Not the Righteous but Sinners to Repentance
Download MP3Luke chapter 5. We've been working through the book of Luke for, I don't know, 10 weeks now or so. And we're gonna look at, a pretty familiar passage, and actually want to review some of what we looked at last week. Once again, I'm sorry about my voice. I just pretty much drank an entire lemon.
Speaker 1:So, my throat feels a little better, but now, I can't open my mouth. Luke 5, we'll begin reading at verse 27. After this, he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth and he said to him, follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them.
Speaker 1:And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered him, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And they said to him, the disciples of John fast off and offer prayers, and so did the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. And Jesus said to them, can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
Speaker 1:The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and and then they will fast in those days. He told them a parable that no one tears a piece from a garment and puts it in an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the and the piece from the new will be no match for the old. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and and the skins will be destroyed.
Speaker 1:But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins. And no one after drinking the old wine desires new. For he says the old is good. Go to chapter 6 verse 12. In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray and all night, he continued in prayer to God.
Speaker 1:And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them 12, whom he named apostles. Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew, his brother, and James and John, and Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew and Thomas, and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor. Pray with me. God, I ask that you would honor your word as has been read. That we've come to understand what you mean in Colossians 3 when you say, may the words of Christ dwell in us richly.
Speaker 1:We ask that your words would dwell in us richly, that we'd be filled with them, that we would be filled with your spirit. And we ask his help in this place that you might give understanding to what we just read. I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, let your words remain and may they change us. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Amen. A couple of weeks ago, we looked how Jesus called a group of fishermen, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, to follow him. Last week, we we saw how He called Matthew or Levi, this tax collector, to come follow Him. We just read how he called 7 more people to come and to follow him. And now, from a worldly standpoint, you have to realize that these are are horrible selections.
Speaker 1:This is, if you were, like, in the fantasy draft or something like that in the NFL, Jesus would be horrible at this. I mean, this is the equivalent of of of picking, you know, a guy who's, you know, 5 foot 6, slow as Christmas, can barely bench the bar, and he's like, he's our number one pick. You know, and everybody would look at Jesus and just like laugh. You you don't have any clue what you're talking about. You're trying to recruit people to change the world.
Speaker 1:But he gets, I mean, look at his first group. I wouldn't pick these I wouldn't pick these people honestly to teach VBS, and I'm not kidding. I would not pick these people to do that, and he picks them to change the world. His first person he picks is Peter, Who's loud, rash, impulsive. Says what's ever on his mind.
Speaker 1:He's that guy at the party. He's kinda fun to be at a party, but he doesn't have that filter. You know, the one that you're always like, he you know, I might think that. He says it. I mean he just goes out and says it.
Speaker 1:You know, he's the one who told Jesus. He's like, with the other guys present, Jesus, all these guys are gonna leave you probably, but I won't. Now you know the others thought that, but they wouldn't say it. He was missing that filter. John, the Apostle John, he is likely just just a kid, just a youth.
Speaker 1:He probably can't even shave, and yet he's supposed to be taking on Pharisees, rulers. You look at Matthew or Levi the tax collector, and we saw last week that tax collectors they have the social standing of a pimp. They did. They had the social standing of a pimp or a traitor. People hated tax collectors, and this is just impractical.
Speaker 1:How how is a tax collector gonna be an evangelist? I mean, already, you know, if an evangelist comes to your door, you know, you kind of shut it, you close it. A tax collector, an IRS evangelist coming. Everybody's gonna run from them. I mean, they will hide.
Speaker 1:Very impractical. Then you've got Simon the zealot. Zealots were these political activists that were completely against Roman rule. They hated Roman officials. They hated Rome.
Speaker 1:A matter of fact, they were such extremists that there's many stories of them how they would hide knives in their robes, and they would go into public settings, and they would identify those who worked for the Roman government, and they go up behind them, and they would kill them. The zealots were murderers. So Jesus, get this, he calls Levi who works for the Roman government. A tax collector. Be part of my group.
Speaker 1:Then he calls the zealot. Judas the zealot. The one who kills Roman officials. And a matter of fact, he was so he was so much a zealot. Luke says that he was simply called the zealot.
Speaker 1:He was the zealot of zealots. That's what people knew him as. He's the guy who hates Roman officials. He pulls them together. It's almost like an experiment.
Speaker 1:Let's see what happens. Yeah, I mean, to me the equivalent that I think of, because I've been to Northern Ireland so many times is, you got a picture of some Catholic from the IRA, and Jesus asking him to hold hands with like some protestant from the UVF. And like, hold hands, sing kumbaya. Come on. Y'all get along.
Speaker 1:And it's just not gonna work. But these are the people that Jesus calls to be part of his most inner circle. These are the ones that are gonna change the world. And it's important to understand that Jesus calls them. They don't find Jesus.
Speaker 1:They don't stumble and trip into Jesus. Jesus goes after them. Jesus calls them. And every Christian, every true Christian understands how they came to faith, and that it was that God called them. And you know, maybe you began going to church because, you know, you were curious about some things.
Speaker 1:A lot of people want to go to church because, you know, hey, it's a good place to find a spouse. You know, or it's a good place to raise a family. Or maybe you know you kind of saw yourself as spiritually seeking, but but but once you became a believer and you look back at your conversion, you understand that you weren't seeking. It was God pursuing you all along. That you never got any new information that you responded to.
Speaker 1:You had an encounter with the living Jesus, and he called you. It wasn't like I got new information. Let me weigh my options You discovered a person who called you. You didn't respond to a message. You responded to a living person.
Speaker 1:You didn't follow a religion, you followed a person. And tonight, if you're here with doubts or if you have skepticism, yet you strangely find yourself being kind of drawn to spiritual things, know that God just very well might be calling you. He might be calling you. Keep listening for that voice. And if you think God would never call somebody like you, just look at the disciples.
Speaker 1:Just look at them. He calls and he not only calls, but he uses people like us. And this bothered the pharisees. I mean, that Jesus would be eating and drinking with tax collectors. You know, they actually thought of Jesus as righteous.
Speaker 1:That's why it bothered them. What did you say? You're you're righteous. Why do why do you hang out with these guys? Why are you eating with them?
Speaker 1:In the gospel of Matthew, which is Levi here, in his gospel, in his account, he says, he adds this phrase that Jesus says, Jesus goes, go and learn what this means. That I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and I love that phrase. For when he says, go and learn what this means. It means that the Christian faith is not something you just jump out in blind faith. He says, think about it.
Speaker 1:Take this. Chew on it. Don't turn off your mind. Turn on your mind. It's gonna take time because what I'm telling you is so radical, you're not ready to just accept it.
Speaker 1:You're gonna have to really chew and digest this. And if you've been coming to church for a long time and you've listened, you don't get it, and you listen, you don't get it, don't be discouraged. Keep at it. Jesus says, go and learn what this means. Because I desire mercy not sacrifice is a radical statement.
Speaker 1:And when Jesus says sacrifice, what he's talking about is religion. And is our mercy not religion? Because religion is built on sacrifice. We do things. We make sacrifices.
Speaker 1:We perform. We we make sacrifices like we take time to pray. We sacrifice by taking time, taking our money, and giving to the poor. We sacrifice by living the good moral life, and not doing all those fun things that we really think would be really fun. No.
Speaker 1:We're gonna sacrifice. We're not gonna do that. Moral purity. And then when we do all of those things, we come to God as one who owes us something. We've done this God.
Speaker 1:You owe us. You owe us whether it's heaven or a blessed life or whatever it is, but you owe us. And that's religion. You need to understand that that is the default of the human heart. That is what your human heart is always naturally going to go to, is sacrifice.
Speaker 1:It's naturally going to go to religion. We draw the line between being good and being bad all of the time, and of course we always draw the line so we're just on the side of being good. Everybody draws a line to where they're slightly, you know, going the good side. And we think because we do these good things, God's gonna reward us. He owes us.
Speaker 1:You know, all of us can point to other people who we think are evil or bad. You know, if you're one who occasionally has said a white lie, you're like, well, I might have said a white lie, but that person there is a liar. They say the big lies. And I just threw the little ones. They they say the lie.
Speaker 1:They're the liar, and this person's gonna go, but at at least I don't steal. Look at that person. They're a thief. You know, I might lie but that person, I mean he steals. The thief is gonna point to somebody goes, well I might steal, but at least I'm not like that murderer there.
Speaker 1:That person murders. You know, stealing is nothing. The murderer is gonna say, well, at least I'm not like an Adolf Hitler or something. You know, mass genocide, you know, I just I've just killed somebody, and you know, it was somewhat justifiable. And even Adolf Hitler, he'd point to someone.
Speaker 1:I don't know who. He'd point to somebody because we can all justify. We can always Nobody thinks I am evil. Me, I'm I'm where you draw the light, and I'm on the side of evil. We always like to point to others.
Speaker 1:Thinking that we're alright. Probably most of us when we read this text, most of us looked down on the Pharisees. We looked down at them. We pointed at them. I mean, here we are, the Pharisees are looking down at those tax collectors.
Speaker 1:We read this and we look down on those Pharisees. We're no different. We're pointing at people saying we're better than them. When in reality, we're just like the Pharisees. How often do you read a newspaper, or those aren't around anymore.
Speaker 1:The read the internet, USA Today online or something, and and you you read a story about a corrupt politician, or maybe a politician who went to go see a prostitute or something like that, and you scoff at them. You look down on them. How dare they, you know, just Gosh. And you feel, you know, so morally superior. Yet, you know there's greed in your heart.
Speaker 1:You know there's lust in your heart. You know it's there. And what Jesus wants us to realize is that all of us have that evil seed in us. All of us do. And given the right water and the right sunshine, that evil seed would have sprouted into works just like that.
Speaker 1:Don't ever think you're so different. It's there. When Jesus says that God desires mercy, not sacrifice, what he is saying is that everyone needs to realize we need mercy. We need mercy. We can only give mercy once we have been recipients of mercy.
Speaker 1:We need to quit looking at our sacrifices, and instead we need to look at the sacrifice of Jesus. The pharisees are no different from the tax collectors. They're sinners, or as Jesus would say, the analogy he says is, they're sick. You're all sick. Whether you know you're sick, or you don't know you're sick.
Speaker 1:You're sick. Now, if you truly understand God's mercy, the next time you see an adulterer, the next time you you you you come across some corrupt politician, or or the next time you try to help some poor person who is completely ungrateful, or or you you see him as you're just, you know, you're a total lazy ungrateful jerk. You can't look down on him. You can't. Because you know that you have the same sinful seed in you.
Speaker 1:And given the the the right circumstances, that would have grown. You've got to instead look at them and think, apart from the grace of God, that's me. That is me. Apart from the grace of God. And so you say, oh God, heal them.
Speaker 1:Forgive them. Heal them. You still acknowledge that's wrong, but you don't look down. And if you do look down, it comes under you need to understand that you are one who honors sacrifice and not mercy. You love your sacrifices, but you don't understand the mercy of God.
Speaker 1:When we realize we're sick, this opens up the healing of God. Now, here's the cure. Jesus tells Levi, you need to, leave everything behind and follow me. That's the cure. Leave it all behind and follow me.
Speaker 1:That's what healing looks like. Levi's got to leave everything because like a sickness, he has spread his sickness to everything. Everything is infected. Everything that he owns is infected. He's brought his sickness into his marriage.
Speaker 1:He's brought his sickness into his work. He's brought his sickness into how he sees his possessions. His sickness into his sexuality. His sickness into his wealth and his friendships. His sickness has spread, and so the cure is to leave it all.
Speaker 1:Follow Jesus. Jesus says, I want you to follow me because I want to heal you. And when you gotta understand what Jesus means by leaving everything behind, because notice, I mean, Levi still has his house, he still has enough money to throw a big feast, he still has all these things. What he's saying is, Levi comes to understand those aren't really his. He put them all at the feet of Jesus.
Speaker 1:We also need to understand that when we leave everything behind, it's not a sad experience. It's a joyful celebration. It's a feast. It's a party. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I used to one of the first stories I always share with non Christians, is from John 2, Jesus's first miracle. His very first miracle. I mean, when he's kind of like going forward with his public ministry here, is the term water into wine to fix a catering mistake at a wedding. He produces like a 150 gallons of the best wine to keep a party going. That's, I mean, whenever you're gonna, you know, show something for the first time, you put so much thought in it.
Speaker 1:And that's what Jesus did. He wanted to say, this is who I am. I'm the God who keeps wedding parties going. And we see this here. Look at verse 33, chapter 5.
Speaker 1:And they said to him, the disciples of John fast often and offer prayers and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink. And Jesus said, can you make a wedding guest fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days. Now, the Pharisees, they noticed that Jesus is always feasting, but he's never fasting. You know, he was called a glutton.
Speaker 1:Jesus was. And Jesus responds, he says, well you know, wedding guests do not fast when the bridegroom is with them. What he's saying is people fast when there's dissatisfaction or there's a longing in your life. You fast. These the disciples of John were fasting because they were longing for the Messiah.
Speaker 1:They were longing for him. But if you remember Jesus' first sermon, he reads from Isaiah 61, which is about the messiah, rolls up the scroll, puts it back and says, today this is fulfilled in your hearing. I'm the messiah. I'm the one you've been waiting for. I'm the one you've been longing for.
Speaker 1:I'm here. And when he announces that, he's saying there's no more need to fast. There's no more need to seek. There's no more need longing. I'm here.
Speaker 1:Now, 1st century palace Palestine wedding in Palestine is a huge deal. Much much more than it is today, and weddings today are big deals. A young couple, they would not go off for their honeymoon. They would go back to their house, and it'd be open house for a week. I mean, can you imagine that?
Speaker 1:You get married, and right after the ceremony you go to your house, and it's open house for a week. Constant visitors, constant family dropping in for this celebration. Exactly what you have in mind for when you get married. But what what would happen is, they'd often put a crown on each one of the the couple's heads, and they would treat them like royalty. They would serve them.
Speaker 1:They bring them food. They would do their household chores. And you know, for a young poor couple living in this day, I mean, life was hard. This is the best week of their life, the wedding ceremony. It's the best week.
Speaker 1:They're king and queen. They will never have a moment like this again in their life. And Jesus says, when I am present, it's like that. The happiest moment in your entire life. It's like being royalty.
Speaker 1:And Jesus sees his relationship with us, his relationship with Levi, the tax collectors, as a relationship between a husband and a wife on their wedding day. And you gotta please understand that Jesus is not just, you know, taking a symbol and trying to apply it. He's God. He created marriage. He created marriage so that we might have the symbol to understand his love and affection to us.
Speaker 1:He's not thinking, how can I communicate God's love for you all? Hey, there's marriage. No. He created marriage so that we might have the means of understanding his love for us. Let me make a few observations about weddings, about brides and bridegrooms.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been to a wedding? You don't have to raise hands on this, but but you've thought, you know, I honestly just don't see what she sees in him. I mean, you're not gonna say that out loud. We have that social filter. Honestly, I just don't see what she sees in him.
Speaker 1:You know, or the guy like, I really I really don't see what he finds so appealing about her. I mean, we're just we're zoned in. We're thinking of all their faults. And of course, you know, what what we don't see is that these two people, they do love each other. They do see their faults, but when they look at each other, they also see the potential.
Speaker 1:They see they see that when I'm married to this person, I can bring out this tremendous potential in this person. And so, they're not just marrying the person as they are in the present. They're marrying the person as they see them in the future. That's what they're doing. And so when when when Jesus looks at us and he calls us a bride, you gotta ask a question, what do you see on us?
Speaker 1:And trust me, he sees your faults. He sees them, but he also knows what you will become. And compared to the person you will be in glory, you're nothing more than a mushroom now. You will be so transformed. And when he looks at you, he sees what will happen to you in glory, and he sees that as beautiful.
Speaker 1:And he is drawn to that Just like a groom is drawn to his bride. It's not because there's something wonderful now, but he knows what you will be. I've also never seen an ugly bride. I've done a lot of weddings. I've done a lot of your weddings so a lot of you are going good.
Speaker 1:Pretty bad if I said I've seen some ugly brides. They're all beautiful. I mean, given that you think of it. You're given an entire day of fixing hair, and manicures, and makeup, and eye waxing, or whatever you do. An entire day of this, you know, and getting this dress that's perfectly made for you.
Speaker 1:No matter who you are, you're transformed into somebody beautiful when those doors open. You're you're gorgeous and you're glowing. Never seen an ugly bride. You know, and the thought of, of those doors opening, and the bride coming down, and her thinking, you know, I forgot to do my makeup. I forgot to do my hair, or I don't have all my wedding dress.
Speaker 1:It is something that, you know, that's nightmares. You might have those dreams before the wedding, but you've been thinking about your wedding your whole day, and so when that happens, when the wedding day happens. You're not gonna forget your dress. It won't happen. But the bible tells us it does.
Speaker 1:In Jeremiah 32, when when Jeremiah Jeremiah 232, when he's talking about, he's comparing our relationship with God as one as a husband and a wife. He says, can a maid forget her ornaments? Can a bride forget her attire? Yet, you have forgotten me. Can a can a bride forget her dress?
Speaker 1:Absolutely not. It's what makes her beautiful. Yet you've forgotten me, and I make you beautiful. I'm the one who makes you gorgeous. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're all trying to get some kind of moral makeup. You know, put a little makeup, do a little good work here, a little good work here, and say, Jesus, look, I'm beautiful. And he's like, that's not the reason you're beautiful. You want to be beautiful, you put on me. You clothe yourselves with my righteousness.
Speaker 1:Don't come with me as those rags. Don't come to me with that little moral makeup. It doesn't work. You put me on and I will make you beautiful. No matter how ugly you are, no matter how sinful you are, you put on me and you're beautiful.
Speaker 1:You can never pray enough, read your bible enough, help the poor enough, be nice enough to ever be attractive to God. You can't. Only Jesus makes you beautiful. He's not only your groom. He's your wedding attire.
Speaker 1:Now Jesus is alluding to one other thing when he compares himself to Levi. When he compares his coming to Levi and to us as being a wedding day. Let me see how I can put this tactfully. A woman doesn't send out invitations. Reserve a church, you know, get all your bridesmaids together, hire a caterer, place for reception, maybe hire a band.
Speaker 1:She doesn't do all of that to tell people I'm in love with somebody, or I just had a great date. Big celebration. You know, guys don't call up their friends and say, I need you to rent a tux. Get fitted for a tux. Rent it.
Speaker 1:Come here. We're gonna have this great celebration because I had a 1 night stand. Come on. That's not gonna happen. Those things are not special.
Speaker 1:They're not praiseworthy. It's not worth the biggest celebration of your entire life. Weddings are different. Something that should be honored. Praised.
Speaker 1:Something that's very rare. So it is the best celebration of your entire life, is when 2 people delight in one another. And in that delight and in that love, it is followed by total commitment to one another. A total, in a sense, undressing before one another. Say, I will completely expose myself emotionally, spiritually, physically before you.
Speaker 1:I will not hold back in my commitment and my love for you. That is rare, and that's why we get together and we have a party. That's why we bring our friends, because that's praiseworthy. When Jesus compares his relationship to Levi, his relationship to us as a bride and groom. What he is saying is, you will not just spiritually sleep with me.
Speaker 1:You won't do it. I'm not the God of 1 night stands. You're not going to come on a Sunday, lift your hands and sing, and say, and praise, and say I love you, and then go to your own way. I don't operate like that. That is not praiseworthy.
Speaker 1:That's not what I came for. I I am unclothed before you. Jesus is saying, I'm giving you everything. I'm not holding back. I was beaten.
Speaker 1:I was mocked. I was killed for your affection, And you're gonna hold back. You give me everything. I'm asking you to reciprocate. He doesn't want us to just attend a once a week worship service, and then say, you know, but the rest of my life is off limits, God.
Speaker 1:I mean, is that praiseworthy? You know, if a girl tells a guy, you know, I give you everything. Here's my checkbook. Here's here's my house. Here's here's all my dreams I'm telling you.
Speaker 1:Here's all my sins. This is who I am. And the guy goes, that's great. Actually, I just came to sleep with you. Have a little fun and leave.
Speaker 1:Is that praiseworthy? Is that something we would honor and sell? No. Jesus says, don't you dare treat our relationship like that. This is a marriage, in which we give to one another fully.
Speaker 1:It is a delight. It is love. It is affectionate. It is also a commitment of everything. So Levi, I commit everything to you.
Speaker 1:I will not hold back to you. Levi, I expect the same. It's like a wedding feast. It'd be the best day of your life. What Jesus is offering is so radical.
Speaker 1:He uses that analogy of the, burst skins, wine skins, which is kind of hard for us to understand. I like to think of it as this way, you know, some of you have a really old computer, maybe you're using Windows 95 or something like that, and you know, for a while it really worked for you. It still does. You're kind of scared of anything new. What Jesus is saying is, okay, you have that little Windows 95.
Speaker 1:5. It kind of does those little things, but here, I'm coming with this brand new computer. Super computer. It's amazing. It will transform everything.
Speaker 1:You're like, great. Well, how can I get my Windows 95 in there? And he's like, are you crazy? This software is not compatible. I mean, this isn't that there's no way you could take bits of that and put it in here.
Speaker 1:This is something completely new. You're like, but but I kind of like this little program here. Jesus says, this will do so much better. You can't even compare the 2. It's a new computer, new software.
Speaker 1:You gotta you gotta give up the old one. But the old one kind of worked for me. Like it doesn't matter. This is so much better. The thing is, some of us are like, but I love Windows 95 with that gum and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a, you know, poor analogy. It breaks down because there's a new computer every 2 years. But the point is what Jesus offers us is so radical, and you can't take part of your old life in with it. It's not compatible. You can't say, well, you know, I'm still gonna kinda cling to my good works, but I don't have a relationship with you.
Speaker 1:It's like, no you don't cling to that. I cling to my righteousness. It's totally new. Can't say, well I'm still gonna kind of, you know, keep this part of my life off limits. God says, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:Something all together new. But it's worth it. It's absolutely worth it. What I give to you is joy beyond your wildest dreams. A commitment you've never known.
Speaker 1:Think of term pimps, prostitutes, people who want to kill one another, zealous, tax collectors, and to people who would give their lives and love for one another. Something told in you, and I'm calling you to it. I believe that's what he's calling us to as a church. He's calling us to himself. Pray with me.
Speaker 1:God, I pray that, the words that were from you would stick. We need to hear them. For those of us who have treated you as someone we can, I hate to be saying this, but one we could just sleep with, forgive us? You want all of us. Help us, God.
Speaker 1:We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
