Matching Wine and Wineskins

People say it is what a person is on the inside which counts, and this is true.  This inner focus is likely pushing back against our human tendency to measure ourselves by externals.  We can obsess superficial and transitory aspects like the appearance of our body - the size of our nose or be self-conscious about a mole - more than the character of our hearts.  Jesus taught the words and deeds of a person is an extension of the inner reality:  out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34).  We can conclude therefore both the heart and conduct of a person is important.  Man looks at outer appearance, but God looks at the heart.  If the heart of a man is right before God, he should take intentional steps to see his conduct and words reflect that reality.

Jesus told a parable in Mark 2:21-22:  "No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins."  New fabric shrinks, and new wine expands because of the fermentation process.  One point Jesus is making here is how there should be an agreement between the torn fabric and the fabric used to make the patch; there must be agreement between the new wine coupled with new wineskins.  If new wine is placed into an old wineskin the production of carbon dioxide will cause the brittle wineskin to rupture and all the wine will leak out.  New wine requires a new wineskin.

When a Christian is born again through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, we are made new on the inside.  But we continue to live in a body of flesh saddled with a mind indoctrinated by the world and sinful habits.  A personal application for all to consider is a person who is born again must choose to live life in a new way according to God's Word.  A new spirit requires a new way of thinking, a new way of living.  Focusing on modifying behaviour without inner transformation is like buying a new wineskin for wine that has turned to vinegar.  Transformation within and holding onto the old life is untenable, like new wine in an old wineskin.  The old wineskin will burst and the wine will be wasted.  Like in the Parable where the seed fell on thin or thorny ground which sprang up yet remained without fruit, so it is for the professing Christian who is ensnared in worldly living.  Since God has changed us on the inside, we must be willing to continue changing on the outside too.

When a professing believer finds Christianity boring, reading the Word fruitless, and fellowship with believers tiresome, it may be that person has not been transformed within by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  He has laboured to appear as a new wineskin, but his original vinegar flavour has never changed inside.  Listen to what G.K. Chesterton says about the natural man and his appetites:

There comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of 'pretending'; when he is weary of being a robber or a Red Indian.  It is then that he torments the cat.  There comes a time in the routine of an ordered civilization when the man is tired of playing at mythology and pretending that a tree is a maiden or that the moon made love to a man.  The effect of this staleness is the same everywhere; it is seen in all drug-taking and dram-drinking and every form of the tendency to increase the dose.  Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense.  They seek after made oriental religions for the same reason.  They try to stab their nerves to life, if it were with the knives of the priests of Baal.  They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares. (Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2008. Print. page 159)

People who become bored with Christianity and church resemble the pretender G.K. Chesterton speaks about.  It is not seen as strange a man should embrace the hobby of playing golf for years and sell his clubs to buy a bicycle, but people scratch their heads in disbelief when a man serves at church for years and walks away.  It is not for me to judge the hearts of others, but before God I am responsible to examine my own heart and conduct.  Is my inner man reconciled to my outer man?  Are my affections and desires in line with the will of my Father in heaven?  Too many professing Christians in word are not indeed Christians, for their conscience has been inoculated by their knowledge and service.  When we have increased the dose and we lose our buzz, the famished souls of men will search elsewhere.  Has following Jesus become stale?  Jesus Christ makes new creations, and a genuine new creation required newness of life.  Let us ensure our lives are reconciled to this truth.