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I'll admit it. I probably grew up spoiled rotten. There were a few years that I didn't have everything that I wanted, but I never went without anything that I needed. My father called me the "son of his old age" and he was about 41 when I was born. My brother is 12 and a half years older than me and I used to laugh when we all went somewhere together and people thought that my brother was my father and my dad my grandfather!

My brother said having a dad that was older meant that my parents had mellowed out by the time I came along and I got away with murder compared to him. I don't know if that's true or not, but one thing I do know. Having older parents caused some interesting generational differences to come to light. My father and mother grew up poor. My grandfather went through the rough years in the 1930s where hardly anybody had enough to eat. I remember one Christmas we were all sitting around and my cousin had on some new shoes, in what we thought was the latest style and out of nowhere my grandfather says "Rich, those shoes look like the ones that we wore back in the depression." It was funny. Rich thought that he looked cool and grandfather couldn't believe someone would wear shoes that looked like that willingly, nevertheless pay money for them.

For me, one of the biggest generational clashes with my parents came over blue jeans. My father came from the generation that the real dark blue, unwashed denim was what "new jeans" should look like. As a child, my father was embarrassed to wear faded jeans because that meant that they were old and that his family was too poor to buy new ones. My generation, some of you may remember, was the first to really introduce "designer jeans" and with the cute little tag and high price tags, you usually got jeans that were "stonewashed" and "presoftened" and basically looked as if a gypsy had lived in them for five years before they sold them to you. And it was my generation, also, that someone came up with the idea of taking a razor and slashing a pair of jeans all down the legs and then upping the price by about 50 dollars and calling it "fashion." I remember the time that another cousin walked in the house with a pair of jeans that had so many holes in the legs that you wondered how they were holding on to each other, and my father said sort of sarcastically: "those jeans look like somebody took them out back and emptied a few shotgun shells into them." Only to find out that someone actually had taken those jeans somewhere and emptied a few shotgun shells into them and then sold them to my cousin for about $85!

My father and mother thought -- probably rightfully so -- that all of that was ridiculous. After all, everyone knew that if you had a hole in your britches you sewed it up and then went down to Walmart and bought one of those little iron-on patches. My parents loved those little iron-on patches; they usually kept several around, lest I have to walk around with a hole in my jeans.

If you like those little patches, the God bless you, but let me explain my anguish about them from the standpoint of a junior high outlook on life. Today, when you go to buy those patches, they have all different shades of stonewash and of color. Back when I was younger, they only had one color, the dark, blue "new" color that my parents' adored. It never matched the jeans, and to my junior high eyes, it only made the gash more obvious. My parents were thrilled, because to their eyes, their little boy looked "well groomed." I was mortified. Everyone else had "cool" jeans with neat gashes and holes and I was stuck with patches. I felt like a denim quilt walking around.

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It's funny how that words that Jesus spoke two thousand years ago can still be truth in the most basic applications. I wish that I would have known about our text in junior high, maybe my parents would have listened to the "Word" over my own futile pleas.

Jesus doesn't like patches either; we read so in our text. Jesus had just walked by a hated tax collector that would become known as Matthew and called the man to following Him. Not only did Matthew get up and straightway follow Jesus, but he also through a big party at his home and invited all of his sinner friends to come over and meet Jesus. Jesus was changing his life, and Matthew wanted all of his buddies to have the same opportunity. The "holy" Pharisees and Sadducees found out about Jesus' whereabouts and waited outside the party for Him. When He came out, they were ready to criticize that He would eat with such "sinners" and not spend the time fellowshipping with them, the "holy" ones. Jesus answered their accusations by saying "that only the sick need a physician" and then proceeds to teach them the parable that we read as our text:

Let me read it for you in another translation:

Jesus said "no man" but I guess that didn't apply to my mother! He gave two reasons why you don't patch an old garment with a new patch. The first is that when you wash the garment, the new patch will react differently to the old and eventually the shrinkage will cause the tear to be worse. The other reason is that no matter how you try to make it fit and how clever you are, the new patch will NEVER fit the old garment. It will never blend in and will always be an eyesore!

In the context of the story, Jesus' point was that He was not fellowshipping with those who thought that they were "holy" and "perfect" under the law because He had come to change everything to the Dispensation of Grace. And that you can't take Grace and the work of Calvary and blend it with Law. It would be a whole new garment. If the Pharisees wanted to be saved then they had to fulfill a whole new set of requirements and be "born again." Jesus knew that it was easier to take rank sinners and convert them into a new creature rather than take people that are caught up in man's tradition and try to convert them and that's why He responded with this parable.

It's still true today. It's easier for people who know nothing about the Bible to receive truth than it is for people who have been taught the tradition's of men to grasp it. The reason is that people who have been caught up in tradition, tend to hang on to their tradition and try to take the new thing that God wants to do in their lives and try to "patch it into their old." And if you are going to live for God, then you've got to be willing to not believe something just because it's a tradition that is commonly believed by others. If a tradition does not match the Word of God, you'd better throw it away! You can't hold on to your old garment of tradition and try to fit the work of the Holy Ghost in it! It will destroy the garment. It will never work. God hates patchwork Christianity. You can't teach the truth of Jesus' name baptism and hold on to the manmade doctrine of the trinity. That's patchwork Christianity. Furthermore you can't say that God is one and somehow also three. You can't say that it doesn't matter after the Bible clearly declares it is. You can't take a portion of truth and try to fit it into man's way. That's making do instead of becoming new!

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But there is an application of Jesus' teaching that goes beyond just man's tradition. When you come to God, He wants it to be a new beginning. He'll forgive your sin at repentance. He'll wash away those sins from your spiritual account through water baptism. And then He'll fill you with the Holy Ghost and He calls it "being born again." Understand that it's not a remodeling project, but it's a new birth. God intends to recreate you into His image. He wants everything to be different and to be changed. Paul wrote in our other text:

He's a "new creature!" And listen to what God wants: "old things are passed away; behold all things are become new!" God wants to totally consume your passions, your personality, your emotions, your thoughts, your actions, your speech, your goals, and your dreams. All things! All things become new! When you are born again, you stand as fresh and as innocent as a newborn babe. Your past is behind you. You've got only a bright future in front of you. It's the opportunity of a lifetime! It's God plan for making us new!

God gives you the garment of righteousness to replace your coat of sin. Sin leaves us tattered and torn. It hurts us. It scars our spiritual man. It wears holes in our garment. Sometimes we only notice the bigger ones and the more obvious ones that are huge gashes, but willful sin always leaves a mark. It may be only after a few years that you can see the effect, but you can count that there was an effect. And that's why God gives us a new garment to replace the old, broken one! We can stand right in God's eyes by being justified by putting on the robe of righteousness.

But unfortunately I'm only so far preaching to you what God wants salvation to be. I'm preaching to you the ideal version of it and not necessarily the way it is. Oh, you are given a new spiritual garment when you are born again. You are washed and clean and have a "robe of righteousness" to wear. But too often, people do exactly what Jesus talked about and take their new garment and their new robe and tear a piece out of it to make a patch in their old garment. They don't change garments from the old to the new. Instead of becoming new, they just make do. They like the old garment of sinful actions and sinful thoughts. It's comfortable. It's convenient. Oh, they can look down and see that there is tears and rips and holes in the tattered spiritual garment, but they would rather just get a "patch of righteousness" and try to fit it into the old garment and keep the old one on.

Some people want the part of living for God that they think patches the broken areas of their life, but don't want the whole garment. They come to God with a patch work mentality. "I want the scriptures and work of the Holy Ghost in my marriage, because I know that that area needs help because it's got so bad that it's obvious that something needs to change, but I don't want to obey the scripture and the Holy Ghost in every area of my life, because those are areas that I'm comfortable with my sin. I want the Holy Ghost to work on my past sin, but I don't want to have to yield to change the way that I act in the present. I'll let God work on my praise, but don't talk about tithes and offering. I'll let God deal with my bitterness, but don't deal with my mouth. I'll come to church and get blessed in some areas, but there are some things that I'd rather not change. And what they are doing is taking the new robe of righteousness and instead of putting it on in place of the old, they rip a patch from the new and try to work it into the parts that they want improved. They are taking their old garment of sin and trying to fit a few new patches of holiness into it. And it won't work. God's righteousness will never match your old lifestyle of sin. They will never mingle. It will never be able to compare with a new garment. Making do is a poor substitute for becoming new!

Some preachers and churches will try to water down God's truth to make it closer to the shade of sin and more closely fit people's old lifestyle. They want people to be comfortable and therefore they will rip some of God's Word off the garment of righteous and try to apply it. They'll talk about love and keys to a good marriage. They'll talk about proper employer relations and on prayer and praise. Those things are fairly safe, because you can obey the principles of God's Word in those areas and improve your marriage, love your family, be a good employee, and learn to pray and praise and do it all still stuck in sinful behavior lost as a goose in a hail storm! And you can tint those things to fit comfortably into a sinful garment. There are people who are fornicators that sing in choirs and praise singers every day in many churches. There are people who go from watching an R-rated movie in their hotel room to preaching a Sunday night service in many churches and on television. And they are anointed. And they can sing and preach. And what they have to say is sometimes good. But they are not giving you the whole garment of God's righteousness.

Preach on sin? No way, that might hurt the ratings or the offering. Preach on the need for the Apostles' doctrine? No, someone might not agree and leave. Get down to personal application in everyday things of the scriptures? Somebody might get uncomfortable. Preach on repentance? On hell? That being born of the water and of the Spirit is the only way to heaven? Separation from the fashions and lifestyles of the world like Peter and Paul taught? That few are going to make it down the strait and narrow? Are you kidding? We're in a new day where we must be tolerant of people's views. They won't preach that.

Let me tell you what they are doing. They are taking some truth off of the robe of righteousness and trying to tint it to blend into the sinful man. They want to patch people's lives with truth rather than have them change out garments. And Jesus said it will never work. Eventually, the new patch will destroy the old garment and it will be worse than it was before the patch was applied. And that's why Peter said that:

If you've escaped the world and yet go back to your sinful lifestyle, then it will be worse on you than if you had never come to God. Why? Because patchwork Christianity solves nothing and only creates a whole new set of problems. And the main reason is that people who use the robe of righteousness and pick and choose what they submit to will go away saying "Jesus doesn't work, like they say it does." When that's a lie from the pits of hell. What is true is that trying to serve God half-heartedly and not becoming a new creature, doesn't work, but if you will exchange in every area of your life your sinful garment for the new one that God has for you. If you will not be content with just making do, but will allow yourself to be made new. Then you will find that the blood of Jesus does work! God's way does live up to the hype, but only if you do God's way, God's way! Only when you allow Him to completely change every area of your life!

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Jesus gave another analogy in this parable to further reinforce His lesson. He went on to say:

Back then they didn't have glass bottles as we have today. The word here for bottles in the Greek would better be translated "wineskins." It referred to leather bags, usually made of goat skin that were sewed together for the purpose of making wine. New wine or "fresh juice" was placed into new bags and as the juice change composition and time went by, the bag would stretch and expand with the process. If you put a new batch in a wineskin that had been used previously -- in other words, you put new wine into an old wineskin -- the bag would soon burst under the process of the winemaking and both would be destroyed and ruined. The bag would explode, sometimes spectacularly, and often the rupture would be unexpected and sudden.

Wine is a type of the Holy Ghost in the scripture. When the disciples staggered out of the upper room on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, they were accused of being drunk, to which Peter answered "these men are not drunk as ye suppose..." He didn't deny that they were drunk, he just said that they weren't drunk on the things that men normally get drunk on! Paul later commanded the Ephesian church:

Paul was saying "if you want to get drunk, get drunk on the Holy Ghost!" It's the best kind of wine, from which you'll have the finest kind of time! And so a symbolism emerges from scripture that you don't stop drinking when you come to God, you just change drinks! It has all the good benefits of alcohol without any of the side effects.

If that's true, then Jesus' teaching becomes especially applicable to you and I today. How many people have gotten the Holy Ghost and then seemingly "self destructed" before reaching heaven? How many times have you seen someone come get the Holy Ghost and do fine only to seemingly "blow up" spiritually and everything is lost and they end up further away from God than when they started. I've seen it and it still bothers me, but at least I now can say I know what happened. They tried putting the new wine of the Holy Ghost into the old wineskins of their sinful lifestyle. That is they let the Holy Ghost fill them up, but they didn't let God change them into a new creature. When they left the service, all things didn't become new, but they held on to their old sinful habits and sinful lifestyles and tried to let the Holy Ghost inhabit that old way of doing things.

And notice that in the scriptures it is the wine that bursts the bag. The reason that they exploded is that when it came time for the Holy Ghost to help them grow beyond their situation, their lifestyle wasn't ready for it. When the preacher preached on a greater commitment and getting beyond just trying to stay saved every week, then they weren't ready for it! When it came time to be more devoted and more faithful, and the Holy Ghost began to desire to expand within them and grow until they saw the hand of God working through them into other's lives, then their old wineskins couldn't take it. Hear this preacher: your old lifestyle cannot contain the working of the Holy Ghost. Only a new lifestyle can. You can't stay in the same lifestyle and expect to have the Holy Ghost become everything that it should be in your life. It won't work. There'll be a day of reckoning where the wheels will come off. The strings will strain and then the end will come where all will be lost. You put new wine in old bottles. It was a long time coming. Sure it took a little while to show up, but it always ends up the same!

Oh, that we would learn the importance of allowing God to consume us and recreate us! Oh, that we would learn the lesson of the wineskins and allow God to create us into new beings. I'm preaching to you some of you who have the Holy Ghost and yet the strings are straining right now. You want the Holy Ghost to work, but it's obvious that something's about to fall apart.

How do you tell? By your response to the promises and the Word of God. Understand that if all things have been made new, then there is nothing from the past that has anything to do with the future. When people say things like "Well, I'm not sure that I can keep that commitment or commandment of God because I've always . . . " What they are saying is "my old wineskin can't hold the Holy Ghost moving in that area." But if you've truly been made a new creature in Christ Jesus, then it doesn't matter what you used to do or used to not do, you've got a fresh start, therefore there is no "I can't" to it, you can do anything God asks you to do! When people are afraid to step out and let God use them and they have a fear of stepping out on God's promises, that's a sure sign that they have put the Holy Ghost in old wineskins. Fear is a learned behavior. If I were to shoot my shotgun right now beside my dog, he would jump four foot in the air and bark madly because he's learned to fear firecrackers. But if I would shoot a gun everyday before I feed him, then it would get to the point that every time he heard a gun his tail would start wagging and he would begin to drool, because he would learn to associate that with treats.

"Oh, I can't do that for God." How do you know, if you're a new creature? "Oh, I can't keep that commitment." "I'll never be able to do that." You're like Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes and God saying "who told you that you were naked?" Fear is a learned behavior. And so when people say "well God can't use me like that." I want to say "you're right, if you were in your sinful flesh that you used to be, that old man can't do such things and can't be used of God and can't do those things" but if you are a new creature and OLD things have passed away and ALL things have become new, then how do you know that you can't do those things and how do you know that you can't be used of God in that way? You're a new creature! You've been made new! You can grow beyond anything you ever imagined! God can use you! The past doesn't matter anymore.

That is, it doesn't unless you've put the Holy Ghost into old wineskins. And maybe that's why people say such things. They haven't allowed God to revamp their lives. They haven't let the renewing of their minds and the regeneration of the Holy Ghost to change every area. They are still living in the old wineskin of their old sinful lifestyle and so it's true what they say: "God can't use them like that." But the problem is not God or the Holy Ghost, but the fact that they have the old garment still on. They have placed Him within old wineskins!

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I finish with this:

This parable goes beyond just man's tradition and our sinful past lifestyle. It also applies to levels of anointings and spiritual levels in God. I heard someone say that "if you will let God use you, He will wear you out!" There's some truth to that because if I ever stop growing, I'll die. And so God let's us wear out our anointing to spur us to move to the next level. We must be getting close to Him, continually. We pray often "God use me" but it's the tool that gets used that gets worn out. You can open my storage shed and look at my workbench and easily tell which tools that I use the most often. They have marks and nicks and scratches. The tool that gets used is the one that needs to be "made new" again every once in a while.

In 1 Samuel chapters 1 and 2, we find the story of how a Jewish woman was barren and fasted and prayed for God to give her a baby. She made God a promise that if He would bless her with a son, then she would dedicate him to God's service and give him back to the Lord. She kept it. When her son, Samuel, was born, she raised him until he was weaned and then she took him to the temple and let him live in the temple with the priest Eli to learn the ways of the Lord. She would visit him once a year and the Bible records this about that annual encounter:

Even as a little child, Samuel had a linen ephod which represented the anointing of the Lord for ministry and service and every year his mother brought him a new coat. You know why? Because he had outgrown the one from last year by that time. The new cloak came only because he had grown out of it and was ready for a new one.

Some people complain that God doesn't use them with the anointing and fervency and power as He does others. They want a greater anointing, but they haven't outgrown the anointing that they presently have. They haven't been faithful in the small things that God has presently called them to do, so there's no way that they will be able to fill the bigger mantle that they desire! Furthermore, they want some parts of the greater anointing, but the parts of greater sacrifice and commitment that comes with it. They want to patch some parts of the bigger coat into their existing garment and it just won't work! In fact, trying to do so will destroy the anointing that you have and the level that you have reached rightfully, because your commitment is not big enough to hold the new anointing! Try to make do instead of being made new and you will find that the anointing will destroy you!

Never criticize the blessings and anointings and gifts of someone else. Because you are only seeing a part of the garment. You don't know the level of heartache, faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice that went into the rest of that mantle of anointing. God will bless you with that same level of anointing -- He's no respecter of persons -- but it will also cost you the same level of sacrifice and faithfulness that it cost everyone else. And if you try to operate in that arena, without the sacrifice, you will find that it destroys you because you are trying to patch a piece of a new anointing into your existing garment. It just won't work.

But the way you move up is to outgrow your old anointing. Outgrow your old dreams. Outgrow your old struggles. Keep maturing in God. And let Him make you a new creature in Christ Jesus. Don't make do with what you've got, but let ALL things become new, even in the area of your present anointing!

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Wherever you are, the answer is to let God create you afresh! To let Him consume you and change you and to recreate you! Paul also wrote:

"Put off the old man." "Be renewed in the spirit of the mind." "Put on the new man." The one that is "created in righteousness and true holiness." Those are some very pointed commands and God never demands something that is impossible. If He could not change you from your old man to your new man, then He would have never demanded it of you. But He can, if you will yield yourself totally to Him! You can be a new creature in Christ Jesus! Whatever you decide, don't settle for just making do, because that will lead to an end that is very unpleasant. But let Him make you new!