Luke 5:36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
During this time of festive I have been going through every room with in the house to get rid of all the old stuff that me and my family do not use any more.
I believe we need to get rid of the old of 2023 to make room for the new of 2024.
Rain has come and now its time for harvest!
The whole purpose of the birth of Christ was with this idea in mind, to give those who believe an opportunity to get rid of the old and make room for the new.
In Gen God gave a us a foreshadow of this when he took the figs that Adam and Eve had covered themselves with and replaced it with animal skin.
Took off what they could do for themselves and replaced it with what He could do for them!
And as we come to this time of the year where we celebrate the birth of Christ let us remember the purpose of His birth was to give you and I an opportunity to rid ourselves of the old and put on the new!
But as the scripture says we cannot put on the new without first taking off the old.
Luke 5:36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
- New Garments
The first thing that the Lord deals with in this portion of scripture is garments.
The majority of the Lords audience was the Jewish community that practiced Judaism. Their interpretation of what Jesus was teaching is that Christ was going to resurrect the old religion that their forefathers held on to.
Jesus did not come to patch up the old; He came to give the new. The Pharisees would admit that Judaism was not all it could be, and perhaps they hoped that Jesus would work with them in reviving the old religion.
Jesus showed the foolishness of their understanding saying I didn’t come to patch up certain parts of your old life, I’ve come to give you a completely new life.
And I believe that is the same with some of us, we want to put the Christian badge on top of an old way of living, but God is saying I don’t want to just patch up your old life, I want to give you a whole new life!
Garments many times in the bible are compared to a persons character.
Eph 4: 20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
The birth of Christ was not to just patch up our old life in certain areas, but he wants to give us a whole new wardrobe!
Some of us want to be in the house of God but still wearing our old attitudes and old behaviors, like the man if matt 22
Matt 22:8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
The enemy wants to keep us in our old clothes and make us feel that we could never change, but Christ was born to give us a completely new life.
Zech 3:3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4 The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.”
2 old ways of living that God wants us to take off and make new are:
- Old fleshly pattern
Some bad habits and sinful thought patterns were established when you learned to live your life independently of God. Your non-Christian environment taught you to think about and respond to life in a non-Christian way, and those patterns and responses were ingrained in your mind as strongholds. But when you became a Christian, nobody pressed the ‘clear’ button in your mind. Your old fleshly habits and patterns weren’t erased; they are still a part of your flesh which must be dealt with on a daily basis.
Rom 12 12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Some of the old clothes are fleshly and some are spiritual. Areas of our lives that the enemy still has influence over.
- Spiritual strongholds
II Cor 10:4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
These are areas of our lives that we have not yet submitted to the Lord.
Our salvation is secure but our victory in the Journey is a struggle.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
So many believers have experienced life, but not life in the fullest because we have not gotten victory over areas of our lives that keep us from experiencing the fulness of God’s blessing and promise.
The reason we struggle because there are areas of our lives that have not yet been submitted to God.
It is a submitted life that is a victorious life.
James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
- New Wineskins
Jesus not only uses garments as an analogy of the newness He desires us to experience, but he also uses wineskin.
Garments has to do with our character, wineskin has to do with our mentality and our capacity.
There are some believers that have great Christian character but still are not experiencing the fulness of what God has for their lives.
Luke 537 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
The reason that the old wineskin is not good for the new wine is because the old wineskin was already used for wine in the past, and when wine is put into a wineskin the wine expands and stretches the wineskin, the old wineskin had already been stretched to handle the wine of the old and so therefore was not in a place to be stretched again.
And we to have been stretched in the past but if we want the breakthrough of the new we need to be willing to stretch again.
A snake if it is going to grow to its fullest potential then it needs to be willing to shed its old skin.
Snakes have the unique ability to shed their skin entirely. As they grow, their skin does not, and therefore it becomes too tight and worn, and a new skin awaits just below the old. Shedding their skin (ecdysis) allows snakes to grow and remove any parasites that may have attached to the old skin.
There are so many great things that God has for us in 2024, but some of will miss it if we are not willing to shed that old skin, or get rid of that old wineskin and allow God to make us new.
The purpose of the birth of Christ was to give us a new life and a new life of abundance, let us not limit God and the great things that He has for our lives.
- Newness of Journey in Christ
- Newness for new levels of life
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