flexible and pliable and malleable, and it could expand to handle that pressure.

But after months of storage, they would keep it in storage, and while the wine after the wineskin had already expanded, the fermentation was done, the Middle Eastern dry heat would absorb all of the moisture out of the sheepskin that the wineskin was made out of.

And what had once been something malleable, flexible, vibrant became stiff, it became rigid and brittle, like this one.

I don't know about that's just ugly looking, right?

And if you put new wine in a wineskin like that, if it had not fermented yet into that brittle wineskin, the old wineskin was not able to expand the same way that a new one did because it had become dried out and rigid and brittle.

And as the wine fermented and the gas built up inside, eventually it would burst.

I got some of y'all right there, didn't I?

It would burst and the wine would spill everywhere, and the wineskin was ruined, and you would lose the wine that had been fermenting.

Because the old wineskin was not fit to hold the new wine that was being put in it.

The Pharisees had become just like that old wineskin, and their practice of fasting that John's disciples are like, even they do it.

Their practice had become just like that old wineskin, self-righteous, public displays of false piety, stiff, rigid, brittle, empty of any vitality in life.

Jesus was now on the scene, and Jesus was doing something completely new.

But the Pharisees did not recognize it for what it was.

And if they did, they didn't want what Jesus was doing anyway.

That's what Jesus is talking about in the last verse right there, when he says, No one after drinking old wine wants new because they say the old is better.

He's actually referencing the heart posture of the Pharisees that are addressed here.

They had become so obsessed with keeping the law and going above and beyond and extending the law and their religious practices that they had lost sight of the entire point.

The whole purpose of the law was to reveal God's holiness, to point out how short we fall, to point us to our need of a Messiah that had been promised.

The law was never meant to come to us and to say, to cause us to say, look at how righteous we are.

Look how good of a job we're doing.

We're perfect.

Look how good we are, God.

That was never the point, but to cause us to cry out in dependence on God.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus says, to cry out for God's compassion and his mercy.

But now that the promised Messiah stood right in front of them, they loved the law more than the one that the law was supposed to point them to.

Jesus was doing something completely new, that they did not even have a category to explain it.

He was doing something that the old wineskin that they had been operating in could not contain.

And this new thing was promised long before.

Throughout the Old Testament, wine is repeatedly tied to the promise of the Messiah and a symbol of abundance, celebration, and covenant blessing.

Jesus using this wine imagery alludes to all the Old Testament that God would make a new covenant with his people.

And Hebrews chapter 8 beautifully outlines this new covenant and it quotes Jeremiah where it was first promised.

Hebrews 8 · chapter mention

Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree, he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been established on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second one.

But finding fault with his people, he says, Jeremiah 31, see the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

I showed no concern for them, says the Lord, because they did not continue in my covenant.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.

After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.

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

And each person will not teach his fellow citizen, and each his brother or sister saying, Know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them, for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.

And by saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is obsolete, and what is obsolete is growing old and is about to pass away.

As Jesus is addressing this crowd that had wandered into this meal to catch a glimpse, he challenges them.

Everything that you have been used to for our entire people's history is about to change.

The trajectory of the world is about to change.

I am doing something new.

And the old ways that you have become accustomed to are not going to be fitting with this new season.

This is a new covenant, a better covenant established on better promises, as Hebrew says.

Ben, you and the team can come up as I close.

Jesus was about to go to the cross.

He was about to be betrayed, about to be given up to be crucified.

Later in Luke's gospel in chapter 22, he says this.

For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it's fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

And then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he said, Take this and share it amongst yourselves.

For I tell you, from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

And he took bread, gave thanks, he broke it and gave it to them.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And in the same way, he took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

I want you to catch this because I'm nerding out.

The Bible is so freaking cool, y'all.

Jesus fasts while he invites us to the table to come and feast.

How freaking cool is that?

Jesus begins his fast.

I will never again, I won't take of this until the kingdom comes in its fulfillment.

And until then, do this in remembrance of me.

This is my body given for you.

And this is my blood, the new covenant in my blood poured out for you.

Jesus was about to do something completely new.

A new covenant, as Hebrews says, built on better promises.

The old covenant, it required the blood of bulls and goats, as Hebrews says, to be offered day after day.

But this new covenant is of Jesus' own body and blood, which as Hebrews says, He offered once for all time.

A perfect atoning sacrifice.

His body was beaten and bruised, broken, torn.

That we could be reconciled to him once again.

That it was it was not up to us to keep the law, but that the Messiah was coming to fulfill it on our behalf.

We would never again have to bring a sacrifice, but he would be the sacrifice for us, that we might have eternal life, that we would spend eternity with him.

And when our time on this earth ends, we will spend eternity with him because of his blood poured out.

And it was poured out that we might experience his presence and his redemption and his life and his newness right here, right now in this life.

His table is set, and there's open seats everywhere.

My question to you, church, will you come to the table?

The feast has been set before you.

Or do you prefer your old wine?

Your old ways of doing things?

Your bad habits, your control, your reactions to other people out of your flesh, the way that you want to do things.

Do you want the old wine or the new?

Do you love your old ways too much to let go of them and enter into his kingdom that he's inviting you into?

Will you come to the table?

Maybe this morning for the first time in your life, maybe you've been coming to this church for a long time and churches well before that.

But maybe this morning you find yourself saying, I want that.

I believe that.

I believe that that new covenant, Jesus died and shed his blood for me.

And I invite you to this table.

We're going to take communion as we do every week.

Just as Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me.

I invite you to the table.

Maybe this morning, maybe you're sitting in here and you're still, I don't know if I believe this.

Still trying to figure this thing out.

I don't, maybe you're saying, I don't, I want what Jesus offers, but I don't know if what Jesus offers is really for me.

A lot of y'all have been there.

If that's you this morning, as we take communion, I would love to just pray with you.

Maybe be right down here over to the side.

Church, the covenant that was promised has been fulfilled.

Everything that was necessary for you and I to be reconciled to God and experience his presence and his life abundant right here, right now, has been done.

His body has been broken, his blood has been poured out for the forgiveness of your sin.

In that new covenant, he says, I will never again remember it.

All the stuff you feel guilty, guilt and shame of that you did way back in the day that you're still hanging on to, Jesus says, I've already forgotten about it.

My blood already paid for it.

That's been done.

Church, will you come to the table?

It's time to feast.

Let's feast with the joy, the celebration of a bride being joined with her groom.

She come to the table.

We just wanted to say thank you for listening to the Highland Christian Church podcast today.

And if you ever want to connect with us, send prayer requests, ask questions, or for any other reason, you can visit our website, www.highlandchristian.com, or you can send us an email at infokahlandchristian.com.

God bless you guys.