It's good to be here with God's
family. It's always good to be gathered
with the family. What a privilege and what a great
responsibility I have right now. It's humbling and yet it's exciting. Turn to Mark chapter 2. Mark chapter 2. I titled this message, Distinguishing Grace, or A Sinner's
Gospel. A Sinner's Gospel. You know, good news is only good
news to them who need it. The gospel is not good news to
everyone. It's good news to them who need it. It's like you take
the doctrine of justification. It sounds like a cold, dry doctrine
until you're guilty. And you're guilty. It's a living,
breathing, glorious gospel. It's a glorious doctrine. Election
will make you mad until you're elect. If you're one of the left,
it won't make you mad, you know. That's the only way. If God had
not chosen me, I'd be lost. I wouldn't have anything to do
with Him. You see, I'm ungodly. You know what that means? Unlike
God. I don't know what intellectual
nitwits said that opposites attract, but they don't. I'm unlike God. Light and darkness can't dwell
together. God's got to do something for me and in me for me to dwell
with Him. That's got to happen. And He's
the only one who can make it happen. I can't make it happen.
You can't make it happen. I can't save you. I can't give
you faith. I can't give you repentance. I can make you feel bad. Give
me enough time. I can make you feel bad before you leave here
tonight. That's alright. It won't do anything for you.
But now if God gives you true repentance, godly sorrow, that'll
last. That will last. Let me read a
few verses and then we'll get into the message. Let me read
a few verses over here in chapter 1. Look in 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 will make you to become
fishers of men." And in verse 18, and straightway, they forsook
their nets immediately. When he said, follow me, immediately
they forsook their nets and followed him. And when he had gone a little
further, Vince, 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." Didn't invite them. Didn't beg
them. He called them. He called them
by His grace. And this is not a random act
of grace here. We talk about random acts of
kindness. No. This is on purpose. God's after
them on purpose. God Almighty came into this world,
clothed Himself in flesh, walked on this earth, walked down that
sea, and headed for those men on that boat. Now go over to... Well, let me finish reading that.
Let me start in verse 19. And when He had gone a little
further thence, He saw James, the son of Zebedee, and Johnny,
his brother, who also were in the ship, mending their nets.
And that's a good description of our lives. Always mending
the nets. And straightway he called them,
and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants."
They just got out of the boat and left. Got out of the boat
and left. He called them. Now look over
in chapter 2. And let me turn this thing on.
Okay. Now look in verse 13. And he went forth again. Again
by the seaside. I hope he's here again tonight.
He was last night and in the preacher's school this morning,
my soul. I hope he's here again tonight.
And he went forth again by the seaside and all the multitude
resorted unto him and he taught them 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 you know what? He did. And he
arose and followed him. And it came to pass that as Jesus
sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also
together with Jesus and his disciples. For there were many. And they
followed Him. And when the scribes and the
Pharisees saw Him eat with publicans and sinners, people like you
and I, they said unto His disciples, How is it that He eateth and
drinketh with publicans and sinners? You know, He could be doing that
with us instead of them. When Jesus heard it, He said
unto them, They that are whole, have no need of a physician,
but they there are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance." Salvation does not happen by
chance. This is not him just, like I
said, a random act of grace. This is on purpose. Salvation
does not happen by chance. It's not God giving me a chance
to get saved. I didn't even get a chance to
get lost. I was born lost. I was born that way. I didn't
do anything to become lost. I didn't do anything to become
a sinner. I wasn't just born a sinner. I was conceived. The
egg was bad. Anybody ever call you a rotten
egg? You are. I am a rotten egg. Sinful. Wretched. Salvation comes by
the sovereign will and purpose and power of God. That's how
it comes. And we must always be clear on
this, that salvation is of the Lord. Levi was not looking for
Him. Peter and Andrew were not looking
for Him. James and John were not looking
for Him. Levi sitting at the receipt of customs. Levi sitting
there saying, show me the money. That's all he wanted. But the
Lord had His eye on him, not just At that time, I mean before
the creation of the world, he had his eye on that man, Levi,
which is Matthew. That's who he is. And salvation
is not a cooperative effort on my part with God. It's not me
cooperating. No. It's God saving me in Christ,
period. God doing the saving. That's
salvation. That's salvation. Now in verse
13, we have the call of Levi or Matthew. Our Lord is walking
by the seaside, it says again, and He's going after another
one of His lost sheep. That's what He's going after.
He's not on a stroll here by the seaside. He's going after one
of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And he happens to
be sitting at the receipt of customs. He's going after a particular
person and he's going to give a particular call. And I tell
you what, there's not going to be any arguments, there's not
going to be any begging. He's going to get up from that seat
and he's going to follow Christ. That makes preaching easy. That's
what makes preaching easy. Preaching is never easy, but
that's what makes it easier. I'm not trying to get anybody
saved. Someone asked me that I was talking to a very ultra-religious
man that I ran into here a few weeks ago. How many people were
saved under your ministry? I don't know of anywhere. Only
God knows that. Only God knows who is saved here
and who is lost. God knows the heart. Peter said,
Lord, you know I love you. And He knows if you don't. He
knows. Now Matthew here, Levi, was a
tax collector, a republican, a Jew who collected taxes for
the Roman government. These tax collectors were notorious
for extortion and nobody liked them except their own kind. Now
if you were trying to get a following, would you go after the most hated
people in town to represent you? Would you go after unlearned
and ignorant men? Would you go after that kind
to represent you? To send them out into the world?
Our Lord is not after a following of men. He's after sheep. He's
after the sheep that was given to Him before the foundation
of the world. He came to save sinners. That's what He came
to do and He's doing it. He's still doing it. He's still
doing it. Our Lord He's not a politician. He's a savior of sinners. He's
a great physician. He's the Lord that healeth thee. Anybody here need healing? Is
there a sinner in the house? I got good news. You heard it
last night. You're going to hear it again
tonight. He calls Levi and he says to
him, Follow me. We don't have a long
sermon. We have a command. That's what
we have. We have a command from the Lord
of glory to Levi. I'm sure he looks him right in
the face and he says, follow me. And from the power of his
word, he gets up and he follows Christ. Well, how did that happen? I'll tell you how it happens.
Where the word of a king is, there's power. And the king of
glory said, you get up and you follow me. Just like he said
to Andrew and Peter and James and John, he said, follow me! And they did. And if he ever
says that to you and me, if he speaks to our heart, You don't
have to have anybody beg you into it. You'll do it. You'll
do it. You'll get up and you'll follow
Him. You'll want to follow the Lord in baptism. You'll want
to go where He is. If He ever calls you. If He calls
you. Follow me, He said. When He calls,
affectionately, sinners come to Him and they follow Him. All
we need to do is preach Christ. All I'm called to do is to declare
Christ and Him crucified. And sit down and shut up. And
the faster I do it, the better off we are. Really. And notice what happens. He calls
him. And here's how I know it's such
an effectual call. It opened his home. It didn't just open his heart.
I mean, when he opened Lydia's heart, well, it also opened her
home. When the Lord saves someone, He opens their heart, He opens
their home, He opens their pocketbook. Everything they have is His.
And Levi called all these other publicans and sinners that he
knew and said, you've got to come and hear this man. You've
got to come and hear the Master. You see, the call comes first,
and then we begin to learn of Him. Dead people you can't teach. You can't teach dead people.
The Lord called him, gave him life. Then he opened his home
to the Lord, and the Lord sat down and He taught him. He taught
him. We are not educated into the
Kingdom of God, we're born into it. You don't educate anybody
into the Kingdom of God. We are born into the Kingdom
of God. And then we are taught of God. All thy children shall
be taught of God. But they got to have life. You
don't try to teach someone who's dead. You see where you get. Levi opened his home to the Lord
and he invited many publicans and sinners to come and hear
the Lord Jesus Christ like that woman at the well did. Come and
hear Him who told me everything I ever did. And they came. Where's the best place for a
physician to be? With his patients. With his patients. Where the sick are. Those scribes
and Pharisees, they put forth a lot of effort following him
around to discredit him. He called them hypocrites, vipers.
Cycles said one time, don't you know you offended them? They
were born offended. They're going to live offended.
They're going to die offended. They're going to spend eternity
offended. That's why there's weeping, wailing, gnashing of
teeth. They're mad. Mad. And they ask a question. A good
question. Even though they didn't mean
any good by it, but they ask a good question. How is it that
He eateth with publicans and sinners. How is it? I'll tell
you how it is. It's by grace. It's by the grace of God if He's
here with us tonight. We don't deserve His presence.
We don't deserve it. Matthew 9, 11 says, they say
it this way, Why? Why eateth your Master? They
wouldn't own him as their master. They said, why your master? They'd rather die and go to hell.
And they did. They did. And the Lord replied, they that are whole have no need
of the physician. That's simple, isn't it? That's
so simple. But they, they're sick. Anybody
here sin sick? Yeah. Yeah. We have a Savior of sinners who
can put away all my sins. And I've learned this through
the gospel. I have one problem. One. Now I know we all have many problems,
some financial, some emotional, some with kids, some with this,
some with that. I have one, and you have one real problem. It's
called sin. Get that taken care of, you can
endure everything else. Everything else. God put away my sins. Nothing else can destroy me.
Nothing else. Here is a simple truth. And remember these two things.
This is a truth. This is a simple truth. Truth
is always simple. And truth is not an opinion.
It's not an opinion. Everything outside of truth is
an opinion. And they all smell the same. People who are not sick do not
need to go to the doctor. You don't need a doctor if you're
whole. The Pharisees said, we're whole, we don't need your righteous...
This is their attitude. We don't need you. Well, I'm
not talking to you. Go on and do something else. I'm not talking to you. Come
with me, all you labored and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
I'm not tired. I'm not labored and heavy laden.
Well, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to those who are
labored and heavy laden under the burden of sin. A simple truth. People who are
not sick do not need a physician. Those who say they see don't
need to have their sight do them. Those Pharisees said, we see.
What do you say? They said, we're not sinners. They said, we'd be not sinners.
We're Abraham's seed. Well, they're in trouble. They're in trouble. You know, one time I was preaching
in Madisonville, Kentucky for Maurice Law years ago. And I was on my way home that
night and I have no idea how I missed my exit or I took the
wrong exit. I still to this day don't remember
doing it. But I took the wrong exit and it said Bowling Green. Bowling Green. I was so mad.
That made me so mad. And on my way back, every time
I'd get 20 miles, I'd think, I could be home by now. I was mad on my way home. I'm
still not over it. I'm telling a story. I thought I was headed home and
I was going to Bowling Green. Hell's full of people who thought
they were going to heaven. They thought they were going
to heaven. And they wound up in hell. You know why? They missed the way. Christ said,
I'm the way. You missed Him. You tried to
add this, do that. He wasn't enough. Missed Him! You missed the way. You're going
to be mad. It doesn't matter. You can be mad all you want.
It ain't going to change. You're going to be mad. The self-righteous do not see
their need of Christ unless Christ strips them of that self-righteousness. Unless He strips them. We have here why He came. He
tells us, God came into this world. Almighty God, the Creator
of Heaven and Earth, our Creator, came into this world, and He
says, this is why I'm here. I'm not here to straighten everything
up. We are told by Christ Himself
why He came. He said He came to cause sinners
to repentance. He came to turn from sin to Him. From darkness to light. That's
why He came. Turn over to Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings. That's why He came. He came to
preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted. Now, He's got to break it in
order to bind it up. To proclaim liberty to the captives. Any captives here? Any brokenhearted
here? and the opening of the prison
to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord
and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn. Thank God if He makes you mourn,
because He said He'll comfort you. To appoint unto them that
mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning.
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. That they
might be called trees of righteousness. The what? Planting of the Lord. He planted us. He made us. He created us. We are the sheep
of His pasture. Thou hast made us and not we
ourselves. I didn't make myself a believer,
no more than you did. God did that. God did. That's the work of God. You believe
God? That's the work of God. It's the work of God. That He
might be glorified. That He might receive the glory
that's due unto His name. For me to receive glory in this
would be wrong. For Him to receive it is right.
It's right. It's just right. Because it's
all of Him. Christ came to seek and to save
the lost. He didn't come to save good people.
There's not any. There's not any. That's going
to make some people mad, but you just have to get mad. God said that. I didn't write
the Bible. God said there's none good, no, not one. I wrote outside
of that years ago. Even me. Even me. You think of nothing good, no,
not one. Who do you think of? Yourself first? You know, when
the Lord said, one of you is going to deny me, one by one
they said what? Is it I? They didn't say, I bet
I know who it is. I know who it is. No, they said,
is it I? Is it I? I know just about everyone will
claim to be a sinner to some degree. But when faced with what
a sinner is by scriptural definition, well, that's a game changer. Ungodly. Well, you know, I don't
know if I'm ungodly. You know, when you... When you claim to believe on
Christ, do you really know what you're
saying? Christ and Him crucified. When
you look at the cross, what does that say about me? How bad must
I be for that to happen to Him? If people really sit down and
think about it, they wouldn't be so fast jumping on board. ungodly,
depraved. My pastor said this years ago
and I've never forgotten it. Don't confuse sovereign constraint
for personal holiness. Boy, don't forget that. Because
if God would withdraw His hand just a little, if He would take
away His sovereign constraint just a little, do you think it's
bad in this country now? You think Sodom and Gomorrah
was bad? It would be nothing but devils.
That's all it'd be. Loss. Loss. You'd be hard
pressed to find someone who truly believed that if God sent them
to hell, they'd just be getting what they deserve. You believe
that? That's the work of God. That's
the work of God. It takes the power of God to
make a sinner a sinner. To make a sinner cry guilty with
no excuses. No excuses. David said, "...Against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight."
He didn't say, if she hadn't been there, Lord, you could have
stopped me. You could have prevented that.
You could have not let it happen while I walked out on the balcony.
There's a lot. No. No excuses. Here's one thing I've learned
something about trials. They don't only try faith, prove
faith, but it shows how much sin still left in us. Get angry
with God. And you hold it back. You know
what I'm saying? You start to question everything.
Then you realize, my, so that's still in me. That's still in
me. And you say, Lord, forgive me
for these thoughts. Forgive me for these thoughts. We will not seek Christ until
we need Christ. Now let me wind this down. Paul
believed at one time that he kept the law. He actually believed
that. Those Pharisees believed they
kept the law. Paul believed he was a good man at one time. He
didn't need a Savior like Christ. He didn't need His righteousness.
The bread of bulls and goats was good enough to put away the
more sins what he had. I tell you what, if we ever see
what sin is, we will know that nothing can put it away but the
blood of Christ. Only the blood. Only the blood. This is a sinner's gospel. It's
a sinner's gospel. Those Jews said to our Lord,
we'd be not born of fornication. What they're saying is, we're
not sinners. We'd be not born of fornication. Well, Esau wasn't
either. He wasn't born of fornication, but God loved Jacob and hated
Esau. Both of them were sinners. I
don't care. It doesn't matter. If you are
the child of the most two godly people ever walked on top of
this earth, you're still a wretch. in need of mercy, in need of
grace. And if God doesn't save you,
you're going to hell. While we were yet sinners, not
after we straightened up, while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. He died for the ungodly. You
know, it's our sins that bring us to Christ. He's the friend of sinners. That's right. Why does He eat
with them? Because He's their friend. Why does He eat with
you? Because He's your friend. He's
my friend. Some time ago, my son was in
jail for almost six months. And he had a friend he went through
high school with. And he's a pastor there in Ashland. And someone
said to him, you need to separate yourself from him. He said, no,
he's my friend. And he came at different times
and stood with us in a line to see him. Nobody else did, but
he did. He's my friend. Why does he eat
with... Todd, why would he eat with you?
Because he's my friend. He's my friend. What a friend we have in Jesus. What a friend. Are we clear on
this? Christ came to save sinners. Is there a sinner in the house?
I have good news. Christ died for sinners and no
one else. No one else. Let me read you
something here out of the Song of Solomon. Chapter 5. Verse 16, his mouth, Song of
Solomon, chapter 5, verse 16, his mouth is most sweet. Yeah,
he's altogether lovely. This is my beloved and this is
my friend. Four daughters of Jerusalem.
He's my friend. He wasn't embarrassed to be there.
He wasn't embarrassed to sit down at the table with those
publican sinners. Remember with Peter? He was sitting
there with those Gentiles, people like you and me, eating, and
the brethren came down from Jerusalem. What did he do? He got up and
slid over. It's like he was embarrassed. He didn't want to deal with it.
Our Lord never... You know, He was never uncomfortable
in the presence of sinners, and sinners were never uncomfortable
in His presence. That's a self-righteous word. That was a bad day. That's right. Self-righteousness
will make you uncomfortable under the gospel. You hear the gospel,
it'll just... But sinners, it's the bread of
heaven. Okay, Todd.