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Good morning. It's a joy to be with you all today to bring God's Word, although I wish the circumstances were better that your pastor, Pastor Wakeland, was feeling better. So let's all continue to lift him up in prayer throughout the day. That being said, God's Word is inspired. It is alive. It is our only authority for life and godliness. And we're going to be reading in Mark chapter 2, verses 13 through 17 today. And I picked this passage because I'd been going through Mark at various times filling in at Covenant. And in God's providence, this was the very next passage that I was preparing to preach at Covenant. So, you'll hear this word today. Let us listen together. Mark 2, 13-17. He, that is Jesus, went out again beside the sea. And all the crowd was coming to Him, and He was teaching them. And as He passed by, He saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth. And He said to him, Follow Me. And he rose and followed Him. And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. For there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You that Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path. We thank You, O Lord, that Your law is wise. It converts the soul. As we read in Your Word today, Lord, we see both law and gospel. And Lord, as we see how the law affects our hearts, how it drives us to Christ, may we indeed rest upon Him for His salvation. If we do not know Him, that You would lead those who do not know Him as Your Word is preached. to fly to Christ, that they might find rest for their souls. And Lord, for those of us who do know Him in this room, that we might grow and profit by what is shared, that Your Word would be whether reproof or correction or training in righteousness, that all of us may be equipped for every good work. Guide me as I give the Word today, as I preach it. Open the ears and hearts of the hearers. Give us attentive minds, attentive ears. Give us undivided hearts to revere Your name. We praise You this day in Jesus' name. Amen. There's a Bible commentator named William Barkley that tells a story about a church in the Dock District in Old London. And Barclay relates that there was a woman who lived there who had had a child out of wedlock with a Chinese man. Needless to say, at the time, which was Victorian England, not only was such an out of wedlock child against God's Word, but it created almost double the scandal as it would in our time. The woman was often shunned. One day, she came to a ladies meeting at the church. And she really prospered. And her attention was wrapped by the teaching which she received as the ladies were opening the Scriptures around the table. And she returned week after week. Until one day, the vicar of the church, in England they would often call a vicar a minister who stood in the place of a bishop, The vicar came to her and said, the ladies say they will not keep coming unless you stop coming. And upon hearing that, the woman was emotionally upset and she asked why. And the vicar explained her background and what she had done. And she said, Pastor, I know I am a sinner, but where can a poor sinner like me go? It's quite an outcry, is it not? Of course, the lady had sinned by the out of wedlock child. This we know. We would be wrong not to hold her up to God's authority, but to reject her at the very place where she could find the hope of repentance and change. And for a pastor to ask her to leave, it turns all of our stomachs, doesn't it? It turns mine. It makes me a bit queasy. And that is because as we look at our Savior Jesus Christ, as we look at His compassion set forth in this passage, we see a friend of sinners, one who calls sinners to repentance, one who seeks and saves the lost, who befriends them so that they might find repentance and they might find hope. Where can a poor sinner go? A poor sinner can go to Jesus Christ. And he can go to Jesus Christ, or she can go to Jesus Christ, because Jesus calls such a person. He calls us sinners before we believed. And that is the gist of our passage this morning. And that leads us to our proposition. And the base of that proposition is that Jesus calls sinners, but in our passage at play this morning, Jesus effectually calls even the most notorious sinners. And they follow Him. And the reason that they follow Him is that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Jesus calls even the most notorious sinners, and they follow Him. And the reason they follow Him is that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. We're going to see this in two main points. The first point is that when Jesus effectually calls even the most notorious sinners, they follow Him. Verses 13 and 14, and you will see why I use the term effectual calling in a moment. When Jesus calls even the most notorious of sinners, they follow Him. And then our second main point, second sub-point rather, is that Jesus came not to call the righteous, but He came to call sinners. to repentance. And so, going back now to our first main point, when Jesus calls the most notorious sinners, they follow Him. And so, verse 13, He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to Him, and He was teaching them. And as He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth. Previously in Mark chapter 2 and at the end of Mark chapter 1, we just witnessed a scene where Jesus is going around healing people of various diseases. He had just healed a paralytic. He was healing, yes, but the main reason that he came out, we read in Mark chapter 1, was to preach the good news that the kingdom of God was at hand to repent and to believe the gospel. He was preaching the good word that those who heard it might be saved. And so, He had attracted quite a gathering throng, even so much so that they were following Him from the shore of one side of the lake to the next. And even now, they had followed Him back to Capernaum, which was His home base of operations. And having just left the house where He healed the paralytic in Capernaum, Jesus is passing by preaching. And as He passes by, He sees a man named Levi. a Jewish man named Levi. And Levi was a tax collector. He was a tax collector, most scholars say, not directly for the Romans, but one who was working for Herod Antipas, who was the Jewish king who was a vassal king underneath the Roman emperor. And then, of course, with Pontius Pilate as the governor procurator under the Roman emperor. That being said, Levi as a tax collector was one who was not only about his business, but upon hearing the Word of God, hearing the Word of Jesus, as Jesus passed by, it produced faith in him. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. We know that about those who hear the gospel who are called, who are effectually called, who are enabled by Christ to place true faith in the Savior. But Levi, what's distinctive about Levi? We've already seen that Jesus passed by. If you remember Mark 1, you remember that He called Peter and then James and John out of their fishing boats and they followed. Those whom he affectionately called followed, but Levi, what is distinctive about this story? What's distinctive is this. Levi, as a tax collector, was ranked among notorious sinners. Much like the woman with whom I opened this message, tax collectors like Levi, we don't know the extent to which Levi himself was engaged in this type of corruption, but tax collectors like Levi were guilty not only of collecting taxes, which was not wrong in and of itself, but they were guilty of lining their pockets, collecting excess taxes so that their pockets might be padded, so that they might profit off the tax collection. And as a result, they royally stressed out all those who were around them, distressing them because the common people did not know just how much tax they would collect, just how much goes Just how much goes to Herod Antipas, and just how much goes to the pocket of the individual tax collector to the level of corruption. They did not know that. And so, tax collectors were despised. And they were despised partly out of righteous anger, because they were engaging in corruption. Many in the Jewish temple complex were rightly incensed by what the tax collectors were doing. But in addition to sinning, which was bad enough in and of itself, they were looked upon as a lower class in society. There was a Greek man named Lucian. And Lucian says, lumps tax collectors all together with this lot. He lumps them with adulterers, philanderers, and sycophants. I think many of us today, perhaps even unrighteously, even though the IRS is not guilty of lining pockets, we have a certain disdain for tax collectors. I'm not saying it's right, but I think we can relate. But having said that, as a sinner in this category, Levi would have faced rejection from peers. He would have faced scorn. He would have had no place to go. scorned from religious leaders, scorned from peers. Partly if there was righteous anger, there was no sin there. But if it came to the level of hatred, to where these folks around him did not stoop, to call him to repentance, to explain faith in the Messiah to come. And now that Jesus is here, faith in Christ. In so far as he did not properly explain and try to reach Levi, these people around him sinned. And what effects does sin have? Well, regardless of whether Levi was guilty of excessive pocket lining like his fellow tax collectors, we know that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We know that. And we know that sin produces misery. One of the effects of sin that our shorter catechism says, by our fall into sin, we're liable to the miseries of this life and to the pains of hell forever. You may remember how miserable the psalmist was in Psalm 32, and I'll read a segment of that for you there too. Psalm 32. David talks about when he kept silent, his bones wasted away. Through all my groaning all day long, night and day, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as in the heat of summer. Jesus refers to sinners as those who are weary and who are heavy laden. And so Jesus is passing by, giving this message of good news to a man rejected by virtue of what he did for a living. And as many say, guilty of this pocket-lining sin. We don't know. But he was guilty. Guilty as all of us are in our sins before we know Christ. And so Jesus did something. He reached out and He called to Levi. And He said, follow Me. And it's said in verse 14, "...and Jesus rose and immediately followed him." It's just as if he was there one minute and just up and following him the next. It was just like clockwork. And why is that? What is going on here? Well, it is because that Levi was effectually called by Christ to salvation where he was. I told you I was going to explain effectual calling. Effectual calling, our Shorter Catechism says, is a work of God's Spirit whereby our minds are enlightened and our wills are renewed and we are freely enabled and persuaded to embrace Christ as He is freely offered in the Gospel. It's a work of God's Spirit whereby our minds are enlightened and our wills are renewed and we are enabled to embrace Christ as He is freely offered in the Gospel. Levi, as all sinners are, was wedded to his sins. He was a slave to sin. And when Christ called, He enabled him through the preached Word, and also by virtue of the fact that he was Christ, by the operation of His Holy Spirit. As Titus 3, verses 4 through 5 said, he was cleansed by the washing of regeneration, the renewal of the Holy Spirit. Not by works that he had done, Levi, also called Matthew, I may have vacillated back and forth between his name and different Gospels. Levi could have no way of escape from his sins. He could not hope to earn heaven or forgiveness. But Christ passed by, effectually called him, and he repented. He followed Christ. And why is that? Why? It's because he found something better in Christ. Something better than his sins. Something lovely. His heart was sprinkled with clean water. And rather than being a heart of stone, wedded to the things of the earth and to the flesh, the things of sin and to the flesh, He was betrothed to a new bridegroom, Jesus Christ. And He found something better than His own tax booth, and so He left His tax booth. It's like the pearl of great price. Jesus compares to receiving the gospel of this. Our minds are enlightened by the truths of the gospel. We see it as a great pearl. And so we sell all that we have so that we would find that great pearl. And so the most hated man, one of the most hated men in all of Galilee, finds the grace of Christ. Or rather, Christ's grace finds him. And so, he places his faith after having been effectually called and regenerated in Christ. And his sins are forgiven following Christ. And so, it shows us the beauty of Christ's call and His grace, does it not? And so, I have to ask you this morning, have you been convinced of your own sin and misery? Have you felt the weight of your own sins? Groaning under them perhaps? Even sinners who don't believe in Christ, due to the effects of their sin, the social effects, the physical effects may want change. They may want freedom. And in that pain, in that groaning and being heavy laden, Have you found the One who is a better way? Jesus Christ. Have you found the beauty of Christ? One who is so beautiful that you cannot help but take up His call. For His call is so powerful, it is irresistible. Having seen His beauty, He will change your heart so as to want to follow Him. All that the Father gives to me will come to me, Jesus says. And He who comes to me, I will never drive away. There's the old African-American proverb that I liked growing up from the South. I saw Jesus and my hands looked new. My feet did too. It's as if we've been given a new lens we believe in Christ. Do you know that? No doubt, Matthew, if he was indeed guilty, or Levi, if he was indeed guilty, would have found it hard to leave his corruption and his profits, P-R-O-F-I-T-S, if he was guilty. Because he was getting indulgences of a certain degree. He was getting certain fleshly comforts that stealing would have given him. In and of himself, he could not give up this tax booth. But with Christ, seeing His beauty, As Thomas Chalmers says, the great Scottish Presbyterian minister, he's experienced the expulsive power of a new affection. And so I ask you this morning, if there is some secret sin that you are loathe to give up, if you feel trapped in that sin, I'm here to offer you good news, my friends, that a look to Christ, a look to His beauty, hearing His Word, having Him call you, seeing that He He who comes to Him, He will never cast out. Here in the Gospel news, that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, there is a way out for you. There is a way out. You who are feeling unworthy and hated and unwanted, Christ will say to you, like He said to the baby representing the tribes of Israel in the book of Ezekiel, lying in the blood of your sin, live. Live. Christ will do that for you. There is hope. And then you will get up and follow Him. There is a way out for you if you hear this message this morning. So that's the good news. When Jesus effectually calls even the most notorious sinners, they follow Him. And our second main point is Jesus calls not the righteous but sinners to repentance. Jesus calls not the righteous but sinners to repentance. So, Luke's Gospel tells us that it was Levi, after he rose and followed Jesus, he took Jesus either to his own house or to Levi's house and there Levi prepared a great banquet. And he invited other people who were following Jesus, sinners and tax collectors, to dine with Jesus. And Jesus, of course, joined them joyfully. And we see in verse 15, And as Jesus reclined at table in His house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and His disciples. For there were many who followed Him. Many who followed Jesus. Perhaps they followed Jesus effectually. Jesus called them effectually and they were enabled to embrace Christ as He was offered in the gospel and that's why they were there. Perhaps others followed because it says in our confession that there are those who are called in an outward sense who have common operations of the Spirit that seek Christ's beauty but that aren't effectually saved. Maybe they were there for that reason. For it says in the Scriptures that many are called, but few are chosen." In Matthew 22, verse 14. Whatever reason they were there, they saw something magnetic in Jesus. And no doubt, many were turned to place faith in the Savior who were truly effectually called. True saving faith. They saw something better in Christ. And so Jesus was reclining at table. He not only was preaching the Word, but the beauty of this passage, my friend, is that he was not only calling sinners to repentance, but he was investing in them. Investing in a real ministry of presence. In that day and age, one of the most intimate things that persons could do is to share table fellowship, to recline with people. They often would lie on each other's bosoms. Near Eastern culture in the ancient world was much more intimate. You know, we come from an Anglo-Western European background in the United States. And we're a little more distant. We're friendly. Some of us Americans are the most friendly of all, I think, perhaps, in the Western world. But we're not as intimate as those in the ancient Near East. But Jesus was actually reclining with these sinners. staying with them, sitting quite close to them, sharing a meal. And no doubt, he was teaching, sharing certain spiritual truths. Just loving on people, as we say in the South, southern hospitality, Jesus by far excelled southern hospitality. If we in the South love on people, feed them well, take care of them. How much greater can you imagine Jesus was good at hospitality? And then, of course, Levi who had repented. How much greater can you imagine he was? So caring for sinners, caring for those. And who were these others? Well, they were fellow tax collectors and sinners like Levi. Caring for those whom the world hated. Caring for those who were despised, guilty of the most heinous sins. Eating and drinking with them. It's a beautiful scene as we imagine Christ ministering to us and caring for us when we were unsaved, spiritually speaking, by His Holy Spirit and by the Word preached. But Jesus was in the room with them. But, there comes a problem. In every beautiful scene in this fallen world, there's always a problem, is there not? The Pharisees, the scribes of the Pharisees rather, Those who are responsible for transcribing the Scriptures of the party of the Pharisees came in and they said of Jesus, when they saw Him eating with tax collectors and sinners, why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners? Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, He said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." It's often sad that those who are supposed to be leaders do not recognize the grace of God. In that area, the grace of God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving sin and iniquity. They did not understand the shepherding heart of God. And they look with disdain on a rabbi who was trying to reach out to help those who were struggling and suffering under the weight of their sin. They forgot, the scribes and the Pharisees did, that there is no one righteous. No, not one. And the very psalm in Psalm 130 verse 3 that says that the Lord should mark iniquities who should stand. And they forgot the very hallmark of the faith that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. That we cannot stand on our own. If the Lord can mark iniquities, who could stand? But in order to be righteous, we have to believe in One who justifies the ungodly. They had forgotten that they and their ancestors were like that baby Israel, wallowing in His blood, whom God rescued from their sins. Not because of work that they have done. God says in Deuteronomy, not because of what you have done. But repeatedly, God says in the Old Testament, because of His grace, His great grace alone, showering it upon those who are undeserving. For by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourselves, not of works. It is the gift of God, lest any man should boast. And so Jesus reprimands them. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." He came to call sinners just where they were. To call them out of it. To receive them as they were. And then in receiving them as they were, to transform their hearts. That's what grace is. To transform their hearts away from their sins into faith in the Savior. Jesus, as a good doctor, compares Himself to a physician. He sees their illnesses. not just illnesses, but were dead in sins and trespasses and illness unto death. He sees their illness and He looks with compassion like He looked at Jerusalem wanting to gather Jerusalem under His wings like a mother hen did her chicks in that case. But Jesus being the Son of God sees straying sheep and He wants to embrace them, to bring them back to where they have wandered on a day of clouds and thick darkness, that they may be part of His fold, those who have been called. And the sad news is that the scribes and Pharisees, the scribes of the Pharisees rather, did not recognize that they were among the sinners themselves. Because if Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, you see, if we, like the scribes of the Pharisees, think we are righteous, we cannot be saved. because we're trusting in ourselves for our salvation. We're looking to ourselves. We who have fallen and must pay the penalty that no man can pay to make up for our sins. It's a penalty that only Christ can pay, justifying us by His grace as a gift. You know, it's like the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, another tax collector. The tax collector beat his breast and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, as we should all beat our breasts. And the Pharisee says, Lord God, I thank you that I am not like other men. I fast. I give a tenth of all of my income. Boasted of his own righteousness. And Jesus says that it's the tax collector who came home justified and not the Pharisee in this case. And so I say to you now by way of application, my friends, do you recognize that Jesus is the great physician of souls? Has He been that great physician to your soul? Do you recognize that outside of Christ you are spiritually impoverished? That you are dead in your sins? That you are black in sins? The original Greek says, those who are doing poorly or badly. There's a level of badness in the meaning of sick. that you are unrighteous, that there's no hope for you outside of Christ. And seeing that, do you see your own need of a Savior to clothe you with an alien righteousness, to change your heart? And if you do see this, and maybe if you've seen it for the first time, as I've said before, turn to Christ. He can rescue you out of this blackness. But this particular application for all of us, for those of us that know Jesus, I have to ask you now, what characterizes your own heart when you see sinners being ministered to? When you see the most egregious characters being ministered to? Do you see them with disdain? Do you see them as a lower class? like those guilty in this English church that I opened the sermon with? Or do you see them as potential recipients of grace, those whom God may call? And are you happy that even though Jesus has now risen in heaven, that ministers of the Word are reaching out to them? Do you delight to see that they're being reached? If you don't, At your worst, you stand in danger of maybe not being saved because at the worst sense, if you think that you and of yourself can bring something to justify you, to have the level of hubris to say that you are greater than those who are below you, that in some way you are deserving, you forget that did you receive the gospel by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard. It's a dangerous forgetfulness. It may show that you do not have grace, that you don't understand that you yourself need grace, that it's only by your other unworthiness that you are saved. And so, call out to Jesus to save you. And if you know this, but maybe we go through seasons where, like the Galatians, we forget just what we were like before we were saved. We forget we were rescued. We become smug. We become... It's easy to do. Pride goeth before a fall. We need to ask God to send us repentance for our own hearts. Because we need to be reminded that we need Christ's forgiveness every day. If we say we have no sin, His truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We need to be reminded of our own weaknesses. As Paul said, I was talking with a church member here before we started the service, Even ministers and preachers need to be reminded that God's grace is sufficient for you, for us, because His power is made perfect in our weakness. We need to remember that. Because we're saved by grace, sealed by the Holy Spirit. We are kept by grace. No man can pluck us out of Jesus' hand. And on the occasions when we stumble and sin, they're reminders of us to look up. to look up to Christ, not to be too big for our britches, as we say down south, but to recognize that there's only one who can fill the divine britches or wear the divine robe, and that is Jesus Christ. He's our Savior, and He rescues us, and He keeps us, disciplines us as a father, reminds us of our weakness, that in Him we may find strength. He reminds us of our stinginess of spirit and changes us that we may be remembered to show and to have love for others. Recognizing that in our poverty we have wealth, and in the poverty of others they may too truly come to know the grace of Christ. And that's beautiful, my friends. That is the good news. That's why the gospel is so good. And I have one other point of application for you. having known your own poverty, having known my own poverty, all of our poverty before Christ. Do you take the initiative in Jesus? And do you spread the gospel to those who do not know Him? Do you invest personally in those who are downtrodden? Do you invest in those who are mired in sin? Do you befriend them? Do you take them out for a meal? Do you seek to make friends with the unsaved? If not, today is your day to begin to recognize that there are those hurting out there who need Christ's grace. And remember your own hurt. Remember from where you came. And if you're timid about doing that, that's where the grace of Christ comes in as well. He'll enable you. He'll equip you. Just call upon Him and ask Him. to give you boldness. Because if you have this Spirit you have, we have this boldness within ourselves, this care. And He'll do it. And if not, if you have not the Spirit, ask Him to save you and give you that Spirit. He will do so. He will do so. He will make your heart expansive rather than contracted on yourself. That's what the grace of Christ does. And so call on Jesus. He who will make you worthy. Call on Him. He who sees your poverty. He who gives wealth, spiritual wealth. He who fills you. He who forgives you. He who is a great friend of sinners. And He will befriend you. Amen.
Jesus, What a Friend of Sinners!
Sermon ID | 59182345218 |
Duration | 35:08 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Bible Text | Mark 2:13-17 |
Language | English |
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