Well, good morning everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 2. Mark chapter 2. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
that you, out of your goodness and mercy to your people, have
given us another opportunity to meet together with our brothers
and our sisters and to worship your matchless name. Father,
how we thank you, how we thank you for this opportunity, and
Father, how we beg that you would send your spirit upon us this
morning and not allow us to let this blessed privilege fall by
the wayside, that you send your spirit upon us and enable us
to worship you in spirit and in truth. enable us to hear and
believe upon Christ our Savior. Father, how thankful we are to
know that you are God of heaven and earth, that you have an eternal
will and purpose, and that you will accomplish it. And Father,
how thankful we are it is your will to be merciful to your people. How thankful we are that it is
your will to see your people and accept your people in your
son. Father, how thankful we are.
Father, as we pray that you would bless us this morning, we especially
pray you'd bless our children's classes in this hour. Pray that
you'd bless our teachers and enable them to rightly divide
the word of truth. And Father, be with our young
ones. How we pray mercy for their souls. How we pray, Father, that
you would be pleased to use this time to plant the seeds of faith
in their hearts. And Father, everywhere where
your gospel is preached this morning, we pray you'd bless
for your great namesake. Father, we continue to hold up
to thee those of your people who are in times of great trouble
and need. They're in heartache, sorrow,
and sickness. Father, we pray that you'd be
with your people, that you would provide what is necessary, what
is right. We pray, especially for little
Lynn this week as she faces this upcoming surgery, Father, that
you touch and heal her body, that you would restore her to
full health quickly. Father, all these things we ask
in that name which is above every name, the name of Christ our
Savior. Amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
The Distinguishing Call of Grace. And I have seven points on that
distinguishing call of grace. And I promise you, I'll be very
brief. And you'll find that if the Lord's called you by his
grace, you'll recognize that call in Matthew's experience. The first thing I see here is
the Lord calls his people always through the preaching of the
gospel. In Mark chapter two, verse 13, and he went forth again
by the seaside and all the multitude resorted unto him and he taught
them. And here the Lord was teaching
He was teaching them because he had told his disciples, this
is what I came to do. I came to preach. Let's go into
these other towns and preach. That's what I came to do. And
even though we don't have any record of what the Lord taught
them, an outline or anything that he was teaching them, I
do know what he was teaching. He was teaching himself, wasn't
he? He was teaching salvation by God's grace, not man's works. He was teaching salvation comes
by the will of God. not by the will of man. What
he was teaching was good news to sinners. Now it wasn't good
news to the self-righteous who thought they could keep the law
well enough and observe the ceremonies well enough, you know, and that's
their salvation. Our Lord never had good news
for them, did he? But he had good news for sinners. Salvation
by grace is good news for sinners. That's why sinners and publicans
were constantly flocking to the Lord. because he had good news
for genuine sinners like them. The law can never give you that
good news, can it? But Christ came, grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ. He came preaching good news for
sinners. Now the next verse, we'll read
this in just a second. Our Lord came and he called Matthew
to follow him. He called him audibly, person
to person. The Lord was in the flesh, he
called him personally, audibly he called him. But that's the
same way that the Lord calls all of his people. He calls them
personally, by name, individually, on purpose. Now it's not audibly
today for us like it was in Matthew in that day. The Lord calls his
people today in heart language. It's the language of faith that
comes from the preaching of Christ. If God's gonna call a sinner,
give them faith and repentance and call them to Christ, he's
gonna do it by doing what we're doing right now. teaching God's
Word. That's how he calls his people. He does it through preaching,
the preaching of Christ. You're not going to come to Christ
unless somebody preaches him to you, right? All right, here's
the second thing. The call of grace is a distinguishing,
electing, separating call. Verse 14, and as he passed by,
he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the receipt of custom
and said unto him, follow me. and he arose and followed him.
Now the Lord came as he was walking by and he called Matthew specifically. Now I'm sure there were other
publicans there collecting taxes along with Matthew. There were
other religious people, there were other sinners, maybe harlots,
whoever, there were many people there. We know a multitude was
all around the Lord. And the only record that we have
of the Lord calling anyone was one man. Matthew, Matthew, the
publican, and the Lord passed by all the other publicans didn't
call one. Now, Matthew, here he is sitting
at the receipt of customs. That's his job to collect taxes.
He wasn't seeking the Lord. Matthew wasn't feeling horribly
guilty, you know, about his sin and who he was. He wasn't seeking
the Lord. He wasn't seeking mercy. He wasn't
seeking grace. He probably wasn't thinking anything
about it. But that's God's distinguishing
grace. God called him anyway. God called him anyway. Matthew,
like so many of us, is a fulfillment of Isaiah 65 verse one, where
the Lord said, I am sought of them that ask not for me. I am found of them that sought
me not. Now you who believe might be
thinking, Remember the day I sought the Lord. Well, absolutely you
did. Y'all know you did. But you know
why you sought the Lord? It's because he sought you first.
You found him because he found you first. That's exactly right.
This call of grace is a distinguishing, electing, separating call. The Lord comes to each one of
his people and calls them to himself. Well, here's the third
thing. The Lord always calls the most
unlikely people. Now Matthew was a publican. A
publican was a Jew who collected taxes for the Romans. And a publican
was a traitor to Israel. I mean, they were despised by
the Israelites. Publicans were paid by charging,
you know, they're supposed to collect taxes, but they charged
a higher rate than was necessary and skimmed off the top. Matthew
was cooking the books, buddy. I mean, he knew what he was doing.
He was cooking those books. He probably had two sets of books,
you know. Skimming off the top to become rich. And the Jews
hated publicans so much, they considered them to be as vile
as a street harlot. I mean, vile, they just, they
despised them. And do you know the Romans did
too? I mean, you know, how can you, you know, the Romans, they
come in, you know, they conquer the area, and they get somebody
from that area to collect taxes for them. And they know they're
cheating, but they don't really care, as long as you give me what,
you know, the taxes were really, I don't care if you're cheating
or not. But you can't really respect somebody who's a traitor
to his own country, his own people, can you? The Romans considered
them to be vile too. They just used them to collect
their money, because they had to have their tax money. And
Matthew made a conscious choice to do this. There's a lot of
other jobs he could have had, but he made a conscious choice
to do this, just like we make a conscious choice to sin. But you know, that's who the
Lord calls by His grace, great sinners. And when the Lord saves
the worst of sinners, we're always shocked. Now, I'm not saying when the
Lord saved you, I was shocked. What I'm saying is when the Lord
saved me, I was shocked. The most unlikely person I could
think of. Of all the people I could think of that the Lord would
be merciful to, I was the last one, the most undeserving. But
that's who the Lord calls. And when he calls them, and we'll
look at this more next week, when Lord calls a person to himself,
he reveals himself to them Now there's a change. There's a change
gonna take place. Can you remember another republican
that our Lord called? Zacchaeus. The Lord called Zacchaeus
down from that tree and said, now I've got to go to your house
today. And after they talked a little bit, Zacchaeus said,
I'm giving it all back. If I've wronged somebody, I'll
give it back four or five times. The change took place, didn't
it? Now, people don't deny what they used to be. They don't deny
what they are, but they don't revel in it either. You know,
we don't talk about our past sin and say, you know, like talk
about them like those were the good old days. No, no, no, no,
no. We're saying to those things.
But a believer does have a story to tell. A believer does have
a story. Can you think of anybody better
to go out and tell the story of God's saving grace than a
great sinner? That's the story we have to tell.
Nobody can tell about God's saving grace better than a notorious
guilty sinner. That's who the Lord calls. Then number four, the Lord calls
his people always at a specific time, a time that he appointed
from all of eternity. Our text says that the Lord called
Matthew as he passed by. Now that was no accident that
the Lord passed by Matthew on this day. This was the time appointed
from all of eternity that the Lord was gonna reveal Himself
to Matthew and call him to follow Him. He passed by that specific
place on purpose to call a specific sinner to follow Him. Now that
day, I mean, I would just imagine, I don't think I'm wrong about
this, They started out like every other day for Matthew. He got
up, he washed, he brushed his teeth, he ate breakfast, he got
ready for the day, got his two sets of books and off he went
down there to the receipt of customs to collect taxes. Little
did Matthew know that today was the day of salvation for him.
Little did he know. But that's the way the Lord deals
with all of his people. He reveals himself at a specific
appointed time. Before every service that we
have, this is one of my prayers that today will be the day of
salvation for someone. Today. Lord, send a revival to
us and let it start today. Reveal yourself to one of your
people today. Let me give you a few scriptures
on this. We won't turn to him for time's sake, but you can
jot them down, read them later if you want. Isaiah 49 verse
eight, thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable time, have I heard
thee, and in a day of salvation, have I helped thee. When, when
did he help? In a day of salvation, today.
Luke nine, 19 verse nine, this is our Lord talking to Zacchaeus.
He said, this day, is salvation come to this house for as much
as he also is a son of Abraham. When does salvation come to that
house? On this day, the day that the Lord was walking out of Jericho
and went under that tree, Zacchaeus was up on purpose. This day,
salvation has come to the house. 2 Corinthians 6, verse two, behold,
now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Maybe the Lord hadn't been pleased
to reveal himself to you yet, but you just hang on. If you're
his, there's a day. Today is the day of salvation.
It's not past. It's not gone. God's still in
the business of saving sinners, isn't he? Here's the one I want
you to turn to, Ezekiel. Chapter 16. This day of salvation,
this specific time that's appointed of God where he meets his people
and calls them out and reveals himself to them, this is a day of love. This is a day of love and grace. Look at Ezekiel 16 verse six.
It's talking about the baby that was found out in the field. In
verse six, when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine
own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood,
live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. Now that was a specific time
God passed by. I saw you polluted in your own
blood, polluted in your own sin, dead and dying, and I said to
you, live. And I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen
great. Thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breast are fashioned
and thy hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now
when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was
the time of love. And I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou became
as mine. Then I washed thee with water.
Yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and shod thee with badger skin. I girded thee about with
fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I deck thee also with
ornaments, I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy
neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead,
and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thy head. This time is a time of love,
and boy, it meant something, didn't it? It meant something. The Lord takes his people, polluted
in our own blood, polluted, filthy in our sin, and washes them with
water, and covers them with his beauty. It says down there in
verse 11 or verse 14, and I went forth among the heathen for thy
beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put
upon thee, saith the Lord God. He makes his people beautiful
by making them just like his son, righteous and holy, dressed
in the righteousness of Christ. Now that's a time of love. That's
a great demonstration of God's love for his people. I don't
know about you, but that's how God found me. All right, here's
the fifth thing. There can be no salvation without
this call of the Holy Spirit. You know, Matthew never would
have come to Christ. He never would have followed
Christ unless our Savior came to him and commanded him to follow
him. We wouldn't either, would we? Nobody's ever going to come
to Christ until God the Holy Spirit calls us to Christ. And
I tell you the reason we won't come to Christ is because we
have a dead sin nature. And our dead sin nature makes
us think, I'm pretty good. I'm okay. We don't come to Christ
because we don't see our need of Him. We don't see our need
of Him because we're spiritually blind. Look at John chapter six. This is what our Lord told the
Pharisees. It wasn't that they didn't know
what the scripture said. It wasn't that they didn't have
availability to the scriptures. It wasn't somebody wasn't telling
them what the scriptures say. No, they had the scriptures.
They knew. It wasn't that they were immoral people. No, they
were moral. Here's the reason that they would
not come to Christ. Verse 44 of John six. No man
can come to me except the father which has sent me drawing and
I'll raise him up again at the last day. No man can come to
Christ. That's our problem. We can't
come to Christ because we've got a dead sin nature that can't
do anything. We can't do anything spiritual.
We don't have the ability to come to Christ. Not until the
father draws us. And the way the father draws
his people to his son is the preaching of Christ. God, the
Holy Spirit comes and shows the things of Christ to them. So
they see, so they see. So they believe, so they come
to Christ. Now you can tell if you've been drawn by the Holy
Spirit or not. You can tell if the Holy Spirit
calls you, you've come to Christ. You've come to Christ. You've
not come to religion. You've not come to a new doctrine.
You've come to a person. You've come to Christ. You cast
your soul on Him. You love Him. You believe Him.
Look at verse 45. As it's written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that hath heard, and if you've learned of the Father, what do
you do? Cometh unto me. That's how you can tell if the
Holy Spirit's drawn you. Now if you're just interested
in religion, if you're just interested in some new doctrine, if you're
just interested in some new take on things, that's not the work
of the Holy Spirit. That's just, mental agreement
to something that's true. Somebody really can't say this
gospel's not true. They can't say it doesn't make
sense. All they can say is they don't believe it. I don't buy
it. I won't have it. It makes sense. I mean, it doesn't
surprise me somebody hears a gospel and says, you know, that makes
sense. Maybe I'd like to hear some more of that. When spirit
draws you, you come to Christ. And I can't explain that any
better than, I mean, that's a very poor explanation. If you've never
come to Christ, you probably don't understand. But if you've
come to Christ, you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't
you? You see, God the Father, according
to this book, he elected a people to save. Before he created anything,
he elected a people to save. But you know, election alone
won't save anybody. Now I'm saying that very carefully,
but election alone will not accomplish salvation. God the Son came,
he came into flesh, and in the flesh he died for the sin of
his people. He died as a sacrifice for the sin of his people, and
his blood completely atoned for all of that sin. Now I say this
very carefully, but even the sacrifice alone won't accomplish
redemption. You see, the sacrifice of Christ
was offered to the Father. It wasn't offered to you and
me to see if we'd accept it and decide to accept Jesus and believe
on Him. The sacrifice of Christ was offered to the Father and
that sacrifice, that blood satisfied the Father. But it didn't change
us, did it? No, it didn't change us. The
sacrifice alone does not accomplish salvation. If you would be saved,
God the Holy Spirit must apply the blood. Christ to your heart. The blood must be shed, but that
blood must be applied to our hearts. The Holy Spirit must
call us to Christ. He must give us life. He must
give us faith in Christ so that we come to Him and believe on
Him. You see, the salvation of a sinner requires the work of
the whole Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And you can't
take one out. If you take one out, it's just
like a tripod. You take one leg out, the whole
thing falls down. Salvation requires the work of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. One's not more important than
the other. It takes all three. And don't ever forget this, the
blood must be applied. And how does God do that? By
the preaching of the gospel. By the preaching of Christ. All
right, here's the sixth thing. The call of the Holy Spirit is
irresistible. Now when you read, there's three
different accounts of the Lord walking by Matthew and calling
Matthew to follow Him. And all three of them make it,
this is what it sounds like to me. The Lord passed by Matthew,
He saw Matthew, and He said, Matthew, follow me. And from
the way it looks, the Lord kept walking. He didn't stop to see,
well, is Matthew gonna follow me? Wonder what Matthew will
do. I better stop here and wait and
see. The Lord kept walking, because this is what he knew, Matthew's
following him. You know why? The Lord commanded
it. The Lord told him to. Now before this, before our Lord
passed by for that very moment, all Matthew could think about
was money. How can I get more of it? How
can I keep what I got? How can I find a way to, you
know, to twist things and even squeeze even more out of people,
you know? He just like that, the child's poem about the king
and his counting house, counting out his money or something. That's
all Matthew could think about. But when the Lord called Matthew,
that immediately changed. Immediately. You know, I find
it very interesting. The Lord's got his 12 disciples. and they got a treasurer. Don't you find it interesting
Matthew wasn't the treasurer? I mean, here's the man, this
is kind of his skill, you know. Everything changed. He wasn't
trying to be the treasurer. Everything changed with Matthew.
The Lord didn't come by Matthew and say, Matthew, you follow
me. And Matthew say, well, no, okay, I will. I will, but wait,
wait, wait just a minute. Let me finish up this business
first. I got this transaction going and I can get this money
together. and that'll help us later. Matthew didn't do that. Matthew didn't say, let me turn
these books over to somebody else and train them how to do
it, and then I'll follow you. He didn't say, no, you know,
Lord, you know, I want to follow you, but I got a job. I got to
make a living. I got to live in this earth,
you know, just wait, wait just a minute. And when it's a little
better time, then I'll follow you. No, sir. Matthew immediately
followed Christ. He could not follow Christ, could
he? Because when the Lord told Matthew, follow me, you know
what Matthew wanted to do? He wanted to follow Christ. See,
when the Lord saves his people, when he causes them to be born
again, he gives them a new want to. Now Matthew wanted to follow
Christ. And that's just like the other
disciples. It's just like everyone that the Lord calls. When the
Lord calls somebody, they follow him. Remember, Back in chapter
one, we read about the Lord calling those first four of his disciples. These men are fishermen. I mean,
they're commercial fishermen. They're living paycheck to paycheck,
and all they ever thought about was fishing. I've got to go out
there and get this net full of fish, so I've got something to
feed my family. I've got to pay for stuff. The only way I'm going
to do that is catching these fish. All they thought about was fishing.
And when they were done fishing, they mended their nets, getting
ready for the next day. I mean, it was just a absolutely
consuming full-time job. And here they were cleaning their
nets one day and the Lord passed by and said, follow me. Now,
what was their response? Remember, look back here in chapter
one of Mark, verse 16. Now, as he walked by the sea
of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting
a net into the sea for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto
them, come ye after me and I'll make you to become fishers of
men, and straightway they forsook their nets and followed him.
And when he'd gone a little further thence, he saw James, the son
of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who also were in the ship, mending
their nets. And straightway he called them, and they left their
father, Zebedee, in the ship with the hired servants, and
they went after him. See, they immediately, they left
their nets, they left their livelihood, they left their family, and they
followed Christ. Suddenly, Christ was more important
than making a living. Suddenly, Christ was more important
than the other things of this life. And you know why? When
did that happen? When the Lord said, follow me.
And the same thing will happen for you and me if the Lord ever
calls us. Now look over at Luke chapter five. Luke five. Matthew followed Christ. And
I'm telling you, he never looked back. Matthew 5, verse 27. And after
these things, he went forth and saw a publican named Levi sitting
at the receipt of custom. And he said unto him, follow
me. And he left all, rose up and
followed him. And Levi made him a great feast
in his own house. And there was a great company
of publicans and of others that sat down with him. Now if God
the Holy Spirit calls you, you're gonna leave all. You'll leave
all and you'll follow Christ. You're gonna identify with Christ.
Now more than likely, you're not gonna have to quit your job.
More than likely, you're not going to have to give up everything
that you own materially in the world and go into the ministry.
But I tell you what you're going to have to leave. I mean, and
leave all. Everything you used to trust in before. You're going
to have to leave it. All your good works, you're going
to have to leave it. All your morality, all the things that
make your friends so impressed with you, you're going to have
to leave it. And follow Christ and cling to Him and him alone. All right, here's the seventh
thing. This call of grace is a life-changing
call. We just read there in Luke 5
verse 29 that Levi made him a great feast in his own house and there
was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with
them. The Lord called Matthew to follow
him and that gave Matthew the faith to follow Christ. He trusted
his soul to Christ And he was a changed man. Now Matthew knew
the Lord. He wanted other people to know
the Lord too, didn't he? So he had a dinner party and
he invited all of his publican friends. He wanted them to come
meet the Lord, to hear from the Lord. All those old cronies,
you know, those old sinners, he called them, come to my house.
I want you to meet this man. I want you to hear from him. When Lord calls his people, They're
going to be changed. The change is going to take place.
They're going to be far from perfect. Don't get me wrong.
They're going to be far from perfect. They're not going to
sin less than they used to. They're going to be far from
perfect. But I'm telling you, there's going to be a change.
There has to be, because there's a new sheriff in town. There
has to be a change. Christ rules in the heart. Let me show you that 1 Corinthians
chapter 4. There has to be a change if Christ rules in the heart.
It's obvious. 1 Corinthians 4, verse 7. For who maketh thee to differ
from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?
Now, if thou didst receive it, why didst thou glory as if thou
hadst not received it? Now, I don't have any question.
The Lord's made you different. But who made you different? The
Lord did it, so we're not gonna boast in it. We're not gonna
brag in it. The Lord makes his people different. Look at 1 Corinthians
6, verse nine. Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but
you're washed, but you're sanctified, but you're justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. Such were
some of you, but you don't walk on that anymore, do you? No,
you're different because God's put his spirit into you. When
God calls somebody, there's going to be a change. Now, that's Matthew. That's the Lord calling Matthew,
a distinguishing call of grace. That's Matthew. I want to apply
this to all of us here this morning. Now, we just looked at this.
Here's how God saves sinners. Here's how God calls sinners
to himself. Here's how God gives life and
faith to dead sinners. He does it by his power, by his
will, to the worst, to the most unlikely, doesn't he? Salvation
is of the Lord. It's all of God from beginning
to ending, it's all of him. The Lord chooses, he does the
choosing, he does the calling, he does the redeeming, he does
the sanctifying, he's the one that does the birthing and the
new birth, and he's the one that does the keeping. The Lord does
everything, and he does it for the worst sinners, the most unlikely,
doesn't he? Now I'll tell you what that means
to you and me here today. There is not a single reason,
not a single reason, that one person here should despair of
salvation. Instead, that distinguishing
call of grace, where God does it all, should make every last
one of us run to Christ and beg for mercy. If the Lord has mercy
on the worst, I tell you what, that leaves room for me, because
I'm the worst. If the Lord has mercy on whom
he will, not because they did something good, not because they
did something to deserve it, but just because he would, then
that leaves room for me. Maybe he'd be merciful to me.
And I tell you, there's one way to find out. Go begging for it. Go begging for it. There's not
one reason for any of us to despair of mercy if we just go beg Christ
for it. All right, I hope the Lord blessed
that to you.