WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.459 Chapter 5, we're picking things up there again. It's page 861 in the Black Church Bibles. 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:13.679 ! It was quite astir recently, you may have noticed it, when one time wild man, Russell Brand, 00:00:13.679 --> 00:00:23.120 ! announced that he'd become a Christian. Here was this rude comedian, addict, womanizer, 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:30.480 evangelist for new age stuff at one point, and here he was telling us he'd become a Christian. 00:00:32.420 --> 00:00:39.100 He even had a celebrity Christian friend baptize him in the River Thames. What could be more legit 00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:45.880 than that? Eyebrows were raised. Most people seemed to think it was a stunt, both within and without 00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:51.880 the church, some other ulterior motive. Perhaps it was just for the cliques. Perhaps people, 00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:58.700 it was a way of keeping his relevance, or maybe it was knowing that his past was about to catch up 00:00:58.700 --> 00:01:04.359 with him, and a way of portraying himself as a changed man. Either way, people weren't too 00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:11.680 convinced. I heard one person say, I mean, just look at him. He's slimy. He's sleazy. He's a wrong one. 00:01:12.280 --> 00:01:19.620 This Christian thing's a cover. End quote. Now, I'm not commenting on the legitimacy or otherwise 00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:25.700 of the current criminal charges against him, but Russell Brand is definitely something of a cultural pariah. 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:33.560 The same could be said in some quarters of Tommy Robinson. Tommy Robinson has also been rumored 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:39.500 recently to have become a Christian. And the thing that is underneath the skepticism that people express 00:01:39.500 --> 00:01:45.659 about this is the instinct that God simply wouldn't be interested in these kinds of people. 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:55.740 They aren't the type of people that God goes for. How could he? Look at their track record. Look at the 00:01:55.740 --> 00:02:03.180 way they get on. Now, you may or you may not have a view on Russell Brand or Tommy Robinson, but you do 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:07.720 have a category of people who, if you're dead honest with yourself, you think they're not cut out to be 00:02:07.720 --> 00:02:15.120 Christians. It might just be a tiny secret corner of your heart, or it may just be because of prejudice. 00:02:15.260 --> 00:02:20.140 But as I say, if you're honest with yourself, there are people that you think fit that category. 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:26.879 They're not God's kind of people. But this evening, we need to see that that kind of attitude is 00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:31.960 completely wrongheaded. And we need to allow the encounter that we're looking at this evening here 00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:39.260 in Luke chapter 5 to blow that kind of thinking completely apart. The man who meets Jesus this 00:02:39.260 --> 00:02:46.420 evening in the section that was read for us is a cultural pariah. He's someone that society broadly 00:02:46.420 --> 00:02:52.420 would not be able to stand. How do we know this? Two words. They're there in verse 27. Two words. He's a 00:02:52.420 --> 00:03:00.180 tax collector. Now, that tells us all we need to know about this man. As it relates to what he would 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:05.140 have been thought of, how he would have been regarded in the wider society, that tells us all we need to know. 00:03:05.219 --> 00:03:10.379 One commentator says this, quote, Levi was a tax collector. In other words, he was a thieving sinner. 00:03:10.860 --> 00:03:14.760 In those days, the Romans subcontracted the collection of their imperial revenue. 00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:20.540 The person that won the contract for that then tried to levy as many taxes as he could. 00:03:21.040 --> 00:03:24.260 Anything he collected over and above the amount he had bid was his to keep. 00:03:24.259 --> 00:03:30.060 Obviously, this system was open to corruption. With all the poll taxes, land taxes, income taxes, 00:03:30.219 --> 00:03:36.479 road taxes, and port taxes, they gathered. Most tax collectors were filthy rich. End quote. 00:03:38.620 --> 00:03:44.879 These people could actually tax anything. They created something called a cart tax. And what that 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:49.620 meant was that each wheel of the cart was taxed. They could stop somebody in the street. They could have 00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:53.799 them unpack the load from their cart. And they could charge them for the length of time that it was 00:03:53.800 --> 00:04:01.400 sitting on the road. In Jewish rabbinical teaching, tax collectors were deemed so bad that if one set 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:08.500 foot in your house, everything and everyone inside that house was deemed to be impure. They were easily 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:16.060 the most hated people in Jewish society. They were classed with the worst criminals, even considered 00:04:16.060 --> 00:04:21.800 on a par with unclean Gentiles. So Russell Brand may just join the queue. 00:04:21.800 --> 00:04:29.620 Tax collectors were despised, rejected, outsiders to the things of God. They were the epitome of a 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:36.600 sinner. And yet, when this man comes face to face with Jesus, he receives a welcome. 00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:47.460 Which means this, however far from God you may be, or you may feel that you are. I heard a lady 00:04:47.459 --> 00:04:52.359 talking recently about how the decisions that she'd made in her life had left her so broken that she 00:04:52.359 --> 00:04:59.560 felt ashamed to set foot in a church. She felt ashamed to come to God. Well, this passage tells us 00:04:59.560 --> 00:05:07.179 that however far you have fallen, and whatever other people might think of you, if you come to Jesus, 00:05:07.180 --> 00:05:09.180 you will receive a welcome. 00:05:11.579 --> 00:05:17.160 Here again is the grace of God in action. That's what we've been seeing in Luke chapter 5 in these 00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:22.480 little exchanges that we've been looking at. The grace of God in action. And Luke wants us to stare 00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:28.160 at what's happening in this exchange this evening. And he wants us to see three things. The first is 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:34.160 this. He wants us to see the scope of God's grace. The scope of grace. Verse 27. 00:05:34.880 --> 00:05:40.880 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. And he said to 00:05:40.880 --> 00:05:49.140 him, follow me. Jesus has left the house where he healed and forgave the paralyzed man. And he sees 00:05:49.140 --> 00:05:55.360 Levi working at his booth. Now, the people were amazed. If you remember last time, it was a few weeks 00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:00.379 ago now. But last time, verse 26, people were amazed at what they had seen in the house. 00:06:01.259 --> 00:06:05.400 What they had seen of the miracle and what they had seen of this statement of Jesus' ability to 00:06:05.400 --> 00:06:12.879 forgive someone's sins. They were amazed at that. Well, this was no less amazing. No one will have made 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:19.220 a positive relational move towards this man for a very long time. But Jesus goes to him. 00:06:19.220 --> 00:06:26.420 And like the last time with the leper, he doesn't stay at a distance. Presumably, he could have called 00:06:26.420 --> 00:06:32.040 Levi in private. He knows how on kind of, how on PC it would have been for him to go to him. He could 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:38.640 have gone in private, but he chose to do this in full view of others. The fact that other people can 00:06:38.640 --> 00:06:46.280 see this is deliberate. He wanted people, particularly these religious leaders, to see both that his 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:54.059 calling of people is a personal calling. Luke gives us his name here. He tells us he's called Levi, 00:06:54.779 --> 00:07:01.319 I think, to make this point more obvious. He wants us to see that this is a personal calling, but also 00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:10.639 that anyone, anyone who hears his call is welcome. Just as he did with the leper, Jesus initiates with an 00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:19.079 ostracized and rejected member of society in order to save them. The calling of Levi here reveals to us 00:07:19.079 --> 00:07:28.180 the scope of God's grace. There isn't a liar, a cheat, a fraudster, a social pariah that Jesus will not 00:07:28.180 --> 00:07:37.599 receive if they come when he calls. And this means that the people that polite society doesn't accept 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:43.840 are precisely the kind of people that we should expect to see coming to Jesus. 00:07:46.439 --> 00:07:51.820 See, verse 29, Jesus is actually happy around these kinds of people. Levi made him a great feast at his 00:07:51.820 --> 00:07:57.760 house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. Jesus wasn't 00:07:57.760 --> 00:08:02.580 in the dark about these guys and what they did for a living. He knew that they were corrupt. He knew that 00:08:02.579 --> 00:08:09.139 they were manipulative exploiters. But that's precisely the point. It is because they are sinners 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:14.620 that Jesus comes to them. Verse 31, it is for sinful people that he came to the earth. 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:19.759 If the world was full of righteous people, Jesus would not have had to come. 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:26.620 And for those who think they are righteous and so aren't interested in what Jesus is here to offer, 00:08:26.740 --> 00:08:31.419 those who think that they don't need a physician, as Luke says here, as Jesus says here, well, 00:08:31.420 --> 00:08:38.539 he has no time for them. But for those who know that they are sick in their sin, Jesus opens wide 00:08:38.539 --> 00:08:46.120 his arms. Don't miss the significance of the meal, the information here about the meal. Verse 29, 00:08:47.180 --> 00:08:53.320 the ancient scholar Jeremiah tells us this, quote, in the East, even today, to invite a man to a meal 00:08:53.320 --> 00:09:00.120 was an honor. It was an offer of peace, trust, brotherhood, and forgiveness. In short, sharing a table 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:10.720 meant sharing life. Jesus is getting as close as he can here to these people. He enjoys their 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:19.360 hospitality and he calls them to himself. He has come for people like this. I speak to plenty of people. 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:26.879 It seems strange to me, because the amount of time I go around saying that this isn't the case, 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:32.019 but I speak to plenty of people who think that Jesus and Christianity isn't for them because they 00:09:32.019 --> 00:09:38.860 aren't that sort of person. That's the line. I'm not that sort of person. And what they mean by that 00:09:38.860 --> 00:09:44.440 is that they're not into religion. They're not into moral living. But Levi is here to show us that 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:51.880 Jesus goes to and enjoys the company of people who aren't into religion. Levi wasn't on the lookout 00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:57.640 for Jesus. He was going about his immoral business. He was probably trying to cook up another way of 00:09:57.640 --> 00:10:05.780 ripping somebody off as he sat in his booth. And yet Jesus calls him to himself. If you're here this 00:10:05.780 --> 00:10:10.440 evening, and you're maybe just here because you're being polite to your Christian friend who invited you 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:16.140 here and you're thinking to yourself, this church thing, it's not my thing, Jesus is calling you in 00:10:16.140 --> 00:10:26.680 exactly the same way. Just as he did with Levi, Jesus meets us where we are. He meets us in our tax 00:10:26.680 --> 00:10:35.040 booth, in our sin, in our expression of our rebellion against him that comes to us by nature, and he calls us 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:43.379 out of it. Have you heard his voice? Have you heard his voice? 00:10:48.179 --> 00:10:53.279 Those who think that we have to get ourselves together in order to come to God that he might 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:59.759 accept us have got everything turned around the wrong way. Don't I need to get myself cleaned up in 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:10.379 order to come to God? No, no, and thrice no. He meets us where we are. And he does that because it's 00:11:10.379 --> 00:11:18.259 actually our only option. None of us could get ourselves cleaned up enough for a perfectly holy 00:11:18.259 --> 00:11:25.299 God. We're all helpless like the paralyzed man in verse 18. But the whole point of the Christian gospel 00:11:25.299 --> 00:11:31.199 is that Jesus comes to us and he calls us. Have you heard his voice? 00:11:34.039 --> 00:11:40.000 If you have, have you responded by following him? We'll say more on that in a minute. Here's the thing, 00:11:40.099 --> 00:11:47.059 the first thing we need to see, the scope of grace. God's grace reaches to the uttermost. 00:11:47.059 --> 00:11:58.379 The scope is wide. But we read on. And there's an inevitability to what happens next because 00:11:58.379 --> 00:12:04.259 alongside the scope of God's grace, we see the offense of grace. The offense of grace. The more 00:12:04.259 --> 00:12:09.019 time I spend in Luke 5, the more I think this is actually the point of the chapter. The new era 00:12:09.019 --> 00:12:14.439 has dawned in Jesus. The new covenant, the promise of the prophets that the lame will walk and the blind 00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:20.360 will see that outsiders will be welcomed into his kingdom. These promises are coming to pass. The 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:26.840 old religious order is finished. It's done. And the representatives of that order don't like what 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:32.720 they see. Look at verse 30. Levi 29, Levi made him a great feast in his house and there was a large 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:38.420 company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them and the Pharisees and their scribes 00:12:38.419 --> 00:12:45.839 grumbled at his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? 00:12:48.439 --> 00:12:52.740 Or, might he eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Or something of that nature. 00:12:54.899 --> 00:13:00.279 The Pharisees grumble and complain. Now they do that because they know that to eat with sinners like 00:13:00.279 --> 00:13:05.559 this made people unclean. To do what Jesus is doing was to share in their sin. It was becoming 00:13:05.559 --> 00:13:10.859 spiritually impure. So it was something that a teacher and his disciples never did. The way that 00:13:10.859 --> 00:13:16.239 a Pharisee showed his devotion to God was to separate from these kinds of people. So you can 00:13:16.239 --> 00:13:25.339 see the offense. You can see why they were scandalized by Jesus' actions here. But all of that does is show 00:13:25.339 --> 00:13:31.779 that they've completely missed the point. They failed to see who he is. They failed to accept who it is 00:13:31.779 --> 00:13:38.980 that is in their midst. This was a meal in Jesus' honor, verse 29. Levi threw this meal, this great 00:13:38.980 --> 00:13:45.439 feast, because of the fact that Jesus had gone to him and called him. And because of that, Jesus is 00:13:45.439 --> 00:13:50.860 delighted to be there. In his mission of bringing God's salvation as he comes to call sinners to 00:13:50.860 --> 00:13:55.459 repentance, Jesus gets involved in the lives of people that society rejects. 00:13:55.460 --> 00:14:03.639 He is embodying here the scope of the gospel as he brings in the kingdom and as he crosses cultural 00:14:03.639 --> 00:14:09.220 and societal boundaries. He scandalizes those who think in terms of good people and bad people. 00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:14.180 Lots of people think that way in our world, don't they? There are good people and there are bad people. 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:19.120 There are clean people and there are unclean people. You better be in the good people and the 00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:28.060 clean people category. And I'll define what that is. That's what we're told. Jesus scandalizes people 00:14:28.060 --> 00:14:34.279 like that. He is an offense to those who find their identity by creating those categories. 00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:45.000 Who define their identity by their way of life, even their religious way of life, at the expense of the 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:54.220 growth of Christ's kingdom. When Jesus saves people like a Russell Brand or the homeless addict who 00:14:54.220 --> 00:15:00.220 ripped you off when he gave you a big sob story and you gave him some money and it turned out to be a big 00:15:00.220 --> 00:15:10.679 lie. When that happens, people's responses show how offensive Christ's grace really is. 00:15:10.679 --> 00:15:22.439 If when people our culture holds as outcasts, profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because of the 00:15:22.439 --> 00:15:32.599 scope of his grace, we should expect it and we shouldn't be offended. When we think about it like 00:15:32.599 --> 00:15:39.459 this, there are a couple of implications. Jesus went to Levi to show that salvation is for actual sinners. 00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:46.519 That is, the salvation that Jesus came to bring is for the kind of people who behave badly in life. 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:53.560 So we mustn't put restrictions on who we think is allowed to become a Christian. 00:15:54.860 --> 00:16:00.480 If you want a heart check on this, ask yourself how you would have felt if the person that you think 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:05.639 is the most obnoxious person that you can think of profess faith in the Lord Jesus. That person that 00:16:05.639 --> 00:16:13.399 makes your skin crawl when you think of them, if they profess faith in Jesus Christ. What does your 00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:20.480 heart do at that point? If it doesn't want to say that would be the best thing imaginable, 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:26.980 you need to repent. I'd tell you the name. There's one person I can think of in my head 00:16:26.980 --> 00:16:30.560 and I need to repent. I'm not going to tell you, but 00:16:30.560 --> 00:16:39.920 something about me thinks he would never, he doesn't deserve to come. None of us deserve to come. 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:40.700 That's the point. 00:16:43.159 --> 00:16:47.379 Second implication is this. If anyone feels unwelcome here among us at IPC because we have 00:16:47.379 --> 00:16:53.259 communicated in some way that they don't belong here because they don't somehow measure up in terms of 00:16:53.259 --> 00:16:59.059 whatever arbitrary category we've introduced, we have failed. Now it is true that some people feel 00:16:59.059 --> 00:17:03.059 uncomfortable in churches despite our best efforts at welcoming them. That's not our fault, 00:17:03.419 --> 00:17:08.220 but there is no criteria to be here. If you're here and you're not a Christian, you're welcome. 00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:14.279 Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're all beggars showing other beggars where to find food. 00:17:16.539 --> 00:17:19.900 But also if by getting around people that others don't approve of, 00:17:19.900 --> 00:17:27.200 people that are legitimately sinners, people that cultural gatekeepers call sinners, 00:17:28.340 --> 00:17:32.280 and we're drawing them into our church community, if by doing that some people are offended, 00:17:32.500 --> 00:17:34.000 we're simply doing what Jesus did. 00:17:36.460 --> 00:17:39.920 And the third implication is this. Having said that, that doesn't mean that we have an excuse 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:44.060 to join people in their sin because we've got a way, you know, we go and hang out with sinners, 00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:46.980 we sin alongside them and we say, I'm just being like Jesus. No, we're not. 00:17:46.980 --> 00:17:53.140 Jesus is enjoying the company of sinners, but he isn't himself sinning. We mustn't confuse that. 00:17:54.940 --> 00:17:59.860 The point is that the gospel is for everyone and we want to bring that good news with us wherever 00:17:59.860 --> 00:18:05.079 we go to the people who hear it as good news and who will respond the way Levi did. 00:18:05.079 --> 00:18:15.099 So Jesus goes to sinful people. In doing so, he offends those who don't accept or grasp the scope of his grace. 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:21.179 There's one more detail in the story I want us to consider, and that is the effect that Jesus has on Levi. 00:18:21.379 --> 00:18:27.279 And here we see, thirdly, the transforming power of God's grace. Scope of God's grace, 00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:33.200 the offense of God's grace and the transforming power of God's grace. Go to 27 again. After this, 00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:38.440 he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth and he said to him, 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:43.480 follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. 00:18:45.759 --> 00:18:50.240 Levi starts out in his tax booth. It's one day, just like any other, 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:53.680 Jesus calls him to follow and he gets up and follows his new master. 00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:02.420 There is a decisive change. There is a total transformation. Here's Cyril of Alexandria. 00:19:02.620 --> 00:19:07.339 He says this, quote, Levi was a man greedy for dirty money, filled with an uncontrolled desire to 00:19:07.339 --> 00:19:13.559 possess, careless of justice in his eagerness to have what did not belong to him. Yet he was snatched 00:19:13.559 --> 00:19:19.579 from the workshop of sin itself and saved when there was no hope for him at the call of Christ, 00:19:19.579 --> 00:19:29.539 the Savior of us all, end quote. And like Simon Peter, Luke tells us that Levi left everything to 00:19:29.539 --> 00:19:38.799 follow Jesus. That, in a word, is what repentance looks like. I don't know what his booth looked like. 00:19:39.939 --> 00:19:47.980 Can you imagine his booth? Did it have a shelf that he worked from? Kind of a seat that was high up 00:19:47.980 --> 00:19:52.799 and he would sit on it at his desk and perhaps he had a ledger to record his stuff and maybe some 00:19:52.799 --> 00:20:02.120 scales there for weighing gold, that kind of thing. I don't know. He left it all. He left it. 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:08.099 Walked away. We were watching, as a family, the most recent series of Clarkson's Farm. 00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:14.339 It's probably a bit, probably a bit too sweary, to be honest, a bit arbitrary. That wasn't necessary, 00:20:14.339 --> 00:20:19.579 but there we are. Still funny in some ways. Anyway, he's trying to buy a pub in this series. 00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:28.339 And one of those, you may have seen it, he walks into the kitchen of this old closed down pub 00:20:28.339 --> 00:20:35.500 and there's still a pot on the stove with the wooden spoon still in it. And he says, you know, 00:20:35.539 --> 00:20:41.419 what's going on here? Why is this still here? The pub had been closed for months, maybe years. 00:20:41.420 --> 00:20:49.900 And he said, well, was it that they were working away and they weren't bankrupt and then they were 00:20:49.900 --> 00:20:57.800 bankrupt and they just walked off and left it? Was it that kind of thing? Well, here's Levi. He's at 00:20:57.800 --> 00:21:03.519 his birth. He's not following Jesus. He's going about his business, not following Jesus, not following 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:09.120 Jesus, not following Jesus, following Jesus. Off he goes after his new master. 00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:16.839 And like Simon Peter, who didn't stop to worry about his nets or his family, Levi just walked 00:21:16.839 --> 00:21:22.699 away, leaving it all. Pages of his ledger blowing in the breeze. I don't know. You get the point. 00:21:23.819 --> 00:21:31.939 That is what the grace of Christ looks like when it hits the human heart. And this is what Christian 00:21:31.940 --> 00:21:40.160 faith requires. In a few chapters time in Luke 14, Jesus will spell this out more clearly. Luke 14, 26. 00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:46.900 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers 00:21:46.900 --> 00:21:53.140 and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:03.320 Is there any way out of that? Is there any way around that? Can we get out from under that? He 00:22:03.320 --> 00:22:11.240 cannot be my disciple. If we will follow Jesus, we must leave it all. Everything. 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:19.160 It requires a complete reorientation of your life and your priorities. Previously, you lived 00:22:19.160 --> 00:22:25.319 for yourself, but now Christ is in charge and everything you possess is laid before him each 00:22:25.319 --> 00:22:32.420 day. I think what this looks like is you go each morning to the Lord in prayer and you hold 00:22:32.420 --> 00:22:40.720 your hands open and you say, all that I have is yours. My home, my wife, my children. 00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:49.519 My resources, my health, all of it is yours. I lay no claim to these things. I leave them 00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:58.259 at your feet for you to do what you wish with them. It may be that when you get back up off 00:22:58.259 --> 00:23:02.079 your knees and open your eyes, the Lord has given you some of those things back as he often 00:23:02.079 --> 00:23:09.120 does. If that's the case, you say thank you. But you need to be willing to offer them up to 00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:17.059 him. And if he takes them, again, you say thank you for the time that you had with them. 00:23:18.819 --> 00:23:20.299 This is Levi's posture. 00:23:24.939 --> 00:23:29.959 Follow me and leaving everything, he rose and followed him. 00:23:29.960 --> 00:23:38.140 We see the beginnings of that being worked out in his life. He now uses his wealth to bless and 00:23:38.140 --> 00:23:43.720 honor others and he wants to introduce his friends to Jesus. Indeed, as an aside, this one-time tax 00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:49.420 collector became Matthew, the gospel writer. Matthew chapter 9 verse 9, the same story names Matthew as 00:23:49.420 --> 00:23:54.680 the tax collector. And in the list of the 12 apostles in Matthew chapter 10, there is only one tax 00:23:54.680 --> 00:23:59.320 collector. So just as Simon was called from his fishing business to be Peter, the fisher of men, 00:24:00.120 --> 00:24:05.180 and the rock upon which Jesus builds his church, so Levi is called from his tax booth to be Matthew 00:24:05.180 --> 00:24:12.279 who would follow Jesus wherever he would go and he would write his gospel. Levi gives us here the 00:24:12.279 --> 00:24:19.299 picture of a life transformed by encountering Jesus. And that is the change that I actually want to hold 00:24:19.299 --> 00:24:26.159 out to us this evening. I want to say this is what the Christian life offers us. You see, society tells 00:24:26.159 --> 00:24:34.200 us that we are who we are and we're stuck. That's it. There's no hope. Just accept it. Jesus, on the 00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:42.059 other hand, says, follow me and he changes us. He is, verse 31, the physician who has come to bring the 00:24:42.059 --> 00:24:48.059 ultimate cure for the sickness that we all suffer from. The sickness of sin that cuts us off from the God of 00:24:48.059 --> 00:24:57.419 life. And the key, the key to this, the key to this transformation is the repentance of leaving 00:24:57.419 --> 00:25:03.339 your old life to follow Jesus. Turning from living with yourself in charge to living with the Lord Jesus 00:25:03.339 --> 00:25:10.639 in charge. That's the key. And the first step is admitting you have a problem. Verse 31, admitting that 00:25:10.639 --> 00:25:16.399 you are sick and need a physician. The Pharisees refused to see themselves in this way. They thought they 00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:20.720 were in good standing with God. They didn't need the physician, so they didn't need to repent. 00:25:22.420 --> 00:25:29.680 If you think that you're basically good, you'll never repent. There's nothing there to repent of. If 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:34.220 you're well behaved, you've got nothing on the list of bad things that you need to repent of. If you're 00:25:34.220 --> 00:25:40.280 not Russell Brand or someone like his ilk, you might say, well, there's nothing to repent of. But when we 00:25:40.279 --> 00:25:49.299 recognize that we're sick, we don't just accept that we do bad stuff. We're agreeing with Jesus' verdict 00:25:49.299 --> 00:25:55.559 that our hearts are sick. We're selfish. We're proud. We're self-righteous. Even the good things that we do 00:25:55.559 --> 00:26:00.839 are tainted. Tell me if you're honest with yourself that your kindness and your generosity isn't motivated 00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:07.079 a little bit by being well thought of by others rather than simply sincere love. Of course those things 00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:16.179 are. That's the human heart. But repentance transforms us. And repentance that transforms 00:26:16.179 --> 00:26:21.179 us starts with an acknowledgement that we have this problem before God and that we need His mercy and 00:26:21.179 --> 00:26:29.519 grace. It recognizes that apart from Him, we are completely helpless in ourselves. And then it acts on 00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:36.000 that knowledge and it leaves everything to go hard after Him. And look again at the good fruit of that 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:42.200 decision in the life of Levi. Instead of being greedy, He's generous. If you've been a Christian for any 00:26:42.200 --> 00:26:48.400 length of time, you'll see that in yourself. A heart that wants to grasp after things, hands that open 00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:57.920 and give. Instead of being exploitative, He cares for others. It's the same thing. Instead of wanting to 00:26:57.920 --> 00:27:07.960 use people for ourselves, we're kind, care about them, want them to flourish. Instead of being selfish, 00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:15.100 Levi's focus turns outward. This is the life that we all actually want to live, isn't it? 00:27:15.099 --> 00:27:22.059 This is the life that we want. We want to be people who are generous and caring and 00:27:22.059 --> 00:27:26.759 we have our minds set on others rather than ourselves. 00:27:28.699 --> 00:27:35.199 Well, that is the life that follows the example of Christ that repentance unlocks and gives us the 00:27:35.199 --> 00:27:36.500 ability to pursue. 00:27:36.500 --> 00:27:46.980 Jesus works this life in all who follow Him. And He does it in all who follow Him, wherever you're from, 00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:52.740 whatever your background, whatever your track record up to this point might be, 00:27:53.460 --> 00:28:01.059 whatever state you're in now, whatever others might think of you, Jesus comes to you in your sin 00:28:01.059 --> 00:28:08.419 and He calls you to follow Him. And this evening, even in your seat, if you can hear His voice 00:28:08.419 --> 00:28:15.000 and answer His call, He will save you and set about transforming your life. 00:28:16.619 --> 00:28:17.419 Let's pray.