Luke's Gospel

Okay. Do take your seat and a Bible on your table and turn to page 133. To Luke's Gospel chapter 5, starting at verse 33. So luke chapter 5 verses 33 to 39. Which says this.

They said to him, John's disciples often fast and pray and so do the disciples of the pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking. Jesus answered Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them. In those days, they will fast. He told them this parable.

No 1 tears a piece out of a new garment to patch on an old 1. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garments and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no 1 pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins. The wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.

No. New wine must be poured into new wineskins and no 1 after drinking Old wine wants the new, for they say the old is better. Now gonna hand over to Chris. Bring us the word. Well, good evening, everyone.

My name's Chris Tilly. I'm 1 of the members here at Cornerstone. Let's, let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this passage.

Thank you for everything that you teach us. Help us to get rid of distractions, quiet our minds, and listen to to what it is you have to say to us here tonight. Old and new, they are pretty much in constant conflict, aren't they? Old ways, constantly are having to give way to new ways and new ways are constantly having to prove themselves to old ways. And not all old ways are bad, not all new ways are good.

But nonetheless, there's always conflict between old and new, isn't there? Grace Hopper was an admiral in the new in the US Navy. And she was well acquainted with with this struggle. She she coined the saying the most dangerous phrase in the language is We've always done it this way. And I'm sure that anyone in this room who's ever managed the team will will understand some of the frustrations of that phrase when you start poking at something and questioning it, and the answer you get is, well, we've always done it this way.

By the end of her career, she had revolutionized the way that the the US Navy the massive powerful US Navy operated and she had a pivotal role in the evolution of computer coding languages, if you know anything about that, I guess some people in here do. I don't really. But she was just 1 small, unassuming woman. In a time when it was really hard for women to get involved in anything like that. And yet through persistence, she got in and through more persistence, she rose up through the ranks.

She challenged the established norm. And as a result, she really hugely expanded the realms of of of of what was possible and we're we're still reaping the benefits of some of some of her work today even though you may not ever have realized it. She battled against attitudes of, well, I like the way we've always done it. I'm comfortable with the way we've always done it. I don't want to change I don't care if the new way is better frankly.

I'm quite precious about my way. It was my idea. It's my way. It's I I came up with it. I like it.

Sounds like hard work switching to this new way and the old way is good enough, isn't it? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's something that gets said as well, isn't it? But it's not always necessarily true. Do you know it's 1 of them it's 1 of the top reasons for stunting business growth is, what's the way we've always done it?

The problem comes though when the boss turns up and says, actually, I love this new way. We're gonna go ahead with it. Why are you persistently blocking it and getting in the way? Get on board or get off. You've you'll be fired.

Get on board with it or get off. And I think that's a bit of what's going on here. I think that's a bit of what we're seeing going on here in this in this passage. So what you've got, you've got the pharisees and the teachers of the law. So if you remember last week, we were hearing that that these are the guys who they're the healthy ones.

They don't need a doctor. They're fine. They're they're the good ones, the ones that you'd quite like to have as a, as a neighbor they're good people, good people to have around. Now, they represent the established way of doing things, the way we've always done it. The way we've always done it, and they're pervading attitude towards Jesus and everything that he's doing is, well, this is new.

Doesn't fit with our old ways. In fact, it it seems to be a bit of a threat because it seems to be saying that our old ways are wrong. That seems to be what Jesus is saying here. And so looking back over the last couple of weeks, we saw that Jesus seats were sinners. Not just sin as tax collectors.

They they for some reason seem to have this specially hot part of hell reserved for for tax collectors and there's Jesus eating with them. They would never do that. They would never associate themselves with someone like that. Jesus claimed to forgive sins. And they're sat there thinking only god can do that.

And even then only after we've performed all the specific rituals and sacrifices and so on and so forth, and he even touches lepers. He makes himself unclean by touching the leper, not just not just touching him, embracing the leper. We would never risk our purity by doing something like that. It's just not the way we do things. It's not the way it's done.

And in their minds, Jesus is basically a heretic That's that's basically what they're thinking. This guy's a heretic and so they carry on with their questioning of him. So last week, we were hearing that they were questioning why Jesus and his disciples were eating with these sinners and tax collectors and this week they they they switched their angle of attack subtly to to interrogate Jesus on on why they don't fast. Why don't you and your disciples fast? So remember, we're we're we're still in the same place.

We're still at Levi's house. Levi is still throwing the banquet because he's just become a Christian. I mean, if that if that's not a reason to throw a party, I really don't know what is. So we're still there and the pharisees are disapproving of what they see. So you can picture the scene.

Peter's on his second leg of lamb. James and John are carving up what appears to be half a cow. The wine's flowing freely. There's laughter. People are enjoying themselves.

And right in the in the thick of it is Jesus and the disciples. And you can kind of sympathize with the pharisees. You can kind of sympathize with their viewpoint and where they're coming from. I mean, they were fasting all the time They they were rowing seriously fasting a lot, refraining from food and doing their religious duties and performing the right rituals and and sacrifices and ceremonies. They were holy men by all account.

They were men of self control and upright self discipline. And similarly, John's disciples as well, well, they were fasting often. They were following John as the pinnacle of of really what an old testament prophet is and he lived a a pretty austere life so they were fasting a lot. Problem with that is that John said, well, I'm just a messenger. You need to you need to follow the 1 that comes after me.

They'd obviously missed that part somewhere along the way. And the pharisees as well had totally totally got things wrong from the first instant. They were so caught up in their own way of doing things. They had completely missed what the point was about fasting in the first place and many other things because you see the pharisees have an old heritage, don't they? They have a a rich culture in the old testament.

And in the old testament, we get this account of how god dealt with and built up his people. And part of that building up, part of dealing with Israel was by giving them rules and guidelines and laws for living in order that they might recognize their own shortcomings their own sin and so turned to him. There was no way they were ever gonna be able to live up to god's standard. That's what it was all about. It was designed to get them to turn towards him.

Over the centuries, however, the pharisees had built up these original decrees. They had added more and more of their own rules as if it wasn't hard enough in the first place. Right? They've been set an impossible task. I know let's add more rules onto it to make it even more difficult until they got to a point where their rules look nothing like the original word from god.

And so it totally lost its intention and and meaning. It became less and less about realizing that they had fallen shorts of god's standard and more and more about keeping their own rules and regulations and putting on this outward display of of holiness, doing it separately from god. So they rely on themselves their own ways, not on god as their savior. And they've done the same thing with fasting, topic that they decide to take up with Jesus. They're built fasting up into up and up to this point where they were now fasting twice a week twice a week.

There were 2 specific days every week where they would fast and not eat any food and they would make a big song and dance of it. They would make a big show they'd put makeup on that made them look even more gaunt so that everyone knew that they were fasting. All about the outward display. And that was that was twice a week. They had all these other days of fasting that were throughout the year for specific events and on specific occasions and on this holy day and that holy day and for this reason and for that reason.

All in all, they they must have been fasting a lot. I can't imagine that their waist lines were very big anyways. That much faster going on. No 1 ever thought about questioning any of this anymore. It's just the way that they did it.

It's just the way that they'd always done it. But if they'd have actually cared to really look back into the scriptures, they would have seen that fasting was only ever given as an order really once in the entire history of Israel. Only ever once and for a very good reason and to make a very important point, and they've completely missed what the point was. So wouldn't it be a good idea to look at what god said and why. I think so.

So follow me here because this is this is important to understanding this passage, actually. So under this old sacrificial system that they had in the Old Testament, the the people of God, the Israelites, they were constantly sacrificing all the time in order to show repentance for sin. So because they'd sinned, they would take something costly to them, something that that cost them a lot of money and they would sacrifice it usually an animal of some kind and they would offer it as a sacrifice to god to say, god. I've sinned. I've fallen short of your law.

Please accept this. As a payment as as a sign of my heart repentance about this sin. It was it was an image, it was a sign to show their heart repentance. It wasn't. Okay.

So if I if I line up the sacrifices, how for that day land for that day, chicken for that day, then I can do this, this, and this, and I'm covered. That's not what it was about. That's just that's just a legalism, isn't it? That's just them relying on their own ability to offer a sacrifice for the sins that they're committed. What god wanted was to show a heart attitude that they were deeply sorry, deeply concerned And so he provided that system for them.

Now what that whole system built up to was a big sacrifice and it was called the day of atonement. It was what the whole calendar year in terms of sacrifices revolved around, really. It was the day when the high priest would go into the holy of holies and make a sacrifice on behalf of all the people so that they can be at 1 with their father god. That's what the day of atonement at 1 moment is all about. And on that day, God said that the people of Israel should fast.

Now, it's interesting because he doesn't actually use that word. The word that's used or the words that are used is deny themselves. They should deny themselves. Some versions say afflict themselves, but I think deny themselves is probably probably closer, they should deny themselves on the day of retirement. Now if you want to check it, that's in leviticus 16.

Don't don't turn to it now, but you can check it afterwards. And have a look, but Laviticus 16 talks about that. Now, of course, if you hadn't already gested it or figured it out, the day of atonement is a picture of the cross. The day that Jesus god's chosen high priest goes to the cross to present himself as the sacrifice this perfect sacrifice to pay for the sin of all the people. Your sin my sin so that concerns all of us in this room so that we can be at 1 with god once and for all.

That's the picture of the day of retirement. And the point that I'm trying to make here is On the day of atonement, god told Israel that they should deny themselves. They should fast in the light of that day. They should deny themselves in the light of that day. And so for us, surely, in the light of what Jesus did at the cross, we are to deny ourselves fast deny ourselves.

That's largely the point it's making, they'll turn forwards quickly to Luke 9 and verse 23. Now this is Jesus talking about predicting his own death. On the cross. So really he's he's talking about the day of atonement. He's talking about the payment on the cross.

And in verse 23, he said to them, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. So fasting in that sense, it's a daily denial, isn't it? It's a daily denial of this world and its ways of our own desires of our sinful natures and instead taking up our crosses, following Jesus up that hill and accepting him as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. We leave it all there, nailed through his hands and his feet on that cross.

He does it all. We can't add to it. There is nothing that we can do. No amount of fasting no amount of religion, no amount of rule keeping is ever going to add to that sacrifice. On the cross.

And unfortunately, this is what the pharisees just can't see. Fastings are religious ritual for them to show how good they are. It's nothing to do with their hearts. It's all about doing it them cells doing it their way, keeping with the old ways, even though they are faced with the new. They're talking to the new way.

They just can't see it. And that's why Jesus responds to them in the way that he does. So that's that's setting the scene, that's the introduction. I hope that wasn't too heavy, but it's quite important to understand that so that we can get into the rest of it and the way Jesus responds. So 0.1 that I wanna make I'm here to celebrate.

I'm here, so celebrate. If the bridegroom's here, why are you even worrying about these things? Is what Jesus says to them. So he replies, can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? Now, this is a huge claim by Jesus because throughout the old testament again, the picture is given over and over and over.

We were hearing it this morning in fact from song of songs. God is the the bridegroom and his people are the bride, the church. So you've got this imagery of god the bridegroom and the people, the bride. And it's given over and over and over, so that must have sort of peaked the pharisees interest when he drops that sort of language into into a response. Now in their culture of the day, it it was the bride who would wait for the groom to arrive.

And when he arrived, it wasn't alone, he would have this group of characters with him who were called the friend, the friends of the bridegroom, which literally means the sons of the bridal chamber. Just a little bit weird, but but but that's that's who they were. So it's a bit like a bridal party. It's set to it's a a groomal party. So we've got it all backwards today.

So, Phil and Mim, are you the day here? Yeah. Yeah. So you guys got it all wrong. It was a total mess.

Mim, you should have been up the front. Feel you should have taken ages to get there and when you arrived, it should have been with all your mates. And apparently, we should still be partying until about 11 o'clock last night. It should have gone for a whole week. And in that time, we would have been exempt from all religious duty.

So we wouldn't have had to do anything. We can party, we can dance, we can do all of those things. Anything that would have taken away from sharing in the joy of the wedding, would have been exempt from. So it's a bit like, you know, field day time, free rein, go for it. Enjoy it.

It's joy because when the groom arrives with his party and they're celebrating, they're with the bridegroom. That is the picture that's being given here. They don't have to fast. They don't have to wash. They don't have to do these sacrificial things.

They are with the bridegroom already. So did you see the picture that Jesus is giving them? God is here. He's with his people. At 1 with them already.

So why would they need to do any of these things to be at 1 with him? He's there. I'm here already. Actually, it's it's an insult to the bridegroom, isn't it? That you won't join in with the celebration.

It's an insult that you would stand there and and and not participate. Perhaps it just shows you don't really love the bridegroom at all. I mean, think back to last weekend, anyone who was there. I mean, if you weren't, don't worry, I can paint you a picture. So it was a good day.

I enjoyed it anyway. There was there was lots of food, lots of drink and you know, we had a great service and it was a great time together as church family and we got to meet loads of new people. Now it would have been a bit weird and insulting if we'd all turned up or maybe not even bothered to turn up And when we did, we were all wearing black, and we sat there mournfully sorrowfully throughout the whole service. Someone was even quietly weeping not tears of joy, tears of utter sadness, and no 1 clapped. No 1 made a noise.

You could have heard a pin drop at the end, then we went to the reception after maybe not, maybe didn't bother. What's the point? And there's all food laid out when we get there and there's there's drink on the table and we go no sorry water only and even then only a sip and they say the food's ready and we all go, sorry, can't fasting. Can't do it. Not able to.

Yeah and then we all leave early. It's just nonsense, isn't it? It's absolutely ridiculous. It would be weird and dead insulting. Absolutely dead insulting.

So you could say that the pharisees have kind of had their turn to to insult and and reject Jesus here. And now it's Jesus' turn to to reject their attitude, actually. And and the results of what he says are fairly offensive as well as we'll see. So he tells these too many parables to to to hammer home his his point. So 0.2, first parable, but 0.2 of what I want to say is the new suits.

You need a new suit So Jesus says to them no 1 tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old 1. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garments in the patch from the old will not match the new. It's fairly obvious this 1. You you don't get a new suit or a new dress and take it home and then start cutting it up to make patches for an old threadbare suit or dress. The olds no longer fit for purpose.

Why would you do that? That's that's ridiculous. Just chuck out the old 1. You can't simply patch it up with pieces of the new. Both of them are going to be ruined if you do that.

And it's gonna just look ridiculous anyway, isn't it? It would look stupid. Why would you do it? It's a bit like gonna pick on on on another couple now with Abri and Sophie. Alright.

Now I don't know if any of you remember what Abri War to Tom and Laura sweetman's wedding, it was this absolutely beautiful night. I'm guessing traditional Nigerian garb. What do you call it, Abri? He doesn't know. It it was a stunning piece of kit, though.

Now imagine imagine that for Abri and Sophie's wedding, Abri buys 1 of these for all of the friends of the bridegroom. And he says to them, right, guys, you're all invited. You can all turn up but you gotta wear this and what they all did is they all went home, they got their tattiest old suit out the wardrobe, cut up this amazing amazing piece of clothing that Abri's bought for them probably cost quite a bit, I would imagine, and then start patching it onto their old suits. It it it would be a huge huge insult and then turned up in this sort of weird patchwork suit. It was it's just nonsense.

It's absolute nonsense. The picture that Jesus is giving is that the old has served its purpose. It it was good and it served its purpose. Everything that god was doing in the old testament was to prepare you. It was to prepare you for me.

It was to prepare you for the new thing that's coming. And now that it's Here, now I'm here. It's time. It's time for that new way. Put off that old suit.

This isn't a completely different way. It's a continuation of the old in a new way. I'm just fulfilling what god has been doing all along. It's the same thing. So you're still wearing a suit.

It's just a new suit in a new way. Take off those old clothes, put on the new. Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, they can't just pick and choose which pieces of God's word they want to follow. And add to and subtract from. They have to follow the whole thing in its entirety.

And Jesus is trying to say, I am the whole thing in its entirety. T. Don't over complicate it. Just put off the old and follow me. Just put off the old and follow me.

You of all people should know. You most learned teachers of the law, you pharisees, you should know this from the scriptures. He's trying to give them new clothes to wear and they're just carving them up. Now it's very easy for us to point at the pharisees, isn't it? And go, well, there's the bad men.

But really aren't we so like them in many ways walking around in our own clothes which really actually the Bible and Jesus would tell us nothing better than dirty rags and and we think we're clean. Perhaps taking patches of the gospel and god's word and applying them to our life. I like that bit, but I'm not so sure about that bit. Basically saying, yeah, you've got some good stuff to teach you, Jesus, but I'm largely doing this my way. It's the way I've always done it.

And I'm basically okay, aren't I? Actually, I'm not that bad a person. I'm not like them. I'm not like those sinners and tax collectors at least. That's not me.

I'm pretty good. I mean, surely you god will probably accept me accept me as I am. Do we not do that? I don't sometimes I think it's so subtle. We don't realize we're doing it.

Sometimes I don't think we realize how we're thinking ourselves as being better than other people around us. Sometimes I don't think that we really consciously understand that we're just going about things off our own strength. And not turning to god and relying on him. Even your very best efforts are filthy. They're totally corrupted by sin if you're doing them off of your own back.

If you're doing them on your own strength, take off your filthy old rag of a life and put on the shining new clothes of the good news of Jesus is the picture that we're we're getting here. And he rubs it home. He he he opens it up even more and expands on on what that means by telling another little story. So verse 37 just point number 3, new wine for new wineskins. Jesus goes on, no 1 pours new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No. New wine must be poured into new wineskins. Now I don't know about you, but when I buy wine, it tends to come in a glass bottle nowadays. So there's obviously a cultural context that we need to understand here to get what g's is saying.

So back then, you didn't have glass bottles, so you would have put wine into goat skins. Especially treated goat skins. So if you like your wine a bit goatey, that's that's the way to do it. But the thing about the thing about these goat skins is when they got old, they tended to dry out and and go brittle. And the thing about new wine is that it's still fermenting, and it's still growing, it's expanding, it's it's alive.

So if you put this fermenting, expanding wine into the brittle, old, dry wine skin, then as as this new wine foments and expands, it's it's eventually just gonna crack and burst the old wines in and the new wine's going to be totally wasted over the floor. So you would put new wine into a new wine skin because they were fresh and they still had their elasticity so they could grow and stretch as the new wine was fermenting inside them. So you don't put new wine into old wineskins. Old wineskins are only good for holding old wine. They can cope with that.

They can't cope with new wine. Let's try and illustrate this. So when I was, a couple of years ago, I was working at the airport and I ended up managing a team and there was a lot of change going on within the business at that time and we were having to implement all kinds of processes because what we were doing was just a little bit long winded. It wasn't efficient. It it was wasting time and energy and resource.

And by and large, the stuff that I was tasked with putting into place kind of went smoothly, but there was 1 guy, 1 guy would stubbornly refused to do anything that we were trying to put in place. And it wasn't for a lack of competency. He was perfectly competent. He was the most experienced member of the team. He'd been there the longest.

He knew the most. He he in many ways, he was the most proficient 1 out of all of us. But he just didn't wanna change, and he certainly didn't wanna do anything I was telling him to do. I don't know quite what that means but, anyway, in the end, the the new ways that we were implementing burst the whole wineskin from putting it a better way. And he left, you know, he he he didn't want to change.

His attitude was the problem. He did not want to get on board with the way that the company was going and so he said, stuff it. I'm going. And in the end, it was better for everyone. But the point, the point's kind of the same, isn't it?

The point that Jesus is making here is that the gospel ain't gonna fit into the current framework. It's too big. It's alive. It's potent. It's going to expand beyond what you thought was possible.

The old framework the old testament and the law that the pharisees cared so much about. Jesus fulfills all of those requirements. He completely fills the old, and then overflows or bursts the old skin into something completely new. So if you have the good news of Jesus working in you, if you have his gospel at work influencing your life, growing you, expanding and and stretching you in in in ways that you would never have thought possible. You're gonna need to be a new wineskin to accommodate that, aren't you?

You can't just carry on with the brittle old dried out ways of doing things that you've been so used to so many years. I'll use my own experience as an example because it's the easiest 1 for me to pick on. But it just a month ago, so I I often I try and chat to my mom, she lives in Australia in the mornings on Sundays if I can. And she said to me about a month ago, she still has to pinch herself sometimes that her son is now preaching the gospel to people because 7 years ago, you wouldn't have ever thought it possible. I wouldn't have.

If you if you showed me this image, this snapshot in time right here, And now I would have laughed and said no way. You're making it up. It's not possible. There's a world of difference, but when the gospel goes to work on you, it really goes to work on you. And you are grown by the power of the lord Jesus Christ, the risen savior and king in your life.

And my goodness, there's there's almost no limit to where that can go. It keeps fermenting. It keeps growing. It keeps on refining. It it keeps on showing you where you're in error, and it keeps on seeking to correct those errors.

I think like many of us in this room would be able to attest to that that that they're not what they were and yet they're not what they will be. They're nowhere near what they want to be, and 1 day we'll be in heaven. And that's gonna be a glorious day. If you try and chuck the gospel into your old framework without really having changed, without really accepting Jesus' lord and savior, then all that's gonna happen is it's just gonna burst free. It's gonna ruin the wine skin and the wine will just be wasted.

What a waste of time. And then Jesus goes on to his closing remark really. It's it's a wry comment. A warning, actually. It's really what Jesus goes with here.

Which wine will you drink? Which which wine are you gonna indulge? Which which wine are you gonna get drunk on? That's that's that's the image that I want to go with here. Because what he says is after drinking the old, no 1 wants the new.

They say the old is better. He's picking on a on a stubborn refusal to accept anything new because They know what they like. They like the old. You you ever come across this, you come across this in people where you're trying to explain to them how good something is. Say, oh, this is the most amazing tasting thing.

You should try this. And the person goes, no, I I actually like this brand. I I think this one's way way better way better. Aren't you even gonna try it? No.

I'm not even gonna try it. I don't care. In fact, as I'm preaching this, I realized I did exactly the same thing to Rory and Jerusalem myself. When they were trying to get me to watch this new comedian called James Acaster and I was stubbornly going, no, and I don't I don't want to give it a go. Actually, it's pretty good.

It's just the annoying thing. I didn't want to agree with him. That's but there you go. They stubbornly don't even want to give it a chance. They don't even want to give it a chance.

Because they had drunk very deeply of the old wine indeed, hadn't they? They were saturated in the old wine. They were content with being hardened crusty old wineskins full of old wine. They were old wine alcoholics. That's what they were about.

They loved the old wine and they just sadly don't want to change. They're stubbornly refusing any change. They they're too drunk on the old 1 to see the point. They're far too drunk on it. They will not see the point.

Now is that you? Are you drinking up this world with its views, its philosophies, its ways of doing things, your ways of doing things, Why would you want to follow the world's way of doing anything? It's a mess. You only have to look at British politics to know it's a mess you go much further than that. It's a mess.

Everywhere you look. It's a mess. Why you would ever put your trust in anything this world's got to say really, I I honestly can't can't see when you've got god standing here with a far better alternative, far more explanation, far more understanding, making far more sense about everything. Are you looking inward to your own strength making up your own mind on things basing it not on god's word? But on something else entirely.

I I I guess there might be some people in this room to whom that might apply. I I don't know. I I I 1 thing that struck me recently is that as a preacher, I probably make too many assumptions about people, even here. That I just think everyone's, everyone's a christian, everyone's saved, and really you just have no idea what's going on in the heart. And many of us know that that painful reality, don't we?

We don't really know what's going on in other people's hearts. And so gotta say it. What is going on in your heart? Which wine are you drinking? Are you totally getting drunk on the old wine?

Totally drunk and a fool in god's sight because that's what a drunkard is, isn't it? Everyone thinks they're a fool. You can drink deeply of the old wine and be a full before God, or you can drink deeply of the new wine and be a fool before the world. And that's no bad thing. That's really no bad thing.

Perhaps you do realize that you're just totally unable to meet god's God's standard. You recognize you needed the savior. Perhaps you've been following the lord Jesus for a long time. You've been indulging this new wine you should indulge it as much as you can, drink as much of it as you can. The more you drink of Jesus's gospel, the more you will grow.

The more he will go to work in your life. The more you saturate yourself with it, the more it's going to expand just stands to reason, doesn't it? Well, then I I I would beg you tonight if you haven't already done so, taste this new wine and see Taste it and see. Why why why would you not? Which 1 are you gonna get drunk on?

And in whose eyes are you gonna be a fool? So let me just summarize, take off the old and throw on the new suit. Address your crusty old wine skin of a heart and ask God to make it pliable and workable and stretchy so that he can fill it with new wine, fill it with the gospel, totally change your life around. Growing spanned you beyond what you thought was possible and drink deeply of that new wine. Why would you not do that here tonight?

And why would you not want more of that in your life? So that you can join in with the party that's going on that the pharisees just don't want to be a part of. Let me pray. Father, please, help us to see the truth that you hold out to us. Please help us to see the the foolishness of our own ways Please help us not to find ourselves 1 day standing before you as a fool, a drunken fool.

We would rather that the world thought that we were foolish for following you and yet you welcome us in as as children. Because of what your son, the lord Jesus Christ has done for us because we're following him. Follow, we do pray that for every single person in this room here tonight, you you would affect their heart in some way. Whatever way that might be, it's gonna look different for all of us. We're all gonna be at different places coming into that.

We're gonna need to address different things going on in our lives. Maybe it's a cooling down that we need to address. We're we're cooling down from the gospel. We've been following you for years and we're cooling off. Or please, by your spirit, would you speak to those hearts?

Perhaps we've never followed you at all. And what we've just heard is is making sense and We prayed it if there's any of those hots here tonight that you would you would address them. Father we We know that you know all of us intimately and deeply and that you've provided your son to do what we can't. So please give us the courage to to throw off this world to deny ourselves and to follow you all the more. We do pray that you would be you would be glorified through this.