The New Wine of the Kingdom

Well, I think many of you will agree with me that increasingly the United States has become a depressing place, certainly if you listen to the news.

Not only are we dealing with COVID-19, but it seems to me that increasingly there's a polarization between many, many groups, and the polarization is becoming more and more divisive, more and more vitriolic, and reasonable, and hostile. A few days ago I visited Barnes and Noble bookstore when I'm out of town, as I invariably do, and I went to the section on recent non-fiction. So I just thought, I wonder what's being churned out today. I like to read on a variety of subjects. And as I looked at that, I saw that the titles in this section, Barnes and Noble, out of town, non-fiction, the titles were almost exclusively harsh, extreme, and depressing.

And I took a picture of it of the shelf on my cell phone, and there it is. Let me read some of the titles. The Madman Theory, Trump Takes on the World, The Hunting of Hillary, The 40-Year Campaign to Destroy Hillary Clinton, A Case for the American People, The United States v. Donald J. Trump, Separated Inside an American Tragedy, Dare to Speak, Defending Free Speech for All, Hoax, Donald Trump, Fox News, and The Distortion of Truth, Authoritarian Nightmare, Trump and His Followers, Don't Burn This Book, Liar's Circus, Waiting for an Echo, The Madness of American Incarceration, Our Corruption in America, and What is at Stake. Now, I didn't make up these titles. They're actually there in the bookstore.

Many people are buying them. And as I looked at them, I thought this is a reflection of what kind of culture we're presently living in. It's a kind of gloomy culture. There's a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, a lot of hostility, and yes, indeed, even violence. And as I reflected on that, I thought that this darkness, this gloom is not unique to our culture.

It's not unique to the United States in 2021. We've been studying the Gospel of Matthew, and as I thought of our present culture, I thought that the culture at the time when our Lord Jesus came to earth, the historic, the cultural, the society that was going on, was indeed a very dark place. Very dark, very gloomy, and very hopeless. And so we read in Matthew 4 verse 16, this wonderful verse, which is a quotation from the Old Testament.

Listen to it. The people dwelling in darkness. Think of that. When our Lord Jesus Christ comes, people are dwelling in darkness, but they have seen a great light. And for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.

Isn't that wonderful? In a dark world, in a corrupt world, in a hostile world, in a world of prejudice, in a world of unfairness, in a world when Rome was dominating Israel, this light, this great light shines. And as I thought of that, and as I thought of our present culture, I thought the wonder of the Gospel is this, that whatever the society we're living in, and whatever the future holds, there is no reason to be depressed. Because as followers of Jesus Christ, we have received, as we've been singing this morning, we have received the light of the Gospel.

We have received transformation. Yes, joy and celebration. And I want to say to you this morning that whoever you are, that one of the gifts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the gift of joy. And this joy, this transformation, this forgiveness of sins, however the darkness, however the seeming hopelessness of the situation, this joy is offered to you. And we're learning in our study of the Gospel of Matthew that those who are in the kingdom of God experience joy and celebration. Now at the time of Jesus, when we're going to read about them, there were always those who were critical.

There were those who were judgmental. There were those who focused on the man-made traditions rather than the living Word of God. But I want to assure you that whatever your personal circumstances, whatever the circumstances of our society, there is no need to despair because as you follow Jesus Christ, you will experience the freshness and joy of the new wine of the kingdom. You say, what on earth is the new wine of the kingdom? Well, let's read our Bibles. Matthew chapter 9. So if you have your Bible, well, you open it there. It's the first Gospel, and we're going consecutively through the book of Matthew, so I'm not choosing the subjects. They're chosen for us. And today in our study, we come to Matthew chapter 9 verse 9.

Here's the Word of God to us. As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me.

And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous but sinners. Then the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment and the worst tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wine skins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed.

But new wine is put into fresh wine skins, and so both are preserved. This is the word of God to us. Now first of all, in verses 9 through 13, we see, as we've seen before, that Jesus calls sinners to life in the kingdom. Jesus calls sinners to life in the kingdom, and here we read about one of the men who is going to become one of the great apostles of the church, this man called Matthew, and he's described here as a tax collector. Now in Israel, there was a very complex system of taxation, both religious and secular.

Remember that Israel is under the occupation of Rome, so taxes, none of us like paying taxes, but can you imagine if some of your taxes went to the occupying power, that would be a little difficult, wouldn't it? So taxes were a symbol and a reminder of the Roman conquest, the Roman occupation. Now Capernaum where this happened was a very important city and it had a custom post. We read earlier of the Centurion who was based at Capernaum to keep order there because Capernaum, and some of you have been there on their trips to Israel, it's now in ruins on the northwest of the Sea of Galilee, an important little town at this time, and it had a customs post as it was on the trade route from Damascus, Syria to the Mediterranean ports.

So as people were travelling, they had to come through Capernaum and there they had to pay taxes. As I say, none of us like paying taxes, but the tax collectors at this time were particularly despised. They were usually quite wealthy because they were taking money under the table as it were, and they're known as disloyal, dishonest and greedy, and they were despised and detested by the Jews. And so in the Bible, the Pharisees put them in the same category as sinners, tax collectors and sinners. In the old King James that I was brought up in, it said publicans and sinners, and for a long time in Scotland we have pubs, and the owner of the pub is called a publican, and I thought well these were guys that were in the pubs.

Not really. They may have gone to the pub, but these were tax collectors, and they're classed with sinners. Who are the sinners?

They're the low class. They're the people that the Pharisees looked down on. Perhaps they were committing some really nasty sins. Perhaps they were the cheats. Perhaps they were the criminals.

They were the prostitutes. They were in the Pharisees' eyes the lowlives. And so the Pharisees grouped them together, tax collectors and sinners, despised by the Jews. Isn't it interesting that Jesus would call a tax collector? See when Jesus looked at Matthew, he saw not just a tax collector, he saw one of his future disciples. Now the man who's writing this is Matthew, the first gospel. Mark and Luke, when they talk of Matthew, they don't call him Matthew, they call him Levi.

Often people there had two names, Simon, Peter, Saul, and Paul. This is Levi. But Matthew doesn't call himself Levi, he calls himself Matthew. Now what does the word Levi mean? Well Levi was the priestly tribe. Mark says, calls him Levi the son of Alphaeus. They know who he is. He is from a priestly tribe. His father is Alphaeus. No doubt this little boy Matthew is brought up in a godly home in Israel, taught the Word of God, a priestly tribe, and then as he leaves home, he prefers the lure of personal advancement and money, and he becomes a tax collector, sells himself out for Rome so he can make a quick buck, and turns his back on his Jewish heritage and he's despised for that.

Can you imagine collecting taxes for the Romans and you're a cheat anyhow? This is this man called Matthew. He's an unlikely candidate to be a follower of Jesus, wouldn't you agree? But when you look at people, what do you see?

Sometimes we see someone and we think, well, they could never be a follower of Jesus Christ. We sort of dismiss them, don't we? I remember a few years ago when we were living in Michigan, my son Christopher, who at this time was about 13 or 14, on a Friday night we would sometimes watch a movie, and I am not a movie buff and I am known for picking the worst movies possible. And so in those days there were the video stores, you remember them? And we went in, Christopher and I went Friday night to get a movie and I got probably about four or five of them thinking at least one of them must be suitable for us and of some interest to us. And the video store was packed and as we're standing in line, there's a long line and there's various assistants and there was one young lady, I think half of her hair was purple, the other half was orange. She had tattoos all over her.

She had a ring not only in her ears but in her nose and her lip and her tongue and the only ring I have is my wedding ring, that's enough for me. And we're waiting and I said to Christopher, I said, look at her. And Christopher, 13, 14, he's very inspired, he says, dad, dad. And so we go and there's about five of them serving and in the providence of God we get this young lady and I go up with my movie and she smiles and says, good evening Pastor Monroe, my mother and I love your preaching. As we went out, my son said, and you're the pastor, aren't you? That's the Pharisee, isn't it? I'm different from you.

I'm really better than you. And we dismiss people, isn't it wonderful that Jesus doesn't do that? He doesn't look at you whoever you are.

He doesn't look at me and dismiss us. Here is Matthew having an ordinary day at the office, as it were, and he hears the call of Jesus. It's a very simple call.

It's an authoritative call. Of course he knew who Jesus was. Follow me. And he follows Jesus. Look in his account, Matthew doesn't say this out of humility I think, but Luke says that he left everything and followed Jesus.

I'm sure there are plenty of people waiting to take his job. He left everything and followed Jesus. Yes, a sinful tax collector leaves his occupation and publicly identifies with Jesus and Jesus publicly identifies with him. He's a collector of taxes, now he's a collector of men. Isn't it interesting that he doesn't become the financial advisor of the disciples?

Who's the financial advisor? Do you think Matthew, he's an accountant, he can deal with money? You would have thought he was the one who would deal with the finances of the group, but no, that's Judas Iscariot, who's going to betray Jesus. And Matthew then, did you notice, verse 10, Jesus reclined at table in the house. Again Matthew doesn't make it clear, but the other Gospel writers do, that this house was Matthew's house. He follows Jesus, he leaves everything he has, he's Matthew, Levi, the son of Alphaeus, everyone knows who he is, this tax collector, and now he's having a feast, a great feast, the Bible says, in his house. The house of Matthew is now transformed into a center of evangelism.

Isn't that what Cebu was challenging us last Sunday, that our very homes become the center of evangelism. And verse 10 and 11 makes it clear that many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus. Yes, Luke says in Luke 5 that Matthew makes a great feast. Isn't this wonderful, isn't this how God works, that Matthew now, this tax collector, becomes the entrance door as it were, into this life of tax collectors and sinners. Matthew knows a lot of tax collectors, they know him. He knows the despised sinners in Capernaum, and he invites them and they are there because now this man is introducing his friends to Jesus.

Here is transforming forgiveness which begins in the home. A sinful tax collector is called by Jesus and now is going to write one of the four gospels. In fact, we're reading it right now. The first gospel in our New Testament is written by Matthew. It is 28 chapters, longer than any of the others, and in all of the 28 chapters, Matthew never says anything by himself.

You never read what he says. Could you write 28 chapters about someone, a friend of yours, and never inject yourself into what you said? That's Matthew, pointing people to Jesus. Now here's a point I think we often forget in the Christian life, that following Jesus brings joy and celebration. The man is saved. He's saying that to his followers.

Things are different. I'm now following Jesus. Here he is and they have this feast and Jesus now is able to teach these other tax collectors and sinners. And they're having a great party, a great celebration because this man's life has totally changed and he's going to spend the rest of his life pointing people to Jesus. In fact, he's going to be sent by the Lord to the remote parts of the world. You say, what a wonderful story.

Does it surprise you there were critics? The Pharisees are there. Verse 11, when the Pharisees saw this, they rejoiced that a tax collector was now following Jesus. Now, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

You say, we don't do that. We would never sit down and have a meal with tax collectors and sinners. Sharing a meal with tax collectors and sinners, according to the Pharisees, is scandalous. And Jesus uses the opportunity to teach them something very important. You see, the Pharisees are self-righteous. They don't admit they're sinners. They see themselves very, very much distinct from and superior to the tax collectors and the sinners.

And they love to criticize others. And so Jesus says this in verse 10, verse 12. Those who are well have no need of a physician, unless you're a hypochondriac, you don't go to the doctor unless you're sick. Obviously, the doctor sees not people who are healthy, the doctor sees people who are ill. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy. The Pharisees didn't know much about mercy and not sacrifice.

Not your rituals. I desire mercy, for I came not to call the righteous but sinners. Look at sinners to repentance. Mr. Pharisee, unless you admit you're a sinner, there's no cure for you. You'll never receive the forgiveness of God. You'll never experience the joy of salvation as long as you think that you're right by yourself. As long as you're clinging to your religion, your lifestyle, your heritage, your interpretation of the law, for you there is no salvation.

The Pharisees don't admit their spiritual condition. See, Jesus' mission is what? It's mercy. It's grace. It's compassion. It's not religious ritualism, and it's certainly not judgmentalism. Do you understand this?

So I was reading this this week. I thought, what kind of church is Calvary Church? I mean, honestly. Some of you have been coming here for many years. Others of you are here for the first time, and perhaps you can't answer this question. But I'd love to think, I'd love to think that Calvary Church is a church where the spiritually wounded and broken come. And that whoever you are, whatever your background, whatever your dress, whatever the color of your skin, whether you're dressed like me with a suit and tie on, are very different, that you be loved and welcomed. Wouldn't you agree that is the spirit of Jesus?

Is that, is that, is that true, brothers and sisters? Is that the kind of church we are? That we believe that we are here to extend the mercy and the grace of God to people, and that God desires, as Jesus quotes from the Old Testament from Hosea, that He desires mercy and not sacrifice. Sacrifice being a symbol of the Old Testament ritualism, that God is not concerned with the ritual, that God is concerned with the inner reality of the heart. Because secondly, the kingdom of God is not a place of legalistic ritualism. Now let's see this in verses 14 through 17.

I realize these are not necessarily the easiest verses, but I think we'll understand them as we take it bit by bit. The disciples of John and the Pharisees fasted. Now, fasting was and is a sign of repentance, a sign of sorrowing over sin. And so the disciples of John are fasting because probably this time John is in prison.

Therefore, it's appropriate that the disciples of John fast at this time that they're praying and fasting. The Pharisees, of course, also fasted. Pharisee means separated one, means a holy one. Josephus calculates that there were about 6,000 Pharisees in the first century.

It's a lot of Pharisees, isn't it? They were experts in the Torah, the law. They memorized it. They studied it. They debated it.

They argued over it. And over the years, they had developed many of their own traditions based on the Mosaic law, their traditions based on their interpretations of the Mosaic law. Remember as we were studying the Sermon on the Mount, many times Jesus says, you have heard that it was said. Really quoting the Pharisees.

You've heard that it was said, but I say to you. And the Pharisees with their interpretations, with their traditions, often resulted in a distortion of the true intent of the law. And this led them over and over again as we're seeing in the New Testament into conflict with Jesus. Their speciality was not mercy. Their speciality was not grace. Their speciality was not compassion, but it was judgment. And that's why they're scandalized by the party in Matthew's house.

Rather than seeing a man who was saved and rejoiced, whatever they thought of him, they see this as an opportunity to criticize Jesus. Not much joy among the Pharisees. Now Jesus is not saying it's wrong to fast. There is a time to fast. The Jews, in fact, were required to fast one day a year, Yom Kippur, the Great Day of Atonement, as said out in Leviticus 16, the holiest day in Judaism. In addition, the Pharisees fasted on Mondays and Thursdays from dawn to sunset. Another reason I wouldn't like to be a Pharisee. That's a lot of fasting, isn't it?

Think of that. Mondays and Thursdays, dawn to sunset, you fast. But they used, as we've already seen in our study of Matthew, they used their fasting and their ritualism as a badge of their spirituality. And if you're not doing it the way I'm doing it, you're not spiritual.

And they're critical, and they're judgmental, and they're self-righteous. And Jesus has said, verse 13, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Now what about the disciples of Jesus? Why were they not fasting at this time? Well, the followers of Jesus are having a party at Matthew's house. They're eating and celebrating. And Jesus is saying, verse 15, can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? When the bridegroom is there, you don't fast.

The picture is of wedding, of the guests joyfully celebrating. Can you imagine coming to a wedding here at Calvary and you come to the service here in the sanctuary and then you're invited to the reception somewhere and you go to the reception and you're told, well, the reception is a little different. We're having a fast. You're like, I'm going home.

Right? I mean, yes, there's a time to fast, but it's not at a wedding reception. No, a wedding reception, the bridegroom is there, the bride is there. This is not a time of fasting, it's a time of celebration.

It's a time of joy. Fasting and celebrating don't go together. The bridegroom is still there. Who is the bridegroom?

Our Lord Jesus. Yes, there is an appropriate time to fast, but not at a time of celebration. Not when the bridegroom is present. Not when Matthew has called together his friends, his fellow tax collectors, and the sinners, and they're having a feast at his house and rejoicing and Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God. That is not the time for Jesus and his disciples to fast.

But notice what Jesus says, verse 15, the days will come, the end of verse 15, when the bridegroom is, notice the expression, is taken away from them and then they will fast. This verb, taken away, is a violent removal. The same term, very interestingly, is used in Isaiah 53, verse 8 in that great chapter of our suffering Messiah. We read Isaiah 53, verse 8, by oppression and judgment he was taken away and as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

Notice the expression, by oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yes, the bridegroom, our Lord Jesus, is going to be taken away. There is going to be a violent removal of Jesus. The crucifixion in the gospels to Jesus is increasing.

The Pharisees, the Herodians are plotting to kill Jesus. And yes, he's going to be taken away. And the death of Jesus is not going to be a very nice death. It's going to be a violent death. It's going to be crucifixion. He's going to be violently taken away.

He's going to be whipped. He's going to be crucified on a cross between the crucifixion and the resurrection. The disciples of Jesus are in a state of shock, devastation and despair.

Yes, that's a time to fast, but not now when the bridegroom is there. What's the point that Jesus is making? The old ritualism is not appropriate now that the kingdom of God has come in Jesus. Now is a time of feasting, not fasting. Now is a time of joy, not condemnation is the point.

What have you seen first? Jesus calls sinners to life in the kingdom. Secondly, the kingdom is not a place of legalistic ritualism. Third, the kingdom is a place of celebration.

I want you to get this. Being in the kingdom of God is a place of celebration. And to help us understand, Jesus uses two analogies. In a sense, they're parables to demonstrate that the old, Judaism, and the new, the kingdom of God, are incompatible. Now let's look at both of them. First of all, verse 16.

Are you following this? Teaching of Jesus, no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment and the worst tear is made. Here's the analogy of the garments. Some of you will remember, I certainly do, your mother sewing a patch on your clothes. OK, some of you came from really wealthy homes and that didn't happen.

I didn't. I came from a relatively poor home and being one of six boys, the clothes are passed down and invariably when you're out playing and you're wearing your trousers, a hole appears, often at the knee, and what does mom do? Rather than throw away a pair of what she thinks are perfectly good trousers, she puts a patch on them. And so you have a patch on your trousers.

Am I the only one that had this? Thank you, another honest brother shows the background we came from. The amazing thing is now people go to a store and buy clothes with holes in them. And they buy clothes with patches on them.

You know, when I was growing up, a sign of patches and holes was a sign of poverty. Now it's a sign you're really cool. And by the way, if you've got holes in your pants or patches on them, we welcome you to Calvary. I'm not judging you. Don't judge me wearing my tie and I won't judge you having holes in your jeans.

You're really cool and we welcome you here. But that's the point, right? So here are old clothes and the new patch is sewn on to the old clothes. What happens? A new unshrunk patch, as it shrinks, it rips the old garment. There is a shrinking in the new but not of the old. That is, the new patch can't really be connected to the old clothes. The new patch is stronger than the old garment.

And if you try to do that, you end up with a worse situation. No, you don't put new patches on old clothes. Secondly, the analogy of the wineskin.

Perhaps it's a little easier for us to understand. There is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skin bursts and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins and so both are preserved. Where was wine kept in those days? In wineskins, a container made from the skin of an animal. Now, new wineskins are pliable and they stretch so the new wine goes into the new wineskin.

That's fine because the new wineskin is pliable and as the wine ferments and expands, so does the wineskin. Old wineskins on the other hand are hard. They're brittle. They're rigid.

They're unbending. And so if you put new wine, Jesus is saying, into old wineskins, as the new wine ferments, it expands and it means that the old wineskins burst open and you no longer have an old wineskin and you no longer have wine. Both are destroyed. Point old wineskins cannot contain new wine. The analogy of the patch, the analogy of the wineskin.

What's the point? Jesus is making a profound point, one that the Pharisees really resent. The legalism, the religious traditionalism of Judaism is outdated and is incompatible with the celebration of those who are in the kingdom of heaven. The Pharisees promoted outward conformity and rule keeping.

They were very exact, very pedantic, very critical. You can almost see them with their little book writing down another breach of one of their interpretations of the law. We see this over and over again in the Gospels. We're going to see it to do with the Sabbath and so on.

They judged people's spirituality by the external. How do you dress? How do you wash your hands? How do you keep the Sabbath? How do you fast?

How many times do you fast? What about your prayers? It was all to do with the external legalism. Outward compliance was their speciality, adding their rules, their regulations to the commandments of God where our Lord Jesus is preaching the inner reality of repentance and faith. That's the Gospel of the kingdom, repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus is teaching here that the old and the new could not and cannot be mixed. The new is neither connected to the old, the analogy of the garments, nor can the new be contained in the old, the analogy of the wineskin. Legalism, traditionalism, self-righteousness, the old, all of that is incompatible with the kingdom of God, the new which comes with Jesus.

Do you try and patch things up in your life? Do you say, well, yeah, I believe in the Lord Jesus. I believe in God's grace, but I've got to do my part as well. Paul says in Romans 11 verse 6, if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ can't be contained in the old Judaism of the Pharisees.

The Pharisees honor tradition. If something was old, it was good. You heard people like this, the good old days? Everyone was good in the old days?

Not really, right? I wore patches on my trousers in the old days, right? I heard recently in the radio just a few days ago, you may have heard it, the guy is selling, I think it's pasta or meatballs, something Italian, and his pitch is this, that it is his grandmother's recipe. And I'm thinking, OK, I don't know your grandmother.

I mean, she may have had the taste buds, you know, of a caterpillar. I don't know. But his point is, my grandmother's got this recipe, that was the old way, and therefore it's good. I mean, where's the logic in that? You're looking as if you're buying into the guy.

Don't do that. Think, right? His point is, if it's old, it's good. No. If it's old, it may be bad.

If it's new, it may be bad. The question is, for us who are followers of Jesus Christ, does it conform to the Word of God? The mission of Jesus, please get this, is not to patch up the old. It's not to put old patches or, sorry, it's not to put new patches on old Judaism. Now that the bridegroom has come, our Lord Jesus, the legalistic traditions, the interpretations, the empty formalism of the past must be rejected. The gospel of Jesus Christ can't be connected to or synthesized with any other religion, belief system, or philosophy.

This is totally new. What do we want to do? Someone says, well this is my heritage. I was brought up in this church. I was brought up in this belief. And now, oh yes, thank you for telling me about Jesus. Yeah, there's a lot to be said about Jesus.

And I'm going to take a little bit of that teaching and patch it here. I'm going to add a little bit of the Christian faith to my life to help me get through. Absolutely not.

You've totally missed the point. Salvation, we're saying I got saved. If you're going to be saved, you must understand that salvation is totally by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It cannot be mixed with or connected to your ideas, to your works, to your religion, to your self-effort, to your rituals, to your belief systems.

Absolutely not. The kingdom of God is incompatible with all other kingdoms. New wine is for new wineskins. And the only life that can truly contain the righteousness of God is the new life given by God when you repent of your sin and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't trust in your religious heritage.

It may be a good one, but don't trust in that. That doesn't get you into heaven. Don't trust in the externals. Don't tell me, well, I've been a Christian all my life and I was baptized when I was a baby and I took communion and I did this and I did that.

All of that may be true, but all of that can be true and you miss the whole point of the Gospel, which is salvation by Christ and Christ alone. Don't trust in your church. Don't trust in your works. Don't trust in your religious heritage. Put your trust totally in Christ. That's what Matthew did. He left everything and he follows Jesus and experienced the inner reality and celebration of the kingdom of God. When the Holy Spirit is at work, the old wineskins burst. Can I speak to those of you who are fathers of Jesus?

You're truly saved. Praise God for that, but is there still a bit of the old Pharisee sticking to you? Are you sometimes like an old wineskin?

You're hard, powerful, critical, resistant to change and growth. You're a bit of a fault finder. You're always trying to find fault with someone. You're always worried that someone somewhere is enjoying themselves as they were. That's the spirit of the Pharisee.

And I think few of us would say that we're totally free of that. So let me ask you a question, brother, sister. You say that you're saved.

How wonderful. But let me ask you, where is the joy in your Christian life? I meet people who tell me they're saved, but their Christian life doesn't seem very joyful. Is there joy in your home? When your children look at you, dad, and you talk about your faith, do they see the joy of the Lord?

Or do they hear criticism from you about other believers, about the church, about things going on? Is there joy? Sister, is there joy in your relationships, your friends, your Christian, is there joy there? Is there joy in your ministry or has it just become a legalistic obligation and you do it but you kind of fret and you complain and wish people did it like you?

Is that there? If you're so spiritual, why is there so little joy in your home, in your relationships, in your service? That's a question I ask myself. See, God's Spirit brings new wine, new joy. Paul says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is what? Freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. The Pharisees specialized in bondage and self-righteous and criticism and rigidity and being pedantic and wanting everyone to conform to their own ideas. They wanted to be in control of everyone and everything, but the Spirit of the Lord brings true freedom, liberty and joy.

Not bondage to rituals, not bondage to your traditions, not bondage to rules, not bondage to the devil, but true freedom. And where God is at work in your life, and I hope this is the case for you, fellow believer, when God is at work in your life, there's growth, there's freshness, there's humility, there's a desire to learn and there is joy. No, Jesus does not come to patch things up. Jesus is not there like some person that you just turn to when there's a problem and you look to Jesus. That's not the Gospel. The Gospel is this, that you are transformed totally. Here is a man, Matthew, collecting taxes, a greedy man, a materialistic man. Jesus calls him. He's totally changed. No, he's not perfect.

Of course not. But he follows Jesus. He gives his life to telling people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And maybe it's time, yes it is, for some of us to throw out some of the old stuff in our life, some of the old attitudes, the old garments, the old wineskins as it were. What does Paul say? If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. Don't allow the devil to bring you back into that critical attitude, into that bondage that you're brought up in. Understand there is this new wine into fresh wineskins.

This is radical living. Do you hear Jesus call you? Do you hear his voice today? Follow me. Do you hear Jesus saying that to you? Follow me. John, I want you to keep following me. I've been following Jesus for many years. I need to hear this fresh from the master. Because of my own flesh, I can become critical and hard.

And I can get off track. And I need to hear and you need to hear afresh these words. Follow me. God is the God of new beginnings. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. How important it is, brothers and sisters, we experience the new power of the Gospel breaking through the old and flowing in newness of life and joy. I'm saying to you, be an authentic follower of Jesus. Live the abundant new life of the Spirit, a life of freedom, a life of joy, a life of celebration. No, not being Pollyanna, not saying there are no problems in life. We've dealt with that. But in spite of the problem in your life, in your heart, in your home and in society, that this is overwhelming you. That once you were lost, and now you're found. And now whatever happens, whatever the culture, whatever the politics, whatever happens, you're following Jesus. And all is well. Jesus still says, new wine is for fresh wineskins.

This is the new wine of the kingdom. Can I pray with you? As you reflect on this, perhaps you've never trusted Christ. Do you see Him dying on the cross for you?

Being buried? Do you see Him rising again, the living Christ? Will you ask Him to save you?

He still says, come to me. Follow me. Believe in me. You're a follower of Jesus.

You've become a bit hard, a bit complacent, a bit stale. When you need the freshness of the power of the new wine of the Spirit, may God restore the joy of your salvation as you feed, as we break bread on the living Christ. Father, help us to do that. We thank You that You're a living God. We thank You that You call unlikely people to follow You like us. Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Your mercy and continue to guide us and work in our hearts, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.