Luke chapter 5. Luke chapter 5. We're going to look this morning at a couple of sections and I'm disconnecting them in the order to put two calls together in one message and then we'll look at the two miracles that come in between them, the healing miracles. So 1 through 11. and then skipping down to verses 27 through 32 of Luke 5. 5, 1 through 11, and then 27 through 32. Let's hear this word from God Himself. On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing on Jesus to hear the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee. And he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered, Master, we've toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word I will let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners on the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boat to land, they left everything and followed him. Verse 27, 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, Levi 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. Thus far, God's word. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, as you moved Luke to collect the stories, the information, to visit some of the sites, perhaps, of Jesus' public ministry, and then to set those things in order, as he said, and write them down so that our faith might be strengthened and deepened and brought to a greater maturity. So now we ask that you would open our hearts to respond with faith and love and obedience to these verses that we have. Lord, we have heard your voice, we have responded to the gospel invitation, but we need to hear that call again and again. Lord, forbid it that we should sit under your word week after week after week and remain unchanged, unmoved, either in service or in growth or maturity. Don't let the evil one snatch away the seed before it even begins to take root. Don't let the cares of this world or the pleasures of this present age choke your word out and make it unfruitful in our lives, but rather may our hearts be that good soil where the word does take root and grows and produces a huge harvest, or as here, a huge catch of fish, oh Lord. You are the one with the power. We are the ones with the need. So grant what we need through your infinite power in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Spirit, we pray. Amen. You might have noticed in Psalm 103, the psalmist was singing about the kingdom of God. God has set his throne in heaven. His great kingdom rules over all, and so he's aware that God is the sovereign of the universe. But God promised that he was going to assert that kingdom, that rule, more directly, more intimately in history among human beings. And the kingdom of God then is God coming to be king and gathering people who will acknowledge that kingship. and follow Him. And so, what we have here then is the beginning of the assembly, if you will, of the members of that kingdom. Jesus is announcing that He, in fact, is God, come in the flesh, that He has come to assert the sovereign rule of God among His ancient people. That was the kingdom of God in the old covenant, the children of Israel, the nation of Israel. But now He's going to expand that kingdom even to the ends of the earth. And Luke's particular job as a writer of Scripture is to tell in volume 1 how that all began, what Jesus began to do and to teach. And then in the book of Acts to carry on volume 2 and explain how that kingdom spread to the ends of the earth. In the end, the special kingdom of God is going to become cosmic, and in that sense it will be identified then with the general kingdom of God. Too often we're satisfied to say the kingdom of God is God's providential rule over everything. But the kingdom of God, as Jesus is proclaiming it, is his redemptive rule in the hearts and lives of fallen human beings, sinners. We come out of sin to acknowledge his sovereign lordship and to live in terms of it. And these two dramatic incidents that focus on the call of Jesus and the response to that call shows how we who are all under the sovereign control of God come under the redemptive mercy of God by hearing the call of the King, Jesus, who is God, come in the flesh. So I decided to bring these two stories together, although there are these healing miracles in between, so that we could highlight that. And in particular, this is Jesus beginning to assemble that group of men that will become His emissaries. His apostles in the end. We have four fishermen and one tax collector. Now later on, we'll be told that there are 12 disciples, 11 of whom become apostles. Remember Judas from the very beginning, a traitor. We're not told how most of them came to follow Jesus. But in the case of these four fishermen and one tax collector, we're told explicitly how they came to be disciples. and eventually his apostles. So we'll start off with this account of Jesus there by the Lake of Gennesaret, another name for the Sea of Galilee, and how it is that he came to call these fishermen to follow him. We could think about the fact that Jesus, and remember he's a carpenter from Nazareth, but he knows a lot about fishing, doesn't he? And here he's gonna give a fishing lesson to professional fishermen. He knows how to fish and who to fish for. Luke tells us in verse one, on one occasion, while the crowds were pressing, or while the crowd was pressing on him, Jesus, to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And we just pause there a moment to notice that here, Large crowds of people. Now, when we think about a large crowd of people in our day and age, we're thinking of 80 or 100,000 fans in a football stadium. We're not talking about that size population, but compared to the population of Galilee, people are hearing about Jesus and they're drawn to him so much so that they're crowded up against him and he has run out of shoreline upon which to preach. And so he has to take Kind of extreme measures. He finds a floating pulpit, if you will. He saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Just hold that thought in mind. These guys are done for the day. And in light of the sequel, they have to undo what they had done for the day. But the fishermen had gone out, they were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, Jesus asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. You've probably seen pictures in Sunday school material or elsewhere of Jesus sitting in this boat, a little bit offshore, speaking to these multitudes that had come to hear him preach. One commentator adds this little note, which I thought was interesting, about the topography around the lake shore there. He writes, along the lake shore, close to Capernaum, there is a sequence of steep inlets. a zigzagging shoreline with each inlet forming a natural amphitheater. To this day, if you get in a boat and push out a little from the shore, you can talk in quite a natural voice, and anyone on the slopes of the inlet can hear you clearly. More clearly, in fact, than if you were right there on the shore with them. So the shoreline provides a kind of a megaphone for Jesus as He preaches to the crowd. Another thing to note here, again these things go by when we're reading and sometimes we don't pause to pay attention, but notice that the content of Jesus' preaching is characterized as the Word of God. They've come to hear this carpenter from Nazareth speak the Word of God. Interesting, right? I mean, we come here to hear the Word of God because we have a culture in the church that believes that the Bible is the Word of God. And so when it's preached and taught, we are receiving the Word of God. And there's probably some of that at work here too. These people, perhaps many of them, were pious Jews. Remember we saw Anna and Simeon in the temple. I mean, we tend to identify all of the first century Jews with the Pharisees, the scribes, the skeptics, but there were godly Jews in Jesus' day. Maybe they'd heard him in the synagogue, or maybe they just heard about him, but they come with a certain expectation. This man is going to speak the word of God, and we want to hear that word of God. So when we think about what draws people to Jesus, certainly, No doubt they wanted perhaps to be witness to a miracle or something. But a lot of these people are hungering and thirsting for the Word of God and they have come to understand on some level that Jesus is the one who will give them that living Word of God. And so again, we're reminded of the divine authority of Jesus the Messiah. He's a man for all outward appearances, and yet He speaks the very words of God. And that's a challenge then. When we hear the Word of Scripture, or the Word of Christ as it's recorded in Scripture, do we hear the voice of the Creator of the universe? The one in whose image we have been created? I was thinking about, particularly with our pets, you know, there can be name recognition, I mean, voice recognition. I mean, they have voice recognition software now, right, and facial recognition software, but there can be a bunch of people speaking and then they hear their master's voice. It's like that old logo for EMI, you know, here's the megaphone and the dog is listening to the megaphone, he's listening to his master's voice. Do we hear the Creator's voice when we hear the word of Jesus Christ. Or is there no recognition? You know, one of the reproaches of Isaiah to the people of his own day was that the ox knows its owner, and the donkey knows its master's crib, but Israel does not know. They don't recognize me and my voice. Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir, so you would say, so this is all so obvious, why are you wasting time with it? But remember, we live in a world that is characterized as modern, by which we don't just mean the 21st century, but we mean the last 500 years. And the default setting for the people around us is, there is no God, And if there is, it is his or her or its responsibility to prove to me that I should pay attention. And so they come to the Bible with an immediate skepticism. And when you say you believe the Bible, they think you're an idiot. How can the word of men be the word of God? So you see, what is so obvious to us is so foolish to the world, and we're bumping up against it all the time, and I find Christians all the time, they're puzzled at the unbelief of the world. Why are we puzzled? They have been teaching themselves that there is no God, and if there is a God, he or she or it must convince me And I'll decide what will be persuasive to me. C.S. Lewis talked about putting God in the dock. In the English trial court system, the dock is where the accused stands. So God is accused. And he must prove himself. See, he's guilty until proven innocent. That's the way people today think. And we can drift into that too, because we hear all of this skepticism about the Bible and we think, well, you know, maybe it's really... Maybe it really isn't the Word of God. Maybe we have been wrong. Maybe we're overstating the case. And so you find even churches and pastors and theologians that start backing away from what the church has always understood the Bible to be teaching, not least in the question of sexual identity and sexual behavior, but in many other areas as well. And so the church has been affected by the skepticism of the world. And we don't come unreservedly saying, if the Bible teaches this, it is true. It is the word from God and is therefore not negotiable. The church in our day is negotiating everything away in order to gain or preserve some respectability with the unbelieving world. And so I emphasize this because what's really going on in that skepticism, it's Adam's sin all over again. Did God really say? No, he didn't really say. Here's a different word. Listen to that word. We're committed to the Bible as the Word of God because it comes on the authority of Jesus Christ who is God Himself. It is the Word of the Spirit of that God. And so, we can save ourselves a lot of heartache and a lot of energy trying to make peace with this skeptical world by simply reverting to what the world considers foolishness. The Bible says it. And that's it. And I'm obliged to believe it because it is the word of God. So these pious Jews, perhaps, and certainly some skeptics as well, want to see what this Jesus is all about. They come and they press in on Jesus. But at this early stage in his public ministry, despite the hostility of some, and we'll see it again here in these passages, Jesus' message and his miracles are immensely popular. There are people who see Jesus as being the answer that they've been looking for, or the person that they've been waiting for, or the very present help in their own times of trouble. On Wednesday night, we were thinking about the way in which God prepares some people for conversion. You know, we never know exactly when the Holy Spirit works in someone's heart, but sometimes He takes you down a path where you know that your life is wretched. And you know that no one has been able to help you. Matter of fact, you've learned that nobody even cares to help you, really. And there is no alternative but despair And then you hear the word of hope, the word of life, the word of God, which is in Jesus Christ, and you respond to that. For others, it's just like a slap up the side of the head, and boom, you're there, and everything in between. But these people recognize that Jesus is preaching a message that really is good news, and they respond to it, they come to hear Him. Well, then Luke tells us that Simon Peter, the professional fisherman, gets a fishing lesson from Jesus the Messiah. When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Now, I want you to think about being inconvenienced here. We've all had it happen, right? We leave home out in East Lake. We're driving to church. And Sherry says to me, or I say to her, I forgot. Well, where is it? I'm not picking on her, but maybe it's in her purse. No, it's not in her purse. So what do we have to do? Turn around. Now, I did this all by myself yesterday. I was driving down, and I remembered that I'd forgotten, so I had to go back again. Inconvenient. So these guys have been fishing all night. They've come ashore in the morning, they've taken their nets out of the boat, and they're washing them and preparing them again, and then Jesus shows up. I'm thinking that when Jesus got into the boat, those nets didn't get loaded into the boat again. So, the nets are on the shore, Jesus is in the boat. Now, again, I'm using a little imagination here, but Luke doesn't give us all these details. But I want you to think about how Odd it is that Peter does what Jesus says because it's so stinking inconvenient. Right? So he finishes his sermon. Maybe Peter and the others, I mean, they're listening. And we'll talk about that in a moment. But then Jesus says, push out into the deep. All right. So maybe the nets were there. Maybe they had to go back, get the nets into. And Peter says, you know, we've been doing this all night long. what Peter comes to understand, or understand afresh. I mean, this isn't a lucky guess on Jesus' part. And this is way before the day of fish finder sonar. You know, you go out on a commercial fishing boat, and they're looking at all the fish down there and everything. This is Jesus the Creator, who on the fifth day filled the seas with a teeming multitude of fish. Every single fish that has ever lived, every fish that's ever been caught, was created by Jesus and every gill movement and every dart back and forth. I mean, those of you who have fished, you know, it's not as easy as it looks, even if you've got a big net. Jesus is the creator God in the boat. Now, they'll see that again later on when Jesus stills a storm by His very word. But, you know, we read this stuff and we say, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. This is astonishing. This man from Nazareth, this carpenter, is the creator of all the fish in the sea, and he tells these professional fishermen who have fished all night And you know, oftentimes fishing is good at night, or in the very early morning, or late in the day. But you know, when I did my little bit of fishing in Northern California, you know, once the sun was high, you might as well go in, because those fish weren't going to bite. So they didn't have any better prospect if they went out after the sermon in the day. But here's the striking thing. At your word, we'll do it again. Inconvenient, maybe a little cuckoo-brained, but Jesus, if you say do it, we'll do it. Again, think about that. How many times does Jesus call upon you? You may not hear an audible voice, but you know that God's Word dictates a certain kind of behavior, and it may seem crazy to you. It may seem suicidal. But at your word, I will do what you command. See, that's really what discipleship is finally all about. Where you lead, I will follow. Where you command, I will obey. And so Peter says, all right, even at your word, we will obey. Jesus not only has authority, it's a kind of a compelling authority. It's kind of an odd illustration, but it's fresh in my mind. So we were watching the other day this new Dune movie. We didn't go see it, but it was free on HBO or something like that. And this mother is teaching her son how to use the voice. So when you speak with the voice, then people immediately have to obey. And it kind of sounds really spooky. It's the voice. Cher used to call it her teacher voice. You know, you can talk in a normal voice, you talk in a teacher voice, then the children obey. Well, every time Jesus speaks, it's the voice. At your word, we will obey. We'll cast out into the deep. And lo and behold, they catch more fish than anybody had ever caught in that lake. so full that their nets are almost ready to break. They have to call another boat with their partners who we find out are their friends who will also become disciples and come and help them. And then they fill these boats. So again, I don't know how big the boats were. I don't know how big the fish were, but you figure if your nets are about to break and you get help and your boats are about to sink, that's a lot of fish. I don't know what they were expecting, but they got way more than they expected. And it's interesting what Peter's response is. I mean, what would yours have been? Fished all night, washed your nets, Jesus says cast out. I mean, your expectations would be really low. Maybe you would even think, maybe we won't catch anything and that'll teach him a lesson. I'm the fisherman, he's not. and then overwhelmed with this catch of fish. You'd start calculating, wouldn't you? Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, this is how much I'm going to make when I sell these fish, and so on, so on, so forth. He falls down at Jesus' knees and begs for forgiveness. I am a sinful man. Is that how you would have responded? When God overwhelms you with a wonderful blessing, Certainly you thank Him for the blessing. But I wonder, when you're really, really sick, some of you have been really sick, and God has helped you, blessed you, you thank Him and you go back to business as usual, now I'm strong, I'm well, I'm back in the race. Does it ever convict you of your deep sinfulness? Because you know, you're the one that thinks most of the time by default, and I do the same thing, that you can manage your own life. You can take care of yourself. How often do we say to one another, we're offered help. No, I can handle it. Well, it's one thing when you say it to another human being, I can handle it. But when you say to God, I can handle it. That's sin. Now, Peter, we don't think, was a particularly wicked man, especially when we compare him with this tax collector coming up, but he is convinced of his deep sin and need because he's confronted with the majesty and the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, in this carpenter from Nazareth. He fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." I mean, it reminds me of Isaiah. In the sixth chapter, when Isaiah sees the glory of the Lord revealed in the temple, and he hears the angels crying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts! The whole earth is filled with His glory! And you know Isaiah's response, right? Woe is me! I'm falling apart! because I'm a man of unclean lips, unclean heart, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. Why? Because my eyes have seen the king. when we are confronted with the glory and the majesty of God, which should happen when we read the Scriptures, the Word of God, one of the responses has to be a broken-hearted confession that we are sinful. And more deeply and profoundly sinful than we ever imagined before. You don't get that from one another. We're pretty respectable people. We scrub up pretty nice. We know people that are much, much worse than we are. And so it's easy for a scoundrel to find somebody else who's more of a scoundrel than we are. And so comparing ourselves with one another, and especially the really bad people, the prostitutes and the drug abusers and so on, then we're not that bad. And again, I've said this before, that's the beginning of Phariseeism. That self-righteousness. That complacency. It says, I'm really not that bad. It means you can get used to your besetting sins. You can live with it. You can make peace with it. So, let's see ourselves in Peter's situation. Seeing the majesty of God. and being convicted by our sin. And of course, God's response to Isaiah was to send the angel to the altar with the coal to touch his lips and to purify his life. And although that's not recorded in the case of Peter, it was same for him. His sins are forgiven. You see, it's a broken and a contrite heart that receives forgiveness. I heard of a man the other day whose marriage has broken up. He's in counseling with a pastor. He actually cannot see that he has ever done anything wrong in his marriage. He hasn't been angry for 15 years. So he says. You see, that's the tendency. To harden our hearts. To minimize our need of grace. And if we don't need it, we won't seek it. And if we don't seek it, we won't find it. Depart from me. J.C. Ryle points out, if Peter had known a little bit more about the Gospel, he would have said, come to me. Not depart from me. Come to me. Save me. Help me. Rescue me. Forgive my sin. But of course, he received that forgiveness because he saw his need. And then God gives Simon a new vocation. He's a professional fisherman. Now he's going to become an apostolic evangelist. From now on, he says, you will be catching men. And not Peter alone, but also James and John and Andrew, those brothers and friends who were partners in this fishing business. And this great catch of fish is a signal, really, of what their ministry as evangelists is going to look like. From now on, you will be catching men, and we might just think about Peter in Acts, in chapter 2, when he becomes a full-time evangelistic preacher. And what happens after he preaches on the Day of Pentecost? Three thousand People come to faith in Jesus the Messiah. Later on in Acts chapter 4, those who heard the word believed. and the number of the men came to about 5,000. So the converts through this fisherman turned preacher evangelist are multiple. Later on in chapter 21 of Acts, James tells Paul that many thousands from among the Jews had come to faith in Jesus the Messiah. And if you jump to the book of Revelation, it talks about a great multitude that no one can number from every nation and tribe and kindred and people. See, the harvest was given. The great catch of fish was given. And Peter and the other apostles are going to be instrumental in gathering that in. And the story is not finished yet. We still think in our own day of how many countless souls there are that are perishing in darkness. I was listening to an old hymn this morning, Send the Light. Send the Light, because multitudes are dying in darkness. Send the Light. Send the Light. So many that need salvation, and we need to be more active in spreading that Word. You know, it's not just the apostolic call for Peter and those others that are like him, but all of us in a more general way are called to send the Light. to speak those words. And we've been thinking about that, challenging ourselves about that, those of us who are participating on Wednesday nights. And then Jesus says, follow me. Follow me. And immediately, these fishermen leave the catch of a lifetime presumably, in the boats, and they follow Jesus. There's none of this, well, let's count the fish first, and then we'll follow you. Let's take them to the marketplace. Let's get the money and put it in the bank, and then we'll follow you. He calls them, and they leave everything, we're told, and they follow Him. The call to follow. Now, I want to just note something here for you because these are the kinds of things that skeptics like to point out. You know, inconsistencies in the gospel, contradictions between the narratives, and when you think about it, there may have been, oh well, there were, there was previous contact between Jesus and these fishermen. When we read John, John the Evangelist tells us that John the Baptist had disciples among whom were Simon and Andrew. And in chapter one of John's gospel, John says to two of these disciples, he points to Jesus, remember, and he says, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. And the two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus. Then later on, verse 41, of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ, and he brought Peter to Jesus, or Simon to Jesus, and Jesus changed his name from Simon to Cephas, to Peter. Luke and John don't confer about their chronology or how to harmonize them, and there have been different scholars that have tried to fit these together, but what's probably going on here at the Sea of Galilee is more, not so much a conversion, as a vocation, a calling. Alright, so I'm following Jesus, I'm listening to Him, He's the Messiah. We're told in John 2 that these disciples may well have been, or may have been among those that were at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee along with Jesus. My only point is not to try to sort out these differences, but just to say that's not the main point. The point is that there had been a certain amount of preparation. And so we think about how we follow Jesus. It may come in stages. Following Jesus when you're a young family and raising children is going to look like one thing. When you're shuttling teenagers around the world, it might look like something else. When you were working full-time in your paid vocation, it might have one view, but then when you get to be a geezer like me, you know, the kids are gone and the grandchildren are far away, and then vocation looks different. So again, be aware and be sensitive to, and Sherry and I were growing up through our marriage, you know, we sort of had five year plans. What's our plan for the next five years? And then the five years after that, five years, not any homage to Joseph Stalin, but the idea is life is going to change. And of course, sometimes it changes without warning within the five year window. And then what? And of course now we're struggling. So what's the next five years going to look like in terms of my ministry and all of those kinds of things? So, but that's okay. Jesus is taking us, but the point is when Jesus says, follow me, follow me. Hear the word at your word, we'll go out and catch fish at your word. We'll follow you. We'll obey you wherever you lead. Well, now let's jump down to verse 27, where we see why Jesus got the reputation of being a friend of tax collectors and sinners. I love that phrase. It's supposed to be a reproach. Oh, you know that Jesus, He's a friend of tax collectors and sinners. And the poor tax collector and sinner says, yeah, that's the sweetest news I've ever heard in my life. that Jesus is a friend of sinners. 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. Now, you've probably been told before, so we don't need to dwell on it, but tax collectors were politically suspect there in first century Palestine. They were collaborators. They worked for Rome or for Herod, who was a Roman puppet governor. And so just like tax collectors today, But you see, if we paid taxes, it's bad enough to pay taxes through the IRS to the American government, but what if we had to pay taxes to the government of Russia or Iran, and there was somebody collecting taxes from you from Russia? Boy, you think you're upset about masks and social distancing. Now, that's really something that could get your blood up. Well, these people were agents of the Roman imperial authority, which was hated anyway. And so they were considered to be traitors to their people, traitors to their nation. And on top of that, they were religiously and socially outsiders. Because of their fraternization with these Gentiles, they were considered probably unclean. So that's where the masking and the social distancing comes in. You see, you stay away from these unclean tax collectors. They can hang out with one another, but don't let them into your house. Don't befriend them as one of your acquaintances. And that's before you get to the idea that tax collectors were often just flat cheats. They were extortionists. They had the power of the state behind them, and so they could squeeze every last denarii out of you. And so immediately, this idea that here's a tax collector. He didn't go to the synagogue, didn't go to the temple. He went to the tax collector's table. Now we're probably back in Capernaum, downtown perhaps. Matthew probably strategically positioned his table at the heart of this port city. Remember we said that Capernaum was a fishing village and it was also close to the international trade routes and so forth, so it was a good place to collect taxes. In the hub of this community, no doubt, Matthew got to watch a lot of what was going on in town and hear about other goings on. And so as Jesus began his ministry there in Capernaum, Matthew may well have heard about this young prophet from Nazareth. And then there he is, boom, standing in front of his tax table in the flesh. And Jesus only has, he's not going to discuss the tax rate or his tax bracket. Again, follow me. Follow me. And we're told that Matthew left everything. Boy, wasn't he going to get in trouble with the boss if he left all that money on the table and followed Jesus? The point is, Jesus' command is so compelling it must be obeyed. He must be followed. And here, there's no apparent preparation in earlier encounters between Levi and Jesus. And again, it's so important for us to underscore this point, that the call of Jesus is not simply a call to believe certain things, which again, is the way it's so often presented. We call ourselves believers, don't we? And that's okay, but it's too bad we don't call ourselves disciples anymore, because a disciple is a follower. And that's really what Jesus is calling. Yes, you have to believe certain things, or you won't follow. But if you don't follow, your believing is empty and vain. James says that if you say that you believe, but you don't live it out in your life, then your faith is just a matter of empty words. Jesus makes an absolute demand upon our whole life. It's a radical discipleship. John Murray points out that the invitation is more of a summons. When you get summons to court, you're not at liberty to say, no, it's not convenient, I'm not going to go. You show up. because the authority of the court is behind that summons. Well, here's Jesus saying, follow me. No, I don't think so. I'm too busy. No, He leaves everything and follows. And it calls for complete loyalty. A complete makeover, if you will, of your life and of your person. Jesus has to be everything to us, or He's nothing to us. Now, I know on one level we all believe these things, but does it change our life? You know, I got it easy, because I ended up, like Peter, and as it turns out, like Matthew, where my life calling involved studying the Bible a lot, and coming to church all the time, and talking to people about the Lord. That's why you support me. I give that. My life is ministry. Your have many other things pulling you in many different directions. And I sometimes think, if I wasn't a pastor, what kind of a Christian would I be? What kind of a disciple? If I wasn't in the deep end of ministry professionally all the time, would I be like many of you where it's a little bit of Jesus, a little bit on Sunday, and then there's the rest of your life? Not many conversations, not much time in the Word. I mean, am I a Christian because I'm getting paid to be a Christian? Well, you want a scary thought, mull that one over for a moment. Now again, God doesn't call all of us to leave our fishing or leave our tax collecting and follow Him into ministry as such, but He does call all of us to follow Him every single day and to love Him more than we love the world, more than we love our families, including our grandchildren, more than we love our jobs, more than we love our country. More than we love our prosperity and peace and security. Remember Jesus put it to Peter late in life after Peter had caved in, right? Do you love me more than these? Well Lord, you know. So that's the call. In the Christian West, so to speak, the implications of responding to Jesus' call may not be so dramatic. You know, in the Muslim world, if you decide to follow Jesus, you have to change your name, so that everybody can identify you. It's like having it on your driver's license. that you are a Christian and you are a non-person as far as the society goes. But even in our setting, you can lose family ties if you really get serious about following Jesus. They're not going to invite you over anymore. They're not going to want to talk to you about anything other than trivialities. I mean, some of you are thinking right now about Thursday and family gatherings where there's going to be lots of happy conversation, but if you say anything about your faith, it's going to get so quiet so fast. See, they don't care what's essential to you. You're supposed to hide it under a bushel so that you can get along with your world. And most of us, most of the time, are willing to go along. That's not what Jesus has called us to. A complete, radical discipleship. We are called to follow, to obey, to serve with all our heart, with all our souls, with all our strength, with all our mind. And as James said, if we don't, then our faith is but empty talk. Now when that call comes, Some respond like Matthew did and like the fishermen did and others don't, right? They're just not interested. What makes the difference? Well, Jesus says elsewhere, many are called, few are chosen. Now again, the person who doesn't want to heed the call, he'll say, well, how do I know I'm chosen? That's not the question to ask. It's when I'm called, do I follow? If I follow, I'm chosen. If I say, no, I'm not going to follow until I find out if I'm chosen, then you're not. You're lost in your sins. The Spirit works in the heart to make us receptive to that outward call of the Gospel. And that's why some of us respond. We hear the voice of Christ and we follow Him. Well, Matthew was so enthusiastic. And again, Luke doesn't tell us anything about further conversations with Jesus, but there had to be more as Matthew began to follow Jesus. But his enthusiasm is so great that he decides he's going to throw a party. And he does so immediately. Levi made a great feast in his house, and there were a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with him. So again, he gets his unclean group of traitors together, and they invite Jesus over for the party. How crazy is that? But apparently, seeing what had happened to Matthew, interested some of his friends as well. And so they came, a large company of them. Now, why were the Pharisees there? They were the clean ones, they were the holy ones. Well, they were there simply to complain. Complain about Jesus, but as is so often the case, they don't go and talk to Jesus about it, they talk to his disciples about it. The Pharisees said, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are weak. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Jesus responds with a kind of a common sense observation, right? Those who are well have no need of a physician. You don't go to the doctor if you're not sick, right? You hardly go if you are sick. But if there's nothing wrong, don't fix it. So Jesus says, you know, if I was living among well people, nobody would be coming to me. And then he sort of follows it with a sort of mission statement. I have come That's my purpose in entering into the world. I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." And here again you have that great reversal that's at the heart of Jesus' kingdom mission. The first will be last, the high will be low, the low will be high, the people who think they are well will die, and the people who know they are sick will live. He's turning everything upside down and inside out. Those who consider themselves to be well, like this guy, haven't been angry in 15 years. My wife doesn't want to be married to me, and I can't imagine why, because I am practically perfect in every way. But with no giggles, serious, straight-faced, there's nothing wrong with me. I don't need a doctor. I certainly don't need a Savior. And so, invite me to church until you're blue in the face. Tell me about your faith until you've lost your breath. I don't care. I don't need it. That's Jesus' point. And you all have people in your life like that. You were like that at one point. Probably many of you. Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified, knowing not it was for me He died at Calvary. But the sick, like Peter, down on his knees, Lord have mercy upon me. They need the physician. They come to the physician and they get the healing. And that's really what we're faced with when we hear the call as we hear it again this morning. Do I really believe that I'm okay? I might even admit there are a few things that are wrong with me, but not as much as are wrong with other people, and I can fix it myself. I'll go to anger management classes and deal with my anger. Or I'll go to a substance abuse program and deal with my substance abuse. And we talked last Sunday night about original sin. It's a heart issue. You don't just fix behavior. You need a new heart. We all need that. And that comes when we hear the Word of Christ, and it registers, Lord, I am a sinful person, and You're the only one that can fix me. And those people come to the doctor. And these tax collectors, Matthew at least, and maybe some other tax collectors that were there, and the lepers, and the prostitutes, and the demon possession, everyone else who encountered Jesus and responded by faith received healing. And those who thought they were fine won't realize that they're not fine until they stand before God on that great and terrible day of judgment. They might even say, God, I see you in all your holiness, and I have to tell you, I didn't think I was that bad. And he'll say, depart from me into everlasting darkness. Some of you have had this feeling, I'm sure, whether you admit it or not. You weren't feeling really well, but you thought if you didn't go to the doctor and he told you you were sick, maybe you weren't really sick. Mind games, yeah. If I go to the doctor and he tells me I have cancer, then I have cancer. But if I have cancer and I don't go to the doctor and he doesn't tell me I have cancer, then I... Oh no, wait a minute, that doesn't work. See, if we wait till judgment day to find out that we are desperately sick, it's too late. And so the call for us again. is to hear and to respond. He left everything and followed, not just believed in, but followed Jesus. He restructured. And for someone like Matthew, restructuring your life was a comprehensive kind of thing. So who are those that make up the core group of this Jesus movement? Well, they're ordinary sinners, or maybe an extraordinary sinner here and there like you and me. And I wonder, where do you see yourself? Are you like Peter? Pretty respectable? Needing to see the glory of God in a fresh way? Or maybe like Matthew, where you really know you're a traitor, and a cheat, and an extortionist, and you're sad that nobody will be your friend. and Jesus comes to befriend you, or somewhere in between. The point is that if God brings us to see that we are needy, then we'll come to the physician, and the good news is he will never say, no, I'm sorry, too busy, no room for you. Say, come, welcome, and receive the blessings of salvation. Lord, we thank you for calling afresh today We are professing believers, we are church members for the most part. It's so easy for us to come Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and receive some kind of benefit emotionally or intellectually from the worship, singing your praises, hearing the ministry of your Word. Don't let us fail to hear that deeper call to a comprehensive radical discipleship. Forgive us for being too much at home with the unbelieving world, too at ease in our unbelieving workspaces or classrooms, too much in love with family members and friends that hate you. For if we are not for you, we are against you. There's no middle ground. And for us who are trying to follow you faithfully and going through changes in our life where following you may look like not fishing for fish anymore and starting to do something very different, may our concern to be your servants in your kingdom be paramount and then follow you wherever you might take us and whatever that might look like. If it turns out to be harder than what we've experienced in the past, then give us grace to soldier on faithfully and loyally. If it turns out to be easier, then we praise you and thank you for that as well. But it's following Jesus that we want most because that's how we gain the benefits of this great physician who has come to save us from our sins and to give us eternal life. Thank you for this passage. Thank you for a few minutes to reflect upon it. Holy Spirit, will you open our hearts, write it there upon the tablets of our hearts that we might know it, indeed and in truth for the glory and praise of our Savior. Amen.