Now let us again turn to our
Bibles this morning to the chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the promise
to preach the second of those twin parables that I made last
Lord's Day morning, God willing will be fulfilled next Lord's
Day morning. But this morning we turn to the
Gospel of Luke and chapter 5. Will you follow as I read verses
27 through 32? Luke, having described some of
the intense activity of the Lord Jesus, then records, And after
these things he went forth, and beheld a publican, or a tax collector,
named Levi, sitting at the place of Toll, and said unto him, Follow
me. And he forsook all, and rose
up, and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast
in his house, And there was a great multitude of tax collectors and
of others that were sitting at meat with them. And the Pharisees
and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do
you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answering
said unto them, They that are in health have no need of a doctor,
but they that are sick I am not come to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance. Now, this morning I want you
to imagine with me that several months ago an announcement was
made in this assembly on a given Lord's Day, morning and evening,
and the announcement was this, that your pastors would like
to conduct a religious poll at some of the area malls And to
that end, they would like 100 volunteers to invest one evening
of a designated week in order to take that poll. So on the
designated Friday, the 100 members and friends of the church meet
here at the church building at 6 p.m. in order to receive instructions
for conducting this religious survey. You were told to make
a gracious effort to secure the response of a broad spectrum
of all kinds of shoppers, men, women, boys, and girls, if at
all possible, from different ethnic and racial backgrounds
and styles of living reflected in the way they dress. and adorn
themselves with or without ear and nose rings and other body
piercings. It's to be a good cross-section
of the kind of people that shop in our malls. A special notebook
was put in the hands of these 100 people. They were then divvied
up into four groups. One group was going to go to
the Rockaway Mall, another to the Livingston Mall, another
to Willowbrook, and another to the mall at Paramus. Then they go and start at 7 o'clock. And people are in an unusually
good mood that night, and they have very few people that tell
them, get lost. Anything to do with religion?
My father told me, never talk about religion in politics. Beat
it. But that night, everyone seemed to be unusually compliant.
And as they're taking their survey, they are being very obedient
to the directives given. They are to ask only two questions
and then record the responses along with the age of the person,
the sector of the person, the person's ethnic, racial background,
some very basic data about the various people, and then to ask
two questions of each one. Not three, not four, not one,
but two. Question number one, and they're
to very carefully tabulate the response. It's a yes or no question.
And the question is this. Do you believe that the person
called Jesus of Nazareth actually lived on planet Earth as reported
in the Gospel records? Do you or do you not believe
that the person called Jesus of Nazareth actually lived on
planet Earth, might add to the question, for thirty-three years,
as recorded in the four Gospels? Yes or no? If you answer yes,
then please respond to the second question. in three sentences
or less, state what you believe was the mission or the central
purpose of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. What do
you believe, in three sentences or less, was the mission or the
central purpose for Jesus of Nazareth living on planet earth
for thirty-three years? Now imagine with me that the
hundred have spent their two hours from seven to nine o'clock,
gathered the data, and then have reconvened back here at the church,
and we're going to collate and tabulate the responses to the
two questions. What do you think we would discover
with respect to question number one? What do the rank and file
of people who shop at the malls in the greater New York, New
Jersey metropolitan area have to say about whether or not they
believe that a person called Jesus of Nazareth actually lived
on planet Earth for 33 years as it is recorded in the gospel
records? Well, we would discover that
far more than a bare majority would answer an unqualified yes
to question number one. In fact, the vast majority would
answer yes to question number one. How do I know? Because such
surveys and polls are continually being taken. So that's not my
idle personal notion. Overwhelming, the response, yes,
such a person actually lived on planet Earth. Do you have
any idea what it would be like to try to tabulate and collate
into some kind of consistent categories the answer to question
number two? In three sentences or less, state
what you believe was the mission or the central purpose for Jesus
of Nazareth living on planet Earth for 33 years. I'm absolutely confident that
it would be well-nigh impossible to find any kind of consistent
categories under which to organize the responses. I believe most
of us would be surprised, shocked, grieved, and occasionally made
giddy with the thrill of delight as the various answers to question
number two were read off by our one hundred survey takers. Diversity, ignorance, pathetic
confusion, and yet the ignorance, the confusion, the diversity
is absolutely unnecessary. Uncertainty and misunderstanding
and confusion as to the purpose of the coming of Jesus into this
world is inexcusable, because the very Bible that records the
fact that He came tells us why He came. It not only underscores
that there was and is such a person, but the purpose of His mission
is set before us in the clearest terms. Therefore, any portion
of God's Word in which the purpose of the mission of Jesus is stated
succinctly and clearly ought to be the constant companion
of everyone and anyone who has any concern that who Jesus is
and what Jesus has done and its reference to him or to her, such
passages ought to be, I say, constant companions and ought
to be mastered as to their content and their personal significance.
And we are going to look at just such a portion today. For we
have Jesus Himself telling us what His mission is. Isn't that
what He does in verse 32? I am not come, That's the negative statement
of my mission. I am not come to call the righteous. Do you want to understand my
mission? Let me tell you, first of all, what it's not. I did
not come to call the righteous. Now, I'll tell you positively,
but I am come, the verb being understood, to call sinners to
repentance. You want to know what my mission
is in less than three sentences? I'll give it to you in one. I
have not come to call the righteous, but I am come to call sinners
to repentance. Do you see that with your own
eyes in your own Bibles? This is not some imposition of
some religious wackos who like to turn saved and go around with
big Jesus saves buttons the size of a dinner plate and a strange
far away look in their eyes and come up and say, Are you saved?
This is Jesus, the one of whom we read in Philippians 2, who,
sharing in the very essence of Godhead, takes to Himself a true
human soul and body, comes into our existence and voluntarily
subjects Himself to a death in which He was stripped of every
last vestige of human dignity. And He is telling us why He has
come. You don't go out to spontaneity
with that preacher. No, my friend, have the moral
courage to say, I reject what Jesus says about why he came.
You'll destroy yourself, but at least you'll be honest in
the process. He tells us in this passage in
plain language, I am not come to call the righteous, but I
am come to call sinners to repentance. But you see, those words weren't
spoken in a vacuum. Jesus didn't just get up one
morning, scratch his head and say, now, I've got to give a
nice, succinct summary statement of why I'm here. Everyone, listen
up. In case you don't know it, I'm
not come to call the righteous, but I'm come to call sinners
to repentance. No, the Lord Jesus spoke those words in a very specific
historical setting. And I want us to take a few minutes
to look, first of all, at the facts of this record of the conversion
of this man called Levi, for it's in the setting of the conversion
of Levi, his call into the fellowship of Christ that is the setting
in which these words were spoken. And as we look at the facts of
this record of the conversion of Levi, I want us to do so thinking
of it as a one-act, real-life drama with four scenes, all right? A one-act drama with four scenes,
and that will help us to unpack the facts surrounding this statement
of our Lord Jesus. Scene number one focuses on the
activity of Jesus, verse 27. And after these things, He, Jesus,
went forth and beheld a publican named Levi sitting at the place
of Toll, and he said unto him, Follow me. Here in scene one,
the floodlights all fall on the activity of Jesus. First of all,
we are told something about the backdrop of this activity of
interaction with this man named Levi. The text begins with the
words, "...and after these things." What things? Well, if we were
to take the time and read the immediately preceding paragraph
or two, we would find that it is after Jesus had healed man
of leprosy, verses 12 and 13 of this passage, And we read
in verse 15 that because word spread of His mighty healing
power, so much the more went abroad the report concerning
Him, and great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed
of their infirmities. But He withdrew Himself in the
deserts and prayed. This is a period in our Lord's
ministry of tremendous popularity. Word spreads that with His Word
and with His touch, crooked limbs are straightened, deaf ears are
opened, blind eyes are given sight, lepers are cleansed of
their foul disease, and multitudes press in upon the Lord Jesus,
and he gives himself and preaches and heals and then sensing the
draining of his own strength and the need for renewed communion
with his Father. For never forget, in the period
of his humiliation, he lived as man should have lived had
he never sinned, in utter dependence upon his Father, constantly withdrawing
to pray that he might receive fresh supplies of the Spirit
of God and the refreshing of these seasons of intimate communion
with his Father. And then, In verses 17-26, we
see that He exercises His power not only to heal a man, but to
forgive his sins. Verse 20, And seeing their faith
as they let down this man into his presence, Man, your sins
are forgiven you. And He said it publicly. And
this offended these Pharisees, these religious leaders. And
Jesus said, Alright, you want to know that I have this authority?
I'll show you and then he heals the man. And it's in this setting,
in which there is this electric current going through all of
that part of Galilee, that this Jesus of Nazareth speaks with
power and with authority like none of their official religious
teachers, that he heals the sick, he's even raised the dead, and,
wonder of wonders, he absolves people of their sins. Now our
text says, after these things. Now what's significant about
that? Well, put yourself back in that setting. If somewhere
in your neighborhood, in the next town or two, someone were
performing miracles like this, would not word spread? And would
not your interest and curiosity be excited? Who is this one who
does these marvelous things? This man Levi, we are told, was
one who was sitting at his toll booth. He was by some main thoroughfare
where people would have to pay a tax for the goods that they
carried over that section of a Roman road. And you can imagine
as he listened to them going and coming, and the talk was
all centering on this Jesus of Nazareth. He's the one who heals
lepers. He's the one who cures all manner
of diseases. He's the one who speaks with
unusual authority and power, and we have heard that He even
forgives sin. And there you are, listening
to this as travelers come and go, and your curiosity is being
awakened. There in Sinuan, We have the
focus on this activity of Jesus that forms the backdrop, and
now note the specifics of his activity in relationship to Levi. And after these things he went
forth, three verbs, beheld a tax collector named Levi sitting
at the place of Toll, and said unto him, follow me. He went forth. He beheld and
he said, you see that again in your own Bible. We have visitors
among us. I don't know what you're used
to preachers doing. We want our people to be convinced
of things because they see it with their own eyes in their
own Bibles. And the task of the preacher is not to impose his
notions on the Bible, but to help those who sit under his
ministry to see what is there in the scriptures. Jesus, it
is said, did three things. He went forth. He beheld. And he said, he went forth. Why did he go forth at that time
in that direction? Well, verse 32 is going to tell
us. He went forth with purpose. He went forth with a determination. that he would confer his grace
and call into the fellowship of himself this man Levi. He went forth and he beheld.
He saw him and then seeing him, the scripture says, he spoke
to him. He said unto him. And what he said was very simple. He simply said to this man, follow
me. There is no record that Jesus
paused and started conversation on neutral ground and said, hey,
your name, sir? Oh, Levi, my name is Jesus of
Nazareth. Beautiful day today, isn't it?
I wonder if we're going to get our early rains or our latter
rains such and such a time. And by the way, do you know what
place the Yankees are right now and how the Met's doing? It's
legitimate sometimes when meeting people for whom we have gospel
designs, to start talking about innocent, innocuous, neutral
things, like Jesus did with the woman at the well. Get me some
water. But apparently, if Jesus did
that, it isn't important because the biblical writers didn't tell
us that. He simply goes forth, sees Levi, comes with an earshot
of Levi, and says, follow me. And the Spirit of God is seeking
to highlight for us that those were words of what I like to
call regal grace. What is regal pertains to royalty
and to kingship. What is gracious pertains to
the undeserved favor and mercy of God to the ill-deserving. And these were words of regal
grace. Remember the setting, the backdrop. Jesus has been talking to demons
and causing them to leave those whose bodies and personalities
they possessed. He's been speaking into the midst
of death and conquering death with His Word. He has been pardoning
sin by His Word. And now this King of grace stands
before this man Levi and says, follow me. There's no dickering. There's no discussion. There's
no negotiating. He simply says, follow me. Align yourself with me. And as I ponder those words and
try to think, how did the Lord say it? speaking no doubt in
Aramaic, that kind of diluted form of Hebrew that was the language
of the people after the captivity and the return to Palestine. How did the Lord say it? Did
he say, follow me? Did he say, follow me? I wonder what the tone in his
voice was. I wonder what the look in his eye was. Levi was
able to be exposed to it all. But regardless of what the tone
was and the look was, that word came with the authority of the
King of Grace, who when He is effectually calling a sinner,
His invitation to follow is an invitation that is embraced from
the heart. Follow Me, Levi. But it was not only a word of
regal, royal, kingly authority, but a word of grace. Levi would
know immediately from the stories he had heard, the reports he
had heard, that Jesus was an ordinary Palestinian Jew reared
in Nazareth, a young rabbi about whom everyone was speaking. And
Levi would have known that Jesus knew very well how the average
Jew regarded a tax collector. They despised these tax collectors,
though they were their fellow countrymen, and that for two
reasons. These tax collectors bargained with the Roman authorities
for the right to operate one of the toll booths along their
roads. And so the very presence of one
of these toll collectors was a constant, irritating reminder
that the Jews were a nation under the authority of pagan Rome. So when you saw a tax collector,
a publican, you were seeing an undeniable reminder of the fact
that you are a nation under the rule of another. And that association
with the Romans would, by the strictest of the Jews, these
Pharisees, be considered utterly defiling. rendering you ceremonially
unclean. And in many of the synagogues
in the various communities, they would actually excommunicate
a tax collector. He would be cast out of the fellowship
of that synagogue and of that community. So they hated these
tax collectors, the Jews did, because of their association
with Rome, and secondly, because of their earned reputation for
being a bunch of scallywags when it came to the matter of honesty
in their dealings. Many of them had the habit of
saying, all right, two shekels for Rome and one for me. In addition
to what they received or paid out, I'm sorry, in the contract,
there was not that kind of close scrutiny that would have encouraged
a greater level of integrity and honesty. So they were known
to be, in some senses, sort of the Palestinian mafia in that
day. And they were hated and they
were despised. Now put yourself back in that
situation. Along comes this now emerging
famous rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew to his core. And he looks
upon this notable tax collector, this one in association with
Rome, perhaps even an excommunicated member from his local assembly,
his local synagogue, this one who is associated with those
of dishonesty and graft. And he says, follow me. You see, that's not only a regal
word, but it's a gracious word. Jesus is saying, all of your
fellow countrymen may keep you at arm's length as though you'd
been doused in skunk oil, but I'm not ashamed to have you seen
with me. Follow me. Become a pact to me. to my person, to my teaching,
to my direction. And I don't care who sees you
with me, for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. And as we shall see, what does
repentance do? It lands you in personal union,
fellowship, and communion with Jesus Christ. And when He says
to a publican, Follow me. Those are words not only of regal
authority, but of regal grace and mercy. And Levi knows immediately,
yes, what I've heard about him, that he even forgives sin. must have some connection with
how He's treating me. He's welcoming me into fellowship
with Himself. And those who say that this is
not a call to discipleship and salvation, but a call to a potential
apostleship, that's nonsense. For Jesus Himself comments on
what He's doing. He said, I'm showing you what
I have come to do in my mission. And that is not to call the righteous,
but to call sinners to repentance. So that's scene number one. Scene
number two, more quickly, what is the response of Levi, verses
28 and 29? And he forsook all, that's Levi,
and rose up and followed him. And Levi made him, that is, for
Jesus, a great feast in his house. And there was a great multitude
of tax collectors and of others that we're sitting at meet with
them. All right? Scene 1 focuses on
the activity of Jesus. The backdrop of the previous
paragraphs, His mighty works, His healing, His forgiving of
sin, then those threefold action, He goes forth, beholds, and He
says, now this focuses, scene 2, on the response of Levi. And here again, look at the four
verbs. What does it say? And he forsook
all, and rose up, and followed him, and made a great feast. That's scene two. Forsook, rose
up, followed, made a feast. You can go out and preach this.
You see, it's all right there in your Bible. It's right there
in the language of the text. And here we see, if we reduce
it down to its irreducible minimum, the obedience of faith, and the
expression of gratitude and love. First of all, the obedience of
faith. Jesus says, follow me. And now we read, he forsook all,
rose up, and followed him. And I don't know what else to
call that but the obedience of faith. He must believe that Jesus
has the right to call someone into radical association with
himself with no indication of any promise of what he'll give
him, what he'll do for him. He simply says, follow me. There
must be some confidence that he is indeed a gracious one. that he would welcome such into
his fellowship and not, when he gets to know him more fully,
cast him off. And so there is a response that
I don't know what else to call, but the obedience of faith. And look at the strange way it
is described. We would have written it, and
he rose up, forsook all, and followed him. But look at the
order in the text, and it reflects the order in the original. He
forsook all and rose up and followed him. You see, the forsaking all
is fundamentally and primarily an issue of the heart. It's an
issue of the heart. Follow me! And Levi gets the
message. This one who speaks with regal
authority, but with regal grace, is calling me to commit myself
unto him, lock, stock, and barrel, and inwardly He forsakes all,
and as the outward expression of it, he rises up and he follows
Jesus. Now does that mean he did not
take time responsibly to dispose of his toll booth and his employees
if he had? No, no. God doesn't call us to
do impolite, irresponsible things. But the Spirit of God is focusing
upon the issue that is vital to understanding verse 32. What's it mean to be called to
repentance? As we shall see, it means at
the voice of Jesus saying, follow me. There is an internal divorce
from anything, anybody that would rival, utter, unquestioned commitment
and devotion to Jesus Christ, he forsook all. He forsook all. It's an inward disposition of
the heart. He rose up and followed. His bodily actions followed his
heart. When he forsook all, his heart
was joined to Jesus. When he rose up and followed,
his outward demeanor, physical actions indicated he was joined
to Jesus. And then you have this expression
of his gratitude and of his unashamed attachment with Christ. Notice
verse 29, Levi made him a great feast in his house. Levi goes
to his home. This shows that he didn't dispose
of all personal property and all titles to lands. No, no,
he had a big house and obviously he had a bunch of servants. He
didn't get rid of all of them. You see, the forsaking of all
is an issue of the heart. And he goes to his house and
says, I want our best ten-course banquet to be spread. He gathers
his servants together and gets the chief cook. He says, what
are we doing this for? We're doing this in honor of
Jesus of Nazareth. He came by my cold booth, and
in words of real grace, he called me to himself. Me, the publican,
the outcast, the sinner. He's called me into fellowship
with himself. And I'm utterly unashamed of
his identification with me and mine with him. We're going to
have us a party. So it says that he made a great
feast. A feast isn't enough. A great
feast. A mega feast. I mean, this was some feast. And why does he do this? He does
it out of the twin motives of joy that he's been called into
the fellowship of Christ And he obviously desires that some
of his fellow sinners know the grace that he has found in Christ.
Because in the passage it says, and there was a great multitude
of tax collectors and of others that were sitting at meat with
them. Now I know that in Acts chapter 1, 120 people are called
a great multitude. So it doesn't mean he had a banquet
house that sat 5,000. But it was more than six or seven.
It was more than a dozen. It's called a great multitude.
He had a network of associations among his fellow tax collectors.
And it says others. And the others were not the highbrow
of society, because when the Pharisees see the people that
are in that banquet, they get ticked off to the core. They
said, what in the world are you doing, eating and drinking with
the tax collectors and what? What does it say? And sinners.
Sinners. People notorious for their indifference
to God's law. Openly profligate. Maybe it was
the local union of streetwalkers. For often they put the terms
together. Publican sinners. Sinners and harlots. So scene number two is the response
of Levi. The obedience of faith. He forsakes
all, rises up and follows. than the expression of gratitude,
he makes a mega feast and has a multitude who come. Now look,
scene three is the reaction of the Pharisees and their scribes. Where were they? Well, they weren't
invited to the feast. They wouldn't go near this scoundrel.
He was unclean because he was a tax collector hobnobbing with
the Roman government and with Roman officials. So these Pharisees
and their scribes, they were the ultra-conservative, separated
ones in Israel who, when we read the Gospel records, were always
going around squinty-eyed and with their hands cupped behind
their ears, trying to find something Jesus would do or see something
that he did that they could twist, something that he would say they
could twist, and either present him as one who was indifferent
to the law of Moses or someone who was violating the law of
Rome. They were always trying to nail him, either as a renegade
Jew, or as a disruptive Roman citizen, or a disruptor of Roman
rule and government. And so these Pharisees, maybe
they were looking in the windows. Remember, Pella, and Anderson,
and all the rest weren't manufacturing windows back then. So there were
some open places. Maybe these fellows, when they
saw the crowds of the publicans, the tax collectors, What in the
world kind of bunch is gathering there? And then others, notorious
sinners, it says. Maybe they stayed off in the
shadows, as it were, and waited until everyone then sneaked up
and started to peek over the top of the ledges of the windows. And they get their little caucus
together. Do you read the Bible with imagination? Look what it
says. The Pharisees and their scribes
murmured against his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink
with publicans and sinners? That means they had to see them
eating and drinking. And you know what that meant
to eat and drink in that eastern setting? That meant you were
making an unwritten covenant of friendship. To invite someone
to your table is to invite them into an unwritten covenant of
friendship. That's why Jesus can say in Revelation
3.20, if any man hear my voice, I will come in and do what? I
will sup, I will eat with him and he with me. Why do you, and then in the parallel
passage in Matthew, it was not just the disciples, it was their
master, said, why does your master eat and drink with publicans
and sinners? They were disgruntled, irritated. Why in the world If
you're going to have a religious leader, why do you associate
with one who hobnobs with these compromised Jews, these tax collectors
and other notorious sinners? That's what Gauls do. Had Jesus
been up on a central table with a scroll from one of the prophets
condemning every kind of sin and hurling out thunderbolts
of wrath over the heads Of all of these gathered sinners, the
amen corner outside the window would have busted loose with,
Hallelujah, Jesus! Give it to him! Give it to him!
That crowd needs it! But what galled them was, why
do you and your master eat? You see that in the text? Why
do you eat Republicans and sinners? He's showing himself a friend
of the riffraff. The riffraff needs to be preached
into hell. not wooed into heaven and not
fit for heaven. If he came from heaven, he'd
know it. And if you knew who he really was, you'd know it,
and yet you're his disciples. Why do you, why do your master
eat and drink with the publicans and sinners? That's scene three.
Now we come to scene four. Jesus becomes aware of their
question. How? We're not told. We read the parallel
accounts in Matthew and in Mark. We're not given any specific
details, but Jesus becomes aware of their question and he answers
it. And notice how he answers it.
And Jesus, verse 31, answering. They ask the disciples. Jesus
steps in and says, I'll take care of this, boys. You leave
this to me. You leave this to me. Jesus answering said unto
them, they that are in hell, have no need of a doctor, but
they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance." In scene four, Jesus answers, first
of all, with a common observation, and then with a glorious comparison
and proclamation. First of all, he answers with
a common observation. Healthy people have no need of
a doctor. Anyone here want to disagree
with that? Say, any old nut knows that. Yeah, that's right. Very
obvious. Healthy people don't need doctors.
Now, if the doctor may be a friend, you want to go play golf with
him, that's fine. But you don't need him in his capacity as a
doctor. You want him as your golf buddy.
Go out and hit that silly thing around and cuss when you don't
hit it right and come home with blood pressure up to 180 over
10 because you exceeded your expected. Silly game. I don't touch it. If you like
it, fine. To each his own. All right. Now
that I've knocked golf, we'll come back to where we are. Healthy
people who are doing something other than sailing or hitting
a golf ball, they don't need a doctor. We all agree. Healthy
people have no need of a doctor. But there are some people that
do need doctors. That's real, sure enough, sick
people. Temperature's up at 105. You've
got the shakes, cold sweats, hot sweats, weak. vomiting, diarrhea, intense pain,
someplace or another, you're sick. And you know the answer
is not in your ibuprofen in the medicine chest, or in your aspirin,
or in your Aleve. You need something more than
is in your medicine chest. You need a sure enough bona fide practitioner
of medicine. So you get on the phone, say
to the secretary, the one who organizes the schedule, I am
sick, sick. I'm old enough to remember when
the doctor came to your home with his little black back. Anybody
here old enough to remember that? Yeah, some of us do. Yeah? And
the doctor would come, but those days are gone. So you've got
to call up and make an appointment, being sick. And you've got to
go in and spread the sickness to everyone else in the office. But you know
you need a doctor. You know that when you're sick,
And what you've got in your own hands and in your own medicine
chest and in your own knowledge of sicknesses and medicinal remedies
isn't sufficient. You've got to go out of yourself
to a practitioner of medicine. That's what Jesus is saying.
They that are healthy have no need of a doctor, but they that
are sick really do. And how do they know they're
sick? The thermometer, 105. Ten blankets around me and I'm shivering.
Wearing out my shoe leather, running to the little room. The
bucket next to my bed. You know you're sick. That's
what He's saying. People that are sick and know they're sick,
they go for doctors. Healthy people don't. You say,
alright, you beat it thin at the edges enough. Listen, Jesus
took the most simple thing and He drove it home in those very,
very simple, straightforward words. That was His response.
First of all, a common observation, then notice. what I am calling,
in addition to the common observation, a glorious comparison and proclamation. I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. As the doctor comes and ministers
to the sick, or the sick one goes and lays his case before
the bona fide practitioner of medicine, so I have come As the
only true physician of souls, I am come to call the truly spiritual
sick, not those like these Pharisees who are righteous in their own
eyes, not those who in their own eyes are healthy. They would
pass anyone's physical. They are in the peak of health
in their own eyes. He said, I did not come to call
such. I have come to call sinners to
repentance. Sinners sick with the malady
of sin, I have come to call them to a change of mind and heart
and a change of status and position before God and in relationship
to sin and to self and to righteousness. I have come to call them into
spiritual health as the great physician of souls. by my person
and work to make them healthy." Well, that's the four-act, four-scene,
one-act drama in the text. I hope you see the basic stuff
of it. You can throw out some of the
adornment of my imaginative embellishments. That's not the word of God. But
every one of those verbs and the connection with the actions,
that's what God has set before us. What in the world does that
say to us, sitting here? The beginning of what people
call the 21st century. Some of us still stubbornly say
we ain't there yet. But here we are, 2,000 years
after this incident. And I've labored for the last
35 minutes to try to bring you into that scene Heal something
of the electric current of the resentment and the questions
and something of the wonder of that regal grace. What in the
world does that say to you and say to me, sitting here 2,000
years after the fact? What's it say to us? Well, in
the time that remains, I want us to focus on several things
it says to us. First of all, it says this. It
says that only those who know and feel themselves to be the
sinners that they are will ever be saved by Jesus Christ. Only those who know and feel
themselves to be the sinners that they are will ever be saved
by Jesus Christ. How do we know it? We've got
His Word. Here's my mission. I'm not come to call the righteous.
Now, is Jesus saying there are actually some people who are
inherently righteous? No. That would contradict the
whole teaching of the Word of God. It would contradict the
teaching of Jesus. Several weeks ago, we looked
at John 3, verse 8. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. And the flesh is enmity against God, blinded to the things
of God. Jesus said, if you who are evil
know how to give good gifts to your children. No, Jesus is here
in this context talking about these Pharisees and their scribes. In their eyes they are righteous. They are Pharisees, the separated
ones. They are the ones who were continually
washing themselves when they were out in the marketplace for
fear some Gentile dog a hundred yards away might have sneezed
a little bit of his vapor got on their skin and they'd be rendered
ceremonially unclean. the separated ones. They fasted
twice in the week. Read about one of them who goes
into the temple, not to pray, but to bring his fake feathers
like a peacock in the presence of God. I thank thee, Father.
I'm not like the rest of men. I do this, I do that. And then
he gives his clincher, and not like this publican, this tax
collector. Jesus said, I have nothing to
do for those who don't see their need for me to do what only I
can do. I came not to call the righteous.
I came not to call those right in their own eyes, acceptable
to God in their own eyes. I have come to call sinners,
sinners who are sinners, and sinners who know themselves to
be sinners. Levi, he's heard, this one forgives
sin. This one says, follow me. This
one invites me into fellowship with Him. He must be a receiver
of sinners. Yes, this man does receive sinners
and eat with them. Luke 15, the thing that precipitated
the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son
was this same problem that he receives sinners. You see, the
Scripture says very clearly, Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their Matthew 1.21, 1 Peter
1.15, this is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptance, Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You see, when we
get uncomfortable with the words, sinner and save, we're going
to be uncomfortable with Jesus. Because you don't understand
His mission without the reality of sinner and save. You shall
call His name Jesus. Jehovah our salvation, or Jehovah
saves, that's what the word means. Call His name Jesus, for it is
He who will save His people from their sins. If you're uncomfortable
with saving sin, you'll be very uncomfortable with the Jesus
of the Bible. You'll have to make Jesus into
some psychological guru. New Age, mystic, who has some
good vibes about how to get in touch with ultimate and universal
reality and all that other nonsense. But when you begin to take seriously
the word sin in terms of what it means to you, then the words
save or rescue will be very precious. And the only one who can save
and rescue will be more precious yet. That's what happened to
Levi. And he hadn't been around long
enough to know that if you love the Lord and you want to show
it, you don't have a banquet. You go out in the street corner
and pass out tracks. In the flush of his newfound
relationship to Christ, he took what he had in hand, his big
home and his banquet hall and all of the chickens running around
in the backyard whose heads could come off very quickly and get
plucked very quickly. and could be made into a sumptuous
banquet. Why? Because as a sinner, he
had been called into the fellowship of the Savior. That's it. You want to know what's going
on here? I, the true physician, have come and I have applied
the balm, the healing balm of my grace to this sinner named
Levi. This banquet is a celebration
of his coming to know. Why I am here on earth, I came
not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Only those
who know and feel themselves to be the sinners they are will
ever be saved by Jesus. One old writer said it this way,
the first step to heaven is to come to the knowledge that you
are on your way to hell. The first step to heaven is to
come to the knowledge that you're on your way to hell. I see some of you with a look
on your face to say, I'll never admit that. My friend, your admission
or non-admission doesn't change reality, for the wages of sin
is death. But there's a second thing we
learn from this word of Jesus, and it is this, that Jesus Christ
alone can save sinners from their sins. We learn that in the text. Jesus Christ alone can save sinners
from their sins. Where do we see that? Look at
the text. I am not come to call the righteous, but I am come
to call sinners to repentance. And in those words, I am come
is a world of rich biblical theology. It points to the uniqueness of
His person. He said in John 6, I am come
down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him
that sent me. I am come. You and I can say, I was born. He says, I am come. He came from
that world of pure light and glory and the immediate presence
of His Father. And by way of Mary's womb took
to himself a true human soul and body, so that the one who
stands before Levi is God with authority to forgive sin. He
is a true man who goes and seeks one of his kind, Levi the sinner. And this is the gospel. that
Jesus Christ alone can save sinners from their sins. He points to
the uniqueness of His person. I am come. And these words point
to the uniqueness of His mission. I am come to call not the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. I have come on a saving mission. And that mission is accomplished
in my person. And as the Scripture unfolds,
on the basis of the work he would accomplish when he set his face
like Flint to go to Jerusalem and there bore our sins in his
own body up to the tree and underwent nothing less than the vicariously
born wrath of God that rung from his holy soul to cry, My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me? But then, thirdly, These
words tell us that Jesus Christ saved sinners by calling them
to repentance. Again, it's right there in the
text. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to what?
To a renewed assessment of their self-worth. That's the so-called
gospel preached by many in our day. You know why you're burdened
down? You know why you have a bad conscience?
You've got a horribly distorted self-image. And Jesus will help
you get your self-image all sorted out. He has come to take bruised,
twisted self-image and sort it out. No, my friend, Jesus said,
I'm come to call sinners to repentance. Not to patching up their bruised
self-image, not to come and help them to grab on their bootstraps
with a little more strength and pull themselves up to God. He
said, no, I've come to call sinners to repentance, repentance, a
change of mind, a radical change of mind affecting the totality
of life, a change of mind about God. Whereas you may have looked
upon God as harsh and cruel and narrow-hearted, repent of that. I've come to reveal Him as the
gracious Father who cares for the very number of the hairs
of your head. If you're one of His children,
you're of more value than the lilies of the field and the sparrows
of the air. Repent of hard thoughts of God. Repent of silly notions that
you can do this, this, and this, this activity, that activity,
and then present it as a bunch of brownie points to God and
earn His favor. God is infinitely holy, far beyond
being impressed with your brownie points or mine. I've come to
call men to repent, to see the living God as the gracious Father
who welcomes prodigal sons and daughters, to see Him as the
Holy One of Israel whose wrath and anger cannot in any way be
placated by your brownie points. It will demand the shedding of
my own precious blood. I've come to give my life a ransom
for many. This cup, we will say tonight,
is the new covenant in my blood. which is shed for the remission
of sins. He's come to call us to a change
of mind, a radical change of mind about God himself, about
our sin. Instead of looking upon sin as,
well, it's sort of like, you know, a little mini epidemic
of the measles. It goes through the school. It goes through the
neighborhood. I got the measles. You got the
measles. What's the big deal? I hear people talk that, well,
you know, nobody's perfect. You know, we all are flawed. Don't get too upset with what
the President does in the Oval Room in his spare time and on
company time. We're all flawed. We're more
than flawed. We're defiled. We are enmeshed
in this horrible vortex that pulls us downward and inward
to its center called sin. Whoso commits sin is the bond-slave
of sin. The wages of sin is death. Christ is calling to repentance,
a change of mind about sin, to see it as odious and filthy and
vile in the sight of God, wrath-deserving, hell-deserving, that wretched
moral principle that binds us, a change of mind about God, about
sin, about righteousness. except your righteousness shall
exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. You shall not
enter the kingdom. The only righteousness upon which
God can smile is His own righteousness. And there's only one place for
that to be found for sinners. That's in Christ. And we have
a change of mind about righteousness. We see it as something so infinitely
perfect, if it's to be acceptable to God, that the only way to
have it is in Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. What the Scripture
says of God, He has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, is to have a change of mind about how we are going
to relate to others. No longer am I at the center
of every relationship, in every reaction. No, no. A change of
mind about what I'm willing to do to have my way at the expense
of others. Repentance is this all-pervasive
change of mind about God, sin, righteousness, and others. And
Jesus has come to call sinners to that repentance that will
bring them to faith in Him as the only Savior, a deep-heart
repudiation of their sins, and a commitment to a life of righteousness. And then the final note that
I want to sound as we close The fourth thing we see in this passage,
not only that we must see and own ourselves to be sinners if
we're to be saved by Christ. Christ alone, Christ himself
is the Savior. Christ saves sinners by calling
them to repentance. But Jesus Christ saves the vilest
and the neediest of sinners who will come to Him. He wasn't embarrassed to be found
a friend of Levi. all of his past reputation notwithstanding,
Jesus welcomes sinners. And in this banquet hall, Jesus
was neither shocked nor repulsed that the guests were fellow publicans,
fellow tax collectors, and notorious sinners. May I say it this way
to maybe have a little bit of healthy shock effect? Jesus was
blissfully comfortable in the presence of sinners. He was not comfortable in the
presence of self-righteous hypocrites. He called them whitewashed sepulchres.
He called them a brood of snakes. He used his strongest language
for self-righteous hypocrites. But what does he do in the presence
of sinners? He says to the woman taken in
adultery, neither do I condemn you. Go. Sin no more. The Pharisees are upset that
he's receiving sinners. He says, you don't understand
God. God is like that father in this story. The son gathers
his inheritance, goes out in the far country, blows it, defies
all that was noble and upright in his father's training, in
his father's desires. When you read the passage, it's
moving. No sooner does the son come over the brow of the lane
that leads to the house, And it doesn't say that the son opened
his mouth and began to, hey, dad, will you take me back? It
says the father ran to him, and the father put his arms around
him, and the father kissed him. Then and only then does the son
speak. Jesus said, that's the God I've come to reveal, who
runs to sinners, throws his arms around their neck, and kisses
them, and says, put on them the best of the robes and the finest
of the ring, and break out the best calf, and bring the band. We're going to have us a holy
hoedown. And that elder brother, representing the Pharisees, who
were upset with a God like that, sees all the dancing and the
celebration, and his self-righteousness, huh, I've always served the Father,
never gave me the fatted calf, never had a holy hoedown for
me. He didn't feel comfortable around
sinners. The Father did. Now, don't mistake
me. He hates sin. He'll judge sin.
He'll send sinners into everlasting burning. But the point I'm making
that is here in the passage, Jesus is comfortable with sinners
who know themselves to be sinners and are ready to embrace Him
My unconverted friend, you need not delay one millisecond going
to Christ wondering, will He take a sinner like me? I've resisted
His truth for years. Preacher, you don't know what
I've done. You don't know where I've been. You don't know the
hell and the memories of all that I've done and been. No,
I don't. But Jesus does. And He says,
Welcome. Come. Come. I've come to call
sinners. I've come to call sinners. I'm
not uncomfortable with sinners. Come. Come. Come. Ah, yes, buts. No, no, no, yes,
buts. If anyone could have the yes, buts, Levi could have. Follow
me. Yes, but Jesus. Do you know? Yes, I know. I know all the times
you juggled the books. I know all the times that you
filled your own pockets with someone else's. I know, I know,
I know, I know, but I still said, follow me. There's nothing about
you that I don't... I know more about you than you
know about yourself. And yet I say, follow me. I welcome sinners. My friend, can you picture the
Lord Jesus standing before you in all the nakedness of your
sinfulness and saying, follow me. Yes, but Jesus... Yes, I know all about it, but
follow me. My grace and the virtue of my death and all of the glory
of the righteousness that I provide for sinners, it more than takes
care of all that you are and all you've done. Come, follow
me. Yes, but Lord, I... I said, stop all that nonsense.
Come, follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Jesus welcomes sinners. Jesus
delights to save the vilest and the meanest of sinners. And the
one thing that keeps you from Him is your stubborn pride. Go to Him. Go to Him. Go to Him now. Go to Him where
you sit this morning. And dear child of God, when your
own failures and your own inconsistencies and your own sins rise up at
times and point one big accusing finger at you and then the echoing
voice of the enemy, how can you be a Christian, come back to
text like this and say, Lord Jesus, I take the posture now
I did at the beginning, just as I am without one plea, but
that your blood was shed for me, and that you bid me come
to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. You don't grow away from that
simple, penitent grasp of a merciful, welcoming Savior. You grow in
it until sin is no more, and we see the Lamb in the midst
of the glory. And we shall be like Him, for
we shall see Him as He is. Until that day, we need a Savior
who is comfortable, not with sin. Don't anyone go out and
say, I said He's comfortable with sin. I said with sinners. Do you know Him? I close with
these words of the old Bishop of Liverpool, Bishop Ryle. Commenting on this passage, have
we ever felt our spiritual sickness and applied to Him for relief?
We're never right in the sight of God till we do. We know nothing
right in religion if we think the sense of sin should keep
us back from Christ. To feel our sins and know our
sickness is the beginning of real Christianity. To be sensible
of our corruption and abhor our own transgressions is the first
symptom of spiritual health. happy indeed are those who have
found out their soul's diseases. Let them know that Christ is
the very physician they require, and let them apply to Him." His
final two words, without delay, I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. Let's pray. Our Father, what thanks can we
render to you that you would record for us in the pages of
Holy Scripture such an incident in the life and ministry of our
Lord Jesus. And we thank you that what he
was to Levi then, he is to any and every sinner who will obey
his regal, royal, gracious call. Follow me. We pray, Lord Jesus,
that in this place, this day, some would find their hearts
like Levi, forsaking all, rising up to follow You. O God, we pray, do this for the
glory of Your Son, that He may receive another measure of the
reward of His sufferings. Seal Your Word. Thank You that
You are able to take the one who even now finds our praying
an irritant to his or her heart's desires. O God, soften that proud,
stubborn heart. Humble the proud and bring many
broken in faith to the feet of our Lord Jesus. Hear our prayers
and answer us for His praise. Amen.