Luke 5:27-32

My basic assumption as we come to this passage today is that it's not just an interesting story but that Jesus calls you and me today.

! There's a challenge, a big challenge in this passage but there's also a comfort and I'm guessing you'll need to hear one of those two things.

I'll let you decide what that is. But in chapter 5, if you've got your Bible open you can see what else has been going on in that chapter.

At the start, Jesus has called Simon Peter and then there's a whole thing with Peter not catching any fish and then just being blown away by who Jesus is.

As he puts his nets down and gets this great catch of fish and Simon Peter realises his sin and says, away from me Lord, I'm a sinful man in verse 8.

You've got the cleansing of the leper just after that and Jesus reaching out to the untouchable who no one else would go near.

And leprosy just so obviously a picture of sin that just pervades us from head to toe.

Then you've got the healing of the paralytic in verse 17 onwards and it's so clear by the end of that passage that Jesus is not just concerned with healing our bodies

but actually it's forgiveness of sin that is our big problem and that Jesus meets.

So there's this big theme that as Jesus comes into contact with people, their sin becomes all the more evident

but so does his ability to rescue them from it.

So we shouldn't be scared about talking about sin. I know sometimes Christians, some churches are a little bit scared to talk about sin.

Maybe you have been in the past, maybe you are now.

But actually we shouldn't be because it is the very thing that when we see it for all its horror, we start to see Jesus

and his ability to save us and our need for him.

So Luke is showing us Jesus' priorities and as we see what he says, we can't think Jesus has just come for religious people,

people whose idea of a Sunday morning is watching songs of praise, you know.

Actually he's come for everyone. He's come to forgive sins which presupposes that there are sins to forgive.

And so it's no surprise that the next thing he does in the passage we read is to call a sinner to follow him.

There he is in verse 27. His name is Levi.

Levi. These six verses are, you know, it's a short unit but it's quite punchy isn't it?

It all happens very quickly.

If you were to think about it like a film, you'd have two big scenes.

First of all, verses 27 and 28, you could say at the office.

It's at the office isn't it? Because Levi's there at his tax booth.

And then, of course, it's back at home.

But first of all, scene one, at the office, verse 27.

Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth.

Follow me, Jesus said to him. Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Just like that, as Tommy Cooper would have said.

I'm sure at breakfast that morning when Levi left the house, she did not expect him to come home.

Early, first of all.

And with a P45 form.

Saying his job was finished.

And he had a new life ahead.

Maybe you saw that story last week of the man a hundred years ago

whose wife sent him out to buy a set of dining chairs and he came back with Stonehenge.

He'd gone to an auction. Stonehenge was out for auction.

And he bought it. It was brilliant.

We don't even know Levi was married, so I'm sort of speculating a little bit.

But he goes to work, normal day, comes back as a disciple.

He will be an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, following Jesus, I know the word follow doesn't have quite the same impact today, does it?

Thanks to the online social network Twitter.

Where following someone just means that you subscribe to what they might say.

Which may be sensible or may not.

I mean, you may or may not listen to it.

Levi, though, will truly follow Jesus.

He will spend his life helping his fellow Jews in particular understand who he is.

Now, what made him do that?

We're not told.

Something about Jesus' words caused everything else in Levi's life just to take a back seat.

He's a tax collector.

When your country is under occupation, I don't need to say it's obvious you don't win any brownie points by collecting taxes for the enemy.

That's what he's doing.

In their eyes, particularly the Pharisees' eyes, he has sold himself.

He's on a level with the prostitutes.

Who is he today?

Well, he's somebody, he's anyone who has just turned their back on trying to pretend to be a moral person in any way.

At the weekend, he will do anything else apart from be at church.

That's the one place he won't be.

He'll be having a barbecue with his friends at home.

He'll be out in the country, getting away from town.

He'll be perhaps working weekends, if you can justify it.

He'll be watching the sport.

That's Levi.

Last place he'd be is in church.

Maybe that was you at some point.

Maybe it still is you.

Maybe actually you can see yourself in Levi quite a bit.

Socially, he's got loads of mates.

But spiritually, well, he's the unlikeliest man to be a disciple of Jesus.

But there's some sort of emptiness, some sort of realisation going on in Levi.

But Jesus, and you can see that Jesus fills it.

Maybe he's stood at his tax booth and heard some of Jesus' teaching wafting on the air.

And he's caught some of it.

And he just, he's become convinced.

So there's the question.

What made Levi just get up and follow Jesus?

Well, we're not told exactly.

But there's another question we could ask.

Arguably even more important.

Not just what made Levi do it.

But what made Jesus do it?

If you're on a disciple recruitment drive, why would you go for that man?

And we do know the answer to this question because it's explained in scene 2 at Levi's house.

We've had at the office.

Now it's back at the house.

Verse 29 onwards.

And Levi's clearly, he's not short of a bubble too.

He can invite friends.

Probably a load of other people who don't really give a stuff about religion either.

I'm sure in many ways it was a great party.

If you've been to parties, you know that parties like that, with those sorts of people,

can sometimes be more fun than with people like the Pharisees.

I'm sure it was a great party.

But Jesus' presence highlights something else.

Levi's purpose for this party is different.

He's clearly invited his friends for the sole purpose of connecting them with Jesus, hasn't he?

When you find something good, you want to share it with friends.

And that's what's going on here.

But not everyone sees things quite as simply as this.

Verse 30, we see that the Pharisees and the scribes complained to his disciples,

Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

In other words, they are not suitable company for someone like you,

who claims to be a teacher, a rabbi.

They're basically saying that he's condoning the behaviour of these people.

But Jesus' reply is very clear, very thought through of course.

Verse 31,

Notice here that Jesus doesn't give a general,

Oh, I love everybody, sort of answer.

He's quite specific.

He says essentially,

Well, where would you expect to find a doctor?

Would you go to a gym when you need a doctor?

Have you found the gym up?

Well, no, because they're fit and healthy there, some of them.

If you, you go to your surgery, don't you?

You go to the doctor's surgery, or to the hospital.

A doctor, when they qualify,

I've got a friend who's a junior doctor,

she is looking for jobs in hospitals, in surgeries.

That's the logical place to be.

That's Jesus' simple logic here.

Why would he keep sick people at arm's length?

If he is the great doctor of the soul?

So there's a challenge here,

when we're tempted to think that we're more righteous than other people.

There's a real challenge for each one of us.

But I think none of us are free from this attitude

that the Pharisees and the scribes show.

In their treatment of others,

in their attitude to Jesus,

in their view of themselves,

they've got a problem.

And Jesus challenges them with these verses.

And in terms of...

I don't want to go through all of those,

but they're so intertwined.

Their view of other people,

their view of themselves,

their view of Jesus,

they're all intertwined.

And perhaps it's good to think about it in this way.

I've got a little story

that will just help us to understand

why their view of Jesus and others and themselves is so wrong.

Here's the story.

It's about a woman in a village.

And she buys something from the market one day.

She's a very house-powered woman.

And she discovers something that is...

claims to be soap powder

that washes things whiter than any other soap powder.

So she brings some home.

And she washes her family's clothes,

her children's muddy t-shirts and things.

She lives in this village

where her garden overlooks mountains

in the near distance.

And she hangs her washing up with great pride,

comparing it to her neighbours.

It looks so much better.

The weather, though, changes.

It's looking a bit changeable.

Over the mountains,

the sky is looking threatening.

And the next morning,

when this woman opens her curtains,

it is a glorious day.

But something has happened during the night.

There's been snow

falling onto the mountain.

Now she looks out.

She sees her washing.

She looks at it,

and the first thing she thinks is,

who's been dirtying my washing?

Because yesterday it looked great next to her neighbours.

But suddenly she sees it

against the backdrop of the snow.

And then, I'm quoting,

it says,

she stopped and understood.

Nobody had dirtied her washing.

But snow had fallen in the night,

and the mountains behind her home

were covered in dazzling white,

too bright to look at.

Against that sparkling purity,

her sheets looked almost grey.

Wow, she thought.

They are nothing to God's whiteness.

Now, do you see my point of telling that story?

It's because the Pharisees,

they're like people who found some soap powder.

They think they've scrubbed themselves up.

And they think they look white and pure,

compared to the people who haven't even tried

to scrub themselves up,

who look grey and dirty in the corner,

the sinners and tax collectors.

But Jesus, when he comes along

in his pure, white holiness,

compared to them,

they and all of us

are filthy.

We've shown up.

And that is why when Jesus says,

it's not the healthy who need a doctor,

but the sick.

I've not come to call the righteous

but sinners to repentance.

He's not saying,

I've not come for you, Pharisees,

you're righteous.

He's saying,

actually, you're all grey.

You're just different levels of grey.

Different tones and shades of grey.

But you're all sin sick.

You all need a doctor.

Now we make this mistake all the time.

In our world,

as long as we can find someone else,

greyer than us,

then it makes us feel just a little bit superior,

doesn't it, inside.

It's crazy, isn't it?

You can walk into work,

and you can,

because you went to church the day before,

you can just feel a little bit morally superior.

It's stupid.

But that's what we're like.

But if you and I were held up against God's purity,

we'd see how foolish and deceived we are,

and what sinners we are.

So you see how our view of Jesus,

our view of others,

and of ourselves is so intertwined.

And maybe you need to hear that challenge today.

Have you fallen under that deception

that you're whiter than you think,

and it's causing you to look on others

as being the greys?

We're all greys.

Jesus is the white, the pure.

He's the one, the doctor we need to come to.

There's a challenge.

But there's also a comfort

here in these verses

that if we missed it,

we'd be overlooking the best,

best fit in these verses.

Because these words and actions of Jesus

are a comfort to all those

who in a very profound sense

start to realise

that they're grey,

they're grubby,

they're sinners.

And maybe you know what it's like

to be shunned by somebody.

Maybe you've felt that

at some stage in your life.

But look at Jesus.

He hates the sin,

but he still comes alongside these sinners.

He loves these sinners.

Which means there's no one here

in this room

whom Jesus would,

you know,

he would avoid.

He'd say,

no, you're too grey,

you're too dirty for me.

He comes

to wash us clean.

He's the doctor

who comes to deal with sin.

He comes to be among sinners.

If you're feeling like

a sinner without hope,

Jesus is your man.

We see it in all of the

rest of Luke chapter 7

Luke 7 · chapter mention

when a notorious woman comes

weeping.

She goes away

finding forgiveness.

Still in chapter 15,

the lost sheep,

the lost coin,

the lost son,

and the joy in heaven

over one sinner

who repents.

We see it

in another tax collector

in Zacchaeus

in chapter 19.

Well that invitation

from Jesus

is the most important invitation

Levi

ever received

to follow me.

you could say

it's a command really.

But it's still

the most important invitation

that you or I

will ever

receive.

And here's a question

for you.

What have you done

with Jesus'

call to follow him?

What have you done

with that call?

We saw two surprises.

The fact that

a man like Levi

is following Jesus.

Surprise number one.

Surprise number two,

the fact that

Jesus is calling Levi.

Third surprise,

that Jesus

offers our call

to you

as well.

Now of course

there are great

differences between

us and them

but the same

essential

leaving

behind

of the old life.

The walking

in the footsteps

of Jesus.

Relationship

with your

heavenly father

restored

as sins

are forgiven.

That freedom

that comes

with forgiveness

of sin.

That lightness

of heart

that comes

with knowing

that there is

a point

now to life.

It's following

Jesus.

And maybe like him

you're here today

and you know

you're like Levi

you're chasing

the material things

but you're feeling

spiritually barren.

While Jesus

says

it's not too late

I've got something

much better.

This is the point

to living.

It's the most

exciting thing

to follow Jesus

if you know

a Christian here

you're with them

ask them about it.

You might think

well this Jesus

he's about to die

he's going to

end up on a cross

very soon.

You Christians

are crazy

to want to

follow this man.

Yes he's about

to die.

He's also about

to rise.

And

to entrust

your life

to him

therefore

is to put

your life

into the hands

of somebody

who has gone

through death

knows what's

beyond

can take you

there as well.

And one day

we'll find

ourselves

before

this same

Jesus

he will

not just

be a

2,000 year

old

sorry

not 2,000

year old

but 2,000

years ago

he won't be

an historical

figure

with sandals

and a

robe on

he will be

the judge

he will be

your judge

and mine

and we will

find that we

give account

to him

to this

Jesus

but for

now he

does not

condemn

he reaches

out to

you

he says

follow me

it's the

greatest

invitation

Levi

followed him

just like

that

my question

for you

is today

for all

of us

are you

following

this

Jesus

in the

same

way

I'm

going to

pray

let's

ask that

God's

word

would

stay in

our

hearts

and do

its

work

in us

let's

pray