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In the Name of Jesus, Our Righteousness and our Joy,
I. A person must know that Jesus came NOT to be “patched-in,” but “put on”! Do we understand the illustration Jesus uses here? The clothing worn by the people in those days was chiefly made of wool. Wool garments, after being worn and subjected to water, would shrink. What would happen then, if a person took a patch from a new and unshrunk robe and sewed it into an old, worn-out garment? . . . Well, the patch would shrink because of its newness; and as at shrank, it would pull away from the old, worn material, leaving holes! What seamstress would ruin a new garment in order to have a patch that would not match with the old, worn garment? Yet this is what the pharisees wanted to do with Jesus. The Law-teachings and practice of the pharisees and the Jews were like an old robe — worn out and thread bare. But do you think they wanted to throw out their old formalism, their outward observances of law, and their false righteousness, so that they might put on the new robe of Christ’s righteousness by Faith? Never! Today, there are many who say, “Jesus, we accept You as the greatest teacher of morals who ever lived! Your Sermon on the Mount is such a wonderful explanation of the Law. Your example of how to love my neighbor is the best! Thank you, Lord, for giving me that extra push to do what is good! But how superficial, fleeting, and burdening is their religion! Where is their joy when their lives fall apart at the seams? When trouble and sorrow enter their lives, they either think they have not been good enough, or that God has been unfair to them. Where is their joy in Jesus now? Gone! — full of wholes! Why? Because they tried to use Jesus merely to patch up their old and worn out garment of law-works, and their troubled lives. They refused to throw off their self-righteous-rags and put on the rich robe of Christ’s righteousness by faith in Him alone. Jesus clearly teaches here that it’s impossible for Him to be patched-in to a person’s life, as if He were only a new law-giver. There is no joy in Jesus for those who think that He came to show people how to pray, fast, live and love, in order to gain salvation before God. If sinners try to use Him in such a way — as a patch — He will be torn away from them, and the glorious robe of His righteousness will be ruined for them! When it comes to the righteousness before God which saves poor sinners, Moses and Christ are opposites, the Law and faith are opposites, Works and grace are opposites — which cannot be combined at all! Jesus says, “If you want to be assured of possessing that perfect holiness before God which is necessary for salvation and brings true joy and peace to the soul, you must not patch Me in to your old law-system. No! I came to BE YOUR ALL! I came to COMPLETELY COVER YOU with My perfect righteousness! Cling to Me alone! Throw off the worn rags of your old, law-system and put ME on — trust only in Me!” The disciples of John had a slightly different problem that kept them from knowing joy in Jesus. They were not self-righteous like the pharisees. But they did want to keep the old forms of their religion. For example, they did not want to stop fasting, because they had grown up with it. They were comfortable with the past forms. They wondered why they couldn’t carry their faith in Christ and the spirit of His gospel within the forms of the Old Testament law and worship? Suppose you had an old flower pot that was too small for a healthy, large, and fast-growing bush. Would you try to plant the bush in the small pot anyway, just because you had always used the old flower pot in the past? Of course not! In order to keep the bush in all its beauty and not ruin or stifle it, you would seek an area of ground which would allow freedom for the bush to grow and flourish. The same thing was true of the old wineskins made from the hides of sheep or goats in those days. After awhile, these wineskins would become dried out and brittle. They could not be used for new wine, since the new wine would continue to ferment and expand until the old wineskins burst and the new wine spilled on the ground. Jesus and His gospel are like new wine, which continues to ferment. But the O.T. laws and ceremonies, given to Israel during the time of its childhood as a nation, were like the old wineskins — they were not longer useful for carrying and expressing the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ. All the O.T. laws were restrictive and disciplinary in nature. They were not designed to expand with the new freedom and spiritual life of the New Testament Christian. Neither could Christ restrict the joy of His disciples by forcing them to conform to the Old Testament rules about fasting. That would be like pouring His new and lively, spiritual wine into old, dried-up wineskins! To know joy in Jesus we must realize that the new freedom and life He brings cannot be forced into old forms of any kind! Was not our Lord Himself greater than all the O.T. types and symbols of Him in the Mosaic Law? The Old Testament Sabbath laws commanded Israel not to work on the Sabbath. But the Sabbath “rest”-day was a symbol of the spiritual and eternal rest of the believer through Christ, his Savior. That’s why, when His disciples became hungry on the Sabbath Day, Jesus did not restrict their joy by telling them to stay out of the cornfields! (Lk. 6:1-5) Likewise, there are those who teach that the New Testament Christian must keep the old forms by worshiping on the Jewish Saturday-Sabbath. They would restrict our joy in Jesus. As Paul wrote to the Colossians: “Let no one judge you in food or drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come. The substance is of Christ.” (Col. 2:16) Any church which insists that the N.T. ministry of the Gospel of forgiveness must be made to fit the form of the O.T. priesthood, so that the sinner must come to a priest for forgiveness, or that the Lord’s Supper is a “sacrifice” which must be offered to God, or that duties must be performed to remove punishment for sin, is limiting the joy in Jesus! If one thinks of his attendance at Holy Communion in terms of a duty that must be performed at least once or twice a year in order to be a good Christian, he is trying to force Jesus into a certain form of worship , and severely robbing himself of joy in Jesus!
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