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Luke 5:27-29 | Parables in Practice

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Listen to this week’s sermon, Parables In Practice preached by Pastor Jason Dunn from Luke 5:27-29.

Welcome & Prayer

Rev. Benjamin Kandt

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Scripture Reading: Luke 5

Evan Pederson

Please join me in prayer. Holy Spirit, make us hungry for your word, that it may satisfy us, lead us, and bring us life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Today's scripture reading comes from Luke five. Please remain standing if you are able. After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me. And leaving everything he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And they said to him, The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. And Jesus said to them, Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. He also told them a parable. No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says the old is good. This is God's word.

Pastor Jason Dunn

Thanks be to God.

Evan Pederson

You may be seated.

Fat Tuesday To Ash Wednesday

Badges, Rituals, And Motives

Levi’s Feast And Scandal

Grumbling And Control

Why Don’t Your Disciples Fast

Bridegroom And New Wine

Old Way Of Life Exposed

Eugene Peterson’s Warning

Muted Good Versus Full Life

Diagnostic Questions For The Heart

The New Way: Intimacy

Pastor Jason Dunn

Thank you, Evan. Well, good morning. This last Tuesday and this last Wednesday were kind of uh events in the church calendar or community life. Last Tuesday was Fat Tuesday, and then it was Ash Wednesday. So now I don't know if you guys participate in Fat Tuesday or Ash Wednesday, but if you don't know what those things are, those events, Fat Tuesday is a party where all I would say the sick, the sinners, the saints, they come together to celebrate, to have fun, to try to squeeze out all that life has involved in it. And in that, uh, they're trying to do that before the big decrease of the Lenten season of Lent. And so Ash Wednesday is the next day, right? They're celebrating this Tuesday, this big event. And then it leads into Ash Wednesday, which is a sober ritualistic service that starts the season of Lent, as I said. So when I used to work downtown, I uh I would try to engage in this practice. Um, I would go to St. Luke's and I would walk along uh from one point of downtown to another, and I invite the people in my office. I did this because I wanted to deepen my faith. And me inviting others was two reasons. One, there are people who practice faith in my office. I wanted to help encourage them in their faith, but I also wanted to expose those who did not know Jesus to faith. But after the service, and now I don't know if you know what happens in the Ash Wednesday service, actually, they take the palm branches, certain traditions, and they burn them and they make ashes out of that. And they take these ashes and they put the sign of the cross on your forehead, right? And so after the service with my friends and colleagues from the office, we had a decision to make. Like, what do we do with these ashes? What was this? Was this a ritualistic cross on my head to be worn as a badge? Was this a superstitious relic that was wrong to wipe away? Or do I leave it on there and try my best to explain? Oh no, this is a symbol of my intimacy with Jesus. But I think the honest question beneath those was for me was for how do I control what others think of me when they look at this cross on my head? Or maybe even more true, how do I control what God thinks of me? Will God love me more if I keep this cross on my head? Or will God look away from me if I wipe this cross off my head? Historically, the in the early church and church tradition, Christians developed this pre-season to Easter to prepare themselves. It was a time of repentance, it was a time of renewal, a desire for Jesus. It involved fasting and it also involves other disciplines in their lives. It was also a time that was for instruction, for new believers, uh, catechisms, catechim catechism communicants, rather, who would study for a year and they would enter in this season and then they would be baptized on the Easter Vigil service. So at the time of Jesus, Judaism was just capturing, I mean, Christianity when Jesus came was just kind of capturing what Judaism had already been practicing. You had John the Baptist, who was calling for a baptism of repentance. You had the religious leaders fasting in the name of God, some of them doing it twice a week. We read that in Luke 18, which uh Will was referencing. And our text says that the Pharisees and John's disciples fasted often. In fact, if you just think about it, most religions include fasting as a practice, as a way to get to God, as a way to build yourself up to God. So fasting was not a new concept, it was a part of the religious practice, it was a part of this religious way of life. So why didn't Jesus' disciples fast? What's the role of fasting in our Christian life? If Jesus said on the cross that it is finished, what work is left to do? If it's all mercy and grace, why are we working so hard in this life? Well, we're going to explore those questions through our text through these two points: the old way of life and the new way of life. If you have your Bibles or advice or a bulletin, turn with me to Luke 5, starting in verse 29. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with him. What's going on here? Well, this is the setting, the calling of Levi or Matthew and the other gospels to come and follow Jesus. And who was Levi? Levi was a tax collector. He was working as an agent for the enemy. He was profiting off of a system of oppression as this tax collector. And I was trying to think through what does that look like in our day and age? The only thing that came to my mind, or a lot of things came to my mind, but one that I'll share is a predatory lender, a debt collector in our day, who's profiting off of the least of these who are stuck in this cycle of poverty. So this is who Jesus was hanging out with him and his friends. This is who Jesus was calling to himself, the enemy of the people. Do you feel the scandal in that? The people at the party were unwanted by the religious leaders of the day. They were unclean, unfavored, and unchosen by those who were under Roman occupation. Then comes Jesus, the bridegroom. And this is a story of radical conversion for Levi. And we'll look at that more in our point number two. But this angers the religious of that day. This angers them and it confronts them. And I think it confronts us too to see a religious leader sitting with sinners and tax collectors, sitting with the enemy of the people. It's like having a predatory loan officer sitting with Billy Graham's treasury and having a meal, and you're trying to understand what's going on between these two people. So what do the religious do? They grumble and they question. Look down with me at verse 30. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and the sinners? People usually grumble when they think they deserve more than they are getting. This is the story that we learn in the book of Numbers, right? We went through the book of Numbers. God's people was freed from slavery in Egypt, and now they're wandering their desert and they were wanting to go back. And they're grumbling to Moses because they think they deserve more from God than the manna that's falling from the sky. And people usually question when their way of life is being challenged. We question because we think our way of life is working. We question because we think our way of life is actually superior and sufficient. And so the Pharisees, the scribes, and even John's disciples, they continue to ask these questions of Jesus. They continue to question him and challenge him about the way of life, particularly around fasting and prayers. Look down with me at verse 33. And they said to him, The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. Now Jesus, he answers in a clever way, but in a very clear way. He answers with a question, which is like the Jesus thing to do, right? And Jesus said, and continue on, verse 34 to them, Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? So when the bridegroom is here, you don't fast, you feast. Jesus' presence actually changes the way of life. Jesus furthers that answer with the parable about the garments and about the wine and the wineskins. So what is Jesus talking about? I'm going to focus just on that latter part of that illustration about the wine and the wineskins. I believe the new wine is the teaching that Jesus brings in his ministry. That this message, that the kingdom of God is at hand. It's breaking into time, in time in Jesus. And this brain breaking of the kingdom requires a new container, a new vessel for it to be contained. And the new wineskin, I believe, is the new way of life that Jesus brings. It holds the new wine, it holds the new teaching of grace and mercy of Christ. The old wineskin container is the old way of life. The old way of life that seeks self-righteousness in the form of control before others and before God. If you're receiving the new wine in the old wineskin, what happens? Look at what he at verse 37. No one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. What happens when the new wine is put into old wineskins? It bursts the skins. The wine is spilled and wasted, and it destroys the vessel. The point is this the old way of life, the old wineskins, couldn't hold the new wine, couldn't hold the new teaching in Jesus. I want to tell you a story about Eugene Peterson, who is like a spiritual father to many of us probably in the room. Early on in his life, uh in his seminary days, he was in New York City and he befriended this man named William or William Asa. He was German, right? And uhsa loved to talk about religion, and then Eugene loved to talk about art, and so they became fast friends. But the thing is, Asa grew up in Germany under the war effort of the Nazi regime. And so he experienced the ways that Christians were complicit in that story, the ways that Christians failed to the death of six million Jews, right? And to this tragedy of this world war. And so this pitted up inside of Asa kind of this hate for religion. But regardless of that, they were friends. And uh Eugene asked them to paint him a self-portrait. And so Asa agreed, and uh they kept on doing that over weeks. I don't know how long it takes to do a painting, but weeks, maybe months. But uh, Asa would never show Eugene the portrait. One day, Asa's wife comes in and screams in German, sick, sick, and he responds, Asa responds to Eugene and says, No, not sick, but no mercy. And what what was going on there? What she saw was this shriveled man, this ghostly figure of Eugene Peterson on this canvas. And she couldn't make sense of it. But this is how Asa was making sense of the old way of life, the old religion that leads to death. It leads to a squeezing out of grace and mercy, it leads to a squeezing out of morality. And in a way, Asa was trying to tell Eugene Peterson a warning. If you become a pastor and go down this path, this is who you will become. But what he didn't realize is that Eugene also understood that there is this new vessel, that there is this new way of life, the way of life that leads to intimacy. And so Eugene kept that painting as a warning, as a reminder to choose a new way of life, not to continue down the old path. Old wineskins and old rigid, unflexible ways to do life can squeeze out the mercy and grace of the soul. And we're not so different than they. We wonder if our religious obedience can be a badge of self-righteousness, or we wonder if our disobedience can be a badge of unrighteousness, like a scarlet letter. We have the same problems as the Pharisees and the scribes and the disciples who asked the question of fasting to Jesus. Fasting in the old way of life can become a badge rather than a bell to wake us up of our need of Him. Obedience in the old way of life can become a ritual rather than a relationship to intimacy and freedom. We tend to hold on to the old way of life. Why? I think it's because it works for us. It seems to be a superior and sufficient way of life, a way of life to control. We feel like it gives us at least enough life. And I will say not a full life, not an overflowing life with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But it seems to be like enough life in the old way. The old way, I will call it, gives us a muted life. And we think it's good. Have you ever tried to drink wine out of a Dixie cup? Something doesn't fit, but we think it's good. This is what Jesus is getting at at verse 39. Look at we in your text of chapter 5 of Luke. And he says, No one after drinking old wine desires new. For he says the old is good. We need to be careful of our religious badges, our inflexible religious structures. The old way of life does not get in the way of communion and intimacy with our bridegroom, Jesus. So here's a diagnostic question for you all, and one I've been sitting with this week. When do we tend to grumble? When do we tend to question? When we do grumble or question, I wonder if there's a connection to our controlling way of wanting to go through life in the old way that leads to a muted good. Jesus isn't only answering a question about fasting, though. I think he's trying to expose a deeper issue that that old way of life isn't just a muted good, but it leads to death. And by its control, it squeezes out the grace and the mercy from the message of God. So I have a question for you. What kind of container or vessel have your hearts and your lives become? Are they ready to hold the new wine, the teaching of grace and mercy from Jesus? And this leads me to my second point: the new way of life. The new way of life. In one word, it's intimacy. Turn with me to verse 27 in Luke 5. After this, he went out, this is Jesus, and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. This is a story of radical conversion. I wish I had stories about radical conversion that only in two words somebody would leave everything and follow me. Jesus just says two words. And to celebrate his radical conversion, his leaving the old way of life and entering into this new way of life, Levi, he throws a party. But this conversion, as I've already said, and this celebration, it challenges the control and the constriction of the old way of life. It challenges the self-righteous and honors the sick and the least of these. It challenges the ways that we self-righteously build our own kingdom. We self-righteously, and that leads to, that challenge leads to, as we build our own way, it leads to that grumbling and questioning. Look with me at verse 31 and 32. And Jesus answers them those who have no need of physician, but those who are sick, those are the people that Jesus is coming. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And I've been thinking a little bit about this. It's painful actually sometimes to go to a doctor because you actually have to admit and be honest about your own health. The Bible tells us that we are dead in our trespasses. That's the reality of our health. The sinner needs to come to Jesus in repentance and belief. The old wineskin prevents is anything that prevents seeking healing. The old wineskin is anything that causes us to avoid repentance. The old wineskin is anything that keeps you saying to Jesus, No, this way, this old way, it is good. It is good news to hear that there is a physician who says to us instead, follow me. The physician who comes with skillful hands and removes the heart of stone that's within all of us and replaces it with the heart of flesh. Jesus says, I know the way that leads to true life. It is all what we want to hear when we realize that our old systems, our old way of life, aren't working. Jesus chooses the sinner who repents, not the self-righteous who builds. Repentance doesn't just happen once, though, but it is a new way of life. We say with the psalmist in Psalm 139, search me and know me, O God. Find any grievous way within me. We ask, and this is what Will said earlier. Why does he participate in fasting? It exposes something inside of us, it exposes our thoughts, exposes the self-righteousness, the ways that we try to build in the old life. We must examine ourselves. This is a call for the new way of life. Repentance is a part of that. The new wineskin, though, as we understand it, it's flexible. It's urging self-examination and openness to sanctifying grace of the new wine. We see that faithful following to Jesus, when Jesus says, follow me, it means receiving him as the bridegroom. Jesus says in John's Gospel, and I just kind of quoted this, paraphrased it, but he says in John's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. In him is the new way of life. He's the bridegroom who has come with new wine in his blood. And this is why he says in verse 38 of our text, the new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. Jesus' earthly teaching and ministry established a new reality. When the Holy Spirit came in Pentecost, if you're following along in our Bible reading plan as a community, we're going through the book of Acts, right? Early on, when the Holy Spirit descended in Pentecost, what did they say? They were filled with new wine in Acts chapter 2, verse 13. So the reality is Jesus isn't fighting against Moses, but rather against the Pharisaic Judaism of that day, the Pharisaic Judaism that's in our own hearts. Jesus doesn't abolish the law of Moses, but can came to fulfill it in himself. Something new is bursting forth in a new covenant in his blood. It's the fulfillment of that to which the old covenant, the old sacrificial system that we've been preaching through, That they were all pointing to. It's a fulfillment in which God's role of God's amazing grace kind of comes really forefront in the glorious person of Jesus Christ, who we're called as who is called as our bridegroom. This is why Jesus quotes Hosea in Matthew's gospel, recounting the same story of the calling of Levi in this parable. Jesus says, Go and learn, teaching, go and learn what it means that I desire mercy and not sacrifice. We need new teaching and a new way of life to be healed from our sickness and led to the wedding feast, where there is intimacy awaiting for us with the bridegroom. So where does fasting then fit in that paradigm for the believer, for you, for me, for what Will was talking about earlier? We live in the already but not yet reality. Kingdom of God has come. But there are ways it's not here in his fullest expression. This is what Jesus is getting at in verse 35. Jesus says, the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away. Yes, he's alluding to the crucifixion and his death. And then those days they will fast, but he's also alluding to the real to the reality that someday Jesus is going to be ascended on heaven after the resurrection. And he's going to send the Spirit. The Spirit will be sent to us. But there's this already not yet reality where we still deal with the brokenness. Now, much of my story of fasting is probably much like yours, or I hope it is, with failure and maybe some successes. I was zealous in college. I came to came to know the Lord right at the beginning of college, and I would fast for a week on end. And then I would gorge myself at uh all you can eat pizza at CC's. It was like not a good idea, and I don't think I was getting it, but I was just, I think I was actually doing it in the old way, and I wasn't experiencing this communion with God in the new way. Now, sometimes I think fasting is a good idea, and sometimes I I come to the day when I'm gonna fast and I'm like, oh yeah, this is great. This is intermittent fasting, this is healthy for you. But I don't think Jesus is talking about like a diet regimen. When we what I've come to learn though, in my failing to try to fast is that in the new way of life, fasting isn't a way to prove my holiness, but it allows this hunger to kind of come up inside of me to be a reminder of my need and my dependence on Him. Somehow fasting actually declutters my heart and makes room for something else to grow. That something, I think, is intimacy with Jesus. That something is a new strength from him to carry on in grace. And we need strength to fight the good fight. We need strength to throw off every weight of sin that so easily entangles. But it only comes through weakness, recognizing our dependence through fasting. If you can't deny, I've heard this said, if you can't deny the body through fasting, then you won't be able to deny the flesh in transgressing. So it teaches, it trains our body. For the believer, a discipline can become a desire. It exposes you, as well said earlier, and it opens you up. Right now, the elders of our church have been invited to fast on Wednesdays during Ramadan for our Muslim neighbors, creating in us an intimacy with the bridegroom, I hope, but also an intimacy we want to see fall afresh on those who are not yet believers. And what I'm hopeful for is that we all grow in that intimacy with Jesus, that we might see the kingdom of God moved in our prayers. This is also in our text, but there is something they had right when they said a question about fasting and prayers. Fasting and prayers that go together. And I long to see these small hinges of our prayers and fasting open these large doors of salvation and intimacy for those who do not believe. Small hinges can open large doors. The bridegroom has come and the bridegroom is coming again. The new wineskin and the new way of life leads to an ache for him. Fasting is not an achievement, it's a posture. God, I want you. Alicia Britt Cole, who writes a Lenten devotional, and I'll put the quote behind me, says this. My fasts are more love offerings than disciplines, though it certainly requires discipline to maintain them. In short, I ache. I ache for my bridegroom. I ache to live every waking moment conscious of his presence. I ache to live aware of his past and present suffering. I ache to live unattached to what man counts and measures. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. Jesus, as the bridegroom, has you, and he has me, the bride, the church. In the new way of life, we have intimacy with him. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and his gospel for us, for those who are outside, and also for us who believe. It is good news. It's a new way to live. He himself is an is presenting to us an intimate opportunity of relationship with him, in which we ache for the fullness of the kingdom to come, where we get to see Jesus face to face. I'm going to close with a simple confession, and this is our hope. Christ has come, and that has made a big change in the way that we move in this life, right? There's something that has been broken in. So the old way of life we put down. We take up this new way of life in Christ. Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. It says this in Revelation about the marriage supper of the Lamb, which we fast towards, right? Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Let us pray. Father, we are grateful for your love for us, in that you sent your son, the bridegroom, the bridegroom, to ransom a people, to ransom your bride, to be an inheritance by your blood. Jesus, you are the one who has us as a bride. You're the one who has purchased us in your blood. We are not our own. Spirit, we ask you that you would fill us up with new wine, help us to throw off the old way of life and move us toward love in a new way of life. We give you the glory. Amen.