[Sunday School] Holy Spirit 9

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Alright, please open your Bibles if you've got one to Luke chapter 5, verse 27. We'll be looking at verses 27 through 32. And as you open up there, I would like for you to conjure up in your mind the image of a lowlife. You know what I'm talking, right? Conjure up the idea of basically the most awful version of a human being that you can imagine. The predator. Or not from the movies, but like a real life predator. The con artist. The Ponzi schemer who bilks old ladies out of their retirement. The person at the office who steals other people's lunches out of the refrigerator. Get that person in your mind. And now imagine you walk into a Starbucks down the road and you see that man or that woman seated across the table from me. And we're just yucking it up. We're having a good old time. We're buddy buddy. Big old smile on my face. What would you think? Would you be glad to see your pastor hanging out with the dregs of society? Or would you have some questions? Would you have some concerns? Would you maybe have a grumble? Maybe two grumbles. Three if you're feeling really salty. In today's passage, we are looking at a story about when Jesus went to a party to hang out with the lowest of the low. And there are going to be some people at that party with some concerns, with some questions, with some grumbles. And what we'll learn from this encounter is that Jesus did not come for the righteous. He didn't come for the prim and proper folk who've got their stuff all together. Jesus came for the lowlifs. Jesus came for the dregs of society. And whether or not we want to admit it, our sin puts us in that category. Even if we think we're the upper crust and we're the elites, sorry, sin is the great leveler in all of humankind. It puts us in the category of low life. So if you're here today and you have convinced yourself that you are the kind of low life that God hates and wouldn't want anything to do with, then you've got things entirely backward. Because Jesus came for sinners like you and like me, and he's even called us to play a part in his mission to go out and to seek and to save even more low-life sinners just like me. And just like you. So with that said, I'll invite you to rise as we read this passage. Again, it's Luke 5, 27 through 32. After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house. And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Father, thank you for your word. Send your Holy Spirit now, we pray, to help us understand and to apply it. Help us to hear the truth about who we are apart from Christ. But even more importantly, who we are in Christ, so that we might go forth and share that truth with others. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. So as we're continuing to see as we work throughout this gospel, Luke really does a lot to emphasize the ministry of Jesus to the outsiders and the outcasts more than the other gospels. Luke wants us to see that Jesus did not just come for a select group of people, Jesus came for everybody. So far, we've largely seen his ministry to people who were sick and demon-possessed. But earlier in chapter 5, Jesus began to shift things in a somewhat more controversial direction. First with Simon, he called this man who professed himself to be a sinful man. And then he cleansed an unclean leper by touching him no less. Lepers were pariahs. You weren't supposed to do that. And last week, we saw Jesus restore the body of a paralytic, and he did it by healing his soul through the forgiveness of sins. Now I said that was a turn in the controversial direction. What's so controversial about all that? Well, the introduction of sin and uncleanness into the story tells us two really important things about Jesus. The first is that he has the power and the authority to heal both the body and the soul. And the second thing is that he has come to help people who typically don't get much love from the highly religious folk. Those religious folks stepped onto the scene last week in the form of the scribes and Pharisees. And as we said, the scribes and Pharisees were the religious conservatives of their day, who would become some of the chief antagonists in Jesus' story. Last week they disputed the source of Jesus' ministry because Jesus claimed to have the authority to forgive sins. And what did Jesus do? He proved that the Son of Man and Son of God has that authority by using his power to heal the paralytic. So they doubted the source of his authority. This week they they take issue with the targets of Jesus' ministry. These dirty sinners that they believe to be outside the Jewish pale. Now I don't have three points for you like I normally do. Really, I have one big point, and it's this Jesus came for sinners like you and like me. That's it. That's really what this story is here to teach us. But as we unpack the story, as we dive in, we'll we'll see some things about the intentionality of Jesus coming for us. And how when he calls us to follow him, he actually includes a challenge for us to bring others along with us as we follow him. So let's dig into the story. In verse 27, we see Jesus after he's just healed this paralytic in the crowded house, and he leaves the house with the crowds all gathered around, marveling over what he's done. And after this, verse 27 says, he went out and he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at a tax booth. These tax booths were very much like toll booths on the highway. And the Jews did not appreciate them at all. And they did not appreciate the people who manned them. Because the toll booths were actually a symbol of Roman power. And even worse than that, the people who manned the booths used their position to extort people as they passed through. The toll collector, they would charge whatever they had to charge in order to pay off the Roman governors, but they would also upcharge so that they could keep the difference for themselves. And they used the authority of Rome in order to kind of throw their weight around and line their own pockets. And so you could understand why the Jews would hate these tax collectors, but they would especially hate them when it was one of their own who would take the job. To be a Jewish tax collector was to be an exceptional kind of traitor to Israel and to occupy an especially low rung on the social ladder. They were like the meter maids of their day, or the codes inspectors who drive around the neighborhood to make sure your grass is not too tall. I guess only like one or two of you live in an HOA. Good for you. I'm just kidding, right? Meter maids, codes inspectors, those honest jobs, right? But there was no love for tax collectors. No love whatsoever. But do you remember earlier in Luke, when John the Presbyterian came preaching about repentance and baptizing people in the Jordan? Yeah, you can ask me what I mean by that later. You remember what he said? You remember what happened? Luke 3, 12 through 13 specifically said that among the people who came forth to be baptized were tax collectors. And did John turn them away? No, John didn't turn them away. Instead, he baptized them. He didn't even tell them to quit their jobs. He told them to go back and to do their jobs with integrity, to stop using their position in order to extort people. So even though the Jewish tax collectors were the lowest of low in the sight of their Jewish neighbors, they still had a place in God's kingdom. They were a part of the people that Jesus came to redeem. And so it should come as no surprise to us at this point in the story when Jesus calls a tax collector and calls him to come and follow him. Now get this. When Luke says that Jesus saw Levi in his booth, he actually uses an intensive form of the verb to see. So this here, this was more than just a glance. This was more than Jesus just walking down the road and happening to catch a glimpse of Levi out of the corner of his eye. No, Jesus looked at Levi with intention. Jesus singled Levi out. He locked eyes with him. Then he uttered two words. Follow me. It's really incredible if you stop to think about it. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And sometimes he did that by drawing crowds, like we've seen a number of times in Luke. That's the kind of thing we're used to here, right? In the buckle of the Bible belt. Let's get them to church and let the preacher take care of it. That's the kind of attraction that we're used to. And it's not a completely illegitimate move. Again, Jesus drew crowds. The apostles drew crowds. It's okay for us to go and do likewise. But there are other moments in the Gospels when Jesus sets out like a man on a mission to find an individual. He's like a laser-guided missile. He knows where his target is, and he hits that target with precision. And that's what we're seeing here. Jesus comes for Levi. And even his words to Levi are as about as precise as they could possibly be. Follow me. No arguments, no apologies, no attempts to persuade, no offer of benefits or anything like that. Follow me. And those are probably the two most powerful words that Levi had ever heard in his entire life. Because the moment he heard them, he responded. Just like Simon and James and John earlier in chapter 5, when they left behind their boats full of fish in order to go follow Jesus, Levi heard the word, I'm in. Jesus, I'm in. See, sometimes we make things more complicated than we need to. And so I'll just say it to you straight before we move on. If you feel like Jesus is calling you this morning, if you feel like through my words, the word is looking you in the eye and saying, follow me, don't sleep on that. Don't write it off as some kind of weird emotional, I don't know what. Jesus is on a mission to seek and to save the lost, and you might be his objective today. And I didn't say y'all, I said you. Some one individual, some Levi here. And so when he calls, listen. When Jesus says follow me, do it. And sure, you've probably got questions about what that looks like, what you're supposed to do, what you're supposed to say, is there some sort of sinner's prayer? Is there some sort of contract you need to sign? Yeah, we can talk about all that. But resolve in your heart, right here, right now, that if you hear that still small voice saying to you, follow me, resolve in your heart that you'll leave everything behind and follow. Now, what does that mean? And we got the baskets in the back, just leave your wallet in there and your phone and all the stuff. No, what does it mean? What did it mean for Levi to leave everything behind to follow Jesus? Well, if we take verse 28 literally, right? Everything means everything, then we're in trouble with verse 29. Because what do we see in verse 29? Levi opens up his home and he throws a party for his buddies from work. And he invites Jesus to be the guest of honor. So in leaving everything behind, clearly that doesn't mean he renounced all of his worldly possessions. I think, you know, he probably did quit his job, and we know that because this tax collector named Levi also went by another name, and that name was Matthew. And he became one of Jesus' 12 apostles. So it's pretty hard to man a tax booth when you're wandering the countryside for three years with Jesus.

unknown 14:56

Right?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

So he quits his job, but he doesn't ditch all of his stuff. Instead, he deploys the resources he already has for the sake of furthering the mission. See, that's what it means. That's what it means to leave everything in order to follow Jesus. It means that by grace through faith, we experience such a radical change of heart and mind that we begin to see everything through the lens of Jesus and His will for us. Our jobs, our interests, our gifts, our talents, our skills, our possessions, our relationships, everything. Instead of seeing all these things as mine and trying to order them according to my own will and my own desires and my own expectations, or maybe the expectations of my friends and my family, I begin to see them all in the light of Christ. And if he calls me to put one of those things down, I put it down. If he calls me to redeploy one of them, I redeploy it. If he calls me to pick up something new, I pick it up and I run with it. See, to leave everything behind is to surrender it all to God and to say, not my will, but your will be done in all of this. Now I can't determine for you in advance what that might look like. And Christians go wrong when we try to answer these types of questions for one another and we judge others according to our own expectations. Years ago, our young adult community at a previous church we went to, we uh we went through David Platt's book, Radical. Maybe some of you have read it. I can't really recommend it because the basic gist of the book is if you don't sell everything you own right now and move to Africa, you're probably not a Christian. So, yeah. But man, in that young adult community, we opened that book up and we beat the tar out of each other with it. Seriously. Don't do that. Right? Don't do that. And don't let somebody like me in a pulpit do that to you either. If Jesus calls you to follow him, he will show you what you need to leave behind. And he'll use people like me to help you, of course, but not as a substitute for your own biblically informed and spiritually empowered conscience. So Levi, he left everything. And he went home to use whatever resources he'd pulled together from his job as a tax collector to throw this big old party for his former co-workers and whatever other riff-raff they happened to hang out with. And not only does Jesus go to this party, Jesus goes as the guest of honor. And it's not like some weird fundraiser where Jesus is invited to be the keynote speaker and he doesn't know anybody, so he just kind of mills about the whole time until it's his time to go on. No, Jesus goes and Jesus hangs out. He hangs out intentionally, as we'll see in a little bit, but he makes himself his home, at home, right? Jesus makes friends with the tax collectors and the sinners. They have a big time. And how do I know it though? How do I know that's that's the kind of like environment Jesus goes into? Because look at verse 33. And what the scribes and the Pharisees, their beef with Jesus. They ask his disciples, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? That's their problem. Jesus is eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. And we could say some things about the ceremonial law and dietary restrictions and things like that, about, you know, Jews couldn't eat with Gentiles because they had particular rules about what they could eat, couldn't eat, clean, unclean, all of that. But there's actually something much more fundamental going on here in terms of why they had this problem with Jesus sitting at the table with tax collectors and sinners. And their problem is this table fellowship was a big deal for the ancient Jews. When you sat at a table to break bread with someone, you did not just share food with them, you shared life. This is why the breaking of bread is such a big and important theme in Luke and Acts and why it was such an important thing in the early church. So for Jesus to go to the party, for Jesus to sit at the table and to hand the jug of wine to the tax collector on his right, to pass the lamb chops to the prostitute on his left, to laugh at the pig herders' jokes, to listen to the zealots' crazy conspiracy theories, to do all the things that you could imagine Jesus doing in mixed company at a dinner party. Jesus was sharing life with these people, these outcasts, these outsiders, these sinners. And the Pharisees hated him for it. They were scandalized by it. So much so that they began to grumble. They grumbled. Kids, can you say a gongazon? Agongazon. It's cute when you do it, but the word is gross. And that's the point, because grumbling is gross. It's the word that Luke uses in chapters 15 and 19 to describe Jesus' opponents whining about this kind of thing, how Jesus loves outsiders and outcasts. It's also the word the Greek Old Testament uses to describe Israel's complaining against God in the wilderness. Exodus 15, 24, and the people, Agongazon against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? Numbers 14, 2. All the people of Israel, Agongazond against Moses and Aaron, the whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in this wilderness? We can go on, but I'm getting as tired of saying that gross word as you are of hearing it. The word is gross because what they were doing was gross. The scribes and the Pharisees grumbled against a righteous Jew. They thought they grumbled against a righteous Jew who degraded himself by spending time with sinners. But what they really did was grumble against the God who put on flesh to rescue them. And thinking they were too good for these sinners, the scribes and the Pharisees thought they were too good for God. And if your thought pattern gets to you to the point where you think you're too good for God, then you got a problem. And it's precisely that problem that Jesus tries to help them see in verses 31 through 32. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I've not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Jesus is not saying, don't get him wrong here, Jesus is not saying the scribes and the Pharisees are well, that they're spiritually healthy already. The fact of the matter is that they are every bit as sick as the sinners, if not more so. What he's saying. Here is a critique wrapped in a proverb. Like, why wouldn't I eat and drink with sinners? I mean, clearly you don't need me. You've got your sin problem licked, don't you? You've got a righteousness of your own. You don't need what I have to offer. You don't need me. My place isn't in the waiting room with the healthy people. My place is in the ICU with the people who are on life support.

unknown 22:57

Right?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

That's what Jesus is saying. And again, don't misunderstand him. Jesus isn't saying that there is some class of religious person that can work their way to heaven apart from him. No, what he's doing here is he's actually laying the axe to the root of the scribes and the Pharisees' own pretended righteousness. Later in Luke 18, Jesus will tell the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, how the former tries to justify himself before God by all of his good works, while the latter, the tax collector, knows the truth about himself. And so he despairs of himself and cries out to God for mercy. Jesus says in Luke 18, verse 14, I tell you, this man, the tax collector, went down to his house justified rather than the other, the Pharisee. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Jesus has come to call sinners to repentance. And in due time he will show the Pharisees that they fall into that category. But not yet. Here Jesus is focused on the sinners who know their sinners. And unlike the Pharisees who want to push these sinners away, Jesus wants to draw them near. But in order for them to do that, in order for them to come near to Jesus, in order for any of us to draw near to Jesus, there is something that we have to do, no exceptions. That something is to repent. Now what does that mean? Repent is like a super churchy word. It's the kind of word you find most often on social media comment threads or on sandwich boards that are strapped to doomsday prophets on the sidewalk on Broadway. What does it mean? What does it mean to repent? Well, our shorter catechism, question and answer 87, gives us a pretty helpful definition. It says that repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief and hatred over his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. Repentance is a turning. Repentance is a saving grace. And we cannot do it unless God by his spirit gets into our hearts, does some surgery, and turns them around, brings them to life. When the Spirit opens our eyes to the dark depths of our sin and the bright heights of God's mercy for us in Christ, when God does that heart surgery on us, then the only thing we want to do is to turn. The only thing that new fleshy spiritual heart desires is to leave behind the moral baggage that keeps us from enjoying the infinite joy and pleasures that lie at the right hand of God. So Jesus, he goes to this party. Jesus shares life with the low-down, dirty sinners that Jews would otherwise not touch with a 10-foot pole. But he doesn't crawl into the pit with them and pretend as though everything there with them is fine. No, Jesus looks them in the eye, just like he did with Levi, and he says, You think this is good? You think you've seen a feast? I'll show you a feast. You think you guys know life together? You think you're yucking it up? You think we're all having a big time? I will give you life. Leave your sins behind and follow me. My salvation story is a little funky. I didn't start going to church until maybe three years after I came to faith. That was the wrong move, and I don't recommend it. But when I finally did start going to church, it was this really popular seeker church kind of near downtown Nashville. And every worship service was like a rock concert. Like we had smoke machines, lights, and the music was banging. It was just awesome. Not as good as here, but it was great. The pastor's v-neck was as deep as the Grand Canyon. His jeans were painted onto his legs. All the celebrities came, a lot of celebrities came to our church. It was just, it was the cool place to be. And this church really did a great job at drawing in people who don't typically go to church. They stressed the compassion of Christ. They reminded us constantly of stories like this one, where Jesus is willing to go into the unexpected places and hang out with all the unwashed people. And I loved that. That was awesome. That was winsome. That's what the church ought to have been. But something I came to notice over time was that we were really good at going into those places and reclining at those tables, but we were really bad at calling sinners to repentance. In fact, we kind of doubted, we didn't, some of us said it out loud, but not many of us. We kind of doubted whether they needed to be called to repentance at all. Because ours was a vision of Christ's love that had no room for his hatred of sin. We were good at affirming people, but we didn't know how to challenge them on the very things that kept them from knowing the fullness of life that's offered to us in Christ. We were like the oncologist who loves his patient too much to let him know that the cancer is back. It's a curious definition of love, isn't it? See, true love, true love, does not sit at the table and pretend that wrong is right, or that bad is good, or that death is life. No, true love sits at the table, looks the sinner in the eye, and with all the wisdom and all of the compassion that Christ gives us, says to that person, the cancer has spread, you're going to die. Now come along, because I know someone who can heal it. That's love. If you want to love somebody, then move them closer to Jesus, not farther. Jesus calls sinners to repent because, by definition, to turn from our sins is to turn toward Jesus. To leave behind our iniquity is to move forward toward Christ. Life isn't back there. Life is up ahead. And Jesus shows us here that the most compassionate thing we can do for someone, the most loving thing we can do is refuse to affirm them in their sin and instead invite them to lay it down and to come find life in the one who laid himself down. And yet we don't do it. Why not? Why do you struggle to call sinners to repentance? Why do I struggle to do it when I'm not hiding behind the safety of my pulpit? One reason is because we don't really know any sinners or hang out much with them. That one's convicting for me personally, because if the church is a holy huddle, then I'm the quarterback. But it's a struggle for all of us. Newer Christians tend to have more connections to unbelievers, but as we grow in Christian community, a lot of those relationships naturally fall away. And you just kind of get to this point where you're mostly just hanging out with Christians all the time. And the only way, the only way that you're going to get yourself into a position to share Christ, the only way we're going to get there, is by getting out of our comfort zones and intentionally building relationships with those people who aren't necessarily a part of the normal orbit of our lives. Another reason we struggle to call sinners to repentance is because we're afraid. We're afraid of what other people will think. And this one cuts both ways because for some of us, there's this little Pharisee sitting on our shoulder who likes to prick our conscience anytime we hang out with someone who's maybe a bit too rough around the edges. But more often, I think, it's because we're afraid, not of the Pharisee on our shoulder or what the saints might say, we're afraid of the sinner. We're afraid of what saying the name Jesus might do to the relationship. And we don't want to make it weird. And so we tell ourselves, we tell ourselves we're doing relational, little relationship evangelism. And we comfort ourselves with little slogans like, preach the gospel always, when necessary, use words. But as Ligand Duncan said, that sentence makes about as much sense as this one. Feed the poor always, when necessary, use food. The gospel is good news. The gospel has content that must be communicated, not just in deeds, but in words. We have to speak up. We have to lovingly, with humility in ourselves, yet boldness in Christ, use our words to communicate the truth, not just about the ugliness of our sin, but about the beauty of what God has done in Christ to deal with our sin. And when we do that, we have to believe that God will use our words. We have to believe. See, at the end of the day, we don't speak up about Jesus because we don't believe that he will speak up for himself by way of our words. And so we stop short. We stop short of saying what needs to be said because we're afraid that God's gonna leave us hanging and we're gonna be holding this bag of awkward religious baggage. God will not leave us hanging. Isaiah 55, 11 says that when God's word goes out, it never returns to him empty. It accomplishes exactly what God intends with it. And so the person you're talking to might respond in faith, and it might blow your mind. Or they might ridicule you. It's not up to you. It's not up to me. Some of you might be ridiculing me in your mind right now. Fine, I'm cool with that. It's not up to us. We are the messengers. Conversion is above our pay grade. God's got to do it. And God uses us to deliver the message that he takes from there. If you're a follower of Jesus, then it's because he has come on a mission to seek and to save you. Not to save an indiscriminate mass of human beings, but to save you as an individual. Just like Levi, he singled you out and called you to follow him, not because of anything that you did to commend yourself to God, but because of his own free mercy and grace. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, that mission to seek and to save the lost continues even today in the church. You are only in Christ because he sent and empowered someone to speak the truth and to call you to repentance. Whether it was your parents, your pastor growing up, some friend in a coffee shop, maybe a sermon you watched on YouTube. He sent someone to speak the truth of the gospel. And in that person's voice, you heard the Good Shepherd calling you, come home. If you've not yet responded to that call, then I want to encourage you this one last time. The master is calling right here, right now, in the preaching of his word. Don't ignore his voice. Jesus did not come for a select few. Jesus came for everybody. Jesus does not reserve his friendship for the people who've got their stuff together. No, he came to make friends with the opposite kinds of people, with the ones who don't have it all together. So, whoever you are, whatever you've done, however long and however far you've strayed, let me be straight with you. You're heading down the wrong path if the path is leading you away from Jesus. Your sin will destroy you. But there is one who came to destroy your sin. If you put your trust in Christ, the one who bore your burden in his body on the tree, then he will welcome you with open arms. He will give you a place in his father's house. He will promise you a seat at the feast to end all feasts. He will be your brother. He will be your Lord. He will be your friend. And I promise you that when you take your seat at that table, there will be no grumbling from the self-righteous folks in the cheap seats. The only thing you will hear is the applause of heaven as the saints and angels rejoice to see another sinner come home. Jesus came for sinners. Like me, like you. There is no other category of person. So salvation does not consist in you cleaning yourself up. It consists in knowing that you've tried all that. And all that's left is for Jesus to cleanse you. Let's pray. What a friend we have in Jesus. All the sins, our sins and griefs to share. What a privilege to carry all to him in prayer. Father, we thank you for sending Jesus to seek and to save us, to meet us in the dark places of our sin, of our despair. We thank you, Father, for shining the very light of creation into our hearts and souls, so that in the face of Jesus Christ we might behold the glory of God in all its radiance. Lord, for those who do not know you, who are either here with us today or listening online, I pray that you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, would enable them to respond if they hear the Master calling. But for all of us, Lord, we hear again and again the words of Jesus, follow me. So I pray you would help us that as we wander from the path, as we get distracted by the things of this world, as we lose our way, help us to hear his voice again and again. Follow me, follow me, follow me. Send your spirit, send your people to lovingly guide us back toward the narrow path. So that at the end of it, Lord, we might sit down at that table and enjoy unending fellowship in peace, in love, and joy in the presence of our Savior. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.