One of the ways of understanding this particular section of the Gospel of Mark,
and we've mentioned a few times that the makeup of Mark's Gospel is not entirely chronological.
He's really painting somewhat of a mosaic of the life and the ministry and the purpose of Christ.
And so he groups various elements of the life of Christ together.
And one of the ways that we can kind of process chapter 2 and the first part of chapter 3
is as a series of conflicts that Jesus enters into with the religious establishment of first century Judaism,
the scribes and the Pharisees, and eventually we would find the Sadducees and the Herodians and the chief priests and so on.
Jesus here in these verses is time after time entering into conflict.
But the purpose of Mark recording these stories for us, or at least inserting them in this way,
is it's not exactly to provide us an example on how we're to deal with conflict.
It's not so much just to introduce the fact that Jesus had opposition,
although we can find from Jesus' example a tremendous way of dealing with doctrinal opposition especially,
even in practice.
But that's not really the purpose of these conflicts.
The purpose of the conflicts is that each one of them reveals something new or emphasizes something
that's already been presented about the identity and the purpose of Jesus.
So when we look at the first 12 verses of chapter 2, what we finished studying last Sunday,
as these four men bring the paralytic man and lower him into the house,
and Jesus forgives his sin, and there's the conflict with the Pharisees there.
That's not so much just to introduce the fact that Jesus had opposition,
but it's to highlight the fact in this conflict that Jesus is God and he has authority to forgive sin.
And then we enter into this section that we just read,
and the conflict is not just about the Pharisees and the scribes having issue with who Jesus chose to associate with,
but it's to highlight the fact that Jesus is indeed the friend of sinners.
And as we study through these verses, two things really begin to emerge,
two things that we want to track through these five verses.
The first thing is Jesus' heart for sinners.
The fact that his heart gravitated to those who desperately need him,
which in reality is all of us.
But the issue with the Pharisees and the scribes is that they didn't see that need,
but these other people knew exactly what their need was.
And Jesus gravitated.
He has this heart for sinners, this heart for the gospel.
And in addition to his heart for the gospel,
what we see emerging here is a pattern and a model for gospel ministry.
The way Jesus exercised this ministry is meant to be an example to us as his followers.
It's meant to be an example to how we are to go about ministering the gospel as well.
In fact, it's actually his heart for sinners that produces this pattern for ministry as we go through these verses.
It was because Jesus' heartbeat for the gospel and to save sinners
that led him to minister the gospel in the way that he did.
And so as we look through these verses, we're not just concerning ourselves with the conflict.
We're not just concerning ourselves with the fact that Jesus had opposition,
but we're gazing at Jesus.
What was his heart?
And how did he carry out the ministry in light of his heart for sinners?
And what does that mean for us?
If this is the heart that Jesus has, it's the heart that his people should have.
If this is the pattern that he followed, it's the pattern that we should follow as well.
And so as we go through these verses, I've got four headings that are just meant to kind of hang our thoughts on
and help guide us as we go through the narrative here.
But you can write them down if you'd like.
The first thing is this.
We see in verse 13, Jesus is accommodating crowds.
Jesus is accommodating crowds.
We see his ministry to the masses, so to speak.
Look with me again at verse 13.
And he went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.
Just as the four friends in the first 12 verses were determined to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus
and went so far as to tear the roof apart to get him to Jesus,
so is Jesus determined and active and intentional about getting to these people.
And what we see happening and unfolding here in this verse is really just a simple thought.
It's not the main point.
It's really just laying the groundwork for his calling of Matthew and his conflict with the scribes.
It's really just laying groundwork here, but there's something significant to it.
Jesus is intentionally making his way, accommodating crowds,
in order that he might minister the gospel to those crowds.
Now, up to this point, we believe he's been in Peter's house.
Well, Peter's house, though it was one of the larger homes in Capernaum,
at least based on the excavations that you can study today in Israel,
we believe it's one of the larger houses, but there's only so many people that could fit there.
And it's not reasonable for Jesus to continue to carry out his ministry in town.
It's just not possible.
Too many people are coming.
It's beginning to be destructive, as is evidenced,
and Peter's roof being removed in order for people just to get to Jesus.
Where some of us might would see that and say,
well, this is just, this is how it is.
This is the cards we've been dealt.
We'll just go with it the way we could.
Jesus, of course, didn't do that.
What did he do?
He's not resorting to the open spaces of the Sea of Galilee to get away from the people.
He's resorting to the open spaces around the Sea of Galilee
in order to accommodate the people.
He wants the crowds.
His heart, we see it already beginning to come to the surface.
He wants to get to these people.
And what is he doing once he gets to these people or once these people get to him?
He's teaching them.
And again, we see this pattern over and over and over.
These people would come to Jesus.
He would make way for them.
They would gather around him.
And what is he doing?
He's preaching the gospel.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Repent and believe the good news over and over and over.
That's his pattern.
That's his purpose.
That's his goal.
He was actively engaged in reaching people.
And he did whatever he could do.
He went wherever he could go to make that happen.
And our own pattern for gospel ministry should reflect this example.
The gospel message should concern us to the point that we will go wherever we need to go.
We will do whatever we need to do in order to preach the gospel to lost.
In fact, the gospel is the foundation of everything that we do.
It should inform everything that we are as a church.
The gospel informs our worship.
The gospel informs our evangelism.
Why should we care about getting to know people?
Why should we care about planting a church in Cornelius?
It's not just because we want to do it.
It's because we want to reach people with the gospel.
It informs our evangelism.
It should inform everything we do as a church.
Every way that we serve with and for one another is actually informed by the gospel.
There will come a day where the acting out studio is not sufficient for Lakeside Bible Church.
It's sufficient right now.
We were talking about it this morning.
The Lord has blessed us with this place.
It really has.
The Lord willing, there's going to come a day where it's just, it's Peter's house.
It's just not reasonable anymore.
What are we going to do?
Well, we're going to have to find an open space by the sea somewhere.
We're going to have to continue on.
Why?
We could just stay here.
But why would we do that?
Our heartbeat is to reach the masses.
We want to teach the people.
We want to share the gospel.
And so we're going to find another place.
We're going to find a place that can accommodate a larger crowd.
We're going to start another church.
We're going to do whatever we can do to multiply the effect and the impact of the gospel in our area.
And it's just intentionality.
It's activity.
What's Jesus doing in verse 13?
It's just being intentional.
It's activity.
We need to follow that pattern.
The second thing we see is he's calling disciples.
He's accommodating crowds.
So we see there his heart.
We also see a pattern.
Now we see that he's calling disciples in verse 14.
Look at it with me.
As he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth.
And he said to him, follow me.
Jesus did have a ministry to the masses.
That's true.
His call was extended, though, to individuals.
And this is an interesting call.
There's a man named Levi.
We know him as Matthew.
In fact, as you study the gospel of Matthew, you find out that's exactly who this is.
The man whom the Lord used to write that gospel is this man known here as Levi.
Well, Matthew was a tax collector.
And he was responsible for collecting fees from those that were traveling and trading on a specific route near Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee.
Well, let's talk about these tax collectors for just a minute.
Because this is what makes this call so much more significant and helpful to us.
The Romans collected taxes through a series of franchise opportunities is really kind of the best way to understand.
Roman tax system was set up that way.
They were occupying Palestine at this particular time.
And they would sell these tax franchises to the highest bidder.
And so the franchisee would then be responsible for collecting various taxes.
There were three stated taxes that every person in Israel had to pay.
It didn't matter who they were.
They had to pay these.
And they had specified amounts to what they had to pay.
The first one was a poll tax.
That was just a tax for being alive.
You exist.
You breathe the air that is occupied by Rome.
Therefore, you have to pay a fee for breathing the air that is in Palestine.
Just a poll tax.
We all pay that tax, right?
Then there was a ground tax.
This was equal to 10% of all the grain, 20% of all the wine and oil that was produced.
So if you were a farmer or you were involved in those kind of businesses, anything that you would produce in those three areas, you had to give a cut of it to Rome.
And then there was an income tax.
1% of your annual income had to go to Rome.
So these franchisees, they were responsible for collecting those.
And they would have a segment of their business that that's what they did.
Then there was a second tier of taxes that wasn't as concrete as the first.
There were taxes on sales.
There were taxes on trading.
There were taxes on traveling.
There were taxes on all kinds of things.
And these franchisees would have people that would be set up at tax booths in order to charge these fees as people would travel into town.
Or as fishermen would come in from a long night of fishing, they would have to pay a particular tax for docking their boat in the harbor.
Or they would pay a tax on the fish that they caught.
Or if some have suggested that a cart that maybe would come through, Matthew would have had the opportunity to stop that person and not only tax their cart of goods,
but he could actually tax the cart by how many wheels it had.
There was a percentage that was applied to each wheel, and that multiplied the amount of taxes that they had.
Here's what Rome cared about.
They cared about meeting certain quotas.
Anything that came in above that quota just went into the pocket of the collector.
Matthew worked as one of the people collecting this second tier of taxes.
He was one of the men that was so crooked, that was making up whatever numbers he wanted to make up in order to charge people as they came through and passed his booth.
Now, these men were hated for two main reasons.
The first reason, obviously, is that they were crooked.
They charged excessive amounts of tax.
They charged more than they had to charge.
There were no posted amounts, so they could literally charge you whatever it was that they wanted to charge you in that moment.
And they were doing that in order that they could pocket the excess.
But there was a second reason and a cause for a deeper hatred.
It wasn't just that they were crooked.
It was that they were traitors.
These were Jewish men.
They weren't Romans.
These franchises weren't owned by the Romans.
They were owned by Jews.
These people were the ultimate traitors.
Not only were they crooked, but they were robbing their own people in order to benefit the Roman occupiers.
They were absolutely despised.
Jesus not only showed kindness to Matthew, but he did something extreme.
He called Matthew to be one of his own disciples.
And he called them in the same way that he called the good Jewish boys, Peter and Andrew and James and John.
He said, follow me.
Follow me is the call issued to every person that would receive salvation and become a disciple of Christ.
That's the call.
It's an authoritative command.
It demands a response to leave everything behind in order to follow Jesus in faith.
This wasn't just a, hey, Matthew, follow me for a little while.
I want to talk to you.
That's not what this is.
This is, no, Matthew, leave everything behind and follow me.
Believe me.
Be my disciple now.
This is the call of salvation.
And it demands a response from each and every one of us.
Jesus, through his word, says, follow me.
And what he intends for that to mean is leave everything behind in order to follow me in faith and in discipleship.
Matthew, impacted by the love of Jesus and the gospel message that he no doubt had heard Jesus preach at this point,
left his lucrative career behind, and immediately obeyed the call.
It's amazing, actually.
This story doesn't fill in all those other gaps for us.
We don't know when he first heard the gospel message.
We don't know what, I mean, everybody knew who Jesus was in Capernaum at this point.
He probably has taxed Jesus at some point.
He knows who he is.
He's impacted by his love.
He's heard the gospel message.
And now Jesus has issued the call.
And Luke tells us in his account, Luke 5, 28, he adds in the phrase,
and leaving everything, he rose and followed him.
Only Jesus has the power to affect such a radical change.
Matthew, the one that everybody hated, would eventually be used by God to write the most comprehensive of all the gospel books.
Think about that.
At this point in his life, nobody likes Matthew.
And the friends that he has, everybody hates them too.
Nobody wants Matthew.
But Jesus shows kindness and love and he calls him and extends grace and extends mercy.
And what does he do with his life?
He trains him and he teaches him and then he empowers him by his spirit.
So now he's used him to write the most comprehensive gospel about the life and the ministry of Jesus.
That's who Levi is.
That's how God used him.
The one that nobody wanted.
Church tradition tells us that Matthew's apostolic commission was to the country of Ethiopia.
And in AD 60, as he was faithful to the gospel, faithfully preaching Jesus,
some of the people in Ethiopia that didn't appreciate it,
they pinned him to the ground with four spears and beheaded him.
This man that nobody wanted.
Jesus affected such a radical change in his life
that he literally gave his life up to the last breath,
preaching Jesus.
So impacted was he by the love of Christ in this moment.
So impacted by the gospel message that he literally gave his life to preach it.
Only Jesus can affect that kind of change.
And he can affect that kind of change in your life.
It doesn't matter who you are.
It doesn't matter what characterizes you at this point in your life.
Everybody would have had a label for Matthew,
and everybody's probably got a label for you.
Jesus doesn't care about the label.
He can do a change in you that no one else would even want to see exist in you.
That's his love for sinners.
And he extended that call to Matthew.
He extends it to you today.
The stunning nature of this call
is that obviously it was issued to a man
that everyone despised.
The Jews, honestly, and probably Peter and Andrew and James and John
would have fit this at this point.
They would have been fine for Matthew to die in his sins.
That wouldn't have bothered them.
Not Jesus.
He's willing to save and use the worst of us.
Can I ask you, when you see people,
you notice that their life is so wicked,
that it is so against everything that you are
and everything that you believe
and everything that you stand for.
Would you be satisfied for them to die in their sins?
Or would you have a heart
that would hope that God would once again
show his grace to save and use
even who you would characterize as the worst of us?
So we see Jesus' heart here.
But there's something else we see here in this verse.
And I'm going to move on from here.
But there's something else we see here.
It's amazing.
We see Jesus' heart for Matthew.
But then we begin to see
the formation of this new covenant community
that Jesus was establishing.
We call it the church.
What was the church meant to be?
Jesus is showing us here
people from all different backgrounds,
people with all kinds of different sins,
coming together in love and unity
in a common faith in Jesus Christ.
That's what the church is.
We have gotten used to
an homogenous form of religion
that says I can only worship
with those who are like me.
We ignore the commonality that we have
in the grace of Jesus
and in the faith in Jesus Christ.
And we look for those who are just like me.
But what is Jesus doing here?
Think about this for a second.
Where was Matthew's tax booth?
It was on the Sea of Galilee in Capernaum
by the big promenade.
Jesus only has four disciples at this point.
Peter, Andrew, James, and John.
All four of them professional fishermen
in Capernaum.
They knew Matthew.
They'd probably been robbed by Matthew.
Knowing Peter's personality,
there's probably been some conflict
between he and Matthew.
All they had up to this point
in this relationship was hate.
They were enemies.
And what is Jesus doing
with these four fishermen in tow?
He stops by the tax booth
and he looks at the man that they hate
maybe more than anybody else in Capernaum.
And he says, hey, follow me.
Follow me.
Same call I gave to these four guys.
Same call I'm giving to you.
And he starts to bring together
these people that hated each other.
And now we start to see
this formation of the church come.
These people from different viewpoints.
These people from different backgrounds.
All united together in love
and in a common face with Jesus Christ.
That is the gospel
and that is the church.
That's what we're to be.
Later on in chapter three,
Mark's going to give us a whole list
of Jesus's 12 disciples.
And there's another person in there.
His name's Simon.
And the designation that's given to him
is the zealot.
Which means he was a part of an extremist group.
He was the alt-right group in Israel.
He was a part of an extremist group
that hated Rome and hated anybody
that affiliated with Rome in any way.
Only Jesus can take a man like Matthew
and a man like Simon the zealot
and bring them together in friendship
and love and unity.
And it wasn't about them finding common ground
in anything except for faith in Jesus Christ.
Because those who follow Christ,
those who heed the call to follow me,
God does this work of transformation
and he puts his own spirit in them
so that they don't look at other believers
for what they used to be.
They don't look at other believers
for the differences that they have.
They look at other believers
for the fact that they are believers
and we are brothers and sisters in Christ.
Only Jesus can do that.
And even in this call of Matthew,
we see Jesus's desire for that.
What he desires for the church to be.
What he desires for our church to be.
And so he's calling disciples.
He's accommodating crowds.
And then we see he's befriending sinners.
He's befriending sinners.
Look at verse 15.
It came to pass,
as Jesus sat at meat in his house,
Matthew's house,
many publicans and sinners
sat also together with Jesus
and his disciples.
Sometime after this call,
after Matthew began following Jesus,
he invited Jesus and the other disciples
at the time to his house for dinner.
Luke 529 describes it as a great feast
held in Jesus's honor.
And as they were holding this feast,
Matthew invited many of his own friends to come.
There's something significant here.
We've talked over and over about Jesus's healing works.
When Jesus healed the leper,
he was immediately healed of his disease.
When he healed the paralytic,
he immediately got up and walked.
When he healed Peter's mother-in-law,
immediately the fever left her
and she was good as new.
The same way that Jesus's healing works
provide an immediate healing,
so does his transformational work in salvation
cause an immediate transformation.
How do we see that in Matthew's life?
Already, immediately,
he is beginning to pattern his own missional intent
after what he had experienced and witnessed in Jesus.
He wanted others to meet Jesus.
And Jesus was especially desirous in this passage
to meet Matthew's friends.
And we're told that this dinner
was with an entire group of social outcasts.
Publican, that is what Matthew was.
And so some of the people that had gathered with him that day
were just other people that were just as hated as he was.
Just other publicans.
But this term sinner is not just a generic form
for people that sin.
It's a specific technical term that was used
to describe those mainly
who ignored the scribal traditions of the day.
This is why the Pharisees considered Jesus to be a sinner.
Not because he violated the law of God,
but because he violated the law of man.
He violated their law.
And so they had put this designation.
Now that doesn't mean that these people weren't really sinners.
In fact, it probably included social pariahs
like prostitutes, drunks, thieves, other known criminals.
This is the collection of people
that Matthew has brought together
and that Jesus willingly and openly befriended.
They were the type of sinners
that didn't mind to flaunt their sin.
They made no attempts at hiding their wickedness.
We know those people.
They're everywhere.
They're everywhere around us.
They are empowered by our culture these days.
These were the people Matthew wanted to meet Jesus.
These are the people Jesus wanted to spend his time with.
In fact, according to Matthew 11, 19 and Luke 7, 34,
it was this part of Jesus's ministry
that earned him the designation of friend of sinners,
friend of publicans and sinners.
It was meant as an insult by the religious elite.
That wasn't a good thing in their minds.
They gave him that name, friend of sinners.
He befriended them for the purpose of saving them.
He loved those deemed unlovable.
He saved those deemed unsavable.
Why?
Because that's the heart of Christ.
That's his heart.
Dane Ortlund in that book I gave you
on our anniversary Sunday,
he said this in that book,
time and time again,
it is the morally disgusting and socially reviled,
the inexcusable and undeserving
who do not simply receive Christ's mercy,
but to whom Christ most naturally gravitates.
He is by his enemy's testimony,
the friend of sinners.
Think about that statement.
It's such an awesome statement.
They not only received his mercy,
these were the people Jesus gravitated to.
This is who he spent his time with.
It's amazing.
We get this idea of Jesus because we know he's holy.
We know his holiness of God.
We know his judgment and his justice.
We get this idea sometimes that when Jesus saves somebody,
he tries not to get too close.
He kind of pinches his nose so he doesn't have to smell
and maybe closes his eyes
and he just keeps his distance
and he touches them and then he moves away.
And we get this idea that Jesus doesn't really want us,
but maybe there's some kind of obligation there
that because we responded in some way to a service
or we said a particular prayer
that he reluctantly comes to us
and he kind of does his work for us
and then he backs away
because he doesn't want to get too close.
We get this idea of Jesus that way.
That is not who Jesus was.
That's not at all who Jesus was.
Not only did he want to give his mercy to these people,
he gravitated to these people.
These are the people that ultimately gained him the designation.
Yeah, Jesus, he's a friend of sinners.
That's who he associates with.
He never condoned their sin.
He never participated in their sin,
but he loved and befriended the people
that nobody else wanted.
He loved and befriended the people
that everyone else criticized him for loving.
And what was the result?
Look at the end of the verse.
There were many of them and they followed him.
Many of the people at Matthew's house became believers.
How wonderful.
Think about that for a moment.
We assume that because Jesus healed so many people,
that in Galilee, in this space of three years,
Galilee especially, maybe even parts of Judea,
that disease and illness was practically eradicated by Jesus
because he heals everyone he comes by.
We see this ministry over and over.
Now think about how this relates in a spiritual sense.
At this point in Galilee, perhaps organized crime
is beginning to be eradicated from Galilee.
Why?
Because Jesus loved and associated with sinners
in order that he could preach his gospel to them
and he saved them.
He saved them.
He did the work that no one else could do.
Social reforms will never really truly be effective.
They can't be because they don't get at the heart of the problem.
But imagine the transformation
that God could introduce into the world
if the church actually loved the unlovable,
reached the unreachable,
and intentionally befriended those
who are otherwise despised.
Not by the world's standards,
but by the church's standards.
This was the heart of Christ,
which means it should be the heart of his people.
Now it's us that tries not to get too close.
It's us that tries to hold our nose
and hold our breath
when we hand them that invitation
or whatever it is that we're doing.
It's not what Jesus did.
And so we see he befriend sinners.
Finally, we see that he confronted self-righteousness.
He confronted self-righteousness.
Look at verse 16.
When the scribes and the Pharisees
saw him eat with publicans and sinners,
they said unto his disciples,
why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?
This blew their mind.
This did not make sense.
And so we see in these conflicts now
a contrast constantly
between the heart of Christ,
the ministry of Christ,
and then the heart and the ministry
of the religious elite of the day.
And what Mark is doing here
and what Matthew and Luke do as well
as they're telling this story,
they are designating,
they're drawing a clear line,
the differences between
who Jesus is and what he's doing
and who the Pharisees and scribes are
and what they're doing.
And so Jesus confronts it,
but not at first.
They confronted Jesus
or at least Jesus' disciples.
They couldn't believe that he was so
willingly and openly associating
with these people.
And this is partly why they grew to hate him.
He loved the people that they despised.
He embraced the people that they condemned.
And though most of them wouldn't admit it,
they knew there was some kind of significance to Jesus.
There was no denying that.
They witnessed his healing power.
They heard the authority in his teaching.
There's no way to miss that.
They would have never admitted that,
most of them.
Some of them did.
Some of them became believers.
Most of them wouldn't have even admitted that.
What they would have loved for Jesus to have done
because they knew the significance
that truly existed
is that he would praise them
for their moral efforts,
but Jesus never did that.
Instead, Jesus spent his time
with all the people that they condemned
and they grew to hate him.
This was the point that Jesus was making
about the brother
in the parable of the prodigal son.
Luke chapter 15.
It was all about self-righteousness.
There's this brother who refused
to celebrate with the family and the friends
after his brother had come home.
He represented the scribes and the Pharisees.
Though externally moral,
they ultimately rejected the father.
These men were isolationist at heart.
That's who they were.
The term Pharisee actually literally means separatist
and separatist in every extent
is not a bad thing,
but they took this to the extreme.
It's one thing to live in holiness.
It's another thing to self-righteously snub
everybody that you've determined
is not as holy as you are.
That's what they were guilty of doing.
To have a meal with somebody
just like today in that day
was a sign of friendship.
It was a sign of acceptance and approval.
These men would have never been willing
to stoop so low
as to show that kind of kindness
and friendship
to this kind of people.
And unfortunately,
many Christians
have adopted that way of thinking.
I was convicted by something I read.
Kent Hughes wrote this
about this passage.
This is what he said.
We come to Christ
and in our desire to be godly,
we seek out people like us.
Ultimately,
we arrange our lives
so that we are with non-believers
as little as possible.
We attend Bible studies
that are 100% Christian.
A Sunday school
that is 100% Christian.
Prayer meetings
that are 100% Christian.
None of those bad things
in and of themselves.
But we play tennis with Christians.
We eat dinner with Christians.
We have Christian doctors,
Christian dentists,
Christian plumbers,
Christian veterinarians.
The result is
we pass by hundreds
without ever noticing them
or positively influencing them
for Christ.
And then he says,
none of us
are Pharisees philosophically,
but we may be practically.
I was convicted by that actually.
None of us would say
that we have the philosophy
that the Pharisees have.
None of us would actually admit that.
None of us would ever say
or even want that
to be true of us.
But in the way
that we actually live our lives,
we're practical Pharisees.
We don't really want anything
to do with the outside world.
We're so fearful
of the outside world.
We're afraid
that if we go to dinner
with a co-worker
who's not a believer
that all of a sudden
we're going to be tainted
and now we're going to fall
into the slippery slope
of idolatry ourselves.
And we're so scared.
And we end up running
from the very purpose
that God has left us
on this earth.
The necessity of fellowship
within Christianity
and within the church
cannot be overstated.
We talk about that all the time.
Your involvement
with your church family
and the family of believers
that you have covenanted with
is invaluable.
You need it.
You should desire it.
But we must intentionally
engage in mission
with those outside of the church.
We have to.
We need to have dinner
with co-workers.
We need to invite our neighbors over
for coffee.
We need to volunteer
in the community.
We need to do anything
we can
to have a positive impact
for the gospel
on the people around us.
And we can't do that
when we hole up in our houses,
when we only associate
with those who are just like us.
Can't do that.
Instead,
we end up condemning the sick
for being sick.
But why don't we just help them?
The unfortunate thing
is that this type
of self-righteousness
has a way of even creeping
its way into the church.
The same isolationism
that causes us
to have no contact
at all with the outside world
eventually finds its way
into our involvement
even within the church body.
When Jesus called Matthew,
remember,
he was promoting a love
and a unity
among those
who were formerly enemies.
That's what he was doing.
But when we embrace
the pattern set
by scribes and Pharisees,
even if it's just practically,
what we foster
is an environment
of judgmentalism
and criticism
and suspicion
rather than
committing to
and loving
and unifying with
a church body
that is faithful
to the gospel,
we end up floating around
from body to body,
church to church,
always finding something wrong,
always finding something
to be suspicious about,
always finding a reason
to separate
and isolate
once again.
We would never say
that's our goal.
But it's inevitably
what we do.
But Jesus confronted them.
Look at verse 17.
When Jesus heard it,
he said unto them,
they that are whole
have no need
for a physician,
but they that are sick.
I came not to call
the righteous,
but sinners
to repentance.
The scribes and Pharisees,
either they were unwilling
or they were unable
to actually confront
Jesus themselves.
So they confronted
his disciples instead.
It could be here
that the disciples
didn't really know
how to answer.
This is new to them too.
They're probably
just as confused
as the Pharisees are
to an extent.
And though they trusted Jesus,
they may have had
difficulty
articulating a response
to these men
as to why they
and Jesus
were actually having
dinner with prostitutes
prostitutes
and thieves
and thugs.
Jesus overhears
the conversation
and he steps in
and he responds.
And the response
that he gives
has really two elements
to it, I think.
There's a common sense element
and then there's just
a piercing truth
that he gives here.
Something he's doing
to try to pierce
the heart of these Pharisees.
The first part
is a proverbial statement
of common sense.
Look at it again.
Verse 17.
They that are whole
have no need
of a physician
but they that are sick.
That just makes sense, right?
The doctor doesn't come
rushing to the well people.
The doctor comes rushing
to those who are in
immediate need
of medical attention.
It's a simple illustration
Jesus is giving.
It just made sense.
Their question was
why would he associate
with sinners?
And the common sense answer
is because they needed him.
Because they needed help.
Why wouldn't he rush
to meet their obvious need?
It's what the Pharisees
and the scribes
should have been doing themselves.
It's what the church
should be doing.
It only makes sense.
But then the second part
involved this piercing truth.
He's trying to pierce
the heart of these Pharisees.
And he says
this isn't an illustration.
He just plainly says
I didn't come to call
the righteous.
I came to call sinners.
Now when Jesus said this
he wasn't insinuating
that the scribes
and Pharisees
were without sin.
That's not what he was saying.
We all have sin.
The Pharisees
and the scribes
just refused to acknowledge
that they had sin
that needed to be forgiven.
They had no need for Jesus.
There was no denying that
on the part of the sinners.
In fact
there was probably
even some of them
in the hardness
of their heart
that flaunted the fact
that they were full of sin.
Pharisees are very different.
In a spiritual sense
the sinners
and the publicans
were bleeding
and lacerated
and broken.
They could have rejected
the help
and some of them did.
But there was no denying
the need.
There was no denying
on the sinners part
that they needed Christ
that they needed forgiveness.
But the Pharisees
were
looked well
on the outside.
All their externals
is what they needed to be.
But there was a sinful cancer
eating them up
on the inside.
And they refused
to acknowledge it.
And what Jesus is saying
is that
for those
that will not acknowledge
their own sinfulness
and their own need
for forgiveness
I've got nothing to say.
But for these people
over here
that are full of sin
there's no denying it
they know it.
Those are the people
that I'm calling.
It's just clear.
What was Jesus
trying to do
with that statement?
He's trying to remind
the family
Pharisees
that you need this too.
But until you admit it
I can't do anything
for you.
What are we supposed
to learn from all of this?
First thing is this.
There is no one
beyond the reach
of Jesus' love and grace.
No one.
How encouraging
is that to know?
His love for you
is not based on performance.
There's no sin
too great
for him to forgive.
There's no outcast
too far
gone.
There's no sinner
that he's unwilling
to love.
The truth is
if you will repent
and believe
like Matthew
and his friends did
Jesus will forgive you.
He will give you
eternal life.
He will turn you away.
There's yet to be
one person
that he's ever
turned away
who came to him
in faith and repentance.
It's never happened.
It never will.
It doesn't matter
what characterizes you
at this point in your life.
It doesn't matter
who you are.
It doesn't matter
what you've done.
That's the grace
of Jesus.
That's his heart
for you.
But there's
a lesson here,
a missional lesson
for believers,
for us as a church.
God's always
working in us
to make us
more like Christ.
It's this
sanctifying process.
If this was
Jesus' heart
to save sinners
and it is
his heart,
then it will be
the heart
of true believers
to reach sinners
with the gospel.
He set a clear
pattern for us here.
Love,
and a pattern
to actually reach
those who need
to be reached.
The pattern
is that we are
neither to be
isolated from
nor are we
to be assimilated
with.
We're not to be
like them,
but we are
to intentionally
engage in mission
with the lost
around us.
In John 17,
Jesus had this
high priestly prayer
for his disciples.
Do you remember
what he said
at the end?
He's praying
to the Father
and he says,
I don't pray
that you take
them out of the world.
I don't want you
to remove them.
I don't want you
to isolate them.
He says,
but what I pray
for the Father
to do
is to guard
them from
the evil one
and to sanctify
them in truth.
And then he says,
thy word is truth.
So what is
Jesus' heart
for his church now?
How are we
to balance
this tension
between identifying
with sinfulness
in the world
but actually
trying to
intentionally reach
the lost
and befriend those
the way that
Jesus befriended them?
It's in Jesus'
prayer.
He doesn't want
us to isolate
and of course
he doesn't want
us to assimilate.
He doesn't want
us to adopt
their ideas
and adopt
their sins
and adopt
their philosophies.
That's not what
he wants either.
He didn't do that.
But he wants
us to befriend them
and his prayer
is that
God
through the power
of the spirit
will guard us
from the evil one
that he will help
us not to fall
into sin
and that he would
then sanctify us
in his truth
which means
as we are going
to the world
as we are
befriending the world
an absolute necessity
to guard
is to lean
into the power
of the spirit
and the sanctifying
power of God.
How do we do that?
Through the word.
Daily in the word.
Weekly in worship.
Immersing ourselves
in God's truth
so that the power
of the Holy Spirit
will continue
this sanctifying work
and he will guard
us in those moments
to help prevent us
from falling
into that sin.
That was Jesus'
prayer.
Not for us
to isolate
but to engage
and to engage
in the right way.
Remember in
Matthew 5
Jesus says
that we are
the light of the world
but what good
is a lamp
that's ignited
in a room
that's already lit?
There's no impact there.
But what can happen
when that lamp
that light of the gospel
is taken to darkness?
It has massive
impact.
This Christian life
is not just meant
for us to be together.
It's also meant
for us to scatter
on mission
the way that Jesus
was on mission.
The way that he sent
his disciples
on mission.
Not just the 12
either.
He sent the 72.
What kind of gospel
impact can we have
if instead of waiting
for the community
to come to us
we went to them?
What if we stopped
looking at all
the people
who are different
than us
and who are involved
in gross sins even?
What if we stopped
condemning them
for being sick
and actually went
to them
and loved them
and befriended them
in order that we
could help them
and share the gospel?
Jesus was the
friend of sinners.
The grace that
we have experienced
is because he's
the friend of sinners.
What about us?
I think we can be
friends of sinners too.
We better
for better