Out with the Old, In with the New
Matthew 9:14-17
New International
Version (NIV)
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it
that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus
answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time
will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of
unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the
garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins.
If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will
be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
As I
read this scripture I began to think about why we fast. I looked up fasting and found a scripture
where Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights because he was listening to God and
recording what he was told. Look at Exodus 34:28 28 Moses was
there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or
drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten
Commandments. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2034:28&version=NIV)
Moses
was so busy listening so close to the very words of God and writing them down
that he didn’t have time to eat. This is
in stark contrast to what we do today. We
get so busy that we forget to pick up the Bible and learn from His word. We are so busy that we fail to find time for
Him and His work.
Now the
disciples were new in their faith, remember, these were fishermen and tax
collectors. These men were not theologians but were most likely people the
theologians avoided unless they wanted to purchase some fish. These men had relied on their own toughness
and their mental abilities to make it in life and now they are walking,
talking, listening, and learning about an entirely new way of life. Life must have been a little confusing to
them but they were growing. They were
getting the very words of God from God incarnate. They didn’t need to set a time aside where
they could listen to Him, it was their way of life.
Now John’s
disciples and the Pharisees didn’t have that direct contact and they needed to continually
empty themselves and read the word of God.
As I thought about this I wrote down:
un-shrunk
cloth = new believers; old garment = seasoned believer, theologian, someone
stuck in their ways, etc.
new wine
= new believers; old wine skins = seasoned believer, church attendee, theologian,
etc.
The
disciples were the un-shrunk cloth and the new wine whereas John’s disciples
and the Pharisees would have been considered the old wine skins and the old
garment. Jesus knew what these new believers
needed; they were already emptied out and ready to be filled with the new
wine. They really didn’t have any
patches to be placed on their clothes, they were the patches. If these men would have been given over to
the Pharisees to be trained in the ways of the Lord, they most likely would
have been given a ton of rituals that they would not have understood and would
probably ended up being fishers of fish rather than fishers of men or they
would have gone back to collecting taxes and cheating others out of their
money. These men needed to be filled
with new wine which came through Jesus.
They needed to go through life and be shrunk a little before being a
viable patch.
My
questions today are rather simple but yet complex. I would really like you to
think about which one of these that you are:
Are you
the un-shrunk cloth or are you the old garment?
Are you
the new wine or the old wine skin?
After
you have identified yourself I want you to consider how you react to your
opposite.
If you
are a new believer do you try to cling to those who seem to have it all
together, those who are the church attendees or the theologian? It is not wrong to learn from those who have
been in the faith for years but you must be cautious, don’t cling to them to
the point that you tear away. Cling to
the Lord and seek Him, become a part of a group of believers who are truly
seeking Him with all their hearts. Don’t
get so caught up in the “churchy” thing that you forget about your new changed
life.
As a
believer have you ever been shrunk in order to become a patch? I see being shrunk as being someone with
humility. Someone who has gone through
the trials of life can be the most useful.
Have you been shrunk or are you trying to sew a new patch onto an old
garment?
If you are the old garment or the old wine
skin are you so caught up in the rituals of the religious world that you have
grown up with that you forget that you are to be clinging to the Lord not old
traditions or rituals. We need to make
sure that when we worship that we do so not in a ritualistic way but in true
worship to our Lord. It doesn’t matter
if it is an old tradition or a new one, if it is a tradition rather than a true
worship we need to re-evaluate why we are doing it. If those who we come in contact with slip
away and tear away from us then maybe we are trying to fit them into a mold
that they were not designed for. Maybe
we need to go back and fast, empty ourselves of this world and fill ourselves
with the Lord Jesus Christ in order that we may bring glory to God and not
glory to ourselves. I propose that we
need to be so busy with the Lord that we forget to do those things that occupy
our time today.
Where
are you today? Are you one that needs to
fast or are you one that is empty and ready to be filled up? Seek Him and find Him and when you do, ask
Him to guide you in the direction that He would have for you to go.
Seeking
Him with all my heart,
Sheila
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