0:01 [Music] I'd like you to turn with me to Matthew chapter nine. If you remember a couple of weeks ago when I spoke last, I talked about mercy. How Jesus said this word to the 0:20 discip to the Pharisees, go and do your homework is essentially what I believe he said. Go and learn. And the analogy I gave you was this that it was like the Pharisees were studying a material for a test that they 0:39 weren't going to be asked about. You know how in tests that you do in in in the world here in the educational system, you're told that the test is going to be on a certain set of m certain subject matter. If you're writing a chemistry test, let's say, 0:55 they're not going to ask you who the 15th president of the United States is. So, if you're spending your time studying civics or political history in for the chemistry test, you're studying the wrong book. That's essentially what 1:09 Jesus was telling the Pharisees. You're studying something, but I'm not going to ask you that. Go and learn what it is that I'm going to ask you on the final day. This is what God is going to ask us on the final day. Did you have 1:21 compassion? Were you merciful? And I talked in that message about how I believe that true loyalty to God is this is that we become merciful like he is. That we partake of his nature of mercy in dealing with others. Others who may 1:37 think differently from us others even who are not don't believe in Jesus Christ. And that's why the tax gatherers and the prostitutes and the the wicked men so-called wicked men of Jesus day were drawn to the son of God. They were 1:52 drawn to God himself and repulsed by those who claimed to represent God, the Pharisees. You would never find a tax gatherer or a prostitute in the synagogues while the Pharisees were preaching. But take Jesus and put him 2:06 into one of those rooms where he was having a party and they congregated to him. They knew there was something different about him. And we must learn that lesson. We must go home and learn what Jesus requires of us if we are to 2:19 call if we are to truly follow in Jesus' example. So in Matthew chapter 9, we looked at verses 9 through13. I'd like us to look at the next four verses after that. Matthew 9:14. And I've titled the message letting go of the old wine skin. 2:34 You're probably familiar with this term. It's in the it's in the Gospels. Jesus talks about old wine and new wine, old wine skins and new wine skins. I find that there's very little teaching in Christendom on this matter. And so 2:50 perhaps you'll hear something today that you haven't heard before. Maybe you've heard it before. Either way, it's very important for us to recognize what is the new wine and the new wine skin. We all know that we are part of the new 3:02 covenant. We're in a new covenant relationship with Jesus. we're no longer under the old covenant. But for a lot of people, that just means that um I don't have to read the Torah anymore. I or I don't have to follow those Jewish 3:17 customs. I pray to Jesus. I believe in the Messiah. But it's so much more than that. There must be a new way of living that proves that I'm under the new covenant. And we'll talk a little bit about that today. So in Matthew 9:14, 3:32 I'll begin reading there. Now, this is right after the verse I was just referring to was the previous verse. Verse 13. Go and learn what this means. I desire compassion and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous but sinners. Then 3:50 right after this, the disciples of John came to him asking, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" So, let's pause there for a moment. There's three groups of people here. Well, let's talk about four groups 4:04 of people. There's the Pharisees who we know a lot about them. We kind of looked at how Jesus addressed them in the previous few verses. Then there's the disciples of John who were a little bit better than the Pharisees. 4:19 They weren't as legalistic, but you hear a question that shows a little bit about what kind of life they lived and what their understanding of God was. And then there's the Pharisee, I mean the tax gatherers and the prostitutes, the 4:33 so-called sinful people of the world. And then there's Jesus, God himself. And Jesus, God himself, is moving among these other three groups of people. And this, it's interesting to see his interactions with them. We already 4:46 looked at his interactions with the Pharisees. Now, the disciples of John come to him and say, "Hey, listen. You're God. If you call yourself to be the son of God, why is it that we who have been taught to fast, we who believe 5:00 that our fasting is an is a expression of devotion to God fast so much, but you who claim to be the son of God don't fast at all. It seems like and your disciples, they don't fast at all. Now, the context of this, if you read a few 5:16 verses before, and we looked at that a couple of weeks ago, was that Jesus was sitting in a party. I mean, there's no other word to describe it. He was actually at a party and it wasn't a holy party if you're used to those kinds of 5:27 parties. This was there was a lot of sinful people around them. Now, I don't believe for a moment that Jesus was sinning himself or condoning sin in any way. Jesus was not drunk. Jesus wasn't partaking in the lensiousness that may 5:40 have gone on around him in the world. But he was there for a reason. He was there, like he said in verse 13, to draw the sinners, the sick. And he said, "I go to the synagogues and I don't find sick people there. I find people who 5:54 think they're healthy. I'm going to go to where can I find really sick people who know they're sick?" And he says, "It seems to be at the party. So, I'm going to go there." And he went there looking for these sick people. Now, the 6:06 disciples of John and the Pharisees, the disciples of John looked at that and thought, "How could this possibly be God? How could God who is so holy and so pure, if he is truly the son of God, how could he place himself in the midst of 6:20 such wickedness? And Jesus said to them, verse 15, "The attendance of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?" But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they 6:37 will fast. But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor do people put new wine into new wine skins. No, nor do people put new wine 6:57 into old wine skins. Otherwise, the wine skins burst and the wine pours out and the wine skins are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wine skins and both are preserved. Now before that, I wanted to read this talking about mercy. Again, 7:13 these are, I believe, quotes. I can't remember. I wrote it down a while back. I think they're from a message that Charles Spurgeon preached years ago. You probably heard of Charles Spurgeon. I was struck by this again just 7:24 reflecting on the message I preached a couple weeks ago about mercy that I did a little bit of research afterwards and found that as far as I know there is only one place where God is described this 7:41 way that he is he is rich in something. Now we know God is rich. It talks about the riches of the glory of his grace, the riches of his kindness, and all those other things, the the the things that God bestows on us that he does 7:55 richly. But there's only one place that I could find this phrase, God is rich in like it's his identity. I wanted to show you that. It's in Ephesians chapter 2. If there's something that you should strive, now I don't want to say you 8:13 because I hate to point fingers and if I ever say you, please understand I include myself in it. So let let me rephrase that. If there's one thing that we should strive to be rich in, it's not the richness in the world. Don't strive 8:27 to get more of the the riches of this world because it'll pass away. If God blesses you with it and you have the opportunity to excel and to earn more, do it by all means. But this must be the pursuit of our lives to be rich in the 8:41 things that God is rich in. And it says here in Ephesians 2:4 that God being rich in mercy. Think about being rich in mercy for a moment. Let's pause there for a moment and and and meditate on that. What does it really mean? If I was 8:56 a really really rich man, think about the richest man in the world. Um I think it's still Bill Gates. I'm not sure. But anyway, you wouldn't expect him to run into an issue where all of a sudden his credit card is declined or uh oh, hold 9:10 on. I don't have enough money. You expect him that no matter what the cost, no matter what the situation he's placed in, he's got plenty of money on hand because he's the richest man in the world. Think about setting it as our 9:21 goal to be rich that way in mercy. Imagine if every single one of us set our goal to be the richest person in this world in mercy. Which means what? That I'm never in a situation where I run out of mercy. My credit card of 9:38 mercy is never going to be declined because no matter what no matter how I'm treated, no matter what words they say to me, no matter what things they do to me, no matter what situation I'm put put in, because I've set it as my goal to be 9:50 rich in mercy like God is rich in mercy, my credit card always works. I'm always ready with mercy towards that brother, towards that sister, towards my children, towards my wife, towards my husband, towards my coworker, towards 10:03 the person on this on this road who cuts me off or whoever it might be. And I confess that I find myself that the credit card is declined every now and then. I find something welling up within when something, you know, I I'm pretty 10:17 good at controlling it for the most part and I can I can uh up to a certain uh limit. I'm pretty good at mercy, but beyond that, I find I run out and it's the goal of my life to be rich in mercy, to seek to be the richest person in this 10:32 world in mercy so that I'm never running out. Look at this phrase. This is how rich God has been in mercy to us. And I say I I put this down there for you to be encouraged by. There never was a night so dark but that God had a star 10:48 shining through its blackness. There never was a night so dark but that God had a star shining through its blackness. Now think about the situations in your life where somebody is so black or so dark towards you. Is there still a star of mercy shining? God 11:05 loves you that way. And I want you to know, my dear friend, if you feel like you're in the pitch darkness, if it's pitch black around you in the midst of your life, and you're not sure what the future holds, and you don't know how 11:17 this situation is going to get worked out, and your life seems hopeless, I want you to know that there is a star shining. You may not be able to see it yet, but this is true about God. Because he's rich in mercy, God has a star 11:28 shining through your blackness even today. Now, listen to this. There never was a desert so dreary that God could lead a people through it and make the wilderness rejoice. See, that's a powerful phrase. God is in the business 11:42 of finding desolate wildernesses and making those wildernesses rejoice. I don't believe he gets as much glory of from our rejoicing when things are well. You know, if you've been having a good week and you could sing the songs we 11:56 sang this morning, God is good all the time because you had a good week, that's one thing and it's good to do it then. But I bet there's some of you here who have had a rough week who who just face situations in the last while where you 12:08 started to lose hope. And if you could sing those words with faith, with confidence, not just because we're clapping and everybody else around me is singing, so I guess I have to. But if you find that song welling up from deep 12:19 within that God really is good all the time and all the time God is good then God gets glory out of it because he wants you in your wilderness moment and in your wilderness experience to be rejoicing there. I know the time will 12:34 come when you will be in green pastures. But can you sing the song that God is good all the time in that wilderness? Then God gets glory. Then God will show forth you as the son and daughter of light at the end of your life and say 12:47 world look you all children of this world children of darkness went through horrible times and complained and moaned and groaned and you made it through at the end of it. See everybody's going to get through their trial one way or the 13:00 other. What identifies Christians, and we've talked about this already, what identifies us as the children of God is this, is that we don't complain and grumble. You know, that's what the Bible says. Philippians, turn over a couple 13:11 pages. [Music] Philippians chapter 2. When you can go through your wilderness experience, through that journey, that trial, that heartache, that that um that those weeds and all of that around you and make it through 13:31 without grumbling or complaining, then you prove that you're a child of God. You're a child of God. Then we prove that we're children of God. If we just make it through, then there's no difference between us and those of every 13:40 other religion because everybody else is suffering. Guess what? I thought about this. You know, ISIS is not just killing Christians. They're killing everybody, I mean, around them. Anybody they don't like, they're killing them. People of 13:52 all religions are suffering persecution and heartache. People of all religions, worldly, ungodly, unrighteous people, all of them have sickness and have uh children who die and have uh loss in their life. The fact that you have loss 14:08 doesn't mean that you're a child of God. What is it that proves that we're children of God? Philippians 2:14. Well, first of all, you must read verse 12. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my 14:20 presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because God, the God we believe in, the only true God, is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So now that you 14:35 know God, your heavenly father, is the one working in you and causing all things to work together for good because you love him, that's Romans 8:28. So you and I can experience verse 14 and obey verse 14, which is this. Do all things 14:50 without grumbling or disputing or complaining all things. And then you need a credit card that doesn't run out of money. You want you want to be able to go you have to be able to go through the deepest darkest trial and know that 15:04 even in that what's going to come out of you is not grumbling and complaining. Why? Verse 15. Because by doing so, you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God. Yes, I know you and I are children 15:18 of God because we're born again and the Holy Spirit cries out within us, aba, father, daddy. Romans 8:15. But after I find that cry, daddy, coming out from within me through the Holy Spirit, now when I face a circumstance, I have the 15:32 assurance that I'm a child of God because I find that in my nature, I would be a grumbler and a complainer and I'd be looking at that person and how good their life is and looking at him and looking at her and think, Lord, why 15:44 couldn't you have given me their life? Why couldn't I have married that husband? Why couldn't I have married that wife? Or why could I I have had that job instead of that? I find that the Holy Spirit within me who's crying 15:55 out, "Daddy," says, "Santo, you have a daddy. What does it matter if your life is different or worse by your estimation than somebody else's? You have a diet, a daddy, so don't grumble or complain." You see how those verses express that. 16:10 So there never was a desert so deary, dreary, but God could lead a people through it and make the wilderness rejoice. And God is recording these wilderness moments in your life. know it. Psalm 58, I believe it says he's 16:24 collected every tear you've cried in a bottle. He's measured them. He's counting them drop by drop. And it's okay that you cry during those wilderness moments. That's okay. That's the soul expressing its anguish. But don't let your spirit be dragged down by 16:38 it. Let your spirit have let your soul have an anchor. Let that spirit that that faith in God be an anchor for your soul like he says in Hebrews 6 so that you know that you can walk through your trial and your circumstance without 16:51 grumbling and complaining. Okay. Now I that was just the introduction. I felt like I wanted to share that. But we're talking here in Matthew chapter 9 about this these new wine and new wine skins and old wine and old wine skins. I 17:08 thought today I would just take a few moments to explain what I believe that means. I believe the greatest danger we face as a church is that when the wine runs out, we will continue to serve the old wine pretending everything is okay. 17:24 Let me say that again. I really believe and I put myself as one of the leaders in this church at the front of the line. I believe the greatest danger to my Christian life is this. I say it unashamedly and I pray that God will 17:37 make it not so. But this is the greatest danger that when the wine runs out, I'll continue to serve old wine pretending everything is okay. The situation I'm talking about is from John chapter 2. You probably know the story, but let's 17:52 look at it very briefly. In John chapter 2, this was the very first miracle that Jesus did. They went to a wedding. Jesus was always at parties. Now, don't take that the wrong way. Um, if you can handle the parties like Jesus did, then that's the 18:08 right place to be. It it's your heart. Jesus did everything. Jesus didn't go to parties because he liked going there. He went to parties because the father said you need to be there. He did everything out of obedience to his father. He 18:18 didn't do ever do one thing that the father didn't ask him to do. So, even though when the father said, "Hey, go to that party. Go to that wedding where they're not they're not doing Christian things. They're not singing songs and 18:29 they're not praying to Jehovah. They're just having a party. But I want you to go there. Jesus did think, "Oh, well, what would people think? You know, father, I'm the son of God. What will they think about you, father? If I go 18:40 there and place myself in the midst of all this wickedness, that's Phariseism. That's legalism." And Jesus was found where the father wanted him to be, wherever that was. So, the story is essentially this. I don't have time to 18:52 read it, but essentially, he was at the party with at the wedding feast with his disciples and his family. At least his mother was there. Perhaps it was somebody he knew and the disciples knew as well. And um the wine ran 19:07 out. So the wine ran out. Now the we'll talk about what the new the wine is and the and the wine skin is. But let me say this right now that the wine is that life of Christ. You know how it is when you're when you were first born again 19:22 and you had this wellspring from within, a burning desire to really live your life for God and to really be pleasing to him. There was this passionate desire, however weak it might have been at that time, to be pleasing to God. 19:34 Jesus was everything that mattered to you at that time because he just forgiven you of your sins. You were so thankful that you didn't have to go to hell. You had a future to look forward to both on this earth and in eternity. 19:45 That's that new wine. But what happened after a few days, weeks, months, perhaps a few years, the wine started to run out and you could, you know what we do as Christians? I've done this myself and perhaps you have as well. You start to 19:59 serve old wine. You think, well, let me get some water. Let me bring some water and dil, you know, I notice the wine's running out and I'm afraid of it. So, I start to dilute the water. Dilute the wine with water to make it last a little 20:12 bit longer. And then there's very little wine in the taste. It's mostly just water with a little bit of acidic taste to it and it's bitter and it's and it's got a like just a a blah feeling to it. It's not like the sweet wine that that 20:25 it started out with. This is the picture that we're given. You know, it says in John 2, I'll skip down to the end. Verse 11, the end of this parable. It says this beginning of his signs. It's interesting that the book of John, the 20:39 gospel of John calls these miracles signs. That means they were a symbol. It wasn't just a miracle. Oh, somebody's dead. Let me bring it back to life. Somebody's lame. Let me heal him. There's no wine. Let me make wine out of 20:52 nothing. Out of water, convert it into wine. Jesus didn't do miracles just for the sake of doing miracles. John makes that clear. He did miracles as a sign. That's why John uses the word sign. So when you read the miracle, when you and 21:04 I read the miracle, we must say, Lord, what is the object lesson here? What am I supposed to learn from the fact that you turned water into wine all the way back in Kaa 2,000 years ago? This is what I must learn. That when the wine 21:18 runs out, don't try to serve people water. When the wine runs out and you're tempted to and you and you find that there's a lack of that life coming from deep within the the the nature of God, you find that patience is something you 21:31 have to manufacture. Love for that person that seems unlovable is something you have to manufacture. If it's something you have to make, it's not the new wine. It's you trying to dilute it. Yeah, there's traces of the new wine, 21:45 but you're adding your mix into it. We're good at serving water. Only Jesus can serve the new wine. So, the greatest danger we face as a church is that when the wine runs out, we will continue to serve the old wine, pretending 21:57 everything is okay, putting on a front, coming to church, coming to the church meetings, saying, "Look at me. I'm living a good life." And really inside, everything is shriveled up and dying. the new wine. Well, you know the story 22:12 in case you don't, but this is essentially what happened. They came to Jesus or they came his mother Mary came to Jesus and said, "They're out of wine." And Jesus said, "Woman, what do I have to do with you? My time has not yet 22:23 come. I'm not yet going to serve this uh my the father hasn't given me any direction yet." But eventually he did. And you know the story. He asked the servants to fill up water pots with water. And the moment they took dipped a 22:38 cup into it to serve it, it was instantly transformed to wine. So let's look at this. What is this? What is the sign? What is the symbol here? What is it that we're supposed to learn from this miracle? The old life, the old wine 22:51 is essentially this life under the law. See, we're all introduced to the law. The law is for most of us a a by path that we take to come to Jesus. We learn about Jesus, but then we find that because of our human nature and our 23:07 desire to be pleasing to God, we find a way to please God through the law. The reason for that is essentially this. Have you ever wondered why is it that when we trust God for forgiveness of our sins and realize I can never do anything 23:21 to earn my forgiveness of sins after that we find within us a desire to earn our being acceptable to God. You see that when when I when I come to God and my sins are still not forgiven, I say, "Well, Lord, I can't do anything to pay 23:35 for my sins because the punishment of sin, the wages of sin is eternal death. And I I can't suffer that and still have a life. So, I trust you completely, Lord Jesus, by your death that you have forgiven my sins completely." And that's 23:48 I don't I know I can't earn my forgiveness. But now, as I live my life, I find that in order to live by the standard that God asked me to live, I try to do it myself. I think, well, I can do this. I can dress a certain way. 24:00 I can listen to certain types of music where I used to listen to that before. I can only I can fast. I can pray. I can get up in the morning and spend two hours with the Bible. I can do all these things to be pleasing to God. And God, I 24:13 imagine God in heaven looking down says, "You trusted me for salvation. You know, you couldn't do anything about it. Why is it that you're trying to earn your acceptance before me? Why is it that you're trying to manufacture a 24:24 righteousness?" This is old wine where I think, "Wow, Lord, uh the reason my day is not going well is because I didn't spend half an hour with you in the Bible." You ever done that? I've done it. And then when I was in school, if I 24:36 had a test or a big exam that day, I have to be absolutely certain that I read my Bible because if if you don't read your Bible, you know, God's going to make you flunk your test. You know how the devil likes to paint this 24:46 picture of God as a mean taskmaster? This is what the law tends to do to us. You can't blame the law. The law says you must live up to this standard. And why are you not living up to the standard? That's what the law says. And 24:59 he's absolutely right. The law is absolutely right that I should be living by that standard of righteousness. And I'm not living by that standard of righteousness. But it does me no good just to tell me that I'm not living by 25:09 that standard. And so what do I do? I try to jump hoops. You know, the hurdles one high. Okay, I can do that. Well, then God in his mercy shows me that the standard is actually 3 ft high. Now, if you're a good jumper, maybe you can jump 25:22 three feet. Well, then God in his mercy shows you actually the standards even higher than that. What are you going to do when you're presented with a 10-ft wall, spiritually speaking, and you've been used to working up enough energy or 25:36 or running from further back just to get over that circumstance that you've been able to get by all these years, God's going to continue to raise the standard to the standard of Christ himself until you realize, I can never live up to that 25:50 standard of Christ unless you lift me up. Unless you, like he promised in Isaiah 40, if I wait upon the Lord, he I will re renew my strength and mount up with wings like eagles. How hard is it for an eagle to cross a 100ft wall? Tell 26:06 me. Because the difference is this. The eagle is born up by its wings that are renewed. The eagle is carried. The eagle is designed to fly above no matter what. You could raise a skyscraper 1,000 ft tall and the eagle would still have no 26:20 problem going over it. This is the new wine. This is the Christian life. And my dear friend, if you're on this on the ground struggling and finding that the mountain as you get closer is even higher than you thought. From a mile 26:34 away, it looked like, okay, I can handle that. But as that circumstance is now facing you right now in this very moment, you realize what am I going to do? And then we must find ourselves falling on our face before God and says, "I 26:48 cannot ever in my wildest dreams manufacture enough energy or stamina to make it over this mountain. You must lift me up." Then you've come to the new wine. If you're running out of wine, instead of trying to find wine somewhere 27:02 else or dilute the wine a little bit more, a little bit more, make it last, make a little last a little bit more, just get rid of the water. Get rid of those efforts to try to please the people around you with that diluted 27:14 stuff and come to Jesus and say, "I have no wine." Look at that in John 2 verse three. These are good words for you to remember, for us to remember. Dear friend, if you're in a place where you feel like a failure, where you feel 27:28 like there's hopelessness, when the wine ran out, verse three, John 2:3, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine. Now, don't wait for somebody else to go to Jesus and say they have no wine. Don't wait for Phil or I as we interact 27:47 with you. Go to Jesus says, "Father, they don't have wine." You go to God because he's your father. Jesus is your older brother. He wants you to come to him and say, "Lord Jesus, I have no wine." That's the I have a reputation. 27:59 I've been a Christian for 20 years and people think I'm this good person, but the reality is deep down I have no wine. Jesus will do a miracle for you. Then you come to him, he'll turn that water into wine supernaturally. The new wine, by 28:16 contrast, is the glory of God himself, his very nature, or as we read about in Galatians 5:22-2, the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, self-control, all of these things against which there is no law. Now, 28:33 there's two ways to go about that. I can try to manufacture a love. Let's say I come across somebody who's really difficult to love. They did something somewhat hurtful to me or they they said something to me. So I go there and I 28:46 work out the circumstance and I manufacture a love for that person. Okay. Well, now what's God going to do? He realized that what I came up with in that circumstance where I needed the divine nature of love was a human love. 28:59 I came up with a human version of love that I've dressed up to look like the divine nature of love and I think I'm loving this person. Well, then God will allow me to come to another circumstance where I have to love somebody that I 29:11 don't have the human ability to love and it's just they've hurt me way way way too much. I can't ever forgive that person. And God says, "Oh, you must." And now the the the bar has been raised so high that I come to God and says, 29:24 "Lord, I've been trying to manufacture a love for this person. The reality is I realize now that as long as the hurdle was only a foot tall, it was fine. And I realize that what I've been using to get over these hurdles was just my human 29:37 strength because the hurdles were so small. And now that I'm faced with this enormous mountain, I have no option but to come to you and fall on my knees and say, "I have no wine or joy. I find that in cir circumstances I can be joyful. I 29:51 can be pretty content and you know I can ride out the storm a little bit and keep my joy but then the Lord will allow something to happen to me so horrible perhaps and allow me to go through such loss that now what I need is real joy. 30:03 Now I'm faced with a mountain that's so high that it's going to take the divine nature of joy to experience what God wants me to have. Likewise with all the nature of God, peace. If you feel like you have peace in your life because 30:16 you've got things under control, you planned your day out perfectly and there's peace and you're looking at your schedule and thinking, "Ah, I have a peaceful day ahead of me." Guess what? God will come and just shake it up a 30:25 little bit. Why? Because he doesn't ever want you to stand before him with the righteousness of your own according to the law like Paul said in Philippians 3. Wouldn't you rather find out now that the righteousness you have, whether it's 30:39 love or joy or peace or kindness or anything else is some manufactured righteousness than to find out at the end when it's too late to do anything about it? That's why God is allowing you, if you're going through them right 30:50 now, my dear brother, dear sister, to go through that trial, to go through that intense difficulty because he's by he is so passionately determined to give you his nature. He is so I mean see it as his love for you my dear friend because 31:05 he he wants you to be like him so much so that he doesn't want you to get by in your life with this human version of the nature of of goodness human righteousness he wants you to have his righteousness and in order to have that 31:21 you need the nature of God and he'll give it to you come to him and say I have no wine so not superhuman I have that on there too. Not superhuman, but supernatural. See, you know, you know, I I find this tendency in myself as well 31:39 that if the trial gets a little bit more difficult, I'm going to come up with some I'm going to dig a little bit deeper. I'm going to be a little bit more disciplined. I'm going to try to get my ducks in order to come up with a 31:48 superhuman effort to get over that mountain. And God says, "Okay, maybe you'll get through this mountain with your superhuman effort. I'm going to raise the bar even more." And he'll keep raising the bar higher and higher till 32:00 you finally say all this superhumity is not the life of Christ. Jesus wasn't a superhuman. Jesus was supernatural. He was human. He was in flesh. He was tempted in all points as you are. But the power with which he overcame was a completely different 32:15 nature. It wasn't water that he they served and said just pretend that it's wine. It was real wine. It was water that had been turned into wine miraculously, supernaturally. This is what Jesus wants to do for you and I. This is why he's our example. 32:31 This is why he said I he I have been temp he he has been tempted in all points as we are yet without sin so that he can be a merciful and compassionate high priest for me where when I find that I run into a situation where I'm 32:43 out of mercy or out of love or out of joy. I can go to Jesus and say, "Lord Jesus, your word tells me that you were once in a situation exactly like me, where people treated you even worse than me, and yet you never sinned even once." 32:56 There even there wasn't even a a passing notion of sin in you. You didn't even for a moment has a have a resentful attitude or a complaining spirit. Not even for a fraction of a second. How did you do it? I have no wine. Jesus said, 33:13 "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden of trying to jump over the 100 foot mountains and then the thousand foot mountains and you just say, "I'm tired." This Christian life is tiring. It is, my dear friend, if you're trying 33:27 to climb over that mountain yourself. But he says, "Take my yoke upon you." You know those verses, Matthew 11, my burden is easy and light. Learn from me and you will learn to fly. fly. I mean, as effortless as it is for an eagle to 33:39 fly, how tiring is it for an eagle to fly in the sky? Watch them sometime. They just soar. Instead, you and I try to climb the top of this building and try to flap our wings and jump off. You know, the Christian life is not like that. God 33:53 doesn't want you to climb up to the mountain and then expect to fly by flapping these arms of yours. I mean, you can flap them a million times a second and you still won't be able to fly. He wants to give you the nature 34:04 that flies. He wants to give you his new wine. And it doesn't come by more trying and doing it a little bit better and getting up a little bit earlier to study the Bible. Now, please do that if God wants you to. And it's good to be 34:15 disciplined. But that is not the basis of our victory. The basis of our victory is faith. I come to God in faith says, "Lord, yeah, I want to get up early in the morning because I want to know you and I want to spend time in prayer with 34:28 you and I want to get more from you, but the bottom line is that is not going to be why I barter with you." Well, Lord, I got up early and I spent half an hour with you. You better make sure this business proposal comes through for me. 34:40 God is not a barterer. You can't barter the human nature with the divine nature of God. Well, God, I did this and I was I I I I I uh I avoided sin in that situation and I I walked carefully and I did this other thing and I did that 34:53 other thing and I've obeyed the tenets of of Christianity as I understand them. Now, you better come through for me. God says, "No, come to me in brokenness and emptiness. Take my yoke upon you at whatever cost and you will find my 35:07 nature coming out from within you. This is the new wine. Now, it's received by those who judge themselves. If you if you're busy judging others over their standard of life, how they're so worldly or they they do this or they do that other thing 35:21 and they don't do this and how can it be. If your eyes are focused on others, you will miss the new wine. It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. Peter says, "This is the mark of those who are partaking of the new wine 35:34 is that they judge themselves." No matter what they see around them, no matter what sin that there is around them, no matter what unworldliness or immodesty or um television programs or what the Republicans say or the Democrats say, no matter what all is 35:47 going on around that, there's one person that they are focused on in terms of judgment and that is themselves. And it is when we judge ourselves in the light of Jesus that we find that there is no condemnation at all. See, one thing will 35:59 happen when you look at others. Two things will happen. One, you'll probably get pride if you think that you're better than them. You look at somebody else who's more worldly or more this or more that and you think, "Well, I thank 36:10 you, Lord, that I'm not like that person sitting across the the the pew next to me. I'm not I'm not I'm not like that person." Okay, that's pride. That's phariseism. The other thing it'll do is if you think that somebody is better 36:23 than you or has more than you is it'll result in jealousy. says, "Lord, why can't I have what they have? Why can't you give me that? Why did you allow my lot in life to be like this?" Both of those will drag you into condemnation, 36:34 discouragement, and the old wine. Instead, I say, "Lord, yeah, you've allowed them to have that and you allow them to have that and they're living by their convictions. That's fine. But there's only one person that matters in 36:46 terms of who I'm concerned, and that's me. And that is me saying, "I want to be pleasing to you. I want to be conformed into the image of Jesus. I look at my life and I see Christ's life and I say I'm not I'm nowhere close to that. I 36:59 don't care who I'm better than or worse than by my own estimation. I look at Jesus and I look at myself and say I have such a long way to go. How can I waste my time focusing on how they are living their life or how they're living 37:11 their life? I want to look to Jesus. And here's the beautiful thing. When you see Jesus whose perfection in every area, he is the nature of God embodied. You see it in its perfection and you see yourself so far from it because you 37:26 looked at Jesus and looked at yourself, he says, "Come, I'll help you. I will give you my nature because you are judging yourself. If you judge others, you will be judged. But if you judge yourself and you come to me and says, 37:38 "Lord Jesus, I've looked at my nature and I'm not looking at anybody else and I don't say I'm better than at least I'm not as bad as that person. I see that I'm not like you in this area. This is not how you would have spoken to your 37:49 wife if you were married. This is how not how this is not how the nature of Christ speaks to its husband. This is not how the nature of Christ interacts with people around them. I want to be like you. And Jesus says, "Come, I will do 38:02 that. I will give you my nature." It's received by those who judge themselves and it's produced by God breaking our self-will. That's why I believe that many people, many Christians are not really living the new 38:21 covenant life. Why many Christians still have the old wine? We cannot fully experience the new wine with even a little bit of self on the throne. See, that's the thing. It's an exchange. God says, "You want this new wine. You want my divine nature. It 38:39 is all of me and none of you. or if you want a little bit of you, you can't have any of me. This is the exchange. Listen to this carefully. When God says, "I will give you this divine nature. I will make you like me. I will conform you 38:51 into the image of my son Jesus." When the father tells us that, he says, "But here's the condition. You must give me all of you." You can't have a little bit of Santosh and then the rest of it divine nature. It doesn't mix because 39:02 that's the human and the divine nature trying to mix together. Jesus was human in body but divine in nature. His nature was 100% divine. And even though he was in flesh, he was tempted in all points as we are, there was no mixture of self 39:18 with God in Jesus. Now, he was tempted. Jesus had a will. Jesus had that temptation to put self on the throne and to please himself. But like it says, I think in Romans 15, Jesus never pleased himself. Jesus never for a moment 39:34 allowed there to be even. 0.1% of self. and he is our example. So if I have any interest in myself, if I have a little bit of I want this well Lord I let you I I want all that you want. I want love and joy and peace but 39:50 I want this little bit of self-seeking to remain this one area. Don't ask me to give that up Lord. I love that too much. Don't ask me to give up those movies I like to watch. Don't ask me to give up that activity, that hobby I have because 40:01 that's I mean every every man needs his relaxation. Don't ask me to give up that. If there's a little bit of self there, God says, "Okay, you can have yourself, but I can't give you my divine nature. My light cannot mix with your 40:14 darkness." What fellowship has light with darkness? And now, if you don't know of it, God will in his mercy show you that darkness and allow you to give it up. But we cannot fully experience the new wine with even a little bit of 40:28 self on the throne. And this is why so many Christians miss it. This is why, let me talk for my own example. I missed it for so many years because as a Christian I was content with the form of religiosity that I had that I looked 40:43 like a Christian. You know how Christians have a look about them. They have a look about them. Just look around you, you'll see it. They have a look around around them. And I was content that having become a Christian, I 40:53 fulfilled the norms that I that that Christianom expects of me. which means that I I come to church and I I'm dressed properly and I sing the songs and I come to the I fulfill my obligation to the church and those kinds 41:05 of things and I'm dotting the eyes and crossing the tees and I think I'm a Christian but self was still on the throne and it's no wonder that the wine ran out cuz self was still on the throne now the old wineskin is this the old 41:21 wineskin is when the wine has run out and u what I find what I do in my life. What we do in our lives is to put certain things around us like I was talking about certain norms that we we we we fulfill and we dress a certain way 41:36 or we speak a certain way or we sing certain songs or we we talk in a particular way because this is Christianes you know it's like American and Chinese and all the other language there's Christianes there's a there's a 41:47 way of conducting ourselves that we look Christian to others and that's the old wineskin that's this religiosity that's this thinking that if I behave a certain way around others and present this image to others somehow that is true 42:00 Christianity. And what Jesus was saying is you cannot put the new wine in the old wine skin. You cannot allow yourself to be just to think that you're justified by before God and accepted by him because of these activities that you 42:15 do. Goes back to what we read in Matthew chapter 9. The disciples of John thought that in order to be pleasing to God, we must fast. We must pray. We must go to the synagogue on time. We must do this. We must do that. must do the other thing 42:27 and then when Jesus came who called himself the son of God and wasn't doing those things they thought shouldn't you be fasting our understanding of God tells us that we should act this way we should fast and then Jesus said you cannot put 42:41 new wine into old wine skins so the old wineskin is wine skins that were once new but have died they become old and I'll give you an example of things like that is your service to God today out of obligation. Well, yeah, I'm a Christian. 42:59 I guess I should give money to God. I guess I should give my time to God. I I guess I should go to the church meeting because I owe it to God after all. I don't really want to go. I'd rather be out playing basketball or golf or 43:12 watching the football game, but I guess I should. Lord, let me just go and do my token appearance and leave right after that because my heart is somewhere else. No love. That's an old wine skin. Jesus would rather you get rid of the the wine 43:25 skin all alto together. Don't even come to church. It's kind of what Jesus said. He told the church in Leodysia, I would rather you be cold than this lukewarmness. You know how lukewarm water just has a it's it's neither hot 43:37 nor cold. I mean, hot water has a purpose. Cold water has a purpose. Lukewarm water just has no purpose at all. And that's what Jesus said. It it's it's foul in my mouth. I expect hot water with my tea and then it's lukewarm. Just tepid water. Or I expect 43:50 a cold drink and it's tepid. and I spit it out of my mouth. It's exactly what he told the church in Leodysia. What was it? He says, "You guys, you don't love me." Yeah, you're there at all the meetings and you're there at the prayer 44:02 meeting and you're showing your face and everybody thinks this is a hot brother, but the reality is I know inside you're tepid. You have a name that you are alive, he told the church, the leader in the church in Sardis, but the reality is 44:13 dead. He says, "You think that you are rich and have need of nothing." He told Leodysia, "But you don't realize that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. There's no wine in there." And I hope that the leader in the church in 44:26 Leodysia came to Jesus and said, "I have no wine. I think I am rich and wealthy and have need of nothing. But the reality is I'm wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, and I've seen it because you've spoken to me out of your 44:39 love for me. Lord Jesus, give me your wine." No faith. That means I'm serving God, but I don't really know if he's going to come through. I'm going through this trial. I'm going through this harassing circumstance, and I'm just 44:52 going to make it through because I have to. I don't have an option. I can't just walk away from my faith and just call myself an atheist now because I know too much and I'm afraid of God, of what he might do to me. I'll tell you honestly, 45:04 those are temptations I face as well. And if you if you relate to that, praise God. There's hope for us. But there are times when I think, well, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm afraid of God and what he might do to me, I might just 45:15 walk away from being a Christian altogether. The devil loves to plant those seeds of unbelief into your mind, into our minds. If we do anything out of unbelief, without faith, well Lord, okay, I'm going to do this, but I don't 45:28 think you're going to come through. I'm not sure if you will. God says, well, I can't then. According to your faith, be it unto you. My dear brother, dear sister, God will come through. God has come through for every single one of 45:39 them man, woman or child who put their trust in him. Another dead work is without joy. Well, okay, I'll drag my feet. Show up. No joy. Joy is gone out of the Christian life. And if you're there, now I'm not talking about 45:52 emotion. You know, some people are a little bit bubblier than others, and that's fine. I'm not talking about the soloulishness, but I'm talking about a joy where I when I'm around others, people are are infected, if I can use 46:03 that word, with the spirit of joy that comes out with from me no matter what the circumstance I'm going through. They spend a few minutes talking to me and they're like, "Man, that's a joyful person. He's weeping when he tells me 46:14 what he's going through in his life, but I find that the spirit of joy dwells with there within. I covet that life more and more." My dear brothers and sisters, doing things for the approval of others. This is a new wine skin. 46:25 Are you a member of this church because you want to be approved by others? You think, well, this is a church. This is my home. I need to show my token service. So, I want people to approve of me. It's a dead work. It's a new wine 46:37 skin. It will burst. Jesus said, "The new wine, if you really have the new wine inside of you and you put this old wine skin around it, it will burst." And I've had bursting moments in my life where I put the new wine into an old 46:49 wine skin and I was content that everybody else had an opinion of me that was good and then it burst. Thing came crashing down on me. I thank God for it. Thank God if he's taken you through those bursting moments in your life 47:01 where the old wine skin burst so that you realize why waste your time with this old wine skin. Come to Jesus and he will show you new wine that he can you can put in new wine skins. You know, preaching the new wine may not 47:14 get you crucified, but exposing the old wine skin will. When Jesus, if Jesus, if all Jesus talked about was you must do to others as they do unto you and uh be merciful and all that, they wouldn't have killed him. But the moment he 47:28 started to question the traditions of the Pharisees and their uh their religious garb and their religious veneer, the moment he probed through that and peeled back the covers and said, "Look, behind this garb, behind this form of godliness is death, is 47:43 skull and bones, that made them mad." And if we are a church that is proclaiming the new wine and the new wines skins, we will be hated. We will be persecuted. The devil will come after us because he doesn't want Christians 47:56 who are in this slumber of religious religiosity around them to be shown the true nature, the true the reality of what's underneath. So preaching the new wine may not get you crucified. I have that on there too. But preaching against 48:10 the old wineskin will. I thought in closing, I'm sorry I've gone over a little bit, but I wanted to read this from the Living Bible in Isaiah chapter 30. You can turn there with me. But Isaiah 30 is a a wonderful passage where Jesus promises 48:27 where God promises to do this in us to give us this nature to give us the new wine. I just have a few of those phrases on there, but I'm going to read from uh verse 15 onward. So Isaiah 30:15, and you can I'm reading from the Living 48:43 Bible. You can follow in whatever translation or paraphrase you have. Isaiah 30:15. Listen carefully, church. For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, says, "Only in returning to me and waiting for me will you be 49:01 saved." Just return to me and wait for me, you will be saved. In quietness and confidence. I think of it like a quiet confidence where it's not this striving. It's not this busyness. It's not this I'm going to do better and I'm going to 49:17 do this and I'm going to change that. I'm going to be more disciplined. It's a quiet confidence. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But Israel said, "I'll have none of this." No, you say, "We will get our help from Egypt. I 49:35 will try that other thing. I'll get up a little bit earlier. I'll fast for 40 days or I'll do that other thing. They will give us swift horses for riding to battle." This is verse 16. But the only swiftness you are going to see is the 49:48 swiftness of your enemies chasing you. And the more you try, the deeper you fall. And the more you think, well, I'm going to spin my wheels a little bit faster, the deeper the rut gets. I've been there, my friends. One of them will chase a 50:03 thousand of you. Verse 17. Five of them will scatter you until not two of you are left together. You will be like lonely trees on the distant mountain tops. Yet verse 18, I love the yets and the buts in the Bible. Yet the Lord 50:19 still waits for you to come to him. So that he can show you his love. He will conquer you. Oh, do you like being conquered? You know, as Americans, we like to think of ourselves as conquerors. We don't like losing wars. We don't like being 50:36 defeated. And that's why this is so foreign. Not picking on Americans. I'm just saying this is part of our human nature. The ones that are exalted in the world are the conquerors. These are the ones that you read about in history, 50:47 Alexander the Great and uh all those other great conquerors. These are the ones that are esteemed in the world. And the ones esteemed in God's kingdom are the ones who are willing to be conquered. He says verse, this is verse 51:03 18, he will conquer you. That's why many people don't want it. You mean God's going to come and conquer me and he's going to take over my life? I don't want that. Yeah. Old wine. Continue to dish it out. And if you've been tired of 51:19 serving the old wine because you're resisting God's conquering of you, his spirit conquering of your spirit, then come to him and say, "Lord, conquer me. Come, Holy Spirit, and conquer every part of me from head to toe. It's yours. 51:33 Take control of it." And oh, the life you will have. The devil will plant seeds of unbelief into your ear saying, "Oh, it's not going to work out." Why would you entrust yourself to a God who's going to take You mean you never 51:43 get to do what you want to do? You never get to please yourself. What kind of a miserable life is that? Don't listen to him. For the Lord is faithful to his promises. Blessed are all those who wait for him to conquer them. Blessed are all 51:59 those who wait for him to conquer them. Oh my people in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. For he will surely, this is verse 19, he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you. Though he gave you the bread 52:15 of adversity and the water of affliction, yet he will be with you to teach you. With your own eyes, you will see your teacher, Jesus. With your own eyes, you will see your helper alongside saying, "Come, I'm on the other side of 52:29 this yoke." It's not just you carrying your yoke on your own. Guess what? When you take this yoke upon you and you allow me to conquer you, look over to your right and see it's me, Jesus, bearing this yoke with you, walking 52:40 through your trial. I am bearing that burden with you. I've already borne it with you. Walk alongside me. Learn from me. Just keep your eyes fixed on me and I'll take you through that trial that you're so afraid of going 52:51 through. You your eyes will see your teacher. where you saw other people and you saw what you thought God expected of you. You saw the law. Now you see your teacher, your bridegroom saying, "Come, let's do this together." Verse 21. And if you leave 53:10 God's paths and go astray, listen to this. Oh, this is so good. If you leave, because we do that, like we sing in that song, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Why is it that I see I I so easily wander away 53:24 from you? I'm so prone to wander. He says, if you wander, verse 21, and leave God's paths and go astray, you will hear a voice because you put this yoke upon you and you start to stray over this way, the other ox on the other side of 53:39 that same yoke will say, "Hey, we're going this way. Come, come. Let me hold your hand and walk you through. We're going this way." You will hear a voice behind you say, "No, this is the way. Walk here and you will destroy all your 53:54 silver idols and golden images and cast them out like filthy things you hate to touch. A he will say to them, "Go away." Those things that used to be so precious, those things that used to captivate your eyes, you will say, "Ah, 54:07 that's disgusting." Is that the burning desire of your heart, my dear brother, dear sister, that the things of this world that are so bright in your estimation will not only grow dim, but you will be repulsed by them. You think, 54:19 "I can't believe that once upon a time, I thought that was so fascinating and so captivating because I've been captivated and captured by my bridegroom. His love has captured me." Verse 23. Then God will bless you with rain at planting 54:35 time and with wonderful harvests and with ample pastures for your cows. The oxen and young donkeys that till the ground will eat grain, its chaff blown away by the wind. In that day when God steps in to destroy your enemies, in 54:49 that day when God steps in to destroy your enemies that you've been fighting and thinking, "How am I going to overcome them?" God steps in and overcomes your enemies because you said, "Come and conquer me." He will give you streams of water 55:03 flowing. This is verse 24, 25, sorry. He will give you streams of water flowing down each mountain and every hill. Think about that like every day. Not even one bad day in a year. You know, if you had one bad day a year and 55:18 364 good ones, that's a pretty good year. I'm not satisfied with that. Every mountain, Lord, June 21st in in that year sticks out as the day where I didn't have the fullness of your Holy Spirit, and I want it. Make it so this 55:31 year going forward, every single moment, every single day will be full of your spirit, full of life. Verse 26, the moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sunlight brighter than seven days. So it will be when the Lord begins to heal his 55:45 people and to cure the wounds he gave them. See, behold, the Lord, verse 27, comes from afar, a flame with wrath, surrounded by thick rising smoke. His lips are filled with fury. His words consumed like fire. And you used to 56:00 think he was coming after you because of all the wrong things you did. But read carefully, child of God. His wrath pours out like floods upon them all to sweep them all away. He will sift out the proud nations and bridle them and lead them off to their 56:16 doom. But the people of God will sing a song of solemn joy like songs in the night when holy feasts are held. His people will have this is verse 29. His people will have gladness of heart as when a floraist leads a pilgrim band to 56:30 Jerusalem to the mountain of the Lord, the rock of Israel. Verse 30. And the Lord shall cause his majestic voice to be heard, and shall crush down his mighty arm upon his enemies with angry indignation, and with devouring flames 56:46 and tornadoes and terrible storms and huge hailstones. This beats the pants off of all my best efforts to defeat my enemy. You know, if you're at war with somebody and you're thinking, I can get him here, I can get him there, and then 56:58 there's a hail stom or a tornado comes and takes care of the enemy, this is the new wine. Verse 31, the Assyrians, who had been his rod of punishment. Verse 32, when the Lord smites them, his people will rejoice with music and 57:14 song. Listen to this. The funeral p has long been ready. Good phrase to remember. The funeral p for those enemies that have wre havoc in your life for all these years, dear Christian, has long been ready. God has already planned set out 57:30 the funeral p their destiny has already decided as much as yours is. He will con he will destroy them. The funeral p for your enemies, for those circumstances, for those habits, those addictions, those other things that held you in 57:43 bondage all those years, God has already prepared the funeral p. It's long ready, prepared for Molech, the Assyrian god. It is piled high with wood. The breath of the Lord, like fire from a volcano, will set it all on 58:00 fire. I want this life. I'm tired of old wine. I'm tired of allowing the reputation, my reputation before others or what people think of me to affect me. There's only one with whom we have to do, dear church. It's God. And he loves you immensely. And he's 58:19 already planned a future for your enemies, for those things that have held you in bondage. He's already set out their future to destroy them because he loves you. Allow him to conquer you today. Make this the goal of your life 58:34 to partake of his divine nature. This way, as he conquers you, he pours his life into you. He conquers you some more, he pours his life into you. He crushes you a little bit more more of his life. Amen. [Music]
