You ever had someone try to convince you that old things are better than new things? Maybe you're one of those people. Maybe you're one of those people who tried to convince everyone else around you that old things are better than new things. Sometimes I'm that person that will try to tell you that old things are better than new things. And there's a phrase that we use when we try to tell people about that, and the phrase, of course, is they just don't make them like they used to see, you know, it you've done the same thing, right? Sometimes we do this with things like cars, right? They just don't make cars like they used to. I mean, the old engines are way better than the new engines. We do it with appliances, right? All these new digital washing machines and things, and, you know, the old ones are way better than these new ones, right? We do it with with furniture. They used to be made with real wood that would last forever. And now we get this particle board stuff that breaks in like a week the old is just better than the new. We do the same thing with with tools and and listen, here's one that's way out there, but I think some of you might agree with me on this one, and that's cereal. Has anybody else noticed that they just don't put quite as much sugar in cereal today as they used to. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's still a mound of sugar in your fruit loops today, but I'm telling you, if you'd have had fruit loops back in the 80s, you'd be going, Whoa. Now that is where it's at, right? I mean, it was just loaded with more sugar. They just don't make them like they used to. This is what we sometimes tend to think the old way of doing things is just better than the new way of doing things. Well, this was the philosophy of the religious leaders of Jesus' day as well the old religion of Judaism, they thought is way better than the new ways that Jesus was teaching. Today, when we continue this message series on the Gospel of Luke and Luke, chapter five, verses 33 through 39 we're going to see him confront Jesus about it, about the old being better than the new way that Jesus reacts will say a lot to us today about the Christian life as well. So let's see what Luke says. Luke, chapter five, beginning in verse 33 says they said to him, John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours, Jesus, your disciples, they just go on and on, eating and drinking. They never fast. In other words, this new way of acting and behaving is not as good as the old way of behaving and acting. Your disciples aren't following the old ways of doing things. The old way is better. It's what your disciples should be doing as well. The issue, of course, was with fasting. Here's here's the thing about fasting, especially in this day and age, people fasted for different reasons. They fasted for penitence, expressing sorrow or regret for sinning or trying to make up for their sin in some way. For others, they fasted because they were mourning. Other times, people fasted as a plea for deliverance. But it was way bigger than that. Fasting in Judaism was a major right of piety. It was highly regarded as an act of worship, and it was even seen as a virtue. And so the failure of the disciples too fast, Jesus' disciples to fast, was reflecting a lack of respect in their minds for God, it was a severe absence of piety in their minds, and so they're calling them out make them follow the rules Jesus, they really need to obey the tradition, the old ways of doing things, if in fact, they are true followers of God. Look at how Jesus responded to him in verse 34 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. Jesus responds to their complaint about them not fasting by pointing them to a wedding. A wedding was a big deal in this culture. A wedding could last up to a week. They would have a wedding feast that could last up to a week or more. And for them, I mean, this was the most vivid picture that you could think of in their culture to give. A description or in their minds joy to think of happiness and what that creates emotionally for them at a wedding. But remember what we said about fasting? Right? Fasting involved a mood of mourning. Fasting involved grieving for sin. Fasting involved a call for deliverance. So Jesus is saying, This is not a time for penance, this is not a time for mourning. This is not a time to cry out, to live for deliverance, because I am here to deliver you. I'm here to deliver you from your sins. This is a time where there should be joy. This is a time where there should be happiness and celebration. This is not a time for fasting. This is not a time for mourning. This is not a time for penance. Now Jesus would die on the cross, and Jesus says in those days his disciples would mourn and fast that that would be an appropriate time to do that, when Jesus is gone. But honestly, guys, even, that would change three days later, after his resurrection, and then, of course, 40 days later, after the sending of the Spirit, because, because that would bring the joy back. That would bring the celebration back, since he would be with them again. You may even remember that Jesus said this in John, chapter 15, verse 11, he was talking to his disciples and pointing them to a number of different things that were coming. And again, in 1511, he says, I have told you this. Why? So that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. I've told you this so that my joy would be in you and that your joy would be made complete. In other words, Jesus brings a new joy through his coming and his finished work on the cross, that makes things different now than they used to be. Joy was temporary. Before Jesus, there was bondage, and people were in need of deliverance. Under the Old Covenant, there was a need for mourning and penance at that time. But Jesus was there to bring deliverance. He was there to provide victory over sin and death and to make our joy, as he said, complete. And since that joy is complete, things are different. Now, fasting would be different. Now fasting for deliverance wouldn't be necessary because Jesus has delivered us. Fasting for penance wouldn't be necessary. Fasting for guilt, for sin, wouldn't be necessary because he's accomplished what was necessary to provide complete forgiveness ofall sins.Now we do see the apostles after Jesus' death, resurrection and sinning of the spirit at least twice in the book of Acts, talks about how they fasted, but they weren't fasting for these reasons. They weren't fasting for mourning and penance and deliverance and victory over sin and and all of those things. Were fasting for other reasons. See, Jesus changes things, and the old ways of doing things were being replaced with new things.That's what Jesus even tries to explain to them. Next, look at verse 36verse 36 says he told them this parable, no one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. No one does that. Otherwise they will have torn the new garment and the patch from the new will not match the old. In other words, what Jesus is saying is that you can't put the new cloth of grace and weave it into the old cloth of law. You can't take the new cloth of grace and weave it into the old cloth of law. Jesus was not there to patch the old system of law. He wasn't there to just bring a few new ideas to the old ways of doing things and kind of sew them into the old ways of doing things to make a mixture of the two. The two don't go together. The old garment of our sinful flesh could not be mended. Jesus didn't come just to try to make a few repairs to us. He came to produce an entirely new garment to make us a whole new creation, to provide a whole new operating system.Just what Jesus is saying. Tothem through this picture, he's trying to give them of this new cloth and how nobody tears out a piece and sews it into the old one, and so on and so on. Now if this imagery isn't doing it for you, that's okay, because Jesus is going to give us a different image. Now he wants to make sure that we don't miss what he is trying to say here, so it doesn't stop with one picture. He gives us anotherlook at verses 37 and 38he says that no one pours new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and the wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No new wine must be poured into new wine skins. Okay, so, so wine skins in this day and age were usually made from sheep skin or or goat skin and and over time, the the skin of the container would would age and become brittle. And when that began to happen, if you poured new wine into these old wine skins, when the wine began to ferment, then it would expand the container and the skin would burst, and all the new wine would just come pouring out, go to complete waste.Jesus is sayingthat the new wine of the Gospel must be placed into the new wineskin of grace, not the old wine skin of law. Herbert lock here says it this way in his book titled all the parables of the Bible, just thought he captured it so well. He says the interpretation of this part of the parable is not hard to seek. Christ virtually abrogates, repeals the old Levitical law and offers a charter of new freedom to force his new teachings into the old formulas would bring decomposition and ruin, to take his truth and try to press it into some other form than his would make it deteriorate as UN fermented wine. Did not Christ teach that the life must not be a mixture resulting from following two opposing principles. Did he not illustrate singleness of principle and motive, which Paul later on emphasized when he said for me to live, is Christ. We must be simple, he says, and single. In all our motives, we cannot serve two masters where we trust in Christ and in our own works. We cannot mix law and grace. In other words, Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, your old time religion will not work. Your Old Time Religion will not work. It won't save you. It won't rescue you from sin. It won't bring you eternal life. It won't fix your marriage, it won't fix your addiction. It won't bring you lasting fulfillment. Your rules and your ways of doing things will not do that for you, but I can. Jesus is saying, I'm here to bring you new life. I'm here to deliver you from sin to bring you eternal life. I'm here to replace the old way of the written code and to put my spirit in you to inaugurate a completely new covenant. So know this, guys, there will be no mixture of the two. Jesus is saying, Do not try to sow. Sow the new into the old. Don't try to pour the new into the old container. It's like putting oil in water. The two don't mix.But here's the deal.Jesus knows that even though this is what he came to provide, that some people just won't be able to get past the old. So what he says in verse 39 he says in no one, after drinking the old wine, wants the new for they say the old is better. In other words, some people are so wedded to the old taste that they will not be interested in the new way of Jesus. Or if they are, they won't be able to let completely go of the old. Old they'll, they'll try to mix the two together. They'll say, okay, okay, it's, it's, there is a new way. It's, it is by grace that you are saved, but now you live the Christian life by obeying the law. You're saved by grace. You live the Christian life, the old way, through the law. Guys, Jesus is clear here. He's saying this is not the way. He says, You don't take a piece of a new garment to patch an old you don't put new wine into old wine skins. You don't mix grace and law. You don't mix the Old Covenant and the New Covenant together. The new covenant replaces the old covenant. The writers of the New Testament even confirm this. Romans 76 the Apostle Paul says that Jesus releases us from the law. Releases us from the law. Why? So that we can serve in the new way of the Spirit. And he says, Not, specifically, not the old way of the written code. We don't serve in the old way. You don't get saved by grace and live it by law. The author of Hebrews chapter eight, verse 13, says the same thing where he used the word obsolete. He says, The old is obsolete. It's been replaced. We're not mixing it with the new. The Christian life is not a mixture of grace and law. We are saved by faith, and we live the Christian life by faith, dependence upon Christ, constantly receiving in us and through us, He is the vine. We are the branches. And what do branches do? They just constantly receive? They constantly receive. He gave you that image. That's what branches do you just receive from the life giving stuff? The grace is given to you. He's just going to keep pouring into you. We're bears of the fruit, not producers of the fruit Jesus is saying, I've not come to mix law and grace. I've come to do something new.So how does this apply to our lives today?How does Jesus express his life through us in this way? I mean, that's what this whole series has been about. We've we've been saying, of course, that for those of us who have put our faith and trust in Jesus, we've received a salvation that He completely forgives us, that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, unites us to Jesus in a spiritual union, and then he begins to express his life through us in action and character and speech and behavior and all of the above. We become his instruments that he works in and through to make impact around the world. And so we've been saying, the more we know about Jesus and how he lived his earthly life, the more we'll know what to look for about the way he expresses his life through us today. And today we see how Jesus was clear. He was clear about teaching people not to mix the old with the new. And so what can we expect? We can expect the same thing that Jesus will express his life through us today to make sure that people do not miss that same message, that the Christian life is not a mixture of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. It's not a life of law and grace. But unfortunately, we see Satan deceiving people into this lie all of the time, even in our churches today, and it results in confusion. It results in frustration, people missing out on the life and the joy and the freedom that they have in Christ. Let me give you an example. Bob George, in his book classic Christianity, talks and tells a story about a woman who who calls into his radio show one time and she was ready to end it all. I mean, literally, ready to end it all. Why? Because she could not make sense of the Christian life. He talks about how she was taught if you if you read your Bible enough, you You pray enough, you fast enough. You give enough, you serve enough, you just follow the rules that God will deliver you from your problems, the things going on in your life. The problem was, she was doing those things, but God hadn't fixed all of her problems. And so she went to the church leaders, she tried to share with them her frustration, her failure, confusion, about the Christian life. And you know what she was told she must be allowing Satan to have a place in her heart. If she'd just go back to confessing her sin, confessing her anger, promising God to try harder, to pray and fast and seek Him, follow the rules, then she would finally be delivered. So she tried it again. And she tried even harder, to fast, to pray, to follow the rules, to do everything she was supposed to do. But things didn't change. She began to cry, constantly, fell into deep depression, and even began to wonder, Why Does God hate me so much? I You guys, this is what trying to live by grace and law will do to you. Here's what she told Bob later on in her conversation, she says, Bob, it was it was made absolutely clear to me that you are saved only by faith in Jesus, Grace, the new way. She wasn't taught that you have to follow the rules in order to get to heaven. She knew grace. She understood grace. She understood the new way. It was made clear in the church. But she said, I was never taught that as a Christian, faith is also how you live the Christian life. The emphasis was always on what I should be doing for God, and never on what God had already done is and is committed to do for me and through me. In other words, what was she saying? She was mixing grace and law together. She was mixing the New Covenant and the Old Covenant together. Here's the way Bob comments on it. He says, unfortunately, what she describes seems to be the experience of many Christians today. Love becomes practically meaningless apart from acceptance. Because listen to this, the mingling of Law and Grace multitudes of Christians who are absolutely certain they are going to heaven when they die, are living in daily fear, daily frustration and daily guilt, believing that God is far away in disapproval they are never Free to discover Christ living in them and through them, as Jesus does not want people trying to mix grace and law, it leads to fear, frustration and guilt. And so one of the ways that Jesus will express his life through us is to help free people from the fear, from the frustration, from the guilt, to free them from religion and point them to true, New Covenant Christianity. You probably know people stuck in situations like that who need to hear the true gospel of grace. One of them reached out to me not real long ago, sent me an email, and this was from someone whose family attends our church, or attended our church, but but he went to a different church in the area and and he came out in the email and just, I mean, right off the bat, says, I'm doubting my salvation. I'm doubting whether I'm truly saved. I don't know if I'm going to heaven or not. And what he began to describe was how there was all this strong language that gets used around passages like James two where, where he says, Faith without works is dead. And if you've really made Jesus Lord of your life, then you're going to be doing good works and obeying all of the Bible's commands. And see, he was like, I just, I just don't know if I'm really saved. I don't know if I've really made Jesus the Lord of my light completely because I can't keep obeying everything. I keep messing up. And my heart just sank,honestly, even more than that, it just made me angry,because when people get taught a mixture of law and grace, it produces either legalistic Pharisees who are self righteous, or the fear, the guilt, frustration and condemnation that we talked about earlier and that he was experiencing at the time. And so I pointed him to a sermon series that I'd done on the book of James and dealt with that specific passage, and few other blog posts and things I'd written that would help him to see how he could have assurance of salvation. Told him I was happy to meet with him anytime, if we wanted to meet for coffee and needed to ask questions, pray, talk, whatever. But, but guys, this is why. This is why the top core value at Colonial Hills is teaching life in Christ, that Jesus expresses his life through us to make sure people see the new wine of grace does not get poured into the old wine of law. If you're here today and that's somewhat new to you, you can you have resources. You can go to you can go to our website and and go to the I'm new section, and click on next steps. One of the next steps you'll see says, discover life in Christ. There's a whole page about discovering life in Christ. Christ in this life of grace that we're talking about, there's a testimony of someone from our church and how she was trapped in that fear, guilt, condemnation and shame, mixing law and grace and was free through finally, understanding what New Covenant, real Christianity is all about, and the impact it's made on her life. You'll see a sermon that's preached on it there, you'll see books as resources that are there. But guys, what we can expect is that Jesus will express his life through us by using us to help break people free from the teaching of law and grace. He will use us to point them to life being found in Christ, the new identity that they receive from just saying yes to Him, the assurance of salvation by grace, alone through faith, alone in Christ, alone, and to point them to life under the new covenant of grace, not just for salvation, but grace for life. The apostle Paul in Colossians two says, So then, just as you received Christ, Jesus, our Lord, continue to live your lives in him. How did you receive Christ through faith? So you continue to live your lives by faith. You received Christ for salvation. You continue to keep receiving from himas a branchto live the Christian life.We are receivers by His grace, and by His grace, He fills us and expresses his life through us. This is New Covenant Christianity, and mixing Law and Grace, or not mixing Law and Grace, but receiving salvation by grace, living the Christian life by faith. And so the question is, who in your life needs to hear this truth today, who needs to be freed from the bondage of religion and the mixture of law and grace that they're trying to live by?May Jesus use youto rescue them today,Jesus, we thank you for your teaching, that you use these pictures to help us to see what you came to do, what the truth really is that you didn't come to just add on to the old and make a mixture of the two, that you were doing something completely different, that you were fulfilling the law,so that you could bring us new life,express your life in us and through us. Thank you for the freedom, the joy, the life we can experience as you continue to pour into us and express your life through us.Gotta know that there might be some who are here today, watching online today, who are saying, I've never even taken that step of faith. I've never received Jesus for salvation in the first place. If that's the case, Lord, I pray that you will continue to open up their hearts and minds to to see all that you accomplished on the cross through Jesus, His resurrection and the sinning of the Spirit and what's available to them, even right now in this moment, I pray that you'll use us, those who have put our faith and trust in you, to allow you to express your life through us, To help break free people free from the bondage to religion, mixture of law and grace that they're trying to live by, use us to help them truly learn to experience the new life that they have in Christ. If they've said yes to you, thank you, it's in your name that we pray amen. Amen.