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Matthew 9:14-17 | Week 10
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We are in week 10 of our series studying the supernatural healings of Christ through Matthew chapters 8 and 9. Today we are focusing on just four verses—Matthew 9:14-17—with the message title "Refined by New Wine."
My prayer for you through this series is that God is building your faith in his ability and his kindness. By the end of this message, many of you will be refined, transformed, restored, and made better by new wine—not the old ways you've known.
When I was preparing for this message, the Holy Spirit brought to my remembrance a sister I knew years ago. She was a radical Christian—on fire for the Lord. She prayed, worshiped, went to church, read her Bible, and served with undeniable devotion.
She met a handsome young man who was loving and likable. They dated, entered into courtship, and eventually married. They began building a life and home together, and started inviting children into their union. But as their marriage developed, they began to see cracks in the foundation.
Arguments erupted every single day. They fought constantly. The fundamental issue? She was a faithful follower of Jesus, while he was a devoted person of the Islamic faith. On Saturday, he took the children to the mosque. On Sunday, she took them to church. The children were confused about God, about prophets, about truth itself.
They tried everything to hold the marriage together, but ultimately, this divide was too strong. The marriage ended in painful separation and divorce.
But here is what truly destroyed their marriage: it was not the fights. It was not sleeping in separate rooms. It was not the little differences in the kitchen. What destroyed their union was one powerful word that I want to pull from the basement of our text today: incompatibility.
Incompatibility means being unable to exist together in harmony. When something is incompatible, it is contrary or opposed in character. Most importantly, when two things are incompatible, they cannot coexist. You can try. You can force it. You can hang on. But they cannot coexist in harmony.
In this life, there are many things we are familiar with that are incompatible. Sometimes relationships have proven that two people were not compatible. Some of us have had friendships that were not compatible. Some have had business partnerships that failed because of incompatibility. Some have gone to churches and realized the teaching did not resonate with their spirit—the preacher was twisting the text, and it sounded like static in the soul.
When you try to force two things together that are not compatible, it is only a matter of time before you hit a fork in the road. Either there will be separation, or there will be pain.
In the lightest forms, you can bounce back from a separation because two things were not compatible. But in the worst forms, some people will never make it back. Some people are separated from God right now for all eternity because they tried to do something that was not compatible.
Sometimes incompatibility is too strong to survive. Let me say this one more time: there are some things so incompatible that you won't make it back from them.
Matthew was an outcast Jew who records the most read gospel of the four. The one gospel that anchored the church for 1,700 years and was used to raise up disciples. Matthew records for us the incarnation of Christ—his birth, his early days, the people who tried to kill him as a child because the enemy always comes after those who pose a threat to the kingdom.
Some of you are mad at all the trouble you are going through. You do not even know that the target on your back is not because you are doing anything wrong. The target is there because you pose a threat to the kingdom of darkness. The hell you have been through is just Jesus bragging on you.
Matthew records Herod the king who tried to kill Christ. Matthew records the rise of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, the man God called to prepare hearts for the coming of Christ. Matthew records the explosion of John's ministry and the rise of Christ himself—his baptism, his temptation, his first recorded teaching (the Sermon on the Mount), and his healing miracles.
Matthew records his own calling to Christ. Jesus was walking by the tax collector's booth and saw Matthew, an outcast Jew working for the Roman government. Jesus looked him in the eyes and said, "I want you." He called him into fellowship, relationship, and ministry.
Think about this: the person Jesus called, we are reading his book today in 2023. He wrote it around 60 AD. You have no idea what God would do with a surrendered life. Some of you do not even realize what is in you until you fully surrender. You think you are talented. You think you are gifted. But there are things God wants to pull out of you that you have not even seen yet, because you are not fully surrendered.
Matthew invited Jesus to his house and made a feast. He invited all his cronies—other outcasts, sinners, prostitutes, robbers, and tax collectors. And there was Jesus, sitting at the table with his disciples, eating and drinking, enjoying themselves, sipping wine, eating calves, lambs, bread, and fish.
Before this dinner, Jesus had been healing and being rejected. He performed miracles and was rejected. He healed people who were bound, and they rejected him, saying, "You cannot heal on the Sabbath." All around Jesus was rejection. And now rejection comes to Matthew's house.
Then Matthew records this incident: "The disciples of John came to him saying, 'Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?'"
This is striking because of who is asking the question. Not the Pharisees. Not the scribes. Not his religious enemies. But the followers of John the Baptist—the disciples of his own cousin.
Why does this blow my mind? Because in John 3, when Jesus's ministry exploded and became popular, the disciples of John came to John and said, "John, there is another man, Jesus. He is baptizing. His ministry is blowing up. It is bigger than yours. All your followers are leaving us and going to Jesus. Do something about that."
John said to his followers, "Chill out with all that smoke." He told them, "Didn't I already tell you that he who is coming after me is greater than me? Did I not tell you that I am only a signpost? That I have come to proclaim the way of the one coming after me? Didn't I tell you that he was the Lamb of God and the Bridegroom? I must decrease, and he must increase."
John told this to his followers. So they should have known who Jesus was.
Now look at the other detail in the text: who do the disciples of John partner with? They say, "How come we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"
The disciples of John partner with the Pharisees—the enemies of Christ—to bring a complaint against Jesus. How fast good believers can be corrupted by bad people. These men had been following the cousin of Jesus, and yet, because of their association with the Pharisees, their hearts have been corrupted by the wrong company.
I know you think you are strong, but the wrong company can corrupt any man, any woman. Instead of the Pharisees bringing the complaint alone, the disciples of John become the witness against Jesus.
Now, fasting is very normal. We are called to fast. Biblical fasting is the crushing of this flesh to draw closer to God. The most biblical fast is the denial of food. There is also the Daniel fast—vegetables and water. And now we have these soft fasts—no social media, no candy. If that is where you got to start, start there. But a real fast is the denial of food, because your stomach is a god. Paul talks about the god of the stomach. When you deny this, you discipline your flesh to say, "You do not rule over me."
Now, in the Old Testament—remember, there is no New Testament at this time—the only scriptures they have are the Old Testament scriptures. And in the Old Testament, there is only one commandment to fast, and only once a year during a feast. Just once a year.
But here is the problem: by the time Jesus came on the scene, the religious men had become so hyperreligious that they added to the laws of God. They created man-made traditions. According to ancient writings, during the days of Christ, the followers of God were no longer fasting once a year. They were fasting twice a week—on Monday and Thursday, which happened to be the busiest times in the streets.
Their fasting went from something holy unto God to something that became religious and wrote only to impress people who were watching. Every Monday and Thursday they were out in the street, fasting and looking sad so everybody could see, "Oh, they are so holy."
Now watch Jesus's response in Matthew 9:15: "And Jesus said to them, 'Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. And then they will fast.'"
Jesus is saying, "Slow down with all that smoke." He asks them a question: "Can the guests of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?"
In the days of Christ, weddings were not like weddings today. A groom would leave his home, travel to the house of the bride, pay a price for the bride, and then take the bride back to his home where guests were waiting. There would be no honeymoon. The wedding would be the honeymoon and the party, and it would last for seven days.
Jesus calls himself the Bridegroom. Why does this matter? Because he is speaking to Jews who have the Old Testament, and in the Old Testament, Yahweh calls himself the Bridegroom. Jesus now takes the same title given to Yahweh and gives it to himself. He is saying, "I have clarity about my identity."
And your life will change when you get clarity about your identity. I do not know who I am talking to, but let me tell you: You are not your mistake. You are not where you came from. You are not who left you. You are not who betrayed you. You are not the divorce. You are not the rape. You are not the molestation. You are not the season that you failed.
If you are in Christ, you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You have been given a new identity. When you get that in your soul, it will change the way you pray. It will change the way you love. It will change the way you walk. It will change the person you see in the mirror. It will change how you treat people. It will even change those tears you keep crying about things that the Lord already forgave you for.
Everything under the blood has been weaponized for God's glory. If it is in my past and I am saved and I am bold, I can use it now as a testimony to help somebody else.
I was married for three months when I was caught with pornography on the computer. It hurt my wife. I dealt with that in my closet and was freed from pornography. And now that is weaponized under the blood. I am no longer ashamed to say it because I have been delivered from it. When I see pornography, I feel hurt for those involved. I see people really looking for love, not knowing their self-worth. I feel grieved that we treat women like meat.
Any shame? No. Why? Because I am free now. Anything you keep in the dark has power over you. It only takes one confession to somebody you love to begin breaking the power of that thing.
When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he left a group of disciples over here and took Peter, James, and John over there. He confessed to them, "My soul is sorrowful unto death." The Lord confessed his weakness in the company of those who could handle it. Not everybody is mature enough to handle your past.
Jesus asks them: "How could the guests of the groom mourn while the bridegroom is with them?" They were fasting in those days as a sign of sadness. Every Monday they were sad. Every Thursday they were sad. Next Monday sad. Next Thursday sad. Two days a week you are sad. Every other day I see you, you are sad.
But Jesus is telling them, "If that is the purpose of your religious fasting, my people cannot do that in my presence. They do not have anything to be sad about in this moment. Why? Because my physical presence is with them. The only thing they are going to feel in my presence is joy."
They have no reason to be sad while he is physically with them. The coming of Christ into the world was supposed to bring the joy of the kingdom, a new world order.
Then Jesus says, "A time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them." That word in the original language means to violently remove. What is he talking about? He is prophesying his execution and death on the cross. A time is coming when he will be crucified, violently removed. And when he is gone, then they will mourn.
Did that happen? Yes. The Lord was killed. They scattered. They wept. We are still called to fast today to get closer to God. But let me tell you something: the dominant disposition of the New Testament Christian should be joy.
Let everybody look at me: The dominant disposition of the New Testament believer is supposed to be joy. This should be your dominant disposition. Yes, you get hurt. Yes, you cry. Yes, you mourn. Yes, you fast. Yes, you seek God. But when all the smoke clears, your dominant disposition is supposed to be joy.
Do not anybody want to serve the God you serve when you are moody and depressed all the time. You cannot praise. You cannot lift a hand. You cannot shout. You do not want to go to church. You do not have a hallelujah. You are always in the basement. Your house is always dark. You do not like sunlight. You are always depressed.
Paul said, "The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." If you keep having fellowship with the Holy Spirit, eventually joy is going to hit your soul. And joy should not be contingent upon circumstance. You do not need everything to be right for you to feel joy.
Joy is a silent emotion in the basement of my soul based on an assurance that Christ is with me. Even in the middle of the difficult week I just had, I can still feel joy, righteousness, and peace in the Holy Spirit. It does not matter what I am going through. It does not matter what I am going through. I have got a praise of joy. It is stuck down there. I am going to reach down and pull it out. I am going to cry, then I am going to pull it out. I am going to be depressed, but then I am going to pull it out. I am going to be sad, but then I am going to pull it out. I am going to snot my nose, but I am going to go down there and pull that out.
Now everybody watch carefully the last two verses. Pay attention. This is where Jesus lands the plane. He is about to drop a bomb on them to show them the ignorance and error of trying to do something that is incompatible.
Listen to verse 16: "No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch tears away from the garment and a worse tear is made."
Jesus is saying now, "What you are trying to force my disciples to do is incompatible. It does not fit together. You are trying to force them to fast when they are not supposed to. You are trying to force them to be sad when they are not supposed to. I am going to tell you that the way y'all think, believe, act, and move is incompatible with what I am doing."
In those days, clothes were made out of wool. If you washed wool, what happened? It would shrink. So if you took a new piece of cloth and put it on an old sweater, and then put that sweater to wash in water, when the sweater shrinks again, because this cloth was not shrunk before, it is going to rip the sweater even more violently. The second hole is going to be bigger than the first one.
Do you know what Jesus was trying to tell them? Christ did not come to try to patch up the old systems of your perverted religion. I did not come to put a holy patch on your dysfunction. I did not come to put a holy patch on your false religion. I did not come to put a holy patch on your false believing.
I did not come to try to patch up the old life that you are trying to keep.
And the same thing that they were doing is the same thing many of us are doing. We are trying to take little holy patches. "God first in my bio, but my life is crazy." I come to church—a holy patch. But my life is crazy. The Lord loves you so much. I am trying to get a message to you today that too many of us, especially in this nation, try to take these little holy patches and try to get Jesus to patch up the old life that we do not want to let go of.
So we have this old life that we keep holding on to. These old ways. These old things. We are so afraid to let them go. And what we are trying to do is put a little holy patch here and there. If you could see us in the spirit, we are walking around with a patch here, a patch there, and a patch over here. Church on Sunday. Crazy. "God first in my bio." Crazy. A little patch on my knee, but I hate people. I call myself a Christian. No evidence of that.
What we are trying to do is try to appease our conscience by trying to force God to patch up a life that he does not want to patch up. That old car you have been driving, the Lord does not want to fix your old tire. He does not want to put gas in your old car. The Lord pulled up next to you in the cross and said, "Here is a new car."
He is trying to get you to hop out of that old car you are driving because that old car is going to go over a cliff of damnation. He is trying to put you in a brand new vehicle—a vehicle called life.
Some of us, man, all we know is the world that we have been in. I feel you. I have been there, and I know I feel you. You are afraid to surrender. You are afraid to let go. You are so terrified of what God might do instead of thinking, "If he is a loving father, he has my best interest at heart. And maybe, just maybe, he might have a better life for you than the one you are living right now."
I know nobody can see it. I know we do not know. I know everything looks perfect on the outside. But could it be possible that the Lord Jesus Christ has a better life for you than the one you have right now?
I am talking to people who are new in the faith. I am talking to people who are seasoned in the faith. I am talking to atheists. I am talking to everybody in here. You already know who you are. You already know how you get down. And you are just trying to patch up your life with these holy patches.
Listen to me, my brother, my sister. Look right at me. This is love talking. The Lord did not come to patch up your old life. He came to give you a new one.
Do you know what God saved me from? Womanizing. Drug dealing. Robbing. Running the streets. Taking advantage of people. You think I was going to keep doing that? Just throw a patch here and throw a patch there and throw a patch over there? No. What the Lord gave Philip Anthony Mitchell was a brand new life. A healthy marriage. Children who I love. Purpose. Calling. A future. A name recorded in heaven.
I wake up every day thinking about purpose. I am not living for money or fame or people's approval. I am living to hear these seven words: "Well done."
But here is the thing: if you keep trying to keep those patches on the old life, eventually, at some point in time, it is going to bring pain to you. It is going to bring torment to your mind. It is going to bring torment to your heart.
This is like, "Yo, I am good in public, and when I lay down at night, I am tormented." You are straddling the fence between two worlds. You are halfway in the world, halfway in the kingdom, and you are full of patches. And he says, if you continue to live like that, at some point in time, it is going to rip you apart.
It will be better for you to be fully devoted to the devil or fully devoted to Jesus. But if you try to keep your life patched up, he says eventually it is going to rip you apart.
Now watch the love of Jesus. Verse 17—the last verse: "Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins will burst and the wine is spilled out and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins and so both are preserved."
I am landing the plane. Pay attention. This is monumentally important. It has changed my life.
In those days, they did not put wine in bottles. There were no wet bottles. They would take animals, kill them, leave the neck open, and stitch up the arms and legs. While the animal was fresh, they would pour wine into that skin.
Wine in its purest form must ferment. It must expand as it ferments. If the wineskin was new, as the wine expanded, the skin would be flexible enough to expand with the wine. The word is flexible—open to change.
But when they were done with a wineskin—when it was old, old life—the wineskin would get brittle. It could not flex. And if you put wine in an old wineskin, as the wine expanded, the old skin could not handle the revelation of the new thing, and the wineskin would break. Everything you put in it would leak out of it.
Do you know what the Lord is trying to say? The people listening then. The people listening now. I did not come to fix that old thing you have been doing for so long. I came to refine you, transform you, do something fresh in you with brand new wine.
You know what wine is? It is the revelation of the kingdom. You know what expansion is? It is the expanding revelation of what the Lord is trying to do in your life. But if you are hardened of heart and brittle, and you keep doing this to God—you keep coming here every week, you go listen to somebody else's podcast, you go read somebody else's book, you keep running to all these conferences—do you know what is going to happen?
You are hopping from conference to conference, book to book, Sunday to Sunday. And all that God is trying to reveal to you—because your heart is hardened and brittle—the bottle of your heart keeps breaking open. And in a moment you get inspired. Then by Wednesday it leaks out of you.
I came today to tell someone: The Lord loves you too much to leave you where you are.
When the Lord found me suicidal over a toilet seat in a bathroom, I made my heart a new wineskin. I said, "God, I fully surrender." Here is what wineskins do: Whatever you want to do in my life, whatever it is, I am open to that.
So Philip moved three states. That is the expansion of the wine. I am open to that. Philip, cut off your locks. That is the expansion of wine. I was open to that. Philip, you got to break off some of these relationships. That is the expansion of wine. I was open to that. Philip, I want you to go to a city that you do not like and start a church there. That is the expansion of wine. I was open to that. Philip, I want you to change the name of your church from Victory to 2819. That is the expansion of wine. I was open to that.
What is the Lord trying to say to you, but you will not flex? You will not expand? You will not run all the way to see what the Lord would do in your life?
Right now, as I am sitting here, there are hundreds of brittle wineskins in this room. You already know who you are. You do church well. You do conferences well. You do books well. You do posting well. But on the inside, you are not. You do not want to expand with what the Lord is trying to do. The Lord is trying to pour into you wine you have never tasted before. Some of you, he has got bottles of revelation you have not even conceived. A whole life that he is trying to pour into you.
You think when the Lord saved me over a bathroom, I knew I would be standing here one day preaching to men and women? You think when I was a former womanizer, I knew I would have a loving wife and good children? You think when I was robbing people at gunpoint and selling crack cocaine at 12 years old, you think I would have known that one day the Lord would take this wretched man and use me to proclaim the truth of his word?
Yo, you are staring at a wineskin. You are sitting in the manifestation of somebody else's wine. Do not you want to sip your own? I know what my Cabernet tastes like. I know what my Chardonnay tastes like. What does yours taste like? Do not you want the wine of the kingdom? Do not you want to at least see what Jesus would do with a completely surrendered life?
You have no idea. And you think all he is coming to do is take from you. Yes, he is a taker. He is coming to take sin, take regret, take shame, take your past. But listen to what happens if you just say, "You know what? I surrender."
There are Christians in this room. You are thinking about somebody in a row who is not saved. The Lord is talking to you because you are a believer, and you are hard-headed and rebellious. And you are trying to do two things that are not compatible: his will and yours.
So the Lord is nudging you to forgive. You will not do that. He is nudging you to make this city your home. You will not do that. He is nudging you to go say sorry. You will not do that. Like the Lord is trying to pour wine into some of you, and some of you who have been saved forever—quote unquote—are caught up in your traditions so much that the Lord cannot even break them.
Some of the worst wineskins are people who have been saved forever, because you are so caught up in your traditions that the Lord cannot even break them. God forbid, like you were raised in a tradition where they do not lift their hand and they are not expressive, and you say, "Well, I am just shy. That is not me." But what if he is trying to pour in new wine? You are going to let your personality make you brittle? You are going to let your past make you brittle? You are going to let the church you came out of make you brittle?
Or maybe right now in this moment, somebody will hear the cry of a wineskin that is expanding with the fermentation of Jesus and say, "You know what? Enough is enough."
The Lord loves you. He is catching those tears. He sees you. He sees your repentance. No show. Just real surrender.
Right above your head is wine. It is tipping towards you right now. And my only question for you is: Do you have the capacity to contain it?
For those who do not yet belong to God—you have done church, you have done religion, but you do not belong to him. You are not here by accident. This is the most important moment of your life.
Here is the gospel: You and I are sinners. You have broken God's laws. If you think you are righteous, you were born a sinner. You came out your mother's womb separated from God. You are headed for damnation. If you die in your sin, you will be separated from God for all eternity.
But God in his love for you, not wanting you to perish, sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the earth. And he says, "If anyone would turn from their sin and put their faith in Christ, he will save you, erase your past, write your name in heaven, make you a brand new creature."
The Lord wants to do that for you right now.
For the believer who is on their feet, the Lord does not condemn you. Just try something different. Just stop fighting. You are tired. Take off the boxing gloves. Stop being afraid. And just say, "Lord, I fully surrender. Whatever you want to do with me after this, I know that is scary. I am an open wineskin for that."
Watch how he expands your heart, your mind, your life. You have no idea where you will be a year from now, five years from now, twenty years from now.
We did not come to play church. We are the church. This is real.
