The little We are so thankful this morning that we can gather
together and your name. We praise you, Lord, for all the
things that Christ has done for us that bring us together this
morning. Pray for injury this morning as
he brings the word to us. I pray that you would help us to
have ears to hear this morning. Thank you for all the work that
he's put into the message and, and just really pray that you
bless him as he shares with us. We prayed for our Sunday school
teachers as they share with the kids as well.
And we'll pray for all the kids too, that they may grow up
understanding your word and growing in a personal
relationship with you. Lord, we thank you all again.
We praise you for this time. Pray for injury.
Pray for your word that your Holy Spirit may go forward this
morning, may teach us what we need to know for our lives, what
we pray. Thank you Lord, in Jesus name,
Amen. Thank you, Lee.
Thank you, music team and welcome everyone again,
everyone, especially if you're visiting for the first time.
And today we are continuing in the Luke series and we're going
to read about the call of a disciple called Levi.
Just before we read that together, high up in the hills
in the South of India, I went to a boarding school for about 8
years and every every week a sports team would be picked and
I remember the process very well.
You're in a group of kids and there is a competition going on
to get chosen and the sports team process was generally like
this, OK, we're going to 1212120 K right once there Tuesday.
That does not work. That always worked against me
and then occasionally the teacher would say alright, it's
gonna be there tallest to the shortest.
OK, now there is not scientific. That does not work at all.
It's a very short sighted way to choose a sports team.
Generally the teacher would say right, we will have two captains
and you will take turns to choose and the process would
generally go well, right? The most athletic.
The most popular, The most strong?
The academic, The nerds, the drags.
And every week I tried everything to change categories.
I stood on tiptoe, I walked around and short of saying
choose me, choose me every week. That process continued in one
year, in the middle of the academic year, our teacher said
to us, we have a new student and his name is Bobby.
Now. Bobby was a very, very big boy
and very clunky, I guess you could say, and he was hopeless
at sport. And so those of us who were in
the dregs category were quite pleased to see Bobby come along.
He he ran like an elephant. We're in flippers and he was a
really nice boy, but you could hear him come in before you even
saw him. I'll leave the story for now,
just in case I get into trouble with a long illustration.
So let's turn, please, to Luke chapter 5, and we'll read
together Call of Levi, Luke chapter 5, verses 27 to 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 text 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.
Now the chapter so far has contained many different
surprises. There's the themes of authority,
there's the themes of astonishment and amazement as
the people around notice this miracle working rabbi and are
starting to realise that something is different about
this man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man.
And as we go through this chapter, I'm praying that this
little portion will again ignite our hearts to realise how
amazing this person is, the Lord Jesus.
By the way, as you read the words after this, or if you look
at other passages in the other gospels, you'll see the word
passing by. Now, just to clarify, there's
nothing random about the Lord's meeting with Levi in this
passage whatsoever. There's nothing fortuitous
coincidental whatsoever. Luke, the writer, is far too
precise for that to be a mistake.
He is far too orderly. It's an orderly account to give
certainty and clarity. And the Lord Jesus is a
purposeful Messiah, and he also is not just here by accident.
And so just to remind you, for those who are not familiar with
the Gospels, there's four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John and Matthew, Mark and Luke are all very similar.
They're called synoptic gospels, the same view.
And I'll just illustrate what that might mean.
For example, imagine the writers are describing this lectern and
one of them is actually standing over here and writing about what
he has seen. And as you go home, someone will
say to you, now, did you see Andrew's son this morning?
And the writer will say, no, Andrew son wasn't there.
I just saw someone else on that side.
But if the writers over here and says now, did you see Nick and
Sarah Houghton, Were they there? No, I didn't see them, but
they're there. And so different writers will
have different perspectives as they describe what they see.
And for that reason, let me share with you that today as we
look at this chapter, at this portion, there will be little,
little additions that we need to notice in the passage.
For example, as you look at it in this chapter we will find
that there is reference to tax collectors and others.
But if you read it in Matthews Gospel, he refers to tax
collectors and sinners. Likewise, in this passage we
read that the Pharisees asked why do you eat and drink with
tax sliders and sinners? But in Matthew, the writer says,
Why does your teacher eat with text collectors and sinners?
And likewise, in Matthew, there is one little piece that is not
in Luke that we need to add as we understand this little
passage this morning, the phrase, which is go and learn.
So we'll come back to that shortly.
So just bear that in mind. Different views add context,
they add details. Matthew compared with Luke shows
that the name is actually Matthew.
In here it's Levi. Now that might be that he had a
middle name. It could well be that Levi was
given the name Matthew by the Lord Jesus.
We don't know, but that is the same person.
Matthew and Levi are the same person.
Now the outline for this morning is as follows.
The divisions, this 6 verses, 10 minutes per verse is just
perfect, and 27 and 28, the publican's choice.
The Pharisees complained and the physicians call.
Now if you are fortunate enough to have read a King James Bible,
you'll notice that the word is publican.
It's the same word as text collector.
But let me just explain to you what a publican means.
The publican is a word taken from the Latin public Ghani, and
that is the name for public contractors in the Roman Empire.
Now these public Ghani, these publications were wealthy men
contracted to collect taxes for the Roman government, and they
were paid for that privilege. And they were often Romans and
occasionally they were Jews. For example, Zacchaeus one of
the well known examples of the chief tax collector.
Now, generally the Republicans were the the chiefs and the tax
collectors were underneath them in the hierarchy.
They were actually, in a sense tax farmers because what they
would do is they would actually tender for a portion of the city
and then be contracted to collect the tax from that
portion. So, for example, say here we've
got say 200 people and they would go to the Roman government
and they would say, I will collect the tax for this group
of people and it will be such and such.
The government would say, right, you put down the money up front
and then go for it, OK. They would take their money from
the publications and then the publican's were set loose to
regain, to recover their investment.
Now the taxes were very varied. There was the poll tax for
adults, for anybody over 14, the tribute from Carpenters.
There was the land tax, the tribute and agree, and there was
also many other forms of indirect taxes that were
collected. So there was charges for imports
and exports. There was charges for
transporting slaves. There was charges collected at
roads and bridges and at the sea, at the Wharf.
There was even probably a fishing tax.
It's very likely that this man, Matthew was well known to Peter
and Andrew, James and John, possibly Levi or Matthew would
connect tax from the fishermen there.
I wonder what the business strategy would be.
Very simply, it would be to make money.
It would be to actually increase your investment and as a result
of that, this was a place where there was a lot of corruption.
There was loan sharks, there was money laundering, there was debt
collecting. It was lucrative.
It was ruthless. It was a grubby, seedy,
despised, selfish vocation and as a result of that the
publications where very well known.
Everybody knew the tax collectors and the town, the
publican's choice. It was first of all a despised
career and one of the interesting things about their
reference to tax collectors and Scriptures is you will almost
always see them combined with the word sinners, tax collectors
and sinners. In Luke 15 again we'll have the
repeat of this grumble from the Pharisees.
This man receives sinners and eats with him.
Tax collectors and sinners mingling together.
In Matthew chapter 5, when it describes being good to those
that are good to you, it says, well, even text collectors do
that. Wow, that's a little bit of a
kind of like even text blitz can be good like that in Matthew 18
where you read about forgiveness and about putting out someone if
there is a problem, let him be as a tax collector.
In other words, treat him like one of those.
A 501, Yeah. In Luke 18 there's the parable
of the the Pharisee and the tax collector, and the Pharisee is
saying I'm cleared, Lord, that I'm not like that tax collector
over there. Yeah, I'm not an extortioner,
I'm not an adulterer and I'm not even like that tax collector.
Wow. Very, very despised people who
were deemed unclean by the Jews because they were in contact
with Gintas. As a result.
Luke records this man Levi as a publican for a reason, because
he was despised. Secondly, Levi shows a dramatic
decision. The Lord Jesus made him comes to
his text booth and says follow me and we read.
He left everything and rose and followed Jesus.
Now the the the meaning of the word follow here is actually to
do with the Jewish practise of rabbis calling followers to be
their disciples. And when the Lord Jesus said to
Levi follow me, it was basically saying come and learn everything
about me, practise what I say, imitate me, emulate that and
then go and do likewise. That was the process of
following. We would do the text a great
disservice if we see that the Lord Jesus chose Matthew or Levi
for his skills. That is not what the thought is
here whatsoever. Jesus did not call Matthew for
his giftings and skills and connections.
The name Matthew means gift of God, and Matthew's choice was
actually first Jesus choosing him.
The Lord Jesus chose Levi before Levi chose to follow the Lord
Jesus. A matter of election chosen to
follow with utter disregard for human wisdom and logic.
The Lord Jesus said Matthew Levi, come and follow me.
And so therefore Jesus effectively chose a dropkick, a
social outcast, a disgrace. Levi made him a great feast.
Verse 29. There was no words, but it was a
dramatic, emphatic statement of his intent and his commitment to
follow the Lord Jesus. And by the way, the character
Levi or Matthew, I'm going to call him Matthew just because
that's what I'm used to. But he never utters a word in
Scripture, never says a word. This feast that he throws is
actually something that is very beautiful because he has a large
company of his friends, his, the tax collectors and others at the
table with him. But Matthew goes on to
faithfully record in great detail, so many different
details of the Lord's work on earth.
There's reference to the Kingdom of heaven.
There's the full text of the Sermon on the Mount.
There's the fullest account of the Olivet Discourse and things
to come. And of the 1000 odd verses in
Matthew, over 600 words of the Lord Jesus recorded 30 miracles,
40 parables, and a lot about the Pharisees as well.
So Matthew was a very precious and very valued member of the
discipleship team. And as we've sung this morning,
love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my
all. Matthew Levi chose to follow and
give his all to the Lord. Jesus.
Let me take you back to my friend Bobby.
Bobby John was his name. We didn't know his last name for
a long time but finally we got to know him and my my Irish
friend and boarding school composed and Limerick about
Bobby and it goes like this and this is 50 odd years ago but
it's still in my head. Bobby's nose is long.
Bobby's nose is strong. It would be no disgrace to
Bobby's face if half his nose was gone.
Philip Gardner was a very kind boy, actually the he's a doctor
actually in Northern Ireland. But anyway, but Bobby was a
really nice boy too. And so Thursday came round and
the sports class is assembled and it's time to time to choose
the team. And I'll always remember the day
and the teacher says right, two teams and the captains are
appointed. And that day Bobby John was
chosen first. God's grace to us.
It's a bit like the day when Jesus said Matthew, tax
collector, hated, despised. Come and follow me, Come and
follow me. I know all about you.
I know what you do. I know what people think of you.
I know what you think about yourself, but just come and be
my disciple. God's grace, the Pharisees
complained. 1st 30 The Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at
his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with text
collectors and sinners? Why do you eat with text
collectors and sinners? And by the way, remember in
Matthew, the Eyewitness, the question is actually why does
your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
So it's a little Barb, it's a little dig, and it's designed to
actually work its way back to the Lord Jesus along the lines
of what are you doing, teacher, rabbi, associating with the
scumbags of society. Why are you eating with people
like this? And it's a loaded question.
The Pharisees are never far away.
In the Gospels, the word Pharisee actually means
separated once, and they are a Jewish group with strict
commitment to the laws of the Torah.
They have an extensive collection of oral tradition and
rules and regulations. They had strict rules for the
Sabbath, They had rules regarding ritual cleansing.
They had laws and procedures for tithing and they had a problem.
Why are you associating with people like that?
Google tells me that the fair is his head, a rule for the Sabbath
where women were forbidden to look in a mirror on the Sabbath
day because they might see a grey hair and be tempted to
pluck it out. And that would be work.
Now I'm not sure if that's disinformation.
If if you can clarify that point, please do, but there's
lots of other examples in Scripture.
We're not guessing here in Scripture where the Pharisees
were very clear about what they wanted to be done with regard
to, for example, ritual washing, if they would go to the market
and came back and washing their hands, cleansing their plates.
We read in Mark Chapter 7 that there's even reference to
cleaning of furniture. It's quite an interesting one.
And King James, it's cleaning of tables, but actually the word
might refer to the couch. Wednesday night we have the
young people come round home and when I get back from Bible study
we we sometimes say ohh, the young people have been here
today and it's great. We don't do the vacuuming.
We don't clean the couch, but the Pharisees probably would.
These Pharisees were practising social distancing, face masks,
hand sanitizer, No problem. That was that was, that was
their philosophy. They were diligently observing
their religious rules and the tax collectors were ceremonially
unclean and not to be associated with, certainly not to have a
meal with them. That would be an absolute
disgrace. But before we totally write off
the Pharisee, I ask you this question.
Is there anything wrong with laws?
No. We need standards, We need
processes, we need laws that help us and guide us.
In many of the Pharisees genuinely attempted and intended
to please and honour God. There was Nicodemus, he was a
seeker, he was a Pharisee. There was Paul the persecutor,
and we've read about that in Philippines 3 this morning.
He was the Prince of Pharisees. He was educated, he was zealous.
He was blameless under the law. What then is the problem with
this complaint? Why is it wrong for these people
to ask the Son of Man, why do you eat with tax collectors and
Pharisees? I'll put it this way.
Have you ever noticed how easy it is for a rule or a standard
to become legalism? You see, we can criticise
anything and it's a lot of fun sometimes, you know, is it too
hot or too cold in this room? You know, the seats, are they
low enough? Are they comfortable enough?
What about this pulpit? Is it central today?
Is it is it lined up today or is it slightly off?
What about Gavin's haircut? I mean, what about children and
church? I mean, when's the right time to
take out a noisy child? Is there a right time?
And you see, we can actually, we can actually get really bogged
down. And the problem is this.
When we look at it, we have a problem of performance.
We have a problem of pride and performance.
What happens? We have these superficial rules
that become a measure of our prowess and our spiritual
condition before a holy God. They are external.
They might be things that could be noticed the way we dress or
the way we speak or the way we perform.
And the problem is this. It feeds self righteousness in
the heart. It is a problem of confidence
and comparison with others. It is a situation where we are
actually taking the place of God in judging others rather than
referring to Him as the absolute standard for what we do.
The problem of performance and pride.
And the Lord Jesus knows our hearts and sees our motives and
understands exactly where we are before Him.
Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
Is a question that we often ask, but it's not a question for us
to ask the physician's call the term physician, of course, the
doctor, and already this phrase has been used to mock the Lord
Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Physician, heal yourself.
And there he is in his hometown, and they mock him and use it as
a word to despise him. But a physician is a Doctor Who
cares. I have a Doctor Who wants to see
me every year in October and November.
Last year I thought I'm going to do a little experiment.
I'm going to contact my doctor's office and say, doctor, I'm
actually feeling really well. I think everything is all good.
I don't need to see you and that's what I did.
Just send me my script and I don't need to see you.
As far as I know, everything is fine.
Shortly after that my doctor contacted me.
He said you might not want to see me, but I want to see you.
I'm glad that there's doctors who can.
The great physician came to set the captives free.
He came to restore the eyesight of the blind.
He came to liberate the oppressed.
He came to preach the good news. He came to call sinners to
repentance. And right throughout this gospel
of Luke there is the same thread again and again.
The seeking Saviour, the one who came to seek and save the lost.
The Lord Jesus calling sinners to repentance.
This city one and verse 32 in a sense are a summary of the
Gospel of Luke. Those who are well have no need
of a position, but those who are sick I have not come to call the
righteous but sinners to repentance.
There are two learning outcomes I want to share with you this
morning from these verses. 2 applications.
First of all a call to repentance.
What is repentance? First of all, repentance
involves the conviction for sin. We will not turn to God until we
recognise the damage that send us in our relationship with
Christ. God's righteous character and
standards will cause us to be convicted and like Levi say, I
need you, Lord Jesus. Secondly, repentance involves
contrition, and we have read about that in Psalm 51.
Thank you Avi for sharing those verses.
Repentance brings contrition or godly sorrow over sin that goes
beyond guilt or sadness. It is not mere remorse.
It is not just saying, ohh, look, I'm sorry that's happened.
It is actually a deep, deep brokenness.
And as we've read this morning and Psalm 51, the sacrifice that
God desires is a broken and a contrite heart, a willingness to
say I am sorry, holy God, for the wrong I have done.
And finally, repentance involves conversion, a deliberate turning
away from sin and self to obey God.
Repentance presents God's grace to wayward lost sinners.
Romans chapter 2, verse 4 asks us this question.
Do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and
patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to
repentance? How often we crucify afresh the
Son of God because we do not reject the ways of sin.
Repentance is the core of the physician to Levi come and
follow and Levi said I need you. I'm sorry.
And he left all and followed. And we can humbly and trust in
the return to God who longs to bliss.
We can turn to him because He rescues the lost and restores
those who have fallen from Him. Secondly, the physician's call
is a call to relationship, and we read those verses in Matthew
Chapter 11. Thank you, Luke, for those
verses. Come unto me, the Lord Jesus
said. Learn of Me, take my yoke upon
you, and learn of Me, for I and meek and lowly in heart, and you
will find rest to your souls. And as we look at Matthew's
recollection of this event, we find one very special detail.
Matthew Chapter 9 verse 13 says this.
Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not
sacrifice. Luke got it right in this
portion. Matthew gave us more detail in
Matthew Chapter 9. Matthew Wright in several years
years later, actually adds this little detail.
He was the eyewitness. He was the one who actually
heard the Lord's call and this is what the Lord Jesus said.
Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not
sacrifice. That is actually a direct quote
from Hosier 6. That is actually the words of
Jehovah to Israel. Israel, I don't need your
sacrifices. I don't need your good works.
I don't need your good deeds. I don't need your performance.
I am seeking your heart. I am seeking a relationship with
you, not just an outward external cosmetic peripheral.
Jesus is calling sinners to repentance, not just external
rules, not performance and rituals.
And Jesus chose a despised tax collector like Matthew.
And so the challenge for us today is to learn.
Learn of the Lord Jesus and then go and learn to walk and follow
Him. Cry out to God for His mercy and
for His forgiveness, coming just as you are bringing failures,
bringing addictions, bringing disappointments, whatever it is
that would cause you to feel a distance from God, the Lord
Jesus is inviting us to find salvation and race in Him alone.
The Songwriter speaks of being forever grateful for the cross,
forever grateful for the Lord Jesus stooping into humanity,
walking amongst men, reaching out to their down pressed and
their outcast, the text collector, and saying come and
follow. I'm forever grateful.
I'm forever grateful that you came to seek and save the lost
its prey. Father in Heaven, we are forever
grateful, we are amazed and in all of Your great mercy of Your
plan of salvation, of Your heart of love, and Your desire to call
sinners to repentance. Not the righteous, not the
self-righteous, not the do gooders, not the external, but
the internal change of heart, a new beginning, a new start.
And Father, as we hear your voice to us again today, we pray
that we will be true followers, that we will be in relationship
with the one who loved us, the one who is seeking and saving
the lost, and that we will, like Levi, rise up and follow you.
We give you our thanks this day in Jesus name, Amen.