LUKE 5:33-39 RELIGION VS RELATIONSHIP2011 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Luke 5:33-39 Religion Vs Relationship

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You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2011.

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Well, this morning as we look at Luke chapter 5 and finishing up the chapter, we're going to be talking really about religion versus relationship. And that's what's really being addressed. That's what Jesus is dealing with as these Pharisees come to Jesus with a question. It's dealing with their religion versus what he offers, which is relationship with God by faith in him.

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Now as we talk about religion versus relationship, this is something that's very important for us because you and I, just like every other human being, we have a natural tendency. We naturally gravitate towards tradition and rituals.

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Even though this is, you know, a very familiar thing to believers in Jesus, that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship, it's a saying that we say and we use often. And yet, even though we know that, even though we say that, just like everybody else in the world, we have a tendency to gravitate towards, to migrate towards making a system or a list of rules and regulations and

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then our relationship with God becomes limited to those things instead of a real and vibrant relationship with God. And so we begin to relate to God or try to relate to God on the basis of our works and how well we keep this system that we've set up for ourselves.

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And usually the system, it starts out well. I mean, we mean well when we start it out. And there's life there and we're connecting with God. But then we continue to follow these things that we've established and set up when God has called us to move on. And so there's some important truths here that we get to learn from this discussion that Jesus has with these Pharisees.

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And as we consider those truths, I would first of all ask you, why are you here today? What brings you to church today? Why are you here? Because today,

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If you are here for the wrong reasons, then you especially need to hear Jesus's words. If you're here because, well, that's what Christians are supposed to do. If you're here because, well, that's what you always do on Sunday mornings. If you're here because, you know, it's the normal practice that you've been brought up with or the normal custom that you're used to. Well, those are all

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Pretty good things, but they're really not the reason why we come to church. We come to church to meet with God and to be with his people, to hear from him, to be instructed, but also to share with others what God has been doing in our own lives and hearts.

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You see, a religion is a system of rules. It's a system of regulations and rituals that we put together. And part of that religion, part of that system that we put together often includes attending church.

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But we need to be careful that attending church is not just, you know, something we check off for the week or something that we, you know, count on. Well, I went to church this week, so I'm going to have a blessed week, you know. Things can't go wrong this week because I went to church. It's not, you know, like a magic charm or something that we do for good luck. It's something that we do to connect with God in obedience to Him because He commanded us not to forsake the gathering together of the brethren.

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And so it involves things like church attendance and it starts out because it's, you know, commanded by God.

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But then it kind of migrates to this ritual that we go through without really engaging our hearts and mind. And that's what I want to encourage you to do this morning. Is to really engage your heart. To really consider and evaluate and hear from God today about where you are and where you stand in regards to religion versus relationship. Now...

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Everything about religion is not inherently wrong. Tradition is often bound up in religion. So religion has the commands of God, but it also has, you know, the customs and practices that have been communicated to us or we've been, you know, kind of inherited from our culture, from various different sources. And those things in and of themselves are not necessarily bad or wrong.

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But there's a problem that happens in this system of religion that we set up where now the system and these traditions and the things that we practice become more important to us than the actual relationship with God. And they become more important to us than the actual word of God.

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And that's what we see demonstrated here in the last part of Luke. As we look at the Pharisees, we're going to see it time and again. In fact, next week in chapter 6, we'll see how the Pharisees have put their tradition at a higher plane than the word of God. And they're holding people to their tradition rather than God's word.

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Pastor Chuck shares that Jesus often came against the Pharisees because of their rigid position within their traditions. They were actually putting their traditions above the Word of God. It's not acceptable for them to be on equal par with the Word of God, much less above the Word of God. And so instead of having this system of

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Commands that we follow, traditions that we keep just to, you know, fulfill our rituals and to feel religious. God wants us to have a relationship with him that's living, that's new, that's fresh, that's vibrant. It's part of the new covenant that he offers to us, which is full access to God. Real relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ.

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Now let me just give you one example before we get into our portion this morning to help kind of drive this idea home of religion versus relationship. Think about it in the terms of a husband and a wife. Now I think all of us guys would agree marriage would be a lot easier if it could just be a system of rules, regulations, and rituals. I mean if we could just establish a schedule and

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And, you know, this is the day that we do this. And this is the day that I bring you flowers. And this is the day that you do this and cook this meal. And this is the day that we're romantic together. And this is the day that we have special time. This is the day where I go out with the guys and leave you home. I mean, if we could just put a schedule together and get a system going, marriage would be so much easier. I mean, if we just get it down, there'd be no fights, no problems. We just got to follow the system.

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Of course, men throughout history have always declared that they cannot understand women, right? I mean, that's just a universal principle. Everybody knows guys just don't get it. You know why guys don't get it? Because we want the system.

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And that's not how a relationship is. That's not how a marriage is. Relationship is fluid. It's not, you know, a list of check boxes that you need to check off. It's not a thing that, you know, well, it's got to be like a car, you know. You just got to fix that part. It's got to just run like a machine. That's not how marriages work. Marriages are based on a relationship that's fluid. It's always changing. And you can only make a relationship work

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By working at it. See, that's the thing that we prefer. We'd rather get the system down so we don't have to work at it and then it's easy, then we just kind of, okay, we just do the next thing on the list and then we'll be fine. But the reality is, is it has to take some work for us to involve ourselves, to engage, to pay attention to our spouse and

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So that we can respond to where they are. And it's not about checking off the thing on the list, but ministering to them, meeting them, and being with them according to the moment, according to the present.

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See, guys get frustrated because we finally grasp hold of one thing. You know, we're trying to figure out, trying to figure out. We finally get one thing and then she changes, right? Because it's not a system. It's a relationship. And that's the difference between religion versus relationship. We try to nail it down and get it all, okay, this is the system. This is the religion. This is what I have to do to be right with God.

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But the reality is, it's really a relationship and it takes work to engage yourself with God, to hear from him and respond to him and respond to the moment and the present, not just checking off a list to make sure that you've done your religious duties.

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If you try to have a marriage based on a system of rules, it will not survive. It will be destroyed. And the same thing is true, Jesus is explaining today, with relationship with God. The systems might be easier in our mind, but it leaves it lifeless and powerless. And that's not what God wants. He wants a real relationship with us.

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And so as we look at this idea of religion versus relationship, there's four things I'd like to highlight for you from our text this morning. The first we find in verses 33 through 35, and that is that religion cannot be used to measure relationship with Jesus. Religion can't be used to judge or to use as a standard to test relationship with Jesus. Look at verse 33.

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It says, then they said to him, why did the disciples of John fast often and make prayers and likewise those of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink? Now, if you remember, we finished off last week in verse 32, where the Pharisees were coming and complaining that Jesus was eating and drinking with all of these sinners, that he was sitting down there in the tax collector's house and

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He had a great feast and Jesus and his disciples were there and they really didn't like that. And Jesus explained that he was there to minister to sinners, to reach out to save sinners and call them to repentance. So now they tackle another aspect of this gathering though, because they're eating there at this feast. And so they asked Jesus,

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Why do the disciples of John, that is John the Baptist, and you remember John the Baptist came first, he was preaching repentance, and there were those who followed John and they became disciples of John. And they say, look, the disciples of John fast. And the disciples of the Pharisees, they fast. Not only do these guys fast, they say, but we fast often, frequently. It's regular that we are fasting.

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But look at your disciples, Jesus. They say, your disciples are eating and drinking. Your disciples are having a meal when it's the normal time for disciples to be fasting. The disciples of John, the Pharisees, they were judging the disciples of Jesus based on their own traditions and practices. They were saying, look, we fast often today.

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And your disciples don't. What's wrong with them? Something's wrong with them because they don't fast like we fast. They don't fast the way that we do. Now, of course, fasting, when we talk about fasting, we're talking about the abstaining from food.

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And there's different kinds of fasting, and I'm not going to get really in detail into the different types of fasting and stuff, but it can be a total fast, it can be a partial fast, it just depends on, you know, what the Lord's doing and why you're fasting. But it was something that they practiced regularly as religious people there in Judaism.

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In fact, in Mark chapter 2, verse 18, the parallel account of this same portion, it gives a little bit of insight. And it says that the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting as this is going on. And so this is, you know, in the forefront of their minds, not as like a hypothetical thing, but they're saying, look, we're fasting today. And here your disciples are having a good meal. How is it that they're not fasting like we are?

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Why are they not as religious as us? How come they don't follow these practices like we do? And that's a question that often gets asked within religion. How come you don't do it like we do it? We can't do it that way. You know, we've always done it this way. There's that system that has to be this way. For the Pharisees, they fasted

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For very many things throughout the year, but their weekly schedule was that they would fast every Monday and Thursday. And so every Monday and Thursday they would be fasting. And so this account that we're reading right now probably took place on a Monday or a Thursday when they were fasting.

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But they would also fast for a bunch of other reasons. One commentator says that the Pharisees had superstitious fasts. They fasted in order to have lucky dreams, to obtain interpretation of dreams, to avert some type of evil. They fasted in order to get things that they wanted. And so they would use these fasts all throughout the year, all the time. It was something that was a regular part

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of their religious practices. Now I'm going to label their question here. I'm going to label this subject of fasting that they're referring to as a tradition. A tradition is man's laws or man's rules. It's not commanded by God. And that's something that's very interesting about fasting because fasting is not actually commanded in the Bible.

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That might be a little bit of a shock. The closest to it is Leviticus chapter 23, where God is describing the Day of Atonement for the children of Israel, and he says that they are to afflict their souls on the Day of Atonement.

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And so the Jews interpret that and believe that that means that they are to fast. But afflicting your souls is not identical to fasting. It doesn't have to include fasting, although of course it can. And so it's not actually commanded. The Bible doesn't say thou shalt fast. You must fast. You must have regular times twice a week or, you know, several times a year. Now, I'm not saying that fasting is bad. I'm just saying God never commanded you.

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in the Bible to fast. Fasting is something that is practiced. We see it all throughout the Old Testament. We see it in the New Testament. Acts chapter 13, the disciples are praying and fasting together. Jesus talks about prayer and fasting in Matthew chapter 6. If you want to get a little bit of insight there on his perspective on fasting. But it's never actually commanded. Fasting over the years has been misunderstood by many.

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Well, people all around the world have all beliefs in God. It's misused and abused. Specifically within the church, I would suggest to you that fasting is misunderstood. Because fasting is not a way to get God to be more pleased with you. Sometimes people try to use fasting as a way to get God to be happy with them.

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But that's not what fasting is about. And you can't get God to be more pleased with you. He's already fully and completely pleased with you by your faith in Jesus Christ. And so you can't, he's not going to love you more if you fast. He's not going to be more pleased or more happy with you if you fast. It's about your faith in Jesus. And that's why he is pleased with you. Fasting is not a way to manipulate God to give you what you want. Some people use fasting this way as well.

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It's like, you know, God, I'm not going to eat until you give me what I want. And that's the mentality. That's the attitude. Or if I fast, then I deserve it, right? Because I'm really, you know, sacrificing so greatly here by not eating. And so I deserve to get this thing that I want. And I could go on and on. There's lots of different misunderstood reasons why we fast, right?

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But fasting is really about seeking God. It's about the relationship with God and putting God first. And really, it's just a practical thing of using your stomach to remind you to put God first. Because when you don't feed it and then it cries out, then you're reminded, yes, I need to spend time with the Lord and seek the Lord and pray to the Father. And so fasting is really a practical thing. It's a very simple thing that it's...

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causing your body to remind you frequently throughout the day to hear from God, to spend time with Him, to seek Him. But the problem happens when fasting becomes a ritual and that's what it was for these Pharisees, for the disciples of John. It was a ritual to show, to demonstrate how religious that they are. It was no longer about seeking God for them. And we can know that beyond a shadow of a doubt in Matthew chapter 6 verse 16 where

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Jesus says, look, when you fast, don't be like the hypocrites. Here's what the hypocrites do.

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They put on a show so that everybody knows they're fasting. And so they disfigure their faces. They put a microphone on their stomach while it growls. They call attention to the fact that, hey, I'm not eating. Look at how spiritual I am.

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And so this is the kind of fasting that these disciples were involved in. And they're trying to use their fasting now as a standard. They're saying, look, look how religious we are. Look how godly and spiritual we are. We sacrifice so much for God. We're fasting today. And your disciples are feasting. They're trying now to use it as a standard by which to judge the disciples.

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And basically they're saying your disciples are not as spiritual as us. Maybe you should get rid of them and have us as your disciples because we're way more spiritual. Now Jesus as he goes on, he's really not that concerned about the fasting. He answers their question but then he goes on to use it to address the real issue which is their religious system and their traditions that they're following instead of pursuing a relationship with God. And so look at verse 34. It says...

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And he said to them, can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days. And so Jesus answers the question with a question. He says, can you make the friends of the bridegroom? This is the idea of the groomsmen. So the people in the wedding party. Can you make them fast while the groom is with them?

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So he's talking about a wedding and he's talking about whether it's appropriate or not for someone to be fasting at a wedding. Now for the Jewish culture, weddings were the ultimate example and expression of joy. It was a week-long celebration, the wedding ceremony. And so it was just a great celebration. It was the ultimate expression of joy.

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It would be hugely inappropriate for, you know, the best man or for the groomsman to be fasting during the wedding, especially if you take into account what Jesus said. You know, their faces disfigured. They're all like, oh, you know, wailing and mourning. And hey, what's wrong with you? What's the problem? It's my wedding. You're supposed to be happy. Oh, I'm fasting. That would not be appropriate. And so Jesus says, look, you can't make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he's with them.

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He says in 35, the days will come, the bridegroom will be gone. He speaks about when he returns to the father and then there will be times for them to fast and they'll fast in those days. But for right now, he says, the bridegroom is with them. The bridegroom is with them. See, Jesus is pointing out it's about relationship.

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I'm with them, Jesus says. They're not going to fast right now. We can't make them fast right now. I'm with them. They're with me. Because fasting is, again, about seeking God and

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There's no reason to fast when you're with Jesus. There will be no fasting in heaven, okay? Things will be different on a whole bunch of other issues as well. But, you know, we won't have to fast to draw near to God. Fasting is about removing those distractions and just reminding ourselves to draw near to God. Jesus says, look, they're already with me. I'm with them. That relationship already exists.

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And so you can't use religion, you can't use this system of rules and traditions to determine whether or not a person is walking with God because the person who's with Jesus isn't necessarily going to be involved in the fasting, in the religious rituals, in the system that is practiced by others.

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Now, over the course of your relationship with God, there will be times, it's pretty much guaranteed, when God will call you to take some time to fast and pray. And it might be occasional, it might be very rare, or it might be seasonal and regular. But it's not about checking off a list, and it's not about saying, well, you have to do it at least three times a year. It's about responding to the Lord when He tells you, take some time, set it aside, and fast and pray.

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And so you have to hear from God in regards to fasting. It can't just be a list or a scheduled thing. It has to be God speaking to your heart and prompting you. It's personal. It's between you and God. What God calls you to do may not be what God calls the person next to you to do. And so your own practices and traditions can't be used to judge whether or not someone else is spiritual or

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Or whether someone else is right with God. You can't look and say, well, I fast like this, and I fast this way, and I fast this often, and this person does it. So, you know, they must be kind of immature in their faith. Or they must not be walking right with God. You can't use that. Primarily because the scripture does not give us the authority to use that as a standard. You see, there are things that God has commanded us.

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And those things are standards and those things are good measuring tools because Jesus said, whoever loves me will keep my commandments. And so we can understand that, yes, keeping the commands that Jesus gave us, that is the standard, but he didn't command us

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How often to fast. How many times a year to fast. What kind of things to fast from. He didn't give us that command. And so we can't use those things to judge somebody else's relationship with God. I think Matthew Henry points out something interesting. He says, it is common...

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For vain professors to make themselves a standard in religion by which to try and measure persons and things as if all who differed from them were so far in the wrong. As if all that did less than they did too little and all that did more than they did too much, which is plain evidence of their lack of humility and charity or love. Matthew Henry says this,

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It's those who are vain professors. That is, they're faking it. They're putting up a show. They're following this religious system. He says, look, it's common for them to use themselves as the standard. I'm the standard. And if you do less than I do, well, you're really missing it. You're really missing it. You're blowing it. You're messing up. If you do more than I do, hey, you need to relax. You're too legalistic. I mean, you need to calm down. That's too much.

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How often is it that we use ourselves as the standard and we compare everybody else to us and ourselves to everybody else? He says, that's vanity. That's empty. There's nothing there. Again, the commands that God gives, those are good measurements. But the traditions, the things that we impose upon ourselves, our own personal convictions, those are bad measuring tools when it comes to other people. Now,

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This is especially important because it's often the case that people who hold so tightly to traditions that are not commanded, at the same time they disregard the things that are commanded. The children of Israel demonstrated this for us over and over and over again throughout the Old Testament. In Isaiah chapter 58, God addresses this because they're asking God, Hey, we've been fasting. Why are you not responding?

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And so God responds in Isaiah 58. He says, is it a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush and spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? They say, we're fasting. We're afflicting our souls. We're bowing down. We're put on sackcloth and ashes and we're fasting. And God responds in Isaiah 58. He says, is that what I want? Is that really a fast?

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Isaiah 58.6 says, Is this not the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bonds of wickedness. To undo the heavy burdens. To let the oppressed go free. And that you break every yoke. You see, here's what was happening. They're living in disobedience to God. But they thought, we're okay because we're fasting.

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You see, they're disobeying God's word, but they thought, hey, we're fine because we're following the system. We got the schedule and we're fasting, but God, you're not responding. You're not sending us the rain that we want. You're not providing us with the things that we need. And so we don't understand because we're keeping the system. But God says, don't you understand? What I really want is for you to be obedient. Loose the bonds of wickedness. That is, repent.

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It's so common for those who hold tightly to traditions, to religious systems, they hold tightly to things that are not commanded, but at the same time they disregard and ignore the things that are commanded by God. And so religion is not a good measuring tool because very often religion is rebellion against God because people who are following it are keeping the system, but they're disregarding the Word of God.

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And so we need to be careful as we look around and try to judge everybody else based on our own practices. The real question is, are you being obedient to God? Are you following His commands? Are you keeping His word? Have you loosed the bonds of wickedness? Or are you continuing to live in sin and to practice disobedience to God?

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And so Jesus is explaining, look, they'll fast, there'll be a time for them to fast, but I'm with them. They're with me. We're in this relationship together and it's not the appropriate time for them to fast. And so fasting, guys, he says to the Pharisees and disciples of John, it's not a good measurement for whether or not my disciples are right with God or spiritual.

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Obedience traditions is a bad measurement, but obedience to God is a good measurement. And so you and I, we need to get back to the Word of God. That's why we need to know the Word of God and use it as the standard and basis for our life. We can't just base it upon what we've been told. We can't just base it upon what has been practiced throughout the years, what we've been taught as we grew up. We need to go back to the Word of God and live our lives in obedience to God at His Word.

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And when we hold up our traditions and our system higher than the Word of God, and we say, well, it's okay that I live this way because I...

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Do this. I go to this church. I go this often. I read my Bible this many times. I fast this many times. We have our system and it, in our minds, justifies, well, so I don't really have to worry about this sexual sin or I don't have to worry about this greed or I don't have to worry about this gossip or I don't have to worry about whatever sin may be there living in your heart. And so we use it to try to excuse ourselves and continue on in sin.

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The core issue is relationship with God. You need to get right with the Lord. You need to hear from Him. You need to have a real relationship with Him. And that's what Jesus is pointing out. Now He's going to illustrate His point in a couple different ways in the next few verses by what He refers to as a parable. There in verse 36 it says, Then He spoke a parable to them.

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Now a parable is something we'll see frequently throughout the Gospel of Luke. I think this is the first time we've encountered him using this word thus far. But a parable is, it's this idea. Let's take some practical things that you understand and use them to illustrate spiritual truth. And so that's what Jesus is going to do. He's going to take some practical things that they could understand that were meaningful to them and use them to illustrate the reality of

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The truth about a relationship with God. And so here we find the second point in verse 36. And the second point is that religion cannot be fixed with a piece of relationship with Jesus. In verse 36, again it says, Then he spoke a parable to them. No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one. Otherwise the new makes a tear. And also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.

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And so here we see that religion can't be fixed with a piece, with one piece of relationship with Jesus. And he illustrates that with this picture of a patch or a piece of a new garment that's attached to an old garment. That's the parable. New patch, old garment causes problems. It tears the garment apart.

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I really love how simple Jesus's parables are. I mean, for me, I have incredibly terrible laundry skills, but I can understand this parable. It makes sense to me. I know what happens when clothes are washed and then they shrink. And so I can imagine putting a new one on an old one that's already shrunk and how it will shrink and tear the old garment. It makes sense to me. I'm sure it makes sense to you as well.

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In those days, they would not have pre-shrunk cotton or anything like that. I mean, everything, it was homemade basically. And so you would always have to make it bigger and then wash it a couple times so that it'd be the right size because it would shrink down as they washed it. And so if they were to take a piece of cloth that had not been shrunk yet and they attached it to a piece of cloth that had shrunk,

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Well then when that piece of cloth that had not been shrunk began to shrink, it would tear away at the old garment. That's what Jesus is saying. Jesus came to bring a new covenant to humanity. He came to give people access to God by faith in Him. The old covenant, the new covenant are very similar, more than we often think. Really, it's about relationship with God.

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The same principles are involved. It's all about faith. It's about sacrifice. Although, of course, the sacrifices are different from the old covenant where you were sacrificing sheep and oxen. But the new covenant, Jesus is the sacrifice. But both were by faith. And both have an element of works in them. That is that because you believe God, then you demonstrate that. That's shown by your works, by your obedience to God.

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As we've made reference to for the past couple weeks in James chapter 2, faith without works is dead. And so the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are very similar. The difference is Jesus is the sacrifice. It's a once and for all sacrifice. It's a far greater sacrifice. And what he offers to us in relationship with God is far greater than the relationship with God that was under the Old Covenant.

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He offers to us full access to God. Now I can't get into all of the details of that, but if you want to, read through the book of Hebrews, do a good study there, and you'll see how what Jesus offers under the new covenant is far superior to what was offered under the old covenant. The principles are the same, but the relationship with God that's offered is far better. And so Jesus came to offer us

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This incredible relationship with God, this access to God that had never been before been experienced. And Jesus is saying, look, you can't take what I'm offering and just take a small piece of it and attach it to your system of rituals and traditions. It will tear. It's not going to work. It's not going to last. What's he saying? You have to take the whole garment. You can't just take a piece of that new garment.

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Think about the disciples that we've studied here in chapter 5. We saw the fishermen at the beginning and then last week we saw Levi, the tax collector. And we observed it records very clearly, all of them left everything. They forsook all in order to follow Jesus. And then later on in Luke chapter 14 verse 33, Jesus himself will declare, that's the requirement. If you want to follow me, you have to forsake everything.

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See, what Jesus is saying is you can't just take a piece of Jesus and then add it to your life or add it to your system, add it to what you want to practice. You have to leave everything else and follow Jesus completely and wholly. Otherwise, it won't work. Relationship with God through Jesus cannot be attained with just a piece of Jesus here or there. It really cannot be attained just by going to a church.

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If you just add church attendance to your life, that's not relationship with Jesus. It cannot be attained just by praying the sinner's prayer. You know, just because you pray that prayer, if that's the only thing that happened, if there's no change, if you haven't forsaken all to follow Jesus, well...

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That's just trying to take a piece of Jesus. Well, yes, I want the piece of forgiveness. I want the piece of salvation. So let me have that piece. We think of it like a buffet, right? Yeah, let me have some mashed potatoes, some gravy. I don't want the corn. Give me the steak. Let me just pick what I want from Jesus. Oh, I like his forgiveness. I don't really like the forgiving others part though, so I'm not going to leave that. And we try to pick and choose. But Jesus is saying, look, you can't just take a piece of,

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Of what I'm offering. You have to take me completely. You have to abandon everything else. And follow me wholly. Fully. Jesus did not come to earth. To die upon the cross. So that you can add church attendance to your life. That wasn't his goal. That wasn't his objective. He came and died upon the cross. To deal with the real issue. Which is my heart. And your heart. The issue of sin. Sin.

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That is a hopeless situation for us because we're completely lost. As Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jesus came to deal with that. We try to like patch over, you know, like you can see a little bit of my deceitful, disgusting heart. So let me put a patch on there. Church attendance right there. You can't tell I'm so wicked and vile now because I go to church.

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Jesus says that's not going to work. That's going to tear. It's not going to last. You got to take him completely. The issues of our hearts can only be fixed by turning our heart completely over to Jesus. Surrendering to him. You can't just take a piece. He goes on to say the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. So not only is it unshrunk and it'll tear but it doesn't match. It doesn't fit. This is Jesus is saying look I'm not like everything else in your life.

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You know, for the most part, you have a lot of options and you have a lot of selection. You know, you can have this kind of cereal for breakfast or that kind of cereal for breakfast. And, you know, basically, it's not a big difference. It's not a big deal. It doesn't matter that much. You can have this kind of career or you can have that kind of career. And that can make some changes in your life. It can make some differences. But ultimately, I mean, you're still going to go to work. You're still going to come home. It's going to be very similar to

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Now to think that Jesus is the same. Well, you can go to this church or that church. You know, you can kind of, it doesn't really matter that much.

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You just take a piece, put it on. It just kind of matches with everything else. It's not a big deal. Jesus is saying, look, the new doesn't match the old. What I'm offering to you is nothing like this system that you're practicing. What I'm offering to you is nothing like this rules and traditions that you practice. What I'm offering to you is a real relationship which comes only as you embrace me completely and fully. Jesus came to give you new life.

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Not to patch up your old life. There's a big difference to that. And so we need to be careful to not try to add a piece of Jesus to our religious system that we've established. We need to throw out that system and embrace the fullness of Jesus and relationship with him. Well, the third thing we see about religion versus relationship with Jesus is

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It's found in verse 37 and 38, and that is that religion cannot contain relationship with Jesus. It can't contain it. It can't hold it in. It can't limit it or define it. Look at verse 37. And no one puts a new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

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So Jesus moves now to a different example, a different parable. Again, it's a practical truth that they would understand to give them some spiritual insight, to illustrate a spiritual truth. And so what is this practical thing that they would understand?

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For us, I think it requires a little bit more explanation because it's not common knowledge for us as it was to them. For those who've been around the church for a while, it's a little bit more common because we've heard this portion taught many times. But basically, wineskins...

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were used, they would pour the grape juice essentially into the wineskins and then the wineskin would be part of or would take place in the fermenting process of the juice within it. And so as the juice is...

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changed into wine as it ferments, the wineskins would be part of that process and they would experience the different gases and things that are the result of that fermentation process. And so the wineskins themselves are affected by the process. They're changed. They're different after they've gone through that process of having juice within them be turned to wine. And after the wine is poured out, the wineskins now change.

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They're not soft and flexible the way that they once were, but they're stiff. They're brittle. They're fragile. Where before they could flex and expand, now they're more stiff and rigid. And so if you were to pour new wine again into those wineskins that have already been used, well, the wineskin is too stiff and brittle. It's unable to handle the fermentation process.

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And so in the midst of the process, instead of expanding and contracting like it would before, now it can't. And so instead what it does is it bursts. It breaks open because it can't handle the flexibility, the changes that are taking place. Now this is something that they knew about. This is something they were familiar with there in their culture. And so it was something that would really make sense to them. They would say, oh yeah, that's right, we don't use...

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Old wineskins to ferment new wine. That makes sense to them. Jesus says instead you put new wine into new wineskins. Again, Jesus came to bring a new covenant. And this new covenant was giving people access to God by faith in Jesus. And Jesus is explaining that he's not going to do this through the old traditions and customs. He's not even going to do it through the old covenant.

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It's a new wineskin that he has brought forth. It's really himself. As we see in John chapter 1, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the new covenant. Instead of the tablets, instead of the Torah, it's Jesus. You can't pour this new covenant into the old system. It's brought forth to us in the person of Jesus. That's why Jesus was able to say with absolute clarity that

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No one comes to the Father except through me. He is the way, the truth, and the life because he is the new covenant. Religion, on the other hand, again, it's a system of rules and regulations and rituals. And relationship with God has to be much more than that. It's connecting with God. It's talking to God. It's hearing from him, responding to him right now, today. And we can do that. We have access to God through Jesus Christ.

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Every one of us, we have access to God through Jesus Christ. It's not just, you know, for the select few or the elite. Not just for the Hectors and the Sherries. Not just for the Annabelles. For all of us. We all have equal access to God. Sometimes, you know, we get the impression that this person has really, really good access to God.

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And I don't have, you know, my access to God is kind of limited, you know. I kind of have to shout through some cracks. Hopefully God hears. But this person can walk right in, man. It's just like amazing. But that's not the reality. Again, read through the book of Hebrews. What Jesus offers to us, this new covenant, because of His finished and completed work at the cross, gives every one of us access to the throne of God. We all have the same access.

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We all have that, the same potential to have that relationship with God. But again, so often for us as believers, it might start out that way, but we migrate to, we gravitate towards the system. And we need to be careful against that. We need to be careful that we are hearing from the Lord, that we're participating in a relationship with God.

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We're not trying to just follow this system and then we can do whatever else we want with our lives. Again, Pastor Chuck Smith says, people who are locked in their old traditional systems just can't take a new fresh work of God in their hearts and in their lives. When we get locked into our systems, we get like the religious leaders here that are talking to Jesus. They're like, well, we can't do that. That's not the way that we do things. Jesus is saying, there's a new covenant. I'm here. I'm offering this.

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what God has provided for relationship with Him. There's a little bit of hope in this idea of a new wineskin because the Greek word here for a new wineskin is not the word that means another wineskin, but it could also be translated a renewed wineskin. And what they would do in those days, again, this would be familiar to them, not so familiar to us, but

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When a wineskin had already been used to ferment wine, they could use it again. But before they did, they had to soak it in water for a good deal of time. And soaking it in the water would allow it to regain its flexibility, would allow it to regain its strength. And then when they would, you know, pull it out, then they could put the new wine in it and it would begin to ferment and it would be flexible. It would be able to handle it.

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And so there's hope there because even though you and I, we tend to gravitate towards that system, there's the opportunity to be renewed in our relationship with God, in our flexibility, in our response to the Lord by soaking in the water. And of course, the scripture speaks about the water as a picture of the Word of God as well as the Spirit of God. And so by immersing ourselves in the Word of God, the Spirit of God,

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We can, even though we've gone into ritualism and traditionalism, we can regain that flexibility, that relationship with God and be renewed to experience a new and fresh work with God through a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so we see here that religion cannot contain. It can't hold it in. There's a lot we could get into there, but we need to move on to finish up. I just want to

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encourage you in this before we move on to the last point that is that do not try to limit Jesus to your religious system. Don't try to limit Jesus. Again, you have to embrace Him fully. Throw out the religious system and embrace the fullness of Jesus and relationship with Him. Now I'm not saying, you know, be disobedient, do whatever you want, it's okay to practice sin. Again, the Word of God is our standard.

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But throw out the system. Throw out the checklist. And connect with God today. And don't limit what God wants to do by your religious system. God says, I want you to do this today. Well, God, you know, it's interesting that you want me to do that. But I already did my religious duty. I already went to church today. So, sorry, I don't have to do that.

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I already checked off my box today. I did my good deed for the day. No, no, no. Don't limit. Don't try to restrict or contain what God wants to do by your religious system. Throw off those boundaries. Connect with the Lord. Hear from Him and respond to Him because you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Well, finally, point number four we find in verse 39.

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And that is that religion reduces the desire for relationship with Jesus. Verse 39 he says, And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new. For he says, The old is better. Here Jesus speaks about those who are drinking the old wine and they think, Hey, this is good enough. I don't need to try anything new. I don't need to try something different. The old is fine. The old is good.

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I'm comfortable with it. He's really dealing with that desire for relationship with the Lord. You see, we gravitate towards religion, towards the system, because it reduces our feelings of guilt. And if our feelings of guilt are reduced, then we think, well, that's good enough. That's fine. I already did my religious duty. I did what I need to do.

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And that's fine. I don't need to do more than that. You know, I don't want to get radical, you know. I don't want to get, some people talk about that, right? I don't want to be like a holy roller, you know. I don't want to get that crazy. I just want a little bit. I just, I'm comfortable with this. I'm comfortable with the way we've always done it. Kind of is that classic idea of tradition, right? Like you just don't want to change. It's tradition. It's custom. We just got to keep doing it the way that we've done it. And it hinders us. It limits us.

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From desiring the new work of God in our hearts and lives. Pastor David Guzik says, just because people are more comfortable with the old, they assume that it is better. The epitaph on the tombstone of many a dead church reads, we never did it that way before. How many dead churches? That's the proverb on it. That's the saying on it. And I kind of picture it like, oh, you know, well, we never did it that way before. I don't know why I picture it that way, but that's how I picture it.

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Because we base it on, well, we've never done that before. We don't, that's not the way we do things. Listen, this applies to us personally. It applies to churches. It applies to movements of God. The religious system hinders, it limits our desire for relationship with Jesus. We get comfortable in the system. We get comfortable in the routine and it limits us. It hinders us so that we don't thirst after. Remember Jesus said, whoever thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

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That's not just an initial invitation. That's a continual, constant invitation. And we're to have that thirst and come to Jesus and drink and be filled, not just a little bit, but to overflowing. Does that describe your spiritual life? That you're coming to Jesus and it's like, I like the picture, it's often been shared about drinking from a fire hydrant. It's like you're coming to Jesus for a drink and it's like, he's overwhelming. He's overwhelming.

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But it's so easy for us to get caught up in the system and say, I'm not thirsty. I'm fine. I don't need a drink. Thanks. I would ask you to challenge yourself. What's new about your relationship with Jesus today? Today. What's new about your relationship with the Lord? What's going on? What is God doing? How is your relationship today different than it was yesterday? And how is it different than it was last week and last month and last year? How is it different?

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Pastor Tom used to always come up to us and ask, what's the Lord saying to you? I think maybe it's time for us to revive that question because, well, there's that freshness, there's that newness that God's doing a new work today. He's doing something different in my heart. It's really about a relationship and God's speaking to us and working in our midst. But we so easily get caught up in the system, the regulations, the rules, the religion, the traditions.

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And I want to challenge you today. What is the Lord saying to you? Where are you at in your relationship with God? Katie's going to come up and the ushers are going to get ready for communion. And what a perfect time for us to partake of communion together. Because Jesus gave us communion. This isn't just a tradition that we've picked up over the years. Jesus gave us communion as a reminder for what He did.

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As a reminder of the new covenant that we have with him. In Luke chapter 22, it says that he took the bread. He said, take and eat. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. He says, remember me as you do this. And then he says, it says that he took the cup. And he says, this is the new covenant. That new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He says, it's my blood which is shed for you.

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And so communion, he gave us as a reminder. He gave us these elements to remind us, to help us to go back and remember it's about that new covenant, that relationship, to reconnect with the Lord and hear from him. And so they're going to pass out the bread and the cup this morning as Katie leads us in worship. I want to encourage you. Usually we have you hold both portions until the end and then we all partake together as a family.

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But as a reminder that today you have your own personal relationship with God. That's what He desires with you. Instead I want to encourage you. As God speaks to your heart. Whenever you are right with the Lord during this worship song. Then you go ahead and partake on your own. Because it's between you and the Lord. It's about your personal relationship with Him. And this morning if you don't have that relationship.

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If you're not right with God this morning, this is the most awesome, perfect opportunity for you to change that. Because getting right with God is not about fulfilling a system. You don't have to go through a six-month program. You can right now turn to God by faith in Jesus Christ and say to Him, Yes, Lord, I receive Your offer of forgiveness.

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Because I believe you died upon the cross for my sin. And you can hold these portions that he's given to us as a reminder and say, yes, I receive your sacrifice. I turn to you. And I don't want to try to add a piece of you to my life. And I don't want to try to limit what you want to do. I want to turn myself fully over to you and follow you as your disciple. And when that's the state of your heart,

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then you can partake. So let's worship the Lord together. They're going to pass them out. Hold on to it until you're right there with God. Yes, I want to follow you completely and fully. Let's worship the Lord together and partake as He leads you. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.