In Jesus’ answer to those who questioned why His disciples didn’t fast, He reveals that He has come to introduce a life of joy in relationship with God, and a completely different way of fasting, which is incompatible with the way the Pharisees fasted.
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Do You Have Religion Or Christ?
Luke 5:33-39
I have one question for you this morning, “Do you have religion or Christ?” You might think, “I thought being religious was the same thing as having Christ,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Your answer to that question will determine your eternal destiny, and will change everything about your life here and now.
So, what’s the difference between religion and Jesus? The great New England preacher, Phillips Brooks was once asked, ““Is it necessary to have a personal experience with Christ in order to be a Christian?” Brooks paused and then said, “My friend, a personal experience with Christ is Christianity.”
If You Have Religion you focus on If You Have Jesus you experience
Outward activities An inner conversion of the heart
A Head knowledge about Christ and God A Heart knowledge of Christ
Being good enough to be accepted by Him God making you acceptable to Him
Turning over a new leaf Receiving a new life
Trying to reform Being reborn
Redecorating your old life Receiving a brand new life
Man’s work for God God’s work for man at the cross
Being saved by human achievement Being saved by Divine Accomplishment
The reason I have asked you the question of whether you have religion or Christ, is because we are going to see some people in Scripture this morning that had religion, but not Christ. In our text this morning, these people came to Jesus and asked Him a question. Jesus answers their question with 3 illustrations: the Bridegroom and the wedding guests, the new patch on the old garment, and the new wine in old wineskins. Let’s look first at their question, and then 2nd at Jesus’ answer.
1. The Question of the Religious: Lk. 5:33
Actually, in Luke it is a statement, but if you compare Matthew and Mark, it was actually delivered as a question. Mt. 9:14 says, “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
Who was asking the Question? The disciples of John. John the Baptist had a powerful ministry, which led to hundreds if not thousands of people becoming his disciples. John taught them to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. However, when Jesus appeared on the scene, many of them did not go to Jesus, but remained followers of John and his teachings. They did what John taught. They repented of sin and were baptized. Apparently, now that they had become serious about following God, they had gone to the Pharisees to learn how to live. After all, the Pharisees were the most serious and devout Jews of that day. So these followers of John the Baptist, began to mimic the ways of the Pharisees in their attempt to demonstrate how serious they were about their religious faith.
What was the Question? We are fasting, and the Pharisees are fasting, so why don’t Your disciples fast? These disciples of John must have thought that something was terribly amiss in Jesus’ disciples. Fasting was a way to show how religious a person was, yet Jesus’ disciples didn’t fast. Why not? Surely, this must prove that something was very wrong in Jesus’ own life.
Why were they fasting? After all, in Scripture, God only commanded His people to fast one day a year – Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Lev.16:29). However, through the traditions of men, several other fast days had been added over the years. Not being content, even with these man-made fast days, the Pharisees determined in their religious zeal, that they would fast twice a week. Remember, the parable that Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector who went up to the temple to pray? The Pharisee prayed to himself and said, “I fast twice a week.” According to tradition, Pharisees would fast on Mondays and Thursdays, every week.
Why did this question arise? In all three synoptic gospels, this issue of fasting comes directly after Jesus attends Levi’s feast. You will recall that Jesus called Levi (Matthew) to leave everything and follow him, which he did. Then Levi threw a huge party, and invited Jesus and His disciples, as well as all his sinner friends, prostitutes and tax collectors. Of course, the Pharisees grumbled and asked why Jesus would eat with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus replied that He was a physician of souls, and a doctor needs to be among those who are sick. In Matthew’s gospel, the next verse says, “Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying…” So, what we have here is that in all likelihood, Levi threw his part on a Monday or a Thursday. The Pharisees were fasting, but they noticed that Jesus and His disciples, were enjoying a great feast. Their question had to do with, “Why isn’t Jesus behaving like us? Why isn’t He fasting when we are fasting? Who does He think He is? Does He think He is exempt from our religious exercises?”
2. The Answer of Christ: Lk.5:34-39.
Jesus’ answer comes in the form of 3 illustrations. The 2nd two illustrations actually teach the same truth. So, in reality, Jesus gives 2 answers to their question. 1) Because the Bridegroom is Here – It is Inappropriate to fast. 2) Even if they did fast, their fasting would be incompatible with your fasts.
A. Jesus’ Disciples don’t fast because His presence makes it Inappropriate to fast. Jesus says that He is the Bridegroom, and His disciples were the wedding guests. Now, how do wedding guests behave at a wedding? A wedding is a time of joy and celebration and feasting and dancing. Imagine that you are attending a wedding and are sitting at the banquet table. You pass the honey baked ham to the guy on your left, but he says, “No thank you. None for me.” You pass him the mashed potatoes and gravy, the salad, the rolls, the cake and pie. Every time, he says the same thing, “No thank you. None for me.” What would you be thinking? This guy is weird! Why? Because it is totally inappropriate for wedding guests to fast at a wedding. In fact, it is insulting to the Bride and Groom to fast at their wedding. Fasting is a sign of mourning and humiliation, not of joy and celebration. So, Jesus tells these disciples of John that His disciples don’t fast, because it would be totally inappropriate to fast. He is the Bridegroom, and they are the invited guests, and while He is among them, it is a time to celebrate and rejoice.
In Is.62:5 the Bible says, “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” In the Old Testament, God is pictured as the Bridegroom, and Israel as the Bride. Jesus appears on the scene, and He says “I am the Bridegroom.” What’s the implication. Jesus, in a backhanded kind of way, is saying, “I am God. I have come to visit My people.” Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He is God the Creator, who has come down to visit His creation. In Luke 1:68 Zechariah prophesied, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people.” Jesus Christ is the Lord God of Israel who has come down to visit and redeem His people!
Will Jesus’ disciples ever fast? In Luke 5:35 Jesus says, “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” Yes, Jesus’ disciples will fast. It will be when He is taken away from them. This is Jesus’ first reference to his impending death on the cross. However, they can’t fast now, because I am among them. It would be entirely inappropriate.
Isn’t it interesting to notice the difference between how the Pharisees and Jesus viewed life. The Pharisees viewed their religious life as a funeral. Jesus viewed His life as a wedding. The Pharisees viewed life in terms of all the things they had to abstain from. Jesus viewed life in terms of all He could enjoy and praise God for. The Pharisees were characterized by being gloomy and severe and morose. Jesus was characterized by life, and joy, and celebration. Who are you most like?
Erma Bombeck once tells the story of how she was sitting in church one Sunday when a little girl turned around and began smiling at the people behind her. She wasn’t making a sound – just smiling. When the girl’s mother noticed, she said in a whisper, “Stop grinning – you’re in church!” She gave her a swat, and then said, “That’s better!” Erma concluded that some people come to church looking like they had just read the will of their rich aunt and learned that she had given everything to her pet hamster. Folks, the Christian life should put a joy inside of you, that nothing can snuff out. It should make is smile and sing, and dance for joy! If our understanding of the gospel makes us act more like the Pharisees than Jesus, something is wrong with our understanding of the gospel.
Application: Let’s pause to make application of our text. Because Jesus is risen, He is alive today. We can know Him. Thus, the Christian life should be a life of joy and celebration. The Bridegroom is still among us. He said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” He said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” If you are a Christian, Jesus is present with you. The Christian life is like a wedding feast! The Pharisees viewed their religious life as a bunch of distasteful duties they must perform and a bunch of pleasures they must abstain from in order to achieve their salvation. As a result they were unhappy and gloomy. The believer views his Christian life as a relationship with the living God who has already achieved His salvation for him. As a result, we, of all people, should be joyful, and happy. Remember the response of Philip Brooks, “My friend, a personal experience with Christ is Christianity.” You are not a Christian if you don’t have a true and vital saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Christianity is not knowing some second hand truths about Jesus. It is knowing Jesus for yourself.
We ought to be excited and amazed that we can actually know the true and living God! We can talk to Him and He can talk to us. If we actually have a relationship with Jesus Christ, it can’t help but bring joy into our lives. Do you really know Jesus? Do you have a vital, day by day, moment by moment relationship with Him? Do you talk to Him about everything that concerns you? Do you praise Him for all your blessings? Do you seek wisdom from Him to live in a way that pleases Him? Is He your Bridegroom? Is He the lover of your soul? Do you love Him above all others and desire to be with Him forever? Then, joy, not mourning, should be the flavor of your life! My friends, I’m afraid that if you know nothing of real, heaven-sent joy, you know nothing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Joy is the inevitable fruit of knowing the presence and person of Jesus Christ.
B. Even if they did fast, it would be incompatible with your fasts.
Jesus teaches this truth by using two different illustrations that teach exactly the same thing – you can’t mix the old with the new. The first illustration is that of taking a piece of material from a new garment that had not been shrunk, and sewing it on an old garment as a patch. When you wash the garment, the new material on the patch shrinks, and it pulls away from old garment and causes a rip in the material. The second illustration is that of pouring new wine into old wineskins. The Jews would use the skins of animals to hold their wine, rather than bottles like we do. They would remove the skin from a goat or a sheep, tan it, turn it inside out, and then sew it up. The wine would then be poured into the skins. Well, Jesus says no one would pour new unfermented wine into an old wine skin. The old wineskins have become hard and brittle, and have lost all their elasticity. When the new wine ferments and expands it will burst through the brittle wineskins and all the wine would be lost.
What is Jesus’ point? You can’t mix the old with the new. The new is completely incompatible with the old. Notice the contrast between the old and the new in verses 36-39. Jesus is saying that the old way that the Pharisees is in direct contrast to the new way He does things. You can’t mix Jesus’ way of fasting with the Pharisees’ way of fasting. It’s like comparing the first airplane that the Wright brothers flew in, to a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. The plane the Wright brothers flew in weighed 750 pounds, and had a 15 horsepower engine. It traveled a whopping distance of 120 feet. A Boeing 747 jumbo jet weighs 800,000 pounds and can travel 7,200 miles! So, what would happen if you tried to mix a 747 jumbo jet with the first Wright brothers plane? What would happen if you took the engine of the Boeing 747 with 60,000 pounds of fuel and put it on the wooden frame of the Wright brothers plane? It would decimate that little plane wouldn’t it? The new engine is completely incompatible with the old wooden plane. There are similarities but they are completely incompatible. That’s the way it is with the Pharisees’ fasting and Jesus’ fasting.
So, why did the Pharisees fast? Mt. 6:16, “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.” The Pharisees wanted everyone to know when they were fasting. When they got up on a fast day, they wouldn’t bathe, or shave, or comb their hair. The more disheveled they looked, the better. They would sprinkle some white ash on their faces so that everyone would know how holy they were because they were fasting.
How did Jesus teach His disciples to fast? He tells us in Mt. 6:17-18, “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” The fasting of the Pharisees was for the purpose of being seen by men. The fasting that Jesus taught was for the purpose of being seen by God. You can’t mix these two kinds of fasting. They are completely incompatible.
The Pharisees also fasted in order to be righteous before God. In Luke 18:9-14 the Bible says, “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘Go be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Pharisee in the parable trusted in himself that he was righteous? Why? Because he fasted twice a week. However, when Jesus concludes his parable he says that the tax collector went down to his house justified, not the Pharisee. The Pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous, but he wasn’t righteous in the sight of God. For the Pharisees, fasting was a means of earning a righteous standing before God.
Their view of fasting was completely incompatible with Jesus’ view of fasting. Jesus’ teaching on fasting had nothing to do with merit, or earning some kind of righteous standing. We don’t fast to get God to accept us. We don’t fast to manipulate God, or force Him to do our will. Jesus’ view of fasting has to do with demonstrating that we desire God more than we desire food. We know that our fasting will not make us any more righteous than we already were. We know that our fasting has nothing to do with whether God will accept us or not.
The fasting of Jesus was brand new in comparison with the fasting of the Pharisees. Go back in your mind to the late 1800’s when the only way you could get somewhere was to either walk, by horse, or train. Most families got around with a horse and buggy. Then in the late 1800’s a new mode of transportation was invented. It was called “the horseless carriage.” It was basically a buggy with a motor instead of a horse. Now the horse and buggy and the motorized carriage were similar. They were both modes of transportation. But you have to admit, that the automobile was completely new and different from the horse and buggy. In the same way, there were similarities between the fasting of Jesus and the fasting of the Pharisees. But Jesus’ fasting was completely new and different from the fasting of the Pharisees.
Application:
The point Jesus is making in this text is that He is not simply an Add On. The Pharisees wanted to simply add Jesus to what they were already doing. We’ll just add Him like a patch to our old garment. We’ll just add Him like new wine to our old wineskin. But He didn’t come to join what the Pharisees were already doing and give them His stamp of approval. He didn’t come be assimilated into Judaism. He didn’t come to follow the lead of the Pharisees. No, He came to start something new. He came to fulfill all the Old Testament Law. He came as the King of a new Kingdom. He is like a new garment, new wine.
There were some people in the first century that tried to add Jesus on to Judaism. We call them the Judaizers. These people show up most prominently in the book of Galatians. After Paul had preached the gospel and made many converts in Galatia, these guys came behind him and told the new converts, “Hey, it’s great that you have believed in Jesus as your Messiah. That’s good. That’s great. But that’s not enough. You also need to be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses to be saved.” In other words, you Gentiles need to become Jews to be saved. Just believing in Jesus won’t save you. You need to believe in Jesus and become Jews. Folks, “Jesus + Nothing = Everything!” If you have Christ, you have everything! When the apostle Paul heard about the teaching of these Judaizers he was horrified. He told them that if anyone was preaching a gospel contrary to the one they had received, let him be accursed!
Just as becoming a Christian in the first century was not to just add Jesus on to Judaism, becoming a Christian today is not to just add Jesus on to an already crowded life. You know, “Things go better with Coke.” Well, we just change it to be, “Things go better with Christ.” I have a pretty good life, but I need a little more self-esteem, a little more purpose, a little better marriage, a little more money, a little more health. So I’ll just add Jesus to my life. We look at our life like a pie that is all sliced up, and we notice that there is a slice missing, so we will just add Jesus to our life. We’ve got our family slice, our work slice, our entertainment slice, our vacation slice, and now our Jesus slice. Folks, Jesus is not a slice of pie – Jesus IS the pie! Jesus is not just a part of a Christian’s life. Jesus is a Christian’s life! There was a time when we believed that the sun revolved around the earth. In 1543 Copernicus published his book, “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” which has come to be called The Copernicus Revolution. Friends, every Christian has to experience another kind of revolution. You see, all of us begin our lives by thinking that the world revolves around us. We all start out by worshipping ourselves. We are the center of our universe. When someone tries to add Jesus to their life so that they will have more health, wealth, better marriage, etc. they are still worshipping themselves. They are still the center of the universe. But when you surrender to Him as Lord and God and worship Him, it’s not about you any more. It’s all about Him. He’s the center. You have gone from worshipping self to worshipping the true and living God.
Oh, my friends, make absolutely sure that you are not making the same mistake the Pharisees did – trying to add Jesus to your life to get something from Him. Make sure you have unconditionally surrendered everything to Him as your Lord and God and King and Treasure. That is the only way of peace now and salvation in the world to come. Oh, repent of worshipping yourself, and begin to worship Jesus today!
Let me end where I began. Do you have religion or Christ? Are you trying to work your way to God through your performance of rituals or good deeds, hoping that everyone else notices your righteousness? If so, you are in exactly the same position as the Pharisees, and you will be eternally lost. My friend, get rid of your religion! Come to Jesus. Embrace Him as your everything – your righteousness, your salvation, your life. Find joy and happiness in Him, as He becomes your life. Let’s pray.
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