Stay Warm and Safe!

24 01 2026

Class,

I am going to miss being with you tomorrow but I’m grateful to our FBCW leadership for their wise precaution to keep us all safe!

If we WERE meeting tomorrow we would be looking at a couple of very important encounters Jesus had with the religious elite recorded in Matthew 9:9-17. Since we won’t be together here are some thoughts on those verses:

  • Jesus called Matthew the tax collector (author of this book) to follow Him.
  • No doubt God had been preparing Matthew’s heart because he said YES!
  • This opened the door for Matthew to introduce Jesus to other sinners, so Matthew had a party with Jesus as the honored guest. That really irritated the Pharisees (rigid religious establishment.) They were too cowardly to ask Jesus directly so they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with such scum?")
  • Jesus replied: "Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do."
  • Then he gave them homework. "Go study Hosea 6:6 and try to wrap your mind around the fact that MERCY for sinners is better than RELIGIOUS RITUALS and legalistic thinking!"
  • The reality: Jesus didn’t go into the tax collector booth with Matthew saying, "Slide over and let me help you rip off these poor people so we can line our pockets." Jesus (in essence) said, "Stop ripping people off and come help me show MERCY to those who need it — that would be every human you meet!"
  • The point: We can’t reach other sinners (we all are) unless we connect with them. You don’t have to sin to be a friend of sinners. Avoiding them is the opposite of that.
  • Scene #2 – John the Baptist’s disciples came to Jesus. "Why do WE have to fast, and your disciples get to eat all they want?"
  • Jesus replied with the example of a wedding banquet. Nobody fasts while they are celebrating with the bridegroom (Jesus) and His bride (His followers).
  • Wouldn’t you be offended if your family vowed to fast with long faces at your wedding reception refusing to eat because they were sad about it. [Not saying that hasn't happened in some situations, but you get my point.]
  • Jesus said, "They will fast when I’m not here, but for now we are celebrating!"
  • I like what Warren Wiersbe said, "As the Bridegroom, He came to give spiritual joy. The Christian life is a feast, not a funeral." [Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 35). Victor Books.]
  • To make the point with two common day examples Jesus said, "You don’t patch old cloth with new cloth. It will shrink and tear worse than before."
  • "You don’t put new wine (also called "young wine") in old wineskins.
  • What is that about? Wine that was fermenting gave off gas that expanded. People needed a container that would also expand so they sewed together animal skins (gross, I know!). You couldn’t "re-use" the skins that had become hard and brittle. New wine required new wine skins.
  • The point: Jesus didn’t come to "patch" us up, He came to make us NEW.
  • He didn’t come to tack GRACE on top of LAW. He came to fulfill the Law and inaugurate a New Covenant, giving us new hearts, new lives, and a new way of relating to God.
  • What does that mean for us if we are followers of Christ?
  • He had to make us into new wineskins because life with Him won’t fit into who we were before Him!
  • A new "wineskin" won’t be rigid because of legalism (“try harder”), or expand too far into license (“it doesn’t matter”). It will expand exactly with the "new wine."
  • We’re not perfect and won’t be in this life, however, over time as we allow Him to stretch and expand us with the "new wine" of His mercy and grace, we will one day have a shape that looks more like Him.
  • You might say the "new wine" the Great Physician brings heals our sinful hearts from the inside out!

Stay safe and warm!
Allen

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