The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
According to Mark, He went out again beside the sea, and all
the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.
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. 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 had
followed him. And the scribes of the
Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax
collectors, said his disciples, why does he eat with tax
collectors and sinners? 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. Now John's disciples and the
Pharisees were fasting, and people came and said to him, Why
do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, Can the
wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they
cannot fast. The days will come when the
bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in
that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk
cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away
from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.
And no one puts new wine into old wine skins.
If he does, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is
destroyed. If the wine is destroyed, so are
the skins. But new wine is for fresh wine
skins. The Gospel of the Lord.
It is a tremendous joy to be with you today.
Aaron and Laura have become dear friends of ours, sources of
wisdom, of sanity and of courage in the work that we are about
just building our lives in a city like Chicago.
And so I'm deeply grateful for their friendship.
And I think from the moment that we first met, which I think was
a shared meal at Owen and Engine, which no longer is there
on Western, but actually Tuesdays and Wednesdays does at
BC Beer in Logan Square. I don't get any money for this,
but I'm just saying if you missed those burgers, they're
still available a couple of times a week.
But from the moment that we met, their kindness and love for the
Lord has really marked us as a couple and as a family.
And so really grateful to be here because of that.
But also, when my family first moved to the city, we didn't
have a place to sleep yet. And Bill and Mindy Meyer gave us
a bed. And so seeing you like so much,
I'm really grateful for the ministry and love and the life
that you have built in this city that my children don't know it,
but we're here because of people like you, because you gave us a
place to sleep. You spoke truth to us.
We had a long ride to Geneva, one that you reminded me of.
That was a long time to spend with us and you did it you.
So thank you. Thank you for that.
And if you want a really funny story about that moment, come
see me afterwards and I'll share that one off the record.
Lastly, I'll say what you're doing is a miracle.
To exist as a gospel teaching Jesus loving church in Chicago
today is nothing less than a miracle.
And you being here today is a testimony that the resurrection
is real and that Jesus is alive and that the Kingdom of heaven
is showing up on earth as it is in heaven.
And so I'm really, really grateful.
There were so many times I was standing over there, not really
sure I'm I'm like non denominational.
So all of this is amazing to me. Like everything.
It's like this is incredible. This is what heaven is like.
You know, I start to feel over there, but I smiled so many
times because it does my heart so much good to know that there
are brothers and sisters in this part of the city doing what you
are doing. Continuing to show up,
continuing to speak the truth in love, continuing to confess your
sins one to another. Continuing to walk in the light
as He is in the light, even though that gets harder and
harder and harder and harder. So I thank God for you.
I thank God that I get to call you brothers and sisters.
One of the surprising things that has fallen out of the
mainstream, I wonder if you've noticed this, is grace.
Grace is no longer part of what it means to be human.
It's no longer really cool to be kind, if you will.
What is in vogue is to hold your ground in an argument and even
clap back at somebody when they come at you.
It's righteous to cut people off who have wronged you and are no
longer good for your well-being without much thought.
It's socially acceptable to disassociate from people who we
deem lower than ourselves. We we may send aid to them, but
we don't want to be their friends in such an environment.
What Jesus is going to offer us today is an invitation to the
counter culture. On this final Sunday of the
church year, the liturgical calendar before Advent begins,
we're reminded that Christ's rule is not like the kingdoms
and cultures of this world. To feast at his table is to join
his Kingdom. And what that means, the hard
reality, the hard truth of that invitation is it means we have
to leave behind the meals that we are already enjoying.
We have to leave behind a life that we are already living and a
life, if we're honest, we prefer to the life that Jesus offers.
And that's the difference between Jesus and the powers of
this age. If we could simply summarize all
of what he represents in all of this world represents, the
singular distinction is grace. So that's what I want to talk to
you about today as your brother, as a fellow minister of the
gospel. Like you all, I want to talk
about grace. I want to talk about what it is,
why we resist it, and how we can build our lives on it.
We'll do that by organizing our time this way.
We'll look at the nature of grace and the resistance of
grace and finally the power of grace.
So we'll look at the nature of the resistance and the power.
Let's pray and ask for God's help.
Heavenly Father, my friends, my brothers and sisters and myself,
we've we've entered into the space in this moment with a ton
of things in our hearts and minds.
And if they're impulse is anything like mine, I sometimes
believe the best thing I can do is pause all of that before I
walk through the doors of the church and at least have a 90
minute respite from that and then get back to it after lunch.
But I thank you that your word and your gospel is better than
putting our burdens on pause. I thank you that through Peter
you said we could cast all of our cares on you because you
care for us. And so as we come to your word,
that's what we desire to do because where else are we going
to go? You've got the words of eternal
life. And so would you speak to us?
Would you like a loving father comfort us, Help us to see and
savor the beauty of your son Jesus that we might enjoy grace
today. I ask that in Jesus name.
Everybody agreed and said Amen. Before we jump into our passage
today, we should understand something about tables.
In this era of a DoorDash and meals in front of screens, I
think we missed the magnitude of tables today.
No shade, but that's just the reality.
See, in the ancient world of Jesus, tables were a place of
intimacy and love and acceptance.
To share a meal with someone was not just to simply fill your
stomach, it was to fill your soul.
The scholar Dennis Smith explains the table fellowship in
the ancient Mediterranean was more than food consumption.
From Plato on down, banquets held an important place in
creating community, sharing values, and connecting with the
divine. Tables were sacred.
And so the setting of our scene today is no small detail.
It's around a table. Look at verse 13 with me in Mark
chapter 2. He went out again beside the
sea, and all the crowd was coming to him and he was
teaching them. 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.
And as he reclined a table in his house, let's pause there.
Notice the table is the first stop in the life with Jesus.
We see this all the time as Jesus calls people to life with
him. Jesus says follow me.
They follow him and then they're like, let's go eat.
Isn't that fantastic? I love that gospel.
That is such a good gospel. And in this case, Levi also
calls a bunch of his friends to join them in this meal.
Watch as Mark continues in verse 15.
In the second-half, he says as he reclined a table in his
house. Many tax collectors and sinners
were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were
many who followed him and the scribes of the Pharisees when
they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors said
to his disciples, why? Why does he eat with tax
collectors and sinners? Now many of you are familiar
with that phrase, tax collectors and sinners.
It's not a compliment. Tax collectors were viewed as
traitors in the Jewish community because they were financially
benefiting from Roman occupation And sinners were was a term
rather used by religious elites as sort of a catch all for law
Breakers. But it's even more offensive
than that. New Testament scholar NT Wright
explains that when the Pharisees spoke of sinners, they were not
simply describing moral failure. They were operating a social
system in which certain people were excluded from the life of
Israel. These were spiritually and
socially ostracized people. That's what that word means.
Now let's be clear. This seedy group of people
didn't catch Jesus by surprise. It's not as though he got
invited to Levi's house and then he realized who was on the guest
list. And he was like, Dang it, you've
been there before, right? You showed up at the house and
you're like, I did not know she was invited.
I did not know he was coming too, right?
This is why people invented RSVPS.
Did you know that? It's true.
Now this is highly intentional. Look at verse 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.
And he says this to us today. Church, I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners. Jesus was eating with all of
these people on purpose. He says This is why I came.
This is who I came for. Remember, the table is about
intimacy and identification. Jesus is sharing this table,
this fellowship, this connection, this identification
with tax collectors and sinners on purpose.
But notice Jesus didn't just come to be close to them, not to
just associate with them. He didn't just come to be close
to undesirable people. By identifying with them, Jesus
is claiming the role of Savior in their life.
Did you notice that He's not just there to eat with them,
He's there. He says to call them.
He's come to heal them. My brothers and sisters, that's
grace. The nature of grace is this
brilliantly unexpected, surprising, intentional, and
undeserved intimacy and healing that we have in God.
Saint Augustine understood grace through the language of love.
Perhaps you have enjoyed his writings before.
He said that God loved us even when we were unlovable, not
because we were good, but that we might become good.
See, God loves us and something amazing happens when He loves
us. It changes us.
We become different by loving us.
Jesus is claiming the role of Savior in our life as well.
When Jesus shares a meal with someone, it changes them
forever. That's the nature of grace.
It's the unmerited identification and transforming
love of God. Now here's our question.
Who wouldn't want to share in that meal?
Who wouldn't want that kind of connection and power?
Why would anyone refuse such love and grace?
Well, we're about to find out. See, there's this wonderful
juxtaposition in this story. Did you pick up on it?
Lots of people were at Levi's house for this meal, but not
everyone is eating. Look at verse 18.
Now when John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and
people came and said to him, why do John's disciples and the
disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?
Church. Who is the worst person to have
at a dinner party? Someone who's fasting.
It's the worst, right? No, no, no, I'm fasting.
I'm fasting. OK, we get it.
We get it right? You're super spiritual.
The only other person that might be worse is someone training for
a marathon, right? Because they're like, no, no, I
can't eat that. I can't drink that.
I'm training like, we get it. We get it.
You're amazing. I digress.
This is crazy. Let's not miss this.
Jesus has just said that when he eats with people, he loves them
and he transforms them. He heals them.
Then Mark says and tells us that John's disciples and the
Pharisees disciples aren't eating.
They aren't reclining at the table of grace.
They aren't sharing this meal. Now, what does this tell us?
Well, it tells us that despite their religious reputation and
spiritual zeal, they were resistant to grace.
They were resistant to grace, and I think we need to be honest
and vulnerable for a moment and realize that their refusal to
recline at the table, to relax and to receive, to rest in this
moment exposes something in us to we're also resistant to
grace. And I think our resistance is
demonstrated, revealed in two aspects of this story.
The first, like the Pharisees, we don't think we're sick.
Do you know what religious people struggle with the most?
What their biggest problem is? We might presume that it's their
view of God, but I think it's their view of sin.
Most people only think about sin.
And perhaps you can identify with this as the things we do,
say or think that break God's rules that are contrary to his
character. This is why we resist race,
grace. We don't think we need it.
We don't think and say and do that many bad things.
We're good people, so we don't think we need grace or we don't
think we at least need it as much as the next person, right?
You see somebody else who they, they need grace.
I just need a little edit, just like a little little change.
In other words, we think we're already righteous.
We believe we're already well, and Jesus didn't come to heal
the righteous, so we don't think he's here for us.
The problem is, of course, that's not how the Bible talks
about sin. So we got to get clear on sin,
about what it is, and of course the nature of sin.
We could talk about this in a lot of different ways.
Let me give us 3 metaphors that the Bible give gives us for sin.
First, sin is bad soil. Fundamentally, sin is about what
we trust, what we love, what we desire more than God.
In the middle of their morbid sin, the prophet Jeremiah warned
God's people this way in Jeremiah 17.
Thus says the Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts in man and
makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.
Hear this. He is like a shrub that is in
the desert and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched lands of the wilderness, in an
uninhabited salt land. According to Jeremiah, sin is
bad soil. It's anything and everything we
sink our lives into for safety, for provision, for comfort, for
strength, for a break, for justification, for healing.
Like bad soil, though, sin never nurtures our lives.
Sin never produces life. It only produces dead fruit and
lifelessness. The second metaphor that we get
is that sin is blindness. Many of us, perhaps are familiar
with David's story. The king, the greatest king in
Israel's history, and yet at the center of his reign is a story
of utter blindness. He not only committed adultery
and stole someone's wife and killed her husband, but it seems
as though he remains completely unaware of his indiscretions.
In many ways, David's life is a cautionary tale of self
deception. That's why the prophet Samuel
had to tell him a story. You remember this.
There was this guy who stole a sheep.
And David's like, that guy sucks.
Let me tell you what I'm going to do with him.
He deserves to die. And then what's Nathan say?
You're that man. It's you I'm talking about.
Sin is blindness. David's lust for sex and power
blinded his conscience. Lastly, sin is slavery.
See, we often consider sin is isolated, usually disconnected
from events and decisions that we mostly have under control.
This is perhaps Satan's greatest lie about sin is you've got
this. It's totally under control.
It's one of the great lies we believe about sin is that we
control it. But what the Scriptures teach us
is that sin controls us. See, addiction isn't the only
form of slavery. All sin is addiction.
All sin is slavery. Jesus says everyone who
practices sin in John 8 is a slave to sin.
Sin takes control of us in many ways against our will.
It's why the apostle Paul says I do what I don't want to do, and
what I want to do I can't do, and why God told Cain, sin is
crouching at your door and its desire is contrary to you.
Sin is slavery. So without this understanding of
sin, the Pharisees look at the behavior of others.
They look at their station in life, they look at their
connection and their religious practices and their habits, and
they conclude they're not really that bad.
They weren't sinners. And then they looked at Levi.
They looked at Levi go this dude does not have his life together.
They looked at his actions, his lifestyle, and they conclude
that's a Sinner. But their evaluation of health,
of righteousness, was faulty. Do you see?
Their problem was their view of sin, which then spoiled their
view of Jesus and the feast that Jesus was laying before them.
And so they don't eat it. Sin isn't simply what you think,
say, and do. It's what you trust.
It's invisible to you. It's controlling your will.
It's almost like we need each other to identify sin in our
lives. Everyone in this story is a
Sinner. Everyone in this story needed
grace, and so do we. Emmanuel Anglican Church.
We need that. We need grace.
We need grace so that we can be uprooted from bad soil that's
killing us. We need grace so we can open our
eyes to the truth. We need grace so we can be freed
from bondage. But there's another reason we
resist grace. I think it's why Levi and his
friends and most people in Chicago tend to hesitate or
disbelieve the gospel. We don't trust that love really
makes a difference. See, for some of us, we may not
think that we're sinners. For others of us, we may not
think love is going to make a difference.
See, religious people don't think they're sick.
Modern people don't think they can be healed.
Now, this might be surprising to us, so let me explain.
Imagine you're sick. And you grabbed a cup of coffee
with a friend and she's telling you about the incredible medical
treatment that has saved her mother's life.
Imagine how you might feel because you have the same
sickness as her mother. You'd be ecstatic.
You'd be so excited.
But the problem is, you've heard stories like this 1000 times.
The problem is, since you've been sick, everyone has been
telling you incredible stories of healings, and you've tried
them all and none of them is working.
None of them is healing. You.
To this friend's message sounds just like every other empty
promise. Chicago is filled with empty
promises. College grads from all over the
country come to Chicago to find healing.
We're looking to heal our sickness of grief, of
loneliness, of anger and insignificance and poverty.
Many people born in Chicago stay here to heal family trauma and
to alleviate the pain of feeling forgotten.
The problem, of course, is that the city is a terrible
physician. With all the good this city has
to offer, nothing within its limits liberates your soul.
In fact, it only makes matters worse.
And so to hear that Jesus is their healer, to hear that Jesus
is our healer, can be hard to believe.
Can this Love Actually make a difference?
Can this remedy actually be any different?
The thing underlying that for me, and I imagine for others as
well, is shame. Shame is the voice that tells us
love won't work. Shame has gripped many of our
friends and neighbors. So many have settled for false
gospels that tell them they can fix themselves.
Shame says it's all up to you. Perhaps you can relate.
Daily, we're invited through media education to uproot our
own lives from damaging relationships, to open up our
own ignorant eyes, and to unshackle ourselves from
addictive cycles and unhealthy habits.
See, identity in the modern age is isn't about being shaped and
changed, is it? It's about discovering what's
underneath the surface that is being oppressed, where there is
pain on top and no outside influence can touch it.
See, modern identity isn't about transformation.
It's about self discovery and self definition and then self
promotion. See, the gospel says who you are
in Christ is made in community through God and who we are in
the modern age as we go outside of community, then tell
everybody who we are and here's how you got to talk to me.
Here's who I am. It's like when Harvard, the
Harvard's psychology professor, answered a student's question.
But how to rid a patient of hatred and hostility toward a
parent? The professor said.
I think the therapist in this case would say lots of luck.
To ask that his hostility magically disappear isn't
realistic. He'll have to learn to live with
it and hopefully not be driven by it.
If you guys are looking for a changed heart, I think you're
looking in the wrong department. Most people know there's
something wrong with them. Most people, like Levi, realize
they're sick. However, they're just not
convinced anything can make a difference, especially love.
Religious people then resist grace because of pride.
Modern people resist grace because of shame.
Religious people misunderstand sin.
Modern people misunderstand love.
So where's your heart this morning?
Maybe like the Pharisees, you've slipped into believing you're
above reproach. Or perhaps, like the tax
collectors and sinners, you think your sickness is too
developed or your habits too ingrained or egregious.
Nevertheless, Jesus makes room at the table of grace for both
of you. He does so by answering the
question. He shows us the power of grace
overwhelms our resistance. Remember, their question is
essentially why are you eating? Why are you enjoying this meal?
Why aren't you fasting like us? Jesus answers with a set of
metaphors, parables really, that convey the same idea.
Look at verse 19 And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests
fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they
cannot fast. The days will come when the
bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in
that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk
cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away
from it, the new from the old, and of worse and of a worse tear
is made, and no one puts new wine into old wine skin.
If he does, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is
destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine skin is for fresh
or new wine is for new. For fresh wine skins.
First metaphor is a wedding celebration, new life, fresh
beginning. Another is about new wine, a
drink of celebration which comes in a fresh container.
What Jesus wants both the proud and the shame to hear is that
eating and drinking at his table makes something new happen.
You see, in both marriage and winemaking, the old must be
abandoned entirely or a new life will be completely spoiled.
In fact, that's the power of the new life.
A new life can overwhelm the old one.
You get a new name, You get a new trajectory.
You get new joy. You get a brand new life.
The old way is feast is a feast of pride and shame.
The new is a feast of grace. It's not powerful because it's
new, not because it's novel, not been thought of before.
It's not like how we treat the month of January, right?
I'm definitely going to be different this year.
No, you're not. It's the same thing every year.
Just wait till January 21st and we'll move on to something else,
right? Ultimately, Jesus is saying I
got something better for you than January.
Ultimately, what Jesus is telling all these dinner guests
is not that He has grace to give them, or that He has a party to
invite them to, or that he has some new drink to offer them.
He's telling them that he is their grace.
He is the groom. He is the wine.
He is the power of grace. You see the in the Gospel, the
story of Jesus gives us a clear picture both of sin and love.
Sin is so severe that it will cost Jesus his life.
Sin is so beyond us that we need a Savior from outside us, a
physician who is not infected by the same disease.
But that's not all. We also see that His love is so
great that he didn't just invite us to the wedding, He made us
the bride. We witnessed this in the way
that Jesus brings the cure. This is what makes love
transformational. The way Jesus heals us is by
becoming wounded for us. He's the physician who allowed
himself to be infected by the disease.
So Paul told the church in Corinth, for our sake he made
him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God. That's the power of grace.
Perhaps This is why of all the ways Jesus wanted to communicate
and teach us to remember his death and resurrection, what did
he choose? A table, a meal, he chose bread
and wine. The table of Jesus is always a
wedding and a funeral. It's the power of love over sin.
It's the death of pride and shame.
And it's an invitation to grace. And we pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that your good news is just
that good, that it gives us healing from sin and it gives us
grace through love. So, Father, may we confess our
sin and know that you are faithful and just and powerful
and good to extend grace to us and to purify us of a guilty
conscience so that we might become people of grace.
We love you. We thank you in Jesus name,
Amen.