Fasting - Not for the old purpose of finding favor with God

“Nobody puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch pulls away from the garment and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins.” So Jesus is coming to introduce the new. He’s revealing a dispensation of grace that’s just about to come through His cross. And He’s transforming the mindsets of men. And you can’t take the mindset of the law and you can’t take works to find favor with God and connect it with this grace that we live by. Do you understand? We’re saved by grace through faith.

One of the reasons that Paul was very persecuted is because that he was trying to say that “I’m saved and right with God because He says so,” and that didn’t fly in their culture and society. That’s the reason he said in Romans…he didn’t say it because he’s not not bashful or ashamed in the sense of standing on the street with a bullhorn and letting people know he’s a Christian. He wasn’t that when he says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel.” A lot of people [say,] “I’m not ashamed of the gospel.” Like, “I’ll speak it up in a crowd.” That’s not what he was saying. He’s talking to a culture, right, a culture of people that were trapped in religion. He’s saying, “I’m not ashamed to say I believe in something that saves me by grace and not my works.” That’s what he’s crying out. “I’m not ashamed that God is saving me through the work of Jesus because He loves me, not based on my works.” Because then he goes on in the later chapters of Romans - two and three and four - and says, “Look, if it’s by my works, then there’s a debt to be paid. If it’s by grace then there’s none. It’s…do you get it?