Old Clothes and New Wine

So they asked in verse 33, Why do the disciples of John, John the Baptist, fast often and make prayers? And likewise those are the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. And Christ said to them, Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?

Now they might have scratched their head at that. What does he mean? Can you make the bridegroom—what is he answering here? 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. Then they will fast in those days. Well, we know when Christ speaks of bridegroom, who he's talking about, there's many parables where he talks about wedding feasts and people who are invited to the supper. We have the parable of the ten virgins where they're waiting for the bridegroom to come, but half of them are not ready and they can't go in with him. We have Revelation 19 at the end of the age when it talks about the marriage of the bridegroom, Christ, to his bride. Today we know exactly what Jesus Christ is saying, but they didn't get it. They didn't get it back then. All they know is you're not doing what we said to do. You're not subscribing or prescribing to the traditions that we have set up.

So we have these three things where Christ was letting them know he's the Messiah, didn't come out specifically and say that, except he did use the term son of man when he was talking about the healing process, but he was letting them know who he is. They just didn't want to hear it, and they just made them mad rather than them looking at him. So at the end of these three occurrences, Christ ends with a parable. We read that in verse 36. It says, He spoke a parable to them. He said, 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 doesn't match the old. Well, I'm not a tailor, and I don't know much about fabric, but I'm sure there are some in the room who knows exactly what Christ is talking about here. I would be one who, if I had an old garment and I had a tear in it, I would find anything to repair it. But he's saying, You can't put a new piece of cloth a piece from a new garment on an old one. It just doesn't work. The new one makes a tear. The piece was taken out of the new. It doesn't match the old. It just doesn't match. You can't mix the new with the old, is what he's saying. He goes on, and then he gives a similar analogy here when he talks about wine skins. Verse 37, No one puts new wine into old wine skins, or else the new wine will burst the wine skins and be spilled, and the wine skins will be ruined. So we don't really know much about wine skins today. Today we buy all our wine in bottles. But back then, they didn't have bottles. And when they had wine and new wine, God had developed these goat skins that they were the perfect vehicle or perfect vessel for wine to be put into. I don't understand the whole chemical process of wine, but apparently new wine, when you read about it, bubbles, expands, etc., etc. And if you put it into a goat skin, the goat skin also expands. So if you put new wine into a new wine skin, you have all this expansion that goes on, but the wine is perfectly preserved. On the other hand, if you have an old goat skin and think, wow, that really worked well, I'll just put this wine into this old goat skin, you're going to lose everything because the new wine, when it goes into the old goat skin, is going to bubble, do all the things that it does as it goes through the process. But the old goat skin has expanded as far as it possibly can. So when the expansion occurs, everything bursts and you lose everything. You can't mix the new wine with an old wine skin. The new wine skin has to be put, or the new wine has to be put in a new wine skin.

And then he says in verse 38 or 39, no one having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says the old is better. Well, again, I'm not a wine connoisseur. You could put wine before me that's 35, 50 years old, and one that's one year old. I would probably be hard-pressed to tell you which one is better. It all kind of tastes the same to me. Some of you probably would know the difference immediately, and maybe I would if I ever had a very, very aged wine. But people back then would know what he was talking about. You get comfortable with things. Now we could compare this, what he's saying today, to maybe something that we've gone through. I know that one of the things that starts my morning, most mornings, is a cup of coffee, and that's the way it has been for a long time. There was a time a few years back that there were some things that I had to change that and had to look at my hot beverage in the morning. Not at coffee, because it wasn't providing what I needed, but I needed to switch to some teas, some green teas, dandelion teas, and things like that. And it wasn't the same as coffee. I knew that it was better for me, this new drink that I needed to do, because it provided a lot of benefits. Coffee didn't. But boy, if I had a choice, I was going to choose the coffee. It was comfortable. It was what I liked. The new was better, but it wasn't what I preferred. Now, you come to the point after time that it becomes part of your taste and you do what you need to do, but that's what Christ is talking about here. Some would say, you know, the old is better. I kind of like this old thing. I kind of like the taste of that. I kind of like that garment that I'm wearing that's a little old, but the new one is just a little different. And so he gives these analogies here following the time that he spoke to the Jews and showed them that he, who he was, the Messiah, but also was pointing out to them that the religion that they were practicing wasn't the religion that is in the Bible. It was not the religion that God had written in the Bible and attended people to live by. Over the years, they had changed it. They had added their traditions to it. Those traditions became more important to them than even keeping the commandments. Jesus Christ, when he came to earth, brought not anything new, really, but had to restore what is the truth.

What do we do? How do we obey God? What do we put first? What are our priorities?

And so he did that. So he did that through his life. So he didn't come to support, I guess, if you will, Judaism. He came for a very different reason to show what is the truth and how we worship God. Now let's go back and show that here in Matthew 15. Matthew 15. We see Jesus Christ in another interaction with the Pharisees.

And he takes them to task, if you will, for what they are doing and how they think they are honoring God by what they do. Chapter 15, verse 1, we'll read through the first nine verses here. So familiar, familiar scripture here. Verse 1 says, the scribes and Pharisees who are from Jerusalem came to Jesus saying, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?

Why do they transgress the tradition of the elders?

Okay. For they don't wash their hands when they eat bread. Christ answered and said to them, Well, why do you transgress the commandment of God? Because of your tradition. Well, wait a minute here. You're challenging and you're chastising me because I didn't hold to your tradition.

It's not in the Bible. It's not a matter of salvation on how I wash my hands, whether I wash them up to my elbows or wash them clean or don't wash them at all. It's your tradition. You've made this your religion, but I don't see it in the Word of God. You've created something here that is maybe appropriately appropriate from a hygienic standpoint. But he says, Well, why do you transgress the commandment of God? Because of your tradition. Your tradition is creating you to disobey what God has clearly said. For God commanded saying, Honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death. But you say, Whoever says to his father or mother, Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God. Well, maybe I should have been supporting you when you had your need, but you know it's better for me to give it to the temple, give it to the Pharisees, put it into their treasury. No, that isn't what God said. God said it is the responsibility of family to support family and to make that known. Not wrong to give to the church. Certainly a good thing to give to the church, but what the Jews had done was replace it and say, You know what? Give it to the treasury. Give it to the treasury. Give it to God first and forget your responsibility to mom and dad. Tell them that, yeah, you're doing the right thing.

Not at all biblical. Verse 6 then, Christ goes on, because telling them that they need not honor father or mother. Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. So you are not practicing the will of God. You do something that Jesus different than God said, something different than what is in His word. It might be subtle, might sound good, might sound okay, but not what God said to do. And so He addresses this to the Pharisees and calls them out in verse 7, hypocrites. Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, These people draw near to me with their mouth. They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Kind of what they're saying sounds good. They say that they honor God, they keep the Sabbath, they keep the Holy Days, but their heart is far, far different than the heart that God wants us to develop. In vain, in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Well those are some hard words when you look at what Jesus Christ is saying. He's telling them, You've changed the religion. You're not following what the Bible says.

It's quite a responsibility to know God, to know Jesus, to believe what He has to say. And if we really truly believe Him, as we'll read a little bit, we'll do what He says. In Matthew 23, kind of the chapter where Christ really lays it out for the Pharisees, He has a lot of things to say about them, and you can almost hear Him, the passion in His voice, as He's letting Him and telling them point blank, What you're doing, what you're doing isn't right. It's not because He doesn't like the Pharisees, He doesn't like what they're doing, but He's letting them being aware because He wants them to be in the kingdom too. He wants them to accept God. He wants them to live God's way of life. It's the only way to be in the kingdom. Jesus Christ isn't willing that any should perish. The Bible tells us God isn't willing that any should perish. They want everyone to come to repentance. And so when Jesus Christ gets a little passionate here in Matthew 23, it's not because He wants to condemn them. He's trying to get their attention. Turn to God. Do it His way, not your way. So let's just look at a few verses here. Matthew 23 verse 23. He says, What are you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites? You pay tithe of mint and anise and coming, and you've neglected the weightier matters of the law. Well, you're doing what's right. You are paying tithes. A physical thing you do. You keep the Sabbath. You keep the Holy Days. You're paying your tithes. That's a good thing, but you're not paying any attention to justice, mercy, and faith. Those are concepts even in the Old Testament, in Micah, justice and mercy and faith. Those you ought to have done, you should do the physical, but there's a spiritual element to life, too. When Jesus Christ came, there's a physical and spiritual component that He expects us to be adhering to. Those you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, verse 24, who strain on a gnat and swallow a camel. You're calling me out because we didn't wash our hands the way you want us to wash your hands, but yet you will neglect the responsibilities that you have to family? That's okay. Whatever else they did as well, that's okay. It doesn't make any difference if we have rejected the rest of the world and they're not good enough for us to even acknowledge their existence. We can't be seen with these Gentiles. We can't be seen with these tax collectors. We can't be seen with these people.

That's okay. That's okay. That's, you know, in their mind. Verse 25, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. You look good on the outside. You say the right things, but what's inside, but what's inside? Blind Pharisee first cleans the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. So Christ puts some words here to us and lets us know as we look at the Bible a couple of the themes that we see throughout. There's a theme of old and new throughout the Bible. All the way back into Exodus when we read about Israel coming out of Egypt, there's old and new, and there's old and new in the New Testament. There's physical Israel. God expected them to physically obey the laws, but spiritually they didn't get it. But in the New Testament we physically obey the commands and spiritually as well. Christ made that clear. I didn't come to do away with the law. I came to fill it up. Yes, yes, you have to obey the Ten Commandments. It's not okay to just not physically kill someone. I don't even want you hating them. Don't assassinate any part of them. And on and on as he says in the Sermon on the Mount.

You know, last week we talked about Israel coming out of Egypt. We spoke of the Ten Plagues that Israel, where God watched Israel, bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.

Egypt was watching closely. Egypt suffered. Israel was watching closely, too. And all those Ten Plagues, all those things where God showed there is only one true God. There is one God that is more powerful than any other God on earth, any other element on earth, any government on earth, any person on earth, any power on earth, anything you want to say. There is nothing that God isn't superior to and that can bring to nothing. He proved that through those Ten Plagues. We talked about that. Israel watched that as well from afar. And even though they'd been in Israel, even though they'd been in Egypt for hundreds of years, and they remembered who the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were, they didn't really know who the God was anymore. They'd been settled in that society for so long that they began to trust in the things of Egypt, probably just as much as the Egyptians did. We count on the fact that there's always food here. You know, oh, and we hear the Egyptians say, thanks to the God of Nunnile, thanks to the God of Fish, thanks to the God of whatever it is.

And that stuff just kind of became them. They knew who God was, but they weren't practicing it. But as God showed, he was powerful. And as they came to the day of Passover, that first Passover, God had exposed everything of the world around them to Israel. They knew that there was nothing in Egypt of any of those gods that they could rely on, count on, trust in, or anything. Their only hope of freedom, their only hope of a promising future, their only hope of anything other than live, be a slave, work, and die was with the God who was going to deliver them from Israel.

And as they came to that Passover day, as we discussed, when God gave them the directions, the instructions through Moses, this is what you do. This is what you do. This is how exactly you keep the Passover. If you do it, I'll deliver you from death. But if you just miss one thing, probably they would die. Israel got the message. Do it exactly the way God said. The Bible doesn't record any that any of the Israelites died because they didn't put the blood on the door post the way they should. Doesn't record that any of them disregarded the command, don't come out until morning. They did it exactly the way God said, and they were delivered from death.

There's that lesson for us in all that, too. We have to do it exactly the way God said. We can't mix our old ideas or our old things that we think are innocuous, not important, and apply those to God's law. And if he says, X-axx, and we say, well, X-axx can mean this, no. God is clear. X-axx means X-axx. Do it that way. Don't add to it. Don't take away from it. Don't interpret it from him. Don't say, well, this is the way we did in our old religion. It isn't celebrating Christmas. It isn't worshiping God on Sunday, but this is what they did, and hey, that was okay, and it must be okay with us, too. No. Gotta let us know what's right and what's wrong. The Israelites learned that.

When God brought them out of Egypt, that was, of all that stuff occurred before Passover, and on Passover, they were there, and they did it exactly the way God said. And he brought them completely out of Egypt. Completely out of Egypt. Egypt was the old way of life. That's what they knew from the time, all of them, that were alive at that time. That's all they ever knew. We live in Egypt. We're slaves. We do what we're told. We worship the way the Egyptians do. We have no future. We're hopeless. We can't deliver ourselves. That's all they knew. So God brought them out. Brought them out of Egypt completely because the old had to be done away with. They weren't going to live that way anymore.

And on the 15th of Abib, it tells us in Numbers 33, and in Exodus, you can be turning back to Exodus.

In Exodus, God took them out of Egypt, completely out of Egypt, and there he began to teach them his way of life. He taught them of how life will be in the kingdom. These are the laws of life that will lead to happiness, joy, peace, eternity. This is what you need to do. Here's the God you follow. If you follow, I'll be your God. You've seen the power. You know I can deliver. If you want to be my people, this is what you must do, and I will be and give you everything that I promised I would give.

So as they left Passover, and as the days of Unleavened Bread began, they were going to be living a new life. Not the old life anymore. The time for identifying the problem with the old, and the old only leads to death, came as we led up to Passover. This period of examination that we're in right now, that's so important to the proper observance of Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread. It all happened for Israel back then, and then the days of Unleavened Bread come where God is teaching them the way to live. The old is gone, replaced by the new. Over in Exodus 13, let me...

Exodus 13, let's... Verse 3, I guess. Exodus 13, verse 3, Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For by strength of hand the eternal brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten.

Okay, we know what leavening is. We've been in the church for a while. Jesus Christ even spoke of leaven. He said, Beware the leaven of Herod. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees. Beware the leaven of hypocrisy. We know the pictures, and we'll see here in 1 Corinthians, where leaven is compared. What leaven is sin. What God is saying is, okay, you see what it is.

You lived in the world of sin. It led to death. Now, as you come out of this, you're going to be eating the unleavened bread. Sin is going to be out, and you're going to put new in, symbolized by the unleavened bread you will be eating. No leavened bread shall be eaten. And on this day you are going out in the month of Abib. Well, today happens to be the first of Abib. So it's a very appropriate day for us to be looking at where we are and realizing that in two weeks from today we'll be here on the 15th of Abib. We'll be observing that first day of the day of unleavened bread. On the evening of the 14th of Abib, we'll be over there in the Longwood Community Building observing Passover exactly as the God instructed the Israelites to do and exactly as Jesus Christ did with His disciples. We will be doing it the way Jesus Christ instituted the Passover service to be. So this is a good period of time for us to be looking at where are we and look at the two weeks between now and the time that we will be observing these festivals, these holy day seasons, that God prescribed as appointed times for us to take very seriously and to learn to learn of them.

In verse 5, it says, It shall be when the eternal brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, the land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this service in this month. Well, when they came into the Promised Land, you read in Joshua 5, that's exactly what they began doing. They began observing the Passover and the days of unleavened bread while they were with God in the wilderness all that time.

They didn't fast. They didn't keep those holy days during that time, just as when Jesus Christ was with the disciples. And he said, when the bridegroom's with you, you don't fast. But when they came into the world and when they had their own land and they were interacting with the world around them, they began keeping those holy days just like you and I do because we live in the world around us. And these holy days and this holy time is a very, very important reminder to us of who we are, what we're doing, what we're about, and what we are supposed to be doing with all of our lives, not just before baptism, but every single year of our life, really every single day of our life.

And so in verse 5 he says, you know, when you get over there, you're going to be walking with me alone. You won't be in the world during that time, but when you are and I put you in the land that I told you that you're going to be, you're going to be doing this, remember these days, seven days, verse 6, you will eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there will be a feast of the eternal. On leavened bread shall be eaten seven days. It's a symbolic thing, and no unleavened or no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters. We know that. So by the 15th, by the 15th of Abib, in two weeks gets here, leavening will be out of our house.

I dare say all of us do a very good job of de-leavening our houses. I think we do look in the drawers and behind the refrigerator and in the toasters and in the cars and everywhere our leaven is. It's a very important physical thing that we do, and I think we probably do a really good job of that, and we should do a good job of that, but if all we do is make sure our houses are clean and we're not correlating the spiritual component of the days of unleavened bread to what we're doing physically, we are missing a huge, huge, huge part of this holy day season that God has put us into. Yes, the physical is important. Yes, we have to do it. Yes, we do it with our might, but we also, during that time, are looking at ourselves spiritually. What leaven is there? And what crevice of my mind is there leaven that needs to be eliminated and cast out? And what part of my being is that there? When God says, examine, He doesn't mean just look in the corners of your house or under the carpet or under the sofa cushions. Look into your heart. Now, David said in Psalm 139, search my heart. What was David saying? I want to know, are there intents in my heart that I'm not aware of? What are my motives? I want pure motives and things to be done the correct way. No leavened bread shall be seen among you, and no leaven shall be seen among you in all your quarters. That was what physical Israel did. That's what we will be doing between now and the next two weeks, but that isn't all that God wants of us is just to have clean houses that are free of physical leaven. He wants that. Has to happen, just like the other physical elements of our obedience to God. Baptism is a physical ceremony. When someone repents, they understand God. They want to turn away from their old way of life to the new way of life. We're baptized. The Bible is clear. You're immersed in water. It's a burial, if you will. You bury the old self.

It's not okay to sprinkle. It's not okay to pour. The Bible says, be immersed. Some churches say, all those things are okay. Some churches say, you don't even have to. It's just a baptism of the Spirit. False. It's important. It's important to do the physical. It's a symbol of the spiritual. If all you do is get immersed and there hasn't been genuine repentance ahead of time of it, you miss the point. God's not going to grant the Holy Spirit to someone who hasn't done the work and on the heart that he would have us do. So we look at the Bible and we see old and new. If we go to the New Testament, long, well, decades after Jesus Christ died, was resurrected, spent some time with the disciples, and then ascended into the heaven where he sits at God's right hand today, we see the New Testament Church doing the very same things that we do today. In 1 Corinthians 5, we see Paul talking to the church at Corinth.

Remember, the church at Corinth seemed to have some spiritual problems. That's what the purpose of Paul's letter to them is. What are you doing? Wanting to get them back on the spiritual path.

Some may say he's chastising them. What was Paul's intent in writing this? He wanted them to turn to God. He wanted them to have eternity. The only way to salvation is through Jesus Christ. The only way to salvation is committing ourselves to God and doing things the way he said. So Paul writes something in here that some may say, well, what's that about? But let's read through it beginning in verse 1. From chapter 5, it's actually reported that there's sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles that a man has his father's wife. Exclamation point. Paul's like, really? That's happening in the church? And you are tolerating that? You know it, and you're not addressing it at all? You're just kind of like letting it happen and go unaddressed? And you're puffed up, he says. You know, when we have sin among us, we get puffed up. People that have pride can't see the pride in themselves. Sometimes they can't see the pride in others either. We have to be that spiritually de-leavened, humble person that realizes everything that we have is of God and ask God and realize that heart. We are sinners. We really do have a carnal mind, and if we stray from God, we will compromise. We will do all the things. We can pat ourselves on the back. We can justify ourselves. But it's one way. Jesus Christ said, I'm the way. I'm the truth. I'm the life. It's only his way. And he says, you're puffed up. You haven't mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I, indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged as though I were present him who has done this deed. Paul says, you know, I've heard it from you what's gone on. I don't have to be there to do that. I know it's wrong. I know the Bible. I know the principles. He wasn't condemning the man he was saying. What you're doing is wrong. Crystal clear what you're doing.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 4, when you're gathered together along with my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. What he is saying is, put the man out. Don't let him associate with you. Don't let him be part of your congregation. Don't condone what he's doing by just patting him on the back or just ignoring it. Why would Paul say that? Isn't it better to just have the person with us and just let them work it out themselves? No, clearly. Clearly what Paul is saying is, here, you know there's a principle of putting the leaven out. Putting the leaven out of our homes, putting the leaven out of our personal spiritual temples that God is building in us. That's more than just putting the physical leavening out. And putting the leavening out of our collective spiritual temple if that's part of who we are as well.

What God is looking for is not to condemn people, not to perish people, but when something is brought to someone's attention and it's different and apart from the way of God, bring it to their attention. Paul is saying, don't let them continue because if they just continue and think it's okay, they're not going to be part of the kingdom. They're not going to receive eternal life.

They have to understand the way of God. They have to be transformed to God's way, not just have everyone tell him it's okay and pat him on the back and everything. So it sounds a little bit harsh what Paul is saying here, but it's a principle that God has. The reason that God did it is I want the person to understand what it's like to be apart from the body, to be cut off. Remember the Old Testament? God would tell Israel, you know, if this person does this, if you catch them, not catch them, if you if they're out gathering sticks on the Sabbath, if they do this, if they do that, they'll be cut off from Israel. Being cut off from Israel was a punishment because that was where life was. That's where future was. And people, when they were cut off, would be like, whoa, I've missed everything. I'm not on the road to salvation anymore. And this man, he's saying, put him out so that he comes to his senses and realizes, I can't do this anymore. I have to turn to God. I have to repent. They didn't have any guarantee that he was going to repent, but we know in 2 Corinthians 7 that indeed he did. And when he came back, after having repented from what went on and recognizing and acknowledging what I did was apart from God, we all have things to repent of. We all have situations in our lives. There was joy among the congregation. There was vindication. There is joy in heaven when people repent. There is joy among God's people when we see people repent and turn from their ways. So Paul is saying, you know what? This is what you've got to do. This is the way of God. It turned out exactly the way Paul would want to do it. He says in verse 6, your glorying is not good. Don't you know that 11 leavens the whole lump? Well, if you bake, you know the principle of 11. Put a little bit of 11 in there, a little bit of yeast, a little bit of baking soda, I guess, and the whole thing puffs up. And so what God is wanting is a spiritually unleavened people. He's looking, and our goal is to be unleavened, to become without sin, to become without faults, become without these weaknesses and these things that permeate our lives. So he says purge out. Purge out in verse 7, the old leaven. No, there's the old. Get rid of the old leaven the way you used to do things because it doesn't mesh with God's word, doesn't mesh with what God says. Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump.

That now you live a different way. No longer drinking of the old wine, but learn to drink of the new wine. You might favor the old wine. It's awfully easy to go back to those old ways and say that was more comfortable and that's the way I want to do it, but you got to do it the new way.

You've got to do it the way God said. No longer the old way or the old clothes, but the new clothes.

Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened, since you were repented and were baptized and received God's Holy Spirit. For indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, if there's any doubt in anyone's mind whether we should be keeping the days of unleavened bread and Passover, therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Chapter 11. We read this every year, but chapter 11 and verse 26. Paul is talking to the Corinthian church about the Passover. Apparently, they needed some instruction on how to properly keep the Passover as well. He wasn't condemning them. He was instructing them. This is what God wants. This is how it should be done. This is the attitude that you should have, and it has to be about the spiritual and the preparation that you do ahead of time, not just about washing feet, eating bread, drinking a little wine. Important. You have to do it, but it's not just that. If that's all it is, it's a meaningless ceremony and a meaningful, meaningless existence to us.

Verse 26, 1 Corinthians 11. As often, Paul says, as you eat this bread and drink this cup, okay, we know how often that is, the once a year on Passover that God commanded us to observe the Passover. As Christ did, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. You're saying, I believe Jesus Christ. I believe in Him. I want to do things His way. That's what we said when we were baptized, right? We committed to Him. My old life, buried. I want nothing to do with my old life. I don't want to be the old me anymore. All that did, that time in Egypt, and as I lived, all it was doing was leading to death.

I have to have the forgiveness of sins that comes from Jesus Christ because that's the only way to life. That old way of life only led to death. The new way of life only through Jesus Christ is what leads to life. That's the choice, as God, as God, as it says in Deuteronomy 30, 19. Here's the choice, life or death. God opens our minds to what it is. Proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup when they were coming to Passover, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Familiar words. Very, very serious words when you look at them, right? You will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord if you take the Passover in an unworthy manner.

How do you take it in an unworthy manner? What do we do? Because the very next verse, Paul tells us what we need to be doing. Let a man examine himself and then let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Got to have some preparation. The key to a successful or meaningful Passover is what we do between now and the 14th of Abib when we gather together on that Thursday evening and take the Passover. Just like it was important that Israel would see what went on before the Passover and they committed to doing things exactly the way God said and they were delivered from death on that Passover evening.

Important. How we do it. Now, the word worthy, unworthy there, is the opposite of the word worthy that we read last week on the Bible study in Ephesians 4.1. Let me read to you from Bible dictionaries of what that word translated worthy, unworthy, is the opposite of it.

What the word of it has what it means. So we get a better understanding when God uses the word. Don't take it in an unworthy manner. And Paul says later, walk worthy. Walk worthy of the calling that you have been called to. It says in classical Greek axios, a-x-i-o-s, which is the Greek word translated worthy, axios was used to describe two things of equal weight or value.

Literally or figuratively, the thing or person would match up to a standard. The scales would balance out. Well, that's an interesting meaning to that word and a picture that it gives us. Now, when we read Ephesians 4.1 about walking worthy with God, and we read here about, well, don't take it in an unworthy manner. It gives us the message that there is something we're supposed to be measuring ourselves against a standard, literally or figuratively, the thing or person would match up to a standard.

Ephesians 4.13, we'll be turning to Ephesians 4 in a minute. What's the standard we are to measure up to? The fullness of Christ. We are to do follow His example. We are to become perfect as He was perfect. We are to become spiritually complete as He was spiritually complete. We are supposed to become spiritually mature, and that whole process goes through our life because what the standard God has called us to and what we said and we committed to, we will work and we will yield to you so that you can bring us to this standard that you have us, that you have called us to.

So when we look at this concept of measuring and how we can pair worthy, we can visualize the two scales, right? We can look and if Christ is the perfect standard that we're going to adhere to, He's the heavy weight that's all the way all the way down here in a good thing, right? And when we look at ourselves, we're way up here. The scales are nowhere close to being equal, are they? Now as we go through life and as we repent and as God works, as God opens our minds to see what the problems are and we work with Him and use His Holy Spirit to overcome those things, over time the scales should become a little more equal.

Never in this lifetime are we going to be equal to Jesus Christ, but at the time that He perfects us in the resurrection we will. But the scales should be moving a little bit. When we're first baptized or when we're first called, it's way out of whack. But if those scales aren't moving, then we're not doing something right. When we look at ourselves and as God opens our minds to see what it is we need to change, the attitudes we need to do, the little traditions that we have used to replace what God has or the little things that we might say, that's okay, we don't have to worry about that.

They have to be weeded out, so it's exactly what God said. That's how the scales begin to do that. So when God says, don't take it in an unworthy manner, meaning there's some examination, that's why He follows it in verse 28 about examining, look at yourself, what are you measuring up to? Don't just pass yourself on the back and say, there's Sabbath services 100% of the time or worse, 50% of the time or whatever it is or whatever, you know, they're supposed to be closer and closer, closer and closer to who Jesus Christ is.

That's the process. That's what we were called to. Does take some examination.

Does ask, it does take some asking God, where do the changes need to be met? Does look at our lives personally, in our homes, in the spiritual temple. Are we living? Are we adapting? Are we developing the culture of the kingdom in our lives? We know what the culture of the kingdom is. It's there in the Bible. We talk about it often. You read it. Do we do that in our lives? Are we, is that getting a little closer to what the Bible says each year? Are we a little more to that way?

Well, that's what, that's what we're called to be. That's what we do between now.

And we take the Passover as, yeah, do some examination. Do I measure or where do I measure on that scale? Is it a little more? A little more, at least, from last year? Is there the continual growth or is it exactly the same? Or worse yet, have I allowed compromise? Have I allowed justification? Have I just closed my mind to the things that I hear? Hardening of the heart, you know, that's one of the things that really is there as part of the Passover. You see it all over Pharaoh. And Pharaoh isn't just a picture, as we talked about last week, of Satan. He is a picture of the human nature we have. We can all harden our hearts. And I don't want to hear it. And so we just cross it out and say it's not important. You need to examine what the hardening of the heart might be on the things that we hear, and we just discount it. But that's what Paul is saying here. Let a man examine himself, verse 28. Now, verse 29, he says, he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, if we haven't done this exercise, if by year by year we don't see any progress, we'd better take note of it. He who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself and doesn't discern the Lord's body. He doesn't understand the calling. When Jesus Christ called us, he didn't call us to just pat us on the back and say, as you are, just stay that way. Just repeat out to me, I believe, I believe, I believe. No. When we believe, it changes us. When we understand Christ, we will never be the same again. We may have faults and we will regress sometimes because the old wine sometimes is a little more comfortable and we can find ourselves going back to that, but we have to get to the point where the new wine is what we're drinking. If we go to Ephesians, Ephesians 4, I referenced verse 1 where Paul says, I beseech you walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. I referenced verse 13 where it sets the standard for us. He has called us to the unity of the faith, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Let's go down to verse 17. At the Bible study, we ended here last time, but in this series of verses Paul talks a lot about old and new. He talks about the things of what we're dealing with as we come into the Holy Day season here. What are we doing with the old and is it more and more the new that we're living to or living by? Verse 17, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord, you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind.

You need to replace Gentiles as the world. You know, we don't think in terms of Gentiles today, like the Jews did, but don't walk like the world walks. Don't do things the way they do. Don't trust in what they trust in. Don't believe the things they say. Believe in God. Believe in Jesus Christ. Trust in Him. Do things His way. When the world says this thing that is clearly against the Bible is okay, you think, no, it's not. I might have to live in a land that preaches false things and adopts false things, but I don't have to believe it. I can't believe it. That's part of the sanctifying by truth that God has called us out to to be separate. And He says in verse 18, all their understanding is dark. They don't have the truth of God. They can't find the light. And you look at the world around us and the silly things that they talk about and the things I won't even list them here. You know what I'm talking about. You can see it gets a darker and a darker world. A more and more depraved, ridiculous world of the things that they say and the things that they champion and the things that they think are good and progressive. They have their understanding darkened. They're alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts. Verse 21, well, let's just read 19. Who, being fast-feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness and greediness. But you, speaking to you and me, you, we, we haven't so learned Christ. That isn't what we've been taught.

That is, we know what the truth is. We know the way to life. You haven't so learned Christ if, there's that word if, if indeed you've heard him. That means our ears wide open.

When we hear something that's different than what we do or the traditions or the beliefs that we want to, to give ourselves or the exemptions we want to give to ourselves or the that's okay, this time is not a problem type thing. If indeed you've heard him, if indeed you've been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus. What he said, not our interpretation, not the way the Jews did it, not the way the other religions do it. How did he do it? Verse 22, put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. We know what we wear, what we wear to the world is our conduct. What do they see us do? How do they see us talk? How do they see us live the religion that we live by? How we conduct ourselves in the world, how we conduct ourselves apart from the time when we're in church and with each other, it's kind of like the clothes that we're wearing, right? Clothes that we're wearing. The Bible uses garments in a way of what do we clothe ourselves with? Notably, at the end of the age when the bride has made herself ready to be wed to the bridegroom, she's adorned in fine linen.

Fine linen, clean and white, the righteous acts of the saints. That's what she is clothed in.

That's the new clothes that she has put on, the old clothes that we wore when we were in the world.

Gone, discarded, they grow corrupt, they wear out. The fine linen of the saints will be bright and shiny forever. But the old clothes throw out. When Jesus Christ said, you can't put the new and patch it into the old and make it work, he knew what he was saying. You can't just take the new what you knew and apply it into your old conduct. Even Peter said, your friends will look at you and say, what happened to you? You don't run the way you used to. The things that interested you before aren't the things that interested you anymore. Our conduct changes. Those clothes that we wear that the world sees no longer the same. Sometimes we want to put on that old t-shirt, but we should resist and always put on the new, whether someone is watching or not.

It's the new clothes. It's the fine linen, clean and bright, that God wants us to have and that the bride of Christ will wear at that time. Can't mix the new with the old. The garments have to be new. And that's the physical part. That's the physical part of it, but it's not just the physical. The Pharisees looked good on the outside. Remember, Christ said that. Boy, you look really good on the outside. The things you say, but the inside. What's in your heart? Filthy, disgusting, needs to be done away with. So we haven't been called to just be people who have just these outer garments. Got to have those. Got to have the clothes. But he says in verse 23, after he says, put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. I can't see your mind. You can't see my mind.

God sees our minds.

When we take wine, as Christ said, can't put new wine in old wineskins. It's not going to work.

When we drink wine, it becomes it's on the inside, right? It changes who we are. When we take the blood of Christ, symbolized by that wine, there's some real meaning to that. It's changing the inside. What do we think? How do we act? How do we respond? What's in our hearts? That's what God is looking for. We can all make the outside look really, really good to each other, but it's only the examination of what we do. And as we drink of that new wine and make sure it's going into new wineskins, because if it's the old wineskin that's still perverted and permeated by all these other ideas and the things that we've allowed ourselves to think over the years, and we're trying to put new wine into old wineskins, not going to work. Christ said it. Nothing's going to be preserved. New wine in new wineskins. Truth in new people. What's in the inside? That's the Passover that we're taking. When we take of the wine and put that new wine in us, it's the mind that God is wanting us to change. He says, all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, clean the outside of the dish. Don't forget to clean the inside of the dish. Right? That's what he said to the Pharisees. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. And then he gives us some examples.

Again, the old and the new. How did we used to do things? How do we do it now? Put away lying. And lying isn't just telling a bald-faced lie, as they say, saying, right is wrong, or this or that. We can lie in a number of things. We can exaggerate the truth. We can speak partial truths. We can mislead about things and whatever. That's lying as well. What does God say? He wants truth in the inward part. He's all truth. Put away lying. Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Put away that. Work on that. That's a lifelong process because we all mess up in that. We all fall on that and need to look at our words and say, have we been truly truthful? Put away lying and speak truth. Verse 26, be angry and don't sin.

Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. We all get angry, reconcile, come back together again. Don't give place to the devil. Verse 28, let him who stole steal no longer. There's all sorts of stealing. It doesn't mean you go rob a bank or rob the local convenience store. We can steal in a number of ways. What God is talking about here in this verse is a way of give and a way of get, the one who steals. What he's doing is, I want, do you have it? I want it. I want it. It's about me. Let him who stole steal no longer, but let him labor, working with his hands what is good that he may have something to give him who has need. It's a change of heart. Out with the old, in with the new. New wine, new wine skin. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification. Don't down each other. Don't condemn. Don't don't talk and try to assassinate any character. Build up. Support one another. That's what God has called us all to do. Somebody's he wants us to do. Build up one another. Don't grieve his Holy Spirit. Don't make him sad.

You know when we make choices that are against what God would have us do, it does pain him. He wants us to become who he wants us to become. He wants us to succeed. He wants us in his kingdom. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He'll give us the strength if we actually stop and say, I'm not doing that, or I'm not saying that, or I'm not going there, or I'm not going to that website, or whatever it is. He'll give us the power to not do that if we ask and stop and let him know we need his strength. Let all bitterness, you can mark down Hebrews 12-15, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God and Christ forgave you.

Therefore, verse 1 of chapter 5, be imitators of God as dear children. The new wine. Put the new wine in new wineskins.

Wear new clothes. Develop a taste for the new wine, and don't just always revert back to the old comfortable thing that makes you feel good or comfortable in what you used to do.

Choose what God wants. That's between now and then, and of course all our lives. It's not just a two-week period, but as we're looking toward the Passover this year, if we want it to be meaningful, God doesn't give us these days just so that we have something to do on the 15th of Abib. He expected us to learn something by these things, these holy days that we do. He wants us to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. But in verse 16, you know, Paul says it in one respect, and as we look between now and then, as we think about new wine and old clothes and new wineskins and doing the things that God said and truly examining ourselves, that we're tipping those scales, that those scales are moving a little bit with each year of our lives, as God looks at it, he says, redeem the time. Redeem the time because the days are evil. We have two weeks, two weeks until Passover, two weeks until the beginning of the days of Unleavened Bread.

Redeem that time. Don't let distractions and all the things that will come out and try to keep you away from what God wants you to be focusing on, focus on that. Do the work, do everything you need to do, but redeem the time. Redeem the time, and let's come to God, and let's all keep the path to Passover in a worthy manner the way that he describes.