Jesus, Friend of Sinners (or, Calling all Deplorables!)
Mark 2:13-17
Introduction: I posted a link to an old message on Facebook last
week entitled “The Failure of Religion” [ http://boothbaybaptist.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-passion-of-christ-part-2-failure-of.html ]. The idea was that our efforts to be good enough to earn God’s favor will always
fall short. Our only hope is the mercy and grace of God. Billy Graham illustrated the idea of grace
with a story from his own life…
When Billy Graham was driving through a small southern town, he
was stopped by a policeman and charged with speeding. Graham admitted his guilt,
but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in court.
The judge asked, “Guilty,
or not guilty?” When Graham pleaded guilty, the judge replied, “That'll be $10
– a dollar for every mile you went over the limit.”
Suddenly the judge
recognized the famous minister. “You have violated the law,” he said. “The fine
must be paid—but I am going to pay it for you.” He took a ten dollar bill from
his own wallet, attached it to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought
him a steak dinner! “That,” said Billy Graham, “is how God treats repentant
sinners!”
We see both mercy, not receiving what we deserve, and grace,
getting what we don’t deserve! The Bible says we are saved by grace: God’s
unmerited favor. The religious establishment of the Jews in the first century
was fixated on “religion,” not “grace.” It was easy for the “religious” leaders
to point to the failings of others that they felt didn’t “measure up.” That
included tax collectors! April 15th has recently passed, and even
today, it seems like nobody likes the tax man! In first century Palestine tax
collectors were even less popular than the IRS… Not only were they looked down
upon by the pious Jews, but they were not popular with the common people
either! They were notorious in that many of them padded the tariffs they
collected for their own pockets. They were commonly viewed as thieves and
traitors by the populace. Thieves, because of the money they took from their
countrymen, and traitors, in that they were viewed as puppets of Rome. It was such a despised profession that one
expression the pious Jews used to describe “undesirables” was the phrase “tax collectors and sinners”!
The Maine* Idea: Salvation by grace means that no one deserves to be part of God’s family, and
no one is beyond the reach of His love.
I. God graciously calls
the weak and despised to follow Him (13-14).
13 He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd
was coming to him, and he was teaching them.
14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus
sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he
rose and followed him.
Jesus was
“teaching” the crowd of inquirers… We don’t have the details about the content
of his teaching, but we can be pretty sure the heart of it was the same as we
saw back in 1:14,15…
Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of
God, 15 and saying, "The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the
gospel."
So far, He has been preaching, and “declaring the
Gospel,” and speaking the Word. Now He teaches. He taught as
One who had authority as He had in the synagogue in Capernaum. Some were
probably there listening, but also waiting, hoping to be amazed by another act
of power, another miracle. The Jews longed for “signs.” Jesus’ mission was not about the signs, but
about people. Signs were simply one line of testimony He used to validate His
words.
Notice that it
wasn’t as He stood or sat to teach, but as he walked along, “as he passed by”
the tax booth of Levi, that he calls this man to follow him. Multitudes were drawn to Jesus wherever He
went, but he didn’t wait for His lost sheep to come to Him, He went to them.
We saw it when the crowds came to Jesus in Capernaum in Mark 1. Remember when He
went out early in the morning to pray, and then set out for other villages in
Galilee? He didn’t minister only to those who came, He went to the people.
We can learn from the Master’s example here. As we are out in the community, as
we rub shoulders with people in our day-to-day life, we need to be sensitive to
the spiritual needs around us. People need the Lord! And we have been entrusted
with the message of His grace.
He saw Levi,
and called him to follow. Jesus knows the hearts of men. And he knew that
Levi would hear His voice and follow Him. So, He called, and Levi rose and
followed him! There was another tax collector that Jesus called in Lk 19:2-6,
2 And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax
collector and was rich. 3 And
he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not,
because he was small of stature. 4
So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was
about to pass that way. 5 And
when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus,
hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today." 6 So he hurried and came down and
received him joyfully…
Zacchaeus was not
a mere collector of tariffs like Levi, he was a “chief tax collector.” He was seeking to see who Jesus was, but
Jesus already knew all about Zacchaeus, and
in fact he calls him by name, and announces His plan to stay at his house! He
was someone despised by most of the populace, viewed as a traitor and a thief. Nevertheless,
God was at work! Think about it for a moment. Is there someone in your sphere
of influence, someone you rub shoulders with on a regular basis, that you feel
might be the last person in the world that would ever come to Christ? Maybe
someone you’ve witnessed to for years, but they’ve shown no sign of interest in
spiritual things? Jesus came to save
sinners. Remember, it is not the healthy that need a physician but the
sick! Jesus means life for all who recognize their need and put their trust in
Him. After all… salvation by grace means that no one deserves to be part of God’s family, and no one is beyond the reach
of His love.
II. Reaching our World
for Christ: Infiltrate, don’t isolate (15)!
15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax
collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there
were many who followed him.
Jesus went to
a “dinner party” at Levi’s house (oikos).
When Jesus went
to Levi’s house for dinner, who would you expect to be gathered there? His oikos of course, his extended family and
friends! Levi called together his
friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors and he invites them to come to
his house for dinner to meet Jesus and his disciples. And they came, a bunch of people who were
pretty much like Levi—tax collectors and sinners, people who would have been
looked down upon by the religious leaders and “respectable” Jews. Half of
them might even be described by a political leader of the day as a basket of “deplorables”!
But God loved them! [We looked at this
on Tuesday at our men’s meeting, and one of the guys said, “Jesus doesn’t only
see what we are, He sees what we are going to be.”] Levi was also known as Matthew, and he would
become the writer of the Gospel of Matthew. God had a plan! And so, Jesus and
his disciples reclined at the table with them, and many came to follow Jesus.
Eating with
someone, sharing a meal, was considered a rather intimate expression of
fellowship. Those present, now dining with Jesus and his disciples, were tax
collectors and sinners! Jesus is our example. Remember the words of Pastor Greg
Laurie in the video we saw a couple of weeks ago: “We are not called to isolate, we are called to infiltrate…” the
world around is, to be “in” the world, and to show people the love of Christ
and the reality of grace. There is a
line here that we need to be careful about. We are part of a “New Creation” if
we are in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). We are told to not be “conformed to the world”
(Rom 12:2). So we need to make sure that we are light, shining for Jesus. We
want to be a “stepping stone” for others to believe, and not a “stumbling
block” that gives them an excuse to turn away! Remember that God was, in
Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, and that He has committed to us,
sinners saved by grace, the ministry of reconciliation. And so, we go about our
lives, interacting with our friends, relatives and neighbors, seeking to
influence them with the Word of Truth. Some may seem like unlikely converts,
but then, so were some of us. And here we are! Yes, salvation by grace means
that no one deserves to be part of
God’s family, but it is also true that no one is beyond the reach of His love!
III. Why did Jesus come? To call sinners to
repentance and faith
(16,17)!
16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that
he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why
does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 17 And when Jesus heard it, he
said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those
who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."
Jesus’ mission
was not about gathering the most righteous… Why? Humanity had a sin problem,
which meant that humans were unable to remedy the consequences of the Fall (Rom
5:12; 6:23). Remember the big questions Mark is answering in this gospel: 1)
Who is Jesus? 2) Why did He come? And 3) What does it mean to follow him? He is God, and He came to do for us what we
could not do for ourselves. We all were lost and dead, without God and without
hope. No one deserves to go to heaven. “We
all, like sheep, have gone astray…” (Isa 53:6).
Mark L.
Strauss wrote concerning his own reaction when personally exposed to a similar
scene in the present day…
…I remember on one occasion my wife and I attended a
New Year’s Eve party at the home of friends. I was surprised to notice that
almost everyone present was an unbeliever, and I remember thinking, “I wonder
if my friends are falling away from the faith?” When I came to my senses, I
realized that perhaps it was I who was not living out the life of Christ. I was
teaching in a Christian school, preaching at a Christian church, and
socializing with Christian friends. By contrast my friends were engaged with
the world around them, modeling the love of God before their non-Christian
friends. God calls us to be salt and light... (Commentary on Mark, 133-4).
That is the point: Jesus came to call “sinners” to
repentance and faith and He has left us in the world to be His ambassadors,
His spokesmen! How will we do that if we
don’t engage with the world? It is true,
that many of our “friends” will leave us after we come to faith in Christ, it
always seems to happen. But we don’t want to give them reason to leave by being
judgmental or “holier than thou”! We
want to love them and with gentleness and respect, we can urge them to be
reconciled to God, always looking for opportunities to give a reason for the
hope that is in us.
What is God saying to me
in this passage? Salvation
by grace means that no one deserves
to be part of God’s family, and no one is beyond the reach of His love.
What would God have me
to do in response to this passage? If we have been saved by grace, our hearts should be filled
with humility and thankfulness: Humility, because we have no room
for boasting, we were without God and without hope in the world; and thankfulness,
since Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves. That should
translate into compassion for the lost. Our desire is to implement in our
church a Laser-Focused commitment to Team Evangelism. Remember our vision statement: We envision a community of Christ followers,
rooted in the Word, treasuring God as supremely valuable, proclaiming the
message of His grace to the world. That is our vision as a church, and each
of us has a part in accomplishing it. Only a few in a group this size probably
have the gift of evangelism. But all of us are called to be a witness. Think of
the people God has put in your life… We want to make it easier for you to influence
them for God by giving you some tools that you can use. Firstly, we all want to
be praying for opportunities to be a witness.
It is a high
calling and privilege to be used of God to share a testimony with someone,
showing them that God is real and that He has made a difference in our life.
You should also have resources from the table in the back that you can give to
your friends, relatives, neighbors, and co-workers. Like the PTL Gospels of John (they have a
very simple gospel presentation on the first few pages…). Gospel tracts, or the
Jesus film DVDs are there for you to take and pass on.
We want to point out the Boothbay
Baptist / Truelife.org cards that you received today. It is a low stress way to
hand out “personal invitations” to people that you come in contact with. This
week I gave invitation cards to about five people… Even if they don’t come
immediately, they will have a web address on the back that can point them to
video answers to the questions they might have. This news is too good to keep
to ourselves. Let’s embrace our mission to be His witnesses! The Lord’s Table is a remembrance, and a
reminder: a remembrance of why He came, and a reminder of what it means to
follow Him… AMEN.
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