If you have a copy of Scripture, I invite you to open up to Luke 5, verses 27 through 32. This evening I'm starting a new series. There's enough times where I'm preaching close enough that I can actually do that, which is very exciting. And I'm starting this new series, which is Meals with Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Now, the irony is not lost on me of what we did just yesterday as a denomination. We fasted, and that is right, that is good. This series in no way is trying to be underhanded about that, but Nevertheless, I remember being in seminary and a professor telling us that the New Covenant people are a feasting people, that we are marked by feasting, and though we can fast, that's not what marks us. It's not sorrow, but joyful feasting. And so, in the spirit of that, it's amazing to look at all of the times that Jesus eats and that meals show up in the Bible. Almost at the beginning of every single covenant, as Wayne was talking about with Abraham, on Mount Sinai with Moses, at the Last Supper with the New Covenant, and then as we looked at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Revelation. We are a people marked by feasting, And those are the themes I'm wanting us to look at as I preach about seven sermons in Luke, looking at times Jesus eats with others. And so, if you have a copy of scripture, look with me at Luke 5, verses 27 through 32. After this, he 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. Will you pray with me? Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray this evening that through your word we could see, as Mr. Bierling said, both our need for grace as well as that of others, that we are all in dire need of a Savior to come near to us, to heal the sick, to bind us up, to forgive us for our sins, Lord. And I pray that through this text, you would magnify yourself, and that you would be magnified in our hearts, Lord, that we would delight in you, and that though there are parts that we may be convicted by this text, that we would ultimately be encouraged by the truth of the gospel, Lord, the truth that we do have a good and righteous Savior who is drawn near to us. And I pray this in Christ Jesus' name, amen. What makes a meal? Think back on some of the best meals that you've ever had. What are the things that stand out? Was it expertly curated and prepared food, whether it's by a master chef or simply grandma? Was it some tremendous service that you had at a restaurant? Was it maybe a wonderful location, even if it was a simple picnic with your wife in the park, or a beautiful restaurant overlooking the mountain range, or some seas, not mountains here, obviously. And all these things, we would probably say, help contribute to making a meal good. But at the end of the day, none of these things truly get at what the essence of a meal is. See, in one of my favorite TV shows, a chef decides to shut down her restaurant. It's a very successful, long-standing restaurant. It seems like it's only going up and up. And then she decides, out of the blue, to shut it down. And for the restaurant's final service, she hosts a meal comprised fully of chefs, people she's either worked under, worked alongside, or trained herself. So she hosts this final meal with a room filled of meal experts. And she clinks her glass, and she gives this toast to them. She says, people often talk about restaurants as in, what's the history of it? What's the impact it's making? Who has worked there previously? What awards have they won? What about their, quote, chef? And I think what I've learned over the years, in all the places that I've worked, is that people don't remember the food. It's the people they remember. Meals are ultimately about people. Who is around your table, what that means, and why that matters. Meals encapsulate all of those intricate realities bound up in fellowship. They can be the most welcoming things in the world, but they can also be really scary. Have you ever been nervous to eat at somebody's house for the first time? I mean, why is that? I think it's because meals require us to at least have some expectation that we might just be fully seen and fully known by somebody other than ourselves. Whether it's family or strangers, meals require us to reckon with the reality of being seen and known. And in that sense, eating is one of the most intimate, powerful, and personal things that we can ever do with one another. and meals were important to Jesus. In fact, they were a key aspect of his earthly life and ministry. Our Savior came eating and drinking. And it's fascinating to pay attention to just how many times the Gospels bring up Jesus eating with people. I mean, if you think about it, God came to earth in the flesh, and we have so many instances where the Gospel writers thought, let's focus on these meals that Jesus is having. This sermon series can be a lot longer than seven sermons if we look at all the times Jesus eats. And it should cue us to pay attention then to the times that he does so. Who was around his table? What did it mean? And why does that matter? And when we pay attention to Jesus' meals, we see that they reveal a lot about his heart, about his mission, and his kingdom. And we also see that the people Jesus invites around his table should affect who's around our table, too. And so this evening, what I want us to see in Luke 5 is that Jesus calls and cleanses sinners by gathering them around his table. Jesus calls and cleanses sinners by gathering them around his table. So let's take a look at our text. When we look at it, and in order to truly understand what's going on in this text, we need to organize it according to three levels of offense. And the first level that we see is an offensive invitation, which is our first point. Look with me at verses 27 and 28. After this, he 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. At first glance, it's hard to see just how much drama is contained in these two short verses. The first thing we see is that Jesus sees Levi. And you might be thinking, well, big deal. We look at people all the time. But this wouldn't have been an ordinary occurrence for Levi. You see, he was more likely used to people either avoiding eye contact completely or issuing stares of resentment. Because Levi was a tax collector. And tax collectors were utterly despised in Israel. And yet, I think we don't know just how despised he would have been at first glance. We hear tax collector, we think IRS, and we're like, yeah, absolutely, let's hate tax collectors. But the reality is that he would have been completely cut off from the worship of Israel, from the people of Israel. He would have been seen as a greedy, traitorous, slimy, despicable, extortionist rat. If you start thinking through the lyrics to the Grinch's theme song, you'd be on the right track of how we describe Levi. You see, tax collectors were Jewish citizens and they would partner with the Roman government to collect taxes for the highest bid. It was almost as if they were public service contractors. They would bid a certain amount to Rome saying, we'll make this for you in taxes. And then anything they made on top of that would be their salary for the year. The problem is that they weren't simply trying to make an honest living or make ends meet. Tax collectors often did everything they could to live the high life off of the backs of their fellow countrymen. They would overcharge, they would skim, they would extort, they would do any number of things to live this lavish lifestyle. And when we look at it that way, we see that he is more so like a gangster, a narc, and a used car salesman all wrapped up into one. That was Levi's story. And Jesus looks at him, doesn't avoid eye contact. He doesn't look at him with disgust. He just gives this honest look at a supremely dishonest man. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He draws near to Levi. And this is where the offense truly begins to ramp up. You see, you can maybe tolerate the sight of a tax collector. You can maybe pay your dues and get on your way. But no self-respecting Israelite would ever voluntarily draw near to such a vile sinner. They were considered traitors. They were unclean. They were untrustworthy. They were cut off from the covenant community. They would have said, they're not like us. Don't draw near. Any honest, devoted, Torah-believing Jewish citizen would not try to approach Levi. And yet, Jesus does. And Jesus doesn't approach him in a back alley or under the cover of night. Jesus approaches him in broad daylight, in the sight of others, for everyone to see. And he does it at the very place where he is conducting this vile business. He goes to the tax booth. And so he wades up to this trash heap of Levi's sin. He looks him in the eye and he utters two words, follow me. And with two words, Jesus extends mercy. It's counterintuitive, but Jesus is extending mercy here. He's not simply walking up to a sinner, saying, clean yourself up, pick yourself up by your bootstraps and follow along. No, instead, these two words, they contain a promise of forgiveness. They're telling Levi that it doesn't matter who he is or what he has done, but he can be forgiven. He can be a disciple. He can even be an apostle as he becomes. I mean, think about when Jesus first called you. Where were you? Think about your sin, your life, your circumstances. Jesus didn't just say, all right, wash up, clean yourself up, and then you can come to my table. No, he came to you and he said, you can be clean. Come as you are, turn from this, and follow me. And that's exactly what Levi does in verse 28, and leaving everything, he rose and followed him. Levi immediately leaves everything to follow Jesus. There's no two weeks' notice at the tax booth. He drops everything and he goes. And his whole life is now reoriented around following Jesus. It's a dramatic turn. It's a dramatic shift. There's no going back. And when we view it in these terms, we see that this is a picture of repentance. It's a picture of repentance, not just for Levi, but it's an example of repentance for us, too. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Augustine, where he says, Levi was restless at that tax booth, day in and day out, doing everything he could to amass all of this wealth, to try and find peace. And it forces us to ask the question, where are our hearts restless to? What are the things that we are chasing after to try and find peace in this life? What do you do? Do you chase after wealth like Levi? Do you try to accumulate power or glory or sexual gratification or a change in circumstances? There's endless number of things that we do, looking at our sinful desires or the world to try and be satisfied, to try and have peace, to try and rest. And whatever it is, Jesus comes to us and He exposes those false saviors for what they truly are, as idols. He shows us that these false desires will only lead to more and more restlessness. And seeing that, He instead comes to us and He says to us, just like He says to Levi, none of these things will ever deliver you. None of these things will ever satisfy and none of these things will ever give you peace in yourself or before a holy God. So leave them behind. Get up. Turn from these things and follow me. If you're a believer, this is the call that Christ gave you when you first believed. He rolled up to your tax booth. He rolled up to the trash heap of your sin. And he said, you can be clean. All you need to do is turn from this and follow me. Put your faith in me alone and you can be forgiven. And if you haven't believed in Christ, this is the calling he gives to you now, this very evening. It doesn't matter who you think you are. It doesn't matter what the world says you are. It doesn't matter what you have done. In Christ, you, a sinner, just like the rest of us, can be forgiven and justified before a holy God that we will all one day stand before. He comes to you and he's calling you. He says, come, leave this all behind and follow me. So Jesus goes to this offensive sinner and he offers him mercy. And how does Levi respond? Well, he throws this huge, extravagant party, which in my opinion is the only way to respond to such lavish grace. He receives this call and this grace from Christ and just throws this huge party with all of these illicit funds that he's gathered over all of these years. He throws a feast and we see that he does it not just for himself, not just to glorify Jesus, but He does it to take the invitation He's received and then extend it to His friends. And in this, we see the next level of offense in our second point, the offense of fellowship. Look at verses 29 and 30. Levi throws this magnificent party in response to the grace that he has received. And therefore, Jesus finds himself surrounded by all of Levi's friends having a meal. And Levi's friends would have been the lowest of the low. They would have been the worst of society. I mean, if you're cast out from the people of Israel, who else are you gonna hang out with than other outcasts? And so Jesus finds himself at this kind of table. And so naturally, the Pharisees are going to show up sooner or later. And they don't go into the party. I mean, heavens no. They would never be found at that party. But they maybe linger in the courtyard, in the outskirts of the party, and they see Jesus' disciples, and so they strike up a conversation with them. And that's why we see that they speak to these disciples first, because Jesus was busy. He was enjoying himself at this party, hence the offense. You see, the Pharisees, they were maybe able to tolerate Jesus calling a single sinner who will turn and follow him. They could maybe tolerate the Levi episode, right? Jesus goes, he calls him to follow, Levi gets up, leaves it all behind. Seems pretty open and shut, right? But they couldn't tolerate fellowship with several sinners. They couldn't tolerate him sitting at a table and sharing a meal with these kinds of people. And we see it in the very way that the Pharisees are even asking their question. Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? When Luke introduces this part of the passage, he says tax collectors and others. But it's the Pharisees that know what they see. They say he's eating with tax collectors and sinners. You see, this fellowship, it made no sense to them because the Pharisees lived according to temple logic, right? In order to go into the temple and to worship, you had to be considered clean, ceremonially. And that meant that you had to avoid certain kind of sins, certain foods, you had to avoid the sick and the dead, and you certainly had to avoid other unclean sinners. And this made sense when you were going into the temple, but the problem is that the Pharisees were constantly living this way both inside and outside the temple. They were taking the idea of my body as a temple or my house as a temple to the extreme. Picture somebody that's always wearing their Sunday clothes, and they're doing everything they can. They're thrust into the middle of New York City trying to keep this suit clean. That's how the Pharisees are trying to live their life. And if that's how they're trying to live their life, therefore, well then we see that if meals are a way to associate and identify with others, for the Pharisees, they became boundary markers. Meals became a way to draw lines between those who are clean and unclean, those who are in and out, who is us and who is them. The Pharisees would never invite the rabble to their table that Jesus is currently associating with. I mean, consider our own history of segregated restaurants in America to get a similar picture. It was very clear who was welcome and who was not based on race. And in the very same way, the fear then, just like the fear for the Pharisees, was that association would be tantamount to pollution, and that mutual identification would be a scandal. It would have been the worst thing in the world for these Pharisees to be identified with the type of people that Jesus was sitting at a table with. They considered themselves clean. And so associating with anybody unclean or sinful, it would infect them. It would stain them. And so that's why we see how they're so offended and how they're so astounded at what Jesus is currently doing before their eyes. And it's easy to see this and to see how wrong the Pharisees would be, right? Many of us have been to Sunday school. We know that the Pharisees aren't the good guys of the story, but that wouldn't have been as obvious to the original audience. The Pharisees were held in very high esteem. These were the people you wanted to watch your kids, to come to the cookout, even do your taxes. You would have looked to their opinion for guidance in society. And so if it wasn't as obvious to them of the error of the Pharisees here, maybe we're not as aware of some errors we can fall into as well. Maybe we need to see the ways that we can also fall into a Pharisaical posture. And in order to do that, I think we should take a moment and consider this question. Who is welcome at your table? Who are the people to whom you extend fellowship? Or maybe another way to ask the question is this. Who don't you see at your table? Where have you drawn those lines in the past? You see, the way we live out the answer, not the way that we answer that question, but the way that we truly live out the answer to that question says a lot about who we are and what we think about Christ's kingdom and who is welcome. And it's easy to assume that we'd never be like the Pharisees, because we've been trained in this way. But imagine, take a moment and imagine with me, if your friends invited you over for dinner. You're expecting it to just be you and them, and you walk into the house, they greet you with hugs, they take your coat, they ask you how you're doing. And you walk into the dining room, and as you turn the corner into that room, you lock eyes with that co-worker. You know the co-worker. the one who makes your life harder, the one who swears like a sailor, the one who is adulterous or misogynistic, or maybe you lock eyes with the gay couple down the street that you try to avoid and you hope you never had to cross paths with. Maybe you lock eyes with that estranged family member who struggles with alcohol or makes every family gathering a nightmare. Or maybe you simply lock eyes with that homeless person you try to avoid eye contact with every time you have to drive downtown. Imagine you walk in to that invitation and you lock eyes with any number of people. Where is your heart in that moment? Sure, you sit down, you go throughout the meal, but are you offended? Are you astounded? Are you even angry at the host for inviting you to such a meal with that person? You see, like the Pharisees, we are all prone to drawing lines instead of drawing near. And Jesus' example with Levi here makes us ask the question, it challenges us to ask the question, have we forgotten? Have we forgotten who Jesus invites to his table? Have we forgotten that Jesus associated so closely with sinners that people mistakenly called him a drunkard and a sinner himself? Whatever your response is to who Jesus invites to his table, we need to reckon with the fact that Jesus invited us too. The moment that we are unable to see ourselves as the worst kind of sinners also is the very moment that we have forgotten the grace that Christ has shown us. But praise the Lord that Christ shows us a better way. He shows us a way that pursues and radically welcomes sinners so that they could see Christ and turn to Him. He doesn't just welcome them to say, you're doing just fine, but he goes and radically lives life with sinners so that they could see him and be transformed. He calls and cleanses sinners through this fellowship. And he shows us what that fellowship looks like. And I ask you, how does that kind of fellowship make you feel? Because if you are afraid of being identified with those kinds of people, remember that Jesus wasn't. And the way that we know that Jesus wasn't is that he wasn't afraid to be identified with us. He wasn't afraid to share a meal with you and with me. All Jesus is doing is calling us to live out the reality that he has already lived with us. The question is how? Some of you may already have some objections. How am I supposed to do this? Doesn't the Bible tell us to be careful with our associations? Yeah, but not in the way that we tend to think instinctually. And there's nuance here, but I'm getting at the heart at this point. You see, what is our heart posture, right? Because we want to go to those places that tell us to be wise or careful with who we associate with. But more often than not, Scripture warns us to be careful of and avoid wicked people who are in the church and who bear the name of Christ, not sinners in general. I was recently reminded of the fact that Christ was overturning tables in the temple and not outside of the temple. And we see this posture in 1 Corinthians 5, 9, and 10. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. In order to live in a way that's consistent with this pharisaical posture, we would have to leave this world entirely. We'd have to set up shop in isolation on Mars. And so we'd be completely isolated on that rock, but, spoiler alert, if you're out there, you'd still be stuck up there with a sinner. You see, Christ calls us not to go out of the world, but he has called us to go out into the world and to live lives among sinners. And in order to do this, in order to see how we do this, we need to reckon with the final level of offense, the offense of grace, which is our final point. We see how this kind of fellowship is possible in Jesus' answer to the Pharisees in verses 31 and 32. 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 reason why Christ can have this kind of fellowship with sinners is because it's His holiness and not their wickedness that's contagious. It's Christ's holiness that's contagious. Christ loses nothing by associating with sinners, but they gain everything. They're the ones who are marked. They're the ones who are healed. They're the ones who are made clean and declared righteous by associating with Jesus. It's this contagious holiness that actually propels Jesus toward sinners. And in this, it starts to make sense why Jesus compares himself to a physician. In times of deep pandemic and sickness, doctors don't have the luxury of quarantine. They don't have the luxury of isolation. They're the ones that have to roll up their sleeves, get to work, and go to sinners so that they may be healed. That's what Jesus is doing. He's going to the sick. He's going to those who are going to die so that they could live and have new life. That's what He's doing with Levi, and that's what He's doing at this meal. And we see all throughout Scripture that this isn't, again, a one-time example. This is the pattern of Jesus' ministry to sinners. Romans 5, 8, but God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We were still actively sinning and rebelling against a holy God. And what did he do? He sent his son in the flesh to live and to die for sinners. Jesus has come for us. And the only reason why we can hear His call to us is because He's within earshot. Christ has come close enough for us to actually hear that call. And because of that, every single sinner, every single one of us in this room is in the same boat. We are utterly dependent on Christ to come near and save us. I mean, that's what we confess, right? That we have no hope at all, that we need Christ to come near in order to be saved. That's what Reformed theology teaches and confesses, and rightly so. And this is what it looks like, though. And this is why grace is offensive. It levels the playing field. It forces us to identify and associate with the worst of the worst and to accept that we're no better off. And this doesn't come natural to any of us. We all want to be self-righteous. We don't want to associate. We want to play the game where we can put people, well, mostly under us, some people above us if we're humble. And what happens is we more naturally act like Mrs. Turpin. For those of you that don't know Mrs. Turpin, she is a character in one of my favorite Flannery O'Connor stories, Revelation. Mrs. Turpin, she is an interesting woman. She spends sleepless nights naming social classes and thanking God that she's not like those beneath her. White trash, minorities, the homeless, the poor. She views herself as somebody who, quote, always had a little of everything and the given wit to use it right. She's confident in the world that she believes in, and she's even more confident that Jesus agrees with her. And so she lives her life in this way, and she goes out to a doctor's office one day, and she starts talking the way she does, her internal monologue comes out, and this young girl hucks a book at her head, and the book is entitled Human Development. And she leaves the doctor's office defeated, and she goes out to feed her pigs one night, And at the very moment where she'd be attempted once again to, you know, go through the Rolodex of who's beneath her, who she's not like, instead of looking within, she looks up, and she sees this light in the sky, and she receives a revelation. And this is what she sees. A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw a streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it, a vast horde of souls were tumbling towards heaven. There were whole companies of white trash cleaned for the first time in their lives, battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. and bringing up the end of the procession, this procession into heaven. Bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like her husband Claude and herself, had always had a little of everything and the given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet, she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. The cross burns away our counterfeit virtues. It says the price of a vision is not anything we possess in ourselves or anything that we have done or any social standing, but it's all that Christ has done for us. We need grace exactly as much as that person. And that's what the Pharisees didn't understand. And beloved, that is what we are always at risk of forgetting ourselves. The offense of the gospel sends us out into an offensive world filled with offensive people that we are more prone to avoid than pursue, let alone eat a meal with. But the gospel reminds us of who we really are and who Christ is for us. We're sinners in need of grace just as much as the next guy. But Christ is drawn near to us with his contagious holiness. And now, that power and that contagious holiness is at work within us. Christ was contagious as the only perfect man. By the spirit, he was able to do these things and to bring people to himself. And that very same power, that very same spirit, is at work within us. And if that power is at work within us then, then we don't need to engage this world with fear, with judgment, or with isolation. We can go forth with confidence because we are the ones who are infectious. We are the ones who are sharing the good news of Christ and living our lives with sinners. And we can live this way because it's how Christ first lived with us. He didn't fear us. He didn't try to avoid us. Instead, he came to us while we were still trapped in our sin and invited us to fellowship with him. This is how Christ calls and cleanses sinners. Not by waiting for them to clean up their act, not by waiting for them to come to their senses and come to him, but by preparing for them a seat at his table. Let's pray. Gracious and heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a God who draws near to sinners. And we thank you that because of that reality that we have been washed clean by the blood of Christ, that your spirit indwells us and unites us to your son who rules and reigns victoriously. And Lord, we know that because that Spirit is at work within us, we lose nothing by associating with the worst of the worst. But instead, we can say that they can gain everything, that they could see Jesus, that we could proclaim the realities of the gospel. And Lord, we are so tempted to be afraid. We're so tempted to think that we are the ones who will be stained. And Lord, you do call us to live in this life with wisdom, but you don't call us to live lives of isolation and fear. And Lord, I pray that you can encourage us to go out boldly in those times, in those places, in those people you have placed in our lives, Lord. May we not shrink away. But may we pray for them, may we speak with them, may we proclaim the gospel to them, that they could receive the tremendous blessing that we've received in Christ, that they can be cleansed, they can be healed, they can be forgiven, that they can have new life in Christ. Lord, we long for that day, that final day of the wedding supper of the Lamb. And yet, Lord, when that day comes, we know that immediately preceding it is the final judgment. And Lord, we know that hell is real. We know that there are countless people perishing each and every day. And Lord, I pray that we wouldn't be content with that. But instead, Lord, that you would ignite a fire within us to have a posture that we wouldn't want to see one soul go to hell if we could help it, Lord. And we can trust, Lord, that whatever we do, it's ultimately in your hands. And so that frees us to go out and to promiscuously share this gospel. to go out with boldness and confidence, believing that it's Christ who is contagious and will go forth and will do his work, Lord, and we can trust and rest in that then. Going forth boldly, but entrusting all of the work and fruit to you, and remembering that you are pleased to use us in all of our weakness and all of our sin to give yourself the glory and to conform us more to your image. And Lord, we pray all of this in Christ Jesus' name, amen. Will you please rise for our final song? Come ye sinners poor and needy. Jesus stands to save you. I will rise and come to Jesus. He will embrace me in His arms. And in the arms of my dear Señor, Holy Rock, ♪ Come ye thirsty, come and welcome ♪ ♪ God's great bounty glorify ♪ ♪ To believe and to repent and to live again ♪ ah Come ye weary, heavy laden. I see Oh he And in the arms of my dear Señor. Go out into your week receive this blessing taken from 1st Thessalonians chapter 3 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all So that he may establish your hearts blameless and holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all of his saints Amen