Hi, my name is Trevor Thomas. I'm in seventh grade. I go to Venetian middle school. Today I'll be reading Mark chapter 2, verses 18-22. Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. People came in came and asked him, Why do John's disciples and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? Jesus said to them, A wedding yet the wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? But the time but the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them and they will fast on that day. No one sows a patch of untrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise the new patch pulls away from the old cloth and the worst tear and is and a worse tear is made. No one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. No new wine is no new wine is put into fresh wineskins. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Thanks, brother. Appreciate our students for reading their scripture for the week. Uh what up, fam? My name is Lawrence, one of the pastors here. We um teach Bible here verse by verse. Uh it's called expository teaching. So that's what we're in. We're in the gospel of Mark, and um, we're fairly new into it. Uh, you guys are gonna get a whopping five verses today. Uh, and if you hang with me for the next 16 years, we'll get through the whole New Testament. Uh, some of you guys are like, why would it take 16 years? Well, there's 7,959 verses. So if we're only doing four at a time, it takes a little bit longer uh to do that. So just to kind of catch you up, what we did last week is we just saw um Jesus call Levi uh and show us what a table looks like and how expanded it is and who it's for. Uh, and for those of you who don't know, um from last week, Levi uh is actually Matthew, who's a tax collector who wrote the gospel of Matthew that we went through a while ago that took a long, long time. Uh and so today uh kind of brings us to where we're at in this scene. And here's the deal with verses like this there's some passages in scripture like today that are small, but they're dangerous. They don't announce themselves as disruptive, uh, they don't come with this spectacle or shock value. They actually can sound really reasonable and familiar and almost tame. And what happens is if you read them too quickly, you'll think that they're about behavior when in reality they're about vision, about how we see God and how we measure faithfulness and how easily devotion can actually turn into something rigid without us even noticing. So this, these verses today, Mark chapter 2, verses 18 to 22, is one of those passages. It's five verses long. And on the surface, it looks like a conversation about fasting. But fasting is actually just the doorway. What Jesus is actually doing here is he's exposing how people confuse faithfulness with familiarity and how how easily spiritual practices can actually turn into containers that you and I protect rather than tools that serve life. And what makes this moment uncomfortable isn't rebellion, because you're gonna see right here, nobody's abandoning God, no one's cynical, no one's walking away from faith, nobody's trying to like make a statement or just to burn it all down. Everyone involved in these story today is sincere, disciplined, respected, faithful, like trying, which is exactly why this passage I think hits so close to home. We, you and I experience this in ways that, you know, where what once felt alive now feels tight when it comes to our spiritual, what once felt natural can feel forced, or what once, you know, we felt like breathed now feels heavy. And your faith still works, but it just doesn't stretch. And because nothing is technically wrong, uh, you don't know how to name what's actually happening. It's not that you and I were sinful or were rebellious or compromised, you're just tired in a way that doesn't really feel disobedient. And so Mark tells us this is how it hops in and goes. And people came and said to them, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not? So, right off the bat, this sounds respectful, like thoughtful, spiritual, responsible. Nobody's accusing Jesus right here of false teaching. Nobody's trying to trap him. This isn't like hostility, this moment right here. This is really just confusion. There's three groups right here that are named. You have John's disciples, the Pharisees, and Jesus's disciples. Two groups are fasting, one group is not. And so the real question right here, underneath the question, is why don't your people look as serious as everyone else? See, in the first century Jewish culture, faith wasn't a private thing. You know, like we do it really privately for some reason. Spiritual practices um weren't hidden disciplines, they were like public signals and signs. And so fasting wasn't something that you quietly did with like a journal in a water bottle. Uh, it literally shaped schedules, it altered communities and rhythms. And when you fasted, people knew, which means that when you didn't fast, people noticed. And and not fasting wasn't neutral, it raised questions, it suggested maybe there's some sort of misalignment or there's irresponsibility happening here. And so this isn't a theological question they're asking, it's a social one about belonging. Because in religious cultures, ancient and modern, faithfulness is often measured by resemblance. You know, if if you were really devoted, you'd look like us. And that pressure didn't die in the first century. It's just learned how to sound nicer. See, John's disciples, the reason that they fasted was they were waiting. They were living for this longing. Uh, they were preparing their hearts for what was coming. And the reason the Pharisees were fasting was because they believed holiness was built through discipline, restraint, and consistency. And both groups are sincere, both groups are committed, and both groups were respected, which is why Jesus is not confronting hypocrisy here. He's confronting assumption. The assumption is that faithfulness always looks the same, regardless of your season, your context, or moment. Essentially, that serious faith has a single expression, that devotion should always feel heavy, and that assumption still shapes, I think, spiritual pressure today. You know, uh, why don't you pray like you used to? Why aren't you as intense anymore? Why does your faith feel lighter now? Why don't you serve in the same way? Why don't you fast? Those questions sound harsh, but they they don't sound harsh, but they carry weight. They quietly suggest that seriousness equals suffering and that joy must always, always be justified. So notice, Jesus doesn't actually uh answer this question defensively. He actually reframes this entire moment. It says, and Jesus said to them, Can wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? So, right off the bat, for them, this image would have landed immediately because weddings were the loudest, largest, longest, most joyful events in Jewish culture. They were excessive, they were communal, they were days, they were unforgettable. And you didn't fast at a wedding, you feasted, not because fasting was bad, but because fasting would misunderstand the moment. So Jesus isn't asking whether fasting is biblical, everybody already agrees in this. What he's asking is, do you know what time it is? He then places himself at the center of this image. He calls himself the bridegroom. And this isn't just poetic language, this is theological dynamite because in the Hebrew scripture, which is the Old Testament, as you read it, God is the bridegroom and Israel is the bride. And through prophets, you know, in the Old Testament, like Hosea, Isaiah, Ezekiel, God describes himself as this faithful husband who's pursuing and restoring and renewing covenant love. So when Jesus says, Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? He's not saying, Look, I bring joy in this moment. What he's saying is, hello, God has arrived. And so the question is no longer whether the disciples are disciplined enough. The question becomes whether you recognize who's actually standing right in front of you. And when God draws near, the practice is meant for longing, must actually give way to presence. So Jesus then continues. He says, as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. So this isn't him dismissing seriousness, it's actually him defending joy. I think that um some of us have learned sometimes explicitly or um sometimes quietly, that faithful spirituality should feel heavy. That if for some reason faith feels light, something must be wrong with you. That joy is suspicious, that delight needs this explanation. But joy, friends, is the appropriate response to God's nearness. See, many people don't struggle to believe in God, they struggle, honestly, to receive delight in him. Do you believe you are delighted in the eyes of him? And the danger is what happens is religion shaped by primarily effort, it actually then trains us to distrust joy. And Jesus here, he's just refusing that framing. Notice something subtle. No one accuses Jesus' disciples of sin in this moment, they accuse them of insufficient seriousness. That's often how religious pressure shows up, not as condemnation, but as comparison. And I'm telling you what, some of you know this comparison is exhausting. Someone else's quiet time becomes your guilt. Like, oh man, I did quiet time. You're like, I don't remember the last time I did that. Someone else's um intensity becomes your insecurity. Someone else's um certainty makes you wonder if something's actually wrong with you. And here's the deal comparison doesn't shout, it just like hums and it drains joy without ever naming why. And Jesus doesn't enter that system to improve it. He literally dismantles it. Then he says something that reframes discipline entirely. He says, the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. So Jesus isn't anti-discipline here. He fasted, he prayed, he honored scripture. What he's rejecting is discipline without discernment. See, fasting follows relationship, it doesn't create it. And then discipline flows from love, not from fear. Practices respond to just presence, they do not earn it. And many of us, I think, we're taught to practice spiritual disciplines as a way to secure God's closeness, right? But Jesus presents them as a way to respond to it. Same practices, completely different posture. Jesus isn't saying stop fasting, he's saying, know what time it is. And spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do, but knowing when to do it. Let me make this concrete for you. A few years ago, I sat with uh a guy in his late 20s who loved Jesus deeply. He grew up in church, he knew scripture, he served consistently, he was disciplined in prayer, and he said something that caught me off guard. He said, I feel guilty because my faith doesn't feel as intense as it used to be, but I think I'm actually healthier. He told me in college, you know, I was fasting all the time, was journaling constantly, praying for hours, but I was also anxious, performative, and terrified of disappointing God. So now I still pray, I still read scripture, I still love Jesus, but there's joy. And I don't know what to do with that because no one taught me that joy could be a sign of maturity. See, friends, that's not somebody losing faith. That's someone discovering that joy can be a sign of maturity and realizing no one taught him how to do it and to trust it. That's really just Mark II happening in real time. That's the lighter yoke. Jesus then just completely shifts metaphors on us, continues, all of a sudden we get, well, no one sews. We get we get to go to like a sewing class here. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away. And then the new one from the old and the worst tear is made. So now he's like teaching us what some of you guys know who are experienced with laundry, that new things shrink, right? And they expand and they go back, and you have to like be really that's where I get in a lot of trouble. Like, you're not supposed to put that in the dryer, right? We know you guys, some of you guys feel my pain right there. So you're just like, I just won't do it, right? I just won't, you know, I shouldn't do it, right? See that what happens is this new cloth hasn't settled yet. So it still moves, it still shrinks. Where old garments, they're fixed, they're stable, they're set in their ways. And if you stitch new growth onto old rigidity, the tension doesn't resolve, it actually intensifies and it tears. So Jesus is saying something unmistakable. I am not here to reinforce your existing framework. He is not a patch, he's saying. I'm not an upgrade, I'm not just an accessory, I am a replacement. And this is where discomfort enters. Because woo, we, you and I are often more attached to containers or garments than we actually realize. Some of you are tired, not because you are unfaithful, but because you are trying to force growth inside of containers that it no longer fits. And you've been blaming yourself. And Jesus doesn't. He doesn't accuse you of laziness, he doesn't accuse you of compromise. He says, You need room. And then he lands this point with one final image. He says, and no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Now, most of us are used to drinking wine out of a bottle, not skins. So here's kind of some background. Wineskins, they were made of animal hide. When new, they were flexible, uh, they could stretch. And over time they hardened and they lost elasticity, they became brittle. And new wine, what it does is it ferments, it expands, it creates pressure. And so he says, if he if it does put it in there, it will burst the skins and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. Now that detail right there matters. Jesus does not say you lose the container but save the wine. He says both are destroyed. That it's possible to love the wine, believe in the wine, want the wine, and still lose it because the container cannot stretch. The problem is not the wine, the problem is the capacity. And this is where it stops being theoretical, because letting go of old wineskins doesn't feel like letting go of old habits. For some of us, it actually feels like letting go of identity. Why? Because old containers just don't hold old practices, they hold memory, they hold seasons where God met you. They hold that version of yourself that learned to survive, to serve, to stay faithful. Which means when God starts pouring more than a container can hold, the instinct is not excitement, it's fear. Fear not because you don't love the wine, but because you don't know who you are without the skin that's been holding it. That's why this passage is uncomfortable. Because Jesus doesn't just warn about loss of effectiveness, he warns about loss of life. He says, New wine, if new wine keeps expanding inside old wineskin, both are destroyed. Not because wine is wrong and not because the wineskin is bad, because growth always, always demands room. Which means the real tension here is control. It's the quiet decision to protect what's familiar when God is clearly doing something new. And that for many of us is actually where faith gets really tight. Not because God stops moving, but because you and I stop stretching. And so if your faith feels tense right now, that doesn't automatically mean something is dying. It may mean something in you is becoming. And then he leaves us with a tension that really he just refuses to soften. This idea that you can protect the container or you can preserve the wine, but you can't do both. Old wineskins choose control, predictability, familiarity. New wineskins have to choose trust, humility, movement, where it's all about capacity. And God is still pouring, he will not stop pouring. But the question is: will you let him reshape us? Will you let him reshape you? Because reshaping costs certainty, but it makes room for joy that breathes again. New wine is for fresh wineskins, same faithful God, new capacity to receive him. And here's where this lands in real life. Because if this passage just stays theoretical, it will feel inspiring but safe. And Jesus is not doing something safe here. He's literally forcing people to ask this question, most of us avoid because it feels disloyal. Not, am I still a faithful person? But it's this is the way that I'm holding my faith still aligned with what God is doing now? That is a much harder question. Because many of us were taught that changing how we actually practice faith means changing who we trust. And Jesus literally refuses that equation. He says, New wine means new wineskin, not new wine means new God. Same God, same covenant, same holiness, same faithfulness, new capacity. And capacity oftentimes is the part that we resist because expanding capacity always means it's admitting that something that once worked for us doesn't anymore. And that's not failure, it's literally growth. But here's the deal with that is growth can be disoriented. For many people, this doesn't show up as like anger or doubt. It shows up as this quiet grief of realizing that something once that fed your faith no longer fits in the season you're currently in. I've seen countless times where people have just stopped coming to church because they're like, it just feels different. Like it just, ah, it's not feeling that. I don't have the goosebumps or whatever that thing is, you know, like it just it's not filling my needs. And then I've even had people sit in front of me and be like, I'm really sorry, like I'm just gonna go somewhere else because it just it just feels off, it just doesn't feel right. And frankly, most of the time, what they're doing is they're saying, I don't want new skins, so I'm gonna go somewhere where I can continue to fill my old wine skin. That's why he has this wine. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. And the hardest part about outgrowing a container is it can feel like betraying something that you're actually still grateful for. That's the warning that it's possible to love God, honor scripture, respect tradition, and still lose the life that God is giving because you're trying to protect the container instead of making room. This isn't rebellion. That's fear dressed up as faithfulness. And fear always narrows capacity. We think about like what does fear make you do? It makes us cling, it makes us defend, it makes you say, like, this is how it's always been done, even when God is clearly doing something new. And here's the hard truth: Jesus is surfacing. Old wineskins don't reject wine, they just can't hold expansion. Which means the danger isn't that you'll stop believing, the danger is that you'll stop stretching. That's why so many people leave Jesus. And so many people leave him not loudly, they leave quietly, they don't rage quit faith, they just go numb. They keep the label, they keep the language, but joy leaks out slowly, and they assume that's what maturity feels like. And Jesus says, No, joy is not immaturity, it's alignment. That when the bridegroom is near, fasting is misaligned. When God is presence, heaviness is not holiness. And that doesn't mean that there won't be grief. Jesus himself said there's going to be a day that comes when the bridegroom is taken away, and then they will fast. Then they will grieve, then they will be filled with this longing. He doesn't deny suffering. He names it here. But notice the order in all of this relationship first, discipline, second, love before longing, presence before practice. And we get this backwards all of the time. We think that if we fast, pray enough, serve enough, God then will actually draw near to us. And Jesus says, God draws near and then practices make sense. That reverses religious anxiety. It means you don't practice disciplines to secure God's presence. You practice them as a respond to it. The difference there changes everything because it means you're not failing when your faith shifts. You're just discerning. See, spiritual maturity is not doing the same thing forever. It's doing the right thing in the right season. And that's what's really tough for us to figure out. Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament even talks about this. This is great wisdom literature literature. It says that there is a time for everything. And Jesus is embodying this wisdom here. He's saying, like, there's a time to fast, there's a time to feast, there's a time to grieve, there's a time to celebrate. And the spiritual immaturity is not missing a practice, it's actually missing the moment in which that should take place. I've seen this play out so clearly with people in their 20s and their 30s who were taught intensity in something, but not discernment. They were taught how to push harder, but not how to listen deeper. So what happens is when their life shifts and career pressure and mental health strain and relational complexity and grief and disappointment, they assume the answer at that point is actually to double down on the same container. And when that container cracks, they just blame themselves. But Jesus doesn't. He says, no, no, no, you need a new wineskin, not a new God, not a new gospel, not a new Bible, a new capacity. And I'm telling you, if you can grasp this, it is incredibly freeing if you let it be. Because it means some of your exhaustion is not spiritual failure. It's actually spiritual fermentation. And fermentation, some of you who have ever fermented anything knows it's messy. It's loud, like it creates pressure, it stretches boundaries before it produces richness. If those of you in the room are like hippies and you've ever made your own kombucha, right? And you've sealed it too long, you understand the danger Jesus is naming right now. Same ingredient, same recipe, wrong container. What happens is it explodes. It isn't the drink, it's the bottle, right? And that's what happens when growth has nowhere to go, which is why Jesus ends this passage not with condemnation, but an invitation. That new wine is for fresh wineskins. And fresh doesn't mean an experience. Fresh means flexible, responsive. Fresh means a willing to stress without stretch, without tearing. And new wineskins are not fragile, they are strong and supple. They can hold pressure without breaking, they can expand without losing integrity. And that's the kind of faith that Jesus is forming. A faith that can grow without collapsing, a faith that can adapt without abandoning truth, a faith that can receive joy without suspicion. And here's the question Jesus quietly puts in front of every sincere believer. Where is God pouring? And you're blaming yourself for leaking. Where is your faith expanding? But the container hasn't caught up yet. Where are you holding on to a form? Because it once worked, even though it's now constricting life. And that's not betrayal. That's growth. And growth always costs something. It costs certainty. It costs control. Because new wine skins don't look impressive. They look teachable, they look flexible, they look willing. And they're formed slowly, not by effort, but by presence. It's doing the same thing, expecting different. Yeah, outcomes, results, right? So, in the same sense here, it's not what are you doing, but who are you becoming? Which brings us back to the center of the passage. Jesus is the bridegroom, meaning God is not distant. He is not withholding, he is not impressed by your suffering, he is present. And when God is present, joy is not optional. Joy is the evidence of alignment. And that's why Jesus protects joy so fiercely here, because joy is dangerous to systems that are built on control. Why? Because you can't shame people who know that they're loved. You can't manipulate people who know that they belong. You can't exhaust people who know God delights in them. Joy makes faith resilient. So if your faith feels tight right now, don't panic. Don't assume you're drifting. Don't assume you're failing. Ask a better question. Not what's wrong with me, but God, where are you expanding me? Those of you who are practicing the Linton season, this might be a great one just to sit on this whole week. Just to ask every day, God, where are you expanding me? Because God's still pouring. He has not stopped. The only question is whether you will let him reshape the way you receive. Same faithful God, new capacity, new wineskins. And if we let him do that work gently, faithfully, slowly, there is joy that breathes again. There's obedience without fear. There's depth without heaviness. There's faith that fits. And that's not less faithful, it's more alive. So as we end today, I just want to pray over you. My first prayer is just I hope this was freeing for so many of you and helpful and reframing what you've been invited into. So I'm gonna ask that you just bow your heads and I'm just gonna pray over this space and over the room. God, we come to you right now without pretending and without pressure. We admit that something is stretching and that you are pouring more than we've been holding, and that some of our tiredness isn't failure, it's actually growth. For my friends in the room who feel worn down but still faithful, give them rest. That comes from trust, not from trying harder. And for those who are carrying guilt because their faith feels lighter, remind them that joy is not compromise, it's alignment with your nearness. And would you forgive us for confusing heaviness with holiness and effort with maturity? Gently shape us. Stretch us without shaming us. Give us the humility to release what no longer fits and the courage to receive what you are doing now. We don't want to protect containers, we want to receive life. Father, I believe you are still present, you are still faithful, you are still pouring, and so we open our hands not to prove anything, but to trust you. Same faithful God, new capacity to receive you. And we say all of these things in your son's precious holy name, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.