The Unexpected Christ | Mark 2:13-17

If you have your Bibles this morning, would you turn with me to Mark chapter 2?

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

We're going to read verses 13 through 17 as we kick off Advent together.

Mark chapter 2, verses 13 to 17.

Mark 2:13–17

I'm sorry, 13 to 17.

Would you stand with me as we read God's word together?

I know that you just had a seat.

God's word says in Mark chapter 2, beginning in verse 13.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

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 Alpha, 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 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 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.

Let's pray the Lord together.

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus for sinners.

Thank you for sending Jesus for the sick.

Thank you for sending Jesus for the weak.

This morning, Lord, we acknowledge before heaven that we are the sick, we are the weak, we are the sinners for whom Jesus has come, and we praise your name for that.

Lord, I pray today that you would unpack for us even more clearly the nature of Jesus' ministry and mission here on the earth.

That Lord, we might more clearly love him more deeply, follow him, and that Lord, we might also identify in our own lives with his mission.

Lord, work with us, walk in our work in our hearts, move in our minds.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

You may be seated.

Christmas is a time of expectation, isn't it?

It's a time in which we remember with how the whole creation ached with the anticipation of the coming of its Messiah.

It's a time in which we think about the expectation that all of us have about the imminent return of Christ.

And this is one of the ways that giving gifts helps us to celebrate the person of Christ.

That it's not just the giving of the gifts, certainly that is a picture of Christmas, but it's also the waiting for the gift.

It's the anticipation around the gift, it's the excitement around the gift.

All of these have something to teach us about the nature of Christmas.

I know that in the hell household, at least, expectations around gifts are at an all-time high.

Our little dude is of an age now where he's kind of aware of what's happening and aware that what it means to ask for gifts.

Our oldest two, they are very aware, and they are of an age in which they start asking for the expensive stuff, if you know what I mean.

And there's a tension in that, isn't there?

That's where there is high expectations around the gifts, there is great opportunity for disappointment with those gifts.

That all of us want to be able to give to our boyfriend or our girlfriend, our husband or our wife, our grandparents, our parents, our grandchildren, our children.

All of us want to give to them a gift that expresses our thoughtfulness toward them, our love for them, our devotion to them.

All of us want to express the kindness and the generosity of God in our lives to our family and to our loved ones.

And none of us want to give gifts where everybody's like, eh, okay.

Thanks, mom, right?

None of us want to give gifts like that.

But here's what's interesting is I actually think that the tension between expectation and disappointment has something to teach us about the nature of Christmas.

You see, the people of God for generations had anticipated the coming of the Messiah.

They had looked forward to the Savior that God would send, the one who would sit sit upon the throne of David.

And when he came, Jesus was not at all what any of them had expected.

As a matter of fact, those who had most been looking forward to him, those who had most expected him, those who were most excited about him, ultimately turned out to be those who were typically most disappointed by him and most disappointed by the way that he worked.

But Jesus didn't come to meet our expectations.

Jesus came to meet what grace and justice demand.

As a matter of fact, Jesus tells us explicitly in the Gospels why it is that he came.

More than a half dozen times, what we find in the gospel is that Jesus said, I have come, I have come.

We see that here in our text.

And the significance of that of Advent, Advent is just a word that means coming.

So Jesus' first advent is Christmas.

It's the incarnation, it's when he is born to the virgin.

Jesus' second advent is his return, his second coming, when he will come back in power and glory to establish his throne forever and consummate all the promises of God.

So when Jesus says in the gospels a half dozen times or so, that I have come, he is telling us the purpose and the significance of his advent.

And so this morning, what I want us to start is over the next four weeks, during this time of advent, we're gonna look at four of these examples that Jesus has said that he has come.

First, this morning, what I want us to see is that Jesus has come and how those his coming led to some disappointment, led to some unmet expectations.

First, I want you to see that Jesus called unexpected disciples.

Jesus called unexpected disciples.

The 1992 dream team is the greatest team that has ever been assembled.

And to be honest with you, I won't hear any arguments to the other to the other side.

For all of my Gen Z friends out there that don't have the context for what I'm talking about, before 1992, the Olympic Committee would not permit NBA players to play in the Olympics.

And because of that, the birthplace of basketball here at the United States of America had really fallen behind the rest of the world, and we were floundering.

But in 92, the decision was reversed, and NBA players were allowed to begin playing in the Olympics, and we stacked the team with first ballot Hall of Famers, most of whom were already in their prime.

I'm talking Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen.

I'm talking Charles Barclay, Clyde, the Glide Drexler.

I'm talking about David, the Admiral, uh Robinson.

Y'all want me to keep going?

We can keep going here.

On their way to Olympic gold, they won by an average margin of victory of 44 points per game.

We're talking domination of the world, baby.

You know what I'm saying?

Domination of the world.

Now, when most of us think about putting together a team, if we get to choose the team, we're choosing the dream team, aren't we?

That's the kind of team that we want to assemble.

We want to assemble the team that cannot lose.

We want to assemble the team that is filled with talent.

We want to assemble the team that leads to blowouts in all of the games.

And if we're talking about the Messiah, if we're talking about the Son of God who has come here to establish a kingdom that is going to be an everlasting kingdom to spread his glory over the face of the earth, and we're talking about the team that he is going to assemble to be able to make that happen, the expectation would be that the Messiah is going to assemble the greatest team that has ever been assembled.

But Jesus didn't choose the dream team.

Jesus didn't even choose the B team.

Jesus chose a group of ragtag fishermen and tax collectors to put together that he would use to be able to spread his glory over the face of the earth.

Jesus chose the last team on earth that any of us would choose.

So why is that?

Well, it's because he doesn't see what we see.

He doesn't see what we see.

As a matter of fact, this idea of seeing really helps us to understand what's happening in the passage.

It emerges as something that we're meant to trace.

It advances this passage of scripture forwards.

You'll notice there in verse 14 it says, And as he passed, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth.

So it begins, this passage begins with Jesus walking, and Levi, by the way, is Matthew.

These are the same two people, two names for the same person, kind of like Simon and Peter.

That he sees Matthew, and he's there sitting at the tax booth.

And this is the introduction that we have, and it's supposed to be startling.

The expectation here is that Jesus is going to turn and go the other way.

And then the passage advances in verse 16 when he says, And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax colours.

So these are the two main movements of the text.

It's centered around seeing.

And the great unexpected shock of the text is that when Jesus sees Levi in the tax booth, that Jesus doesn't run away from him, Jesus doesn't rebuke him, Jesus doesn't condemn him, Jesus approaches him, and Jesus invites him to become a follower of his.

Now you see, what you have to understand is that tax collectors in Jesus' time were considered the worst of the worst.

I mean, they were literally the scum of the earth.

We don't exactly have high esteem for tax collectors today, but in Jesus' day, it was beyond anything that we can conceive of.

And whatever he charged them over their taxed amount with the enforcement of Roman centurions, by the way, he would be able then to keep all of the extra for himself.

And so these tax collectors would get incredibly wealthy and rich, and they did it by supporting the oppressing government and further oppressing and taking advantage of their own people.

So they were viewed like a first century mafia, right?

These were people that were so reviled that they were not allowed into the synagogue.

That if a tax collector touched your house, your entire house was rendered to be unclean, unfit, that you would have to go through all of the purification rites and ceremonies.

And so the expectation, the expectation is that this is a person that you want to revile.

This is a person that you want to avoid at all costs.

But not Jesus.

But not Jesus.

Because Jesus saw something different than what the Pharisees saw.

See, when the Pharisees saw Matthew, what they saw in Matthew were all the things that Matthew was about currently.

What they saw in Matthew is they saw all of the decisions in his life that had led to that moment in which now he was who he was.

What they saw in Matthew was a man with a past, a man that was oppressive, a man that was filled with sin.

What they saw in Matthew was a man who repulsed them, a man whom they resented, a man that they had great contempt for.

What they saw in Matthew is they saw a man that they would just assume die as they go and have a meal with him.

But when Jesus saw Matthew, Jesus saw something very different.

When Jesus saw Matthew, what Jesus saw is he saw a man that whom God had made for a purpose.

And what Jesus saw when he saw Matthew is the purpose that he had for Matthew.

What Jesus saw was not who Matthew had been, not who Matthew was right now, but who Jesus was ultimately going to transform and make Matthew into in the future.

Now I wonder this morning, I wonder this morning, do you see with the eyes of the Pharisees, or do you see with the eyes of Jesus?

Do you see with the eyes of the Pharisees, or do you see with the eyes of Jesus?

This affects how you see yourself.

That you can look at yourself, and if you look with the eyes of the Pharisees, all you're going to see are all the different ways in which you don't measure up.

All you're going to see are all the different ways in which you have accumulated shame.

All you're going to see is all of the exertions of effort, all of the exertions and attempts at perfection, and all of the time them coming up short.

If you see with the eyes of the Pharisees, your entire reality will be wallpapered everywhere that you look with reminders of your failures and reminders of your shame and reminders of all of the reasons why you are unlovable, undesirable, and a failure at life.

But if you see with the eyes of the Pharisees, you don't see what Jesus sees.

You don't see what Jesus sees.

But it doesn't just affect the way that you see other people.

It affects or the way you see yourself, it affects the way that you see other people.

That you go and you look at them, and all that you can think of is you can say, Yeah, you can be up on that stage if you want to.

You can play that guitar and sing in that microphone if you want to, but I know the truth about you.

I know the truth that your smile is hiding.

I know about your debt.

I know about your first marriage.

I know about where you are, I know about your kids.

I know about who you were in high school.

I know about the difficulties in your marriage.

You can pretend like you're the godliest person at the orchard if you want to, but I know the truth about you, and what we're doing is we're measuring them according to the standards that we've built and the and the and the and the measurements of perfection and the measurements of of righteousness that we have established, and what we're doing is we are seeing them with the eyes of the Pharisees.

But Jesus, Jesus sees something very different than that.

Jesus doesn't see what you see.

That Jesus doesn't look for now, this is for those who are in the church.

I want to clarify, this is not for those that are outside the church, but for those who have come by repentance to trust in Christ by faith, that they have received his grace.

Those of us who are in the church, those of us who know Christ and are a part of the kingdom, Jesus doesn't see us for what we've done.

Jesus doesn't see us for how good we are, how bad we are.

He doesn't see us for all of our failures and all of our shame.

No, Jesus doesn't see us for what we have done, he sees us instead for what he has done.

For what he has done.

That Jesus called unexpected disciples because he doesn't see what we see, and because of that, he doesn't use who we'd use.

Now I want you to think about the different groups of people that are in our text.

And I want you to ask yourself the question: if you were choosing, who would you use?

Okay, first we have Levi, right?

We have Matthew.

We've already talked about what a clown show Matthew is.

Matthew's not a good dude.

He's not good people.

Like, none of us would invite Matthew over for barbecue.

Like, we're not hanging out with Matthew's not the guy we're gonna use.

The other group of people that we have here is we have sinners and tax collectors.

Like, these are people you don't even want to smell, right?

Like, like, let alone invite onto the team, let alone invite into being a part of something that you're gonna do for the long.

Like, these are the vagrants of society, like these are the outcasts, these are not people you want to be hanging out with.

And then, and then there's the Pharisees, the theologically conservative, seminary trained, synagogue devout, religiously committed Pharisees, the ones who are dressed professionally, the ones who always present themselves properly, the ones who are the ones that when they walk down the street, you point your kids to and say, that's your role model, that's who you're aiming at.

Let me ask you if you're building a team and you're figuring out who you're gonna use to accomplish what you intend to accomplish, which of these three groups of people are you gonna use?

Almost inevitably, almost inevitably, all of us would choose to use the Pharisees, wouldn't we?

But here's what the gospels teach us repeatedly is that Jesus always used the most unexpected people to do the most extraordinary works.

Jesus uses the most unexpected people to do the most extraordinary works.

That when Jesus calls Matthew out of the tax base, Jesus would deploy Matthew to go out and to be a missionary to Ethiopia to establish the first church there in Ethiopia.

And there Matthew would be martyred for his faith, a faith that still endures now, 2,000 years later, with a church that still exists there in Ethiopia.

Now, if you were establishing a new church, would you think to look in the tax booth for the pastor?

Would you think to look in the tax booth for the missionary to go to an unreached and unengaged people group?

No, but Jesus did.

Jesus did because he doesn't see what we see and he doesn't use who we use.

I think about a girl named Sydney.

When I was a youth pastor, I had this shy, quiet, ninth grade girl named Sidney.

And Sydney, one summer, I noticed that every single Wednesday night she would come up to the altar and she would get on her knees and she would pray.

And this happened week after week.

And so I got concerned as her youth pastor.

And so one day I saw Sydney out in the hall and I pulled her aside.

I said, I said, Sydney, are you okay?

Like I've noticed that you've been coming and I've noticed that you've been praying a lot.

I just wanted to see if you needed anything, if there was a way that we could help you.

This one she said, see, Cody, every day at school last year, I ate with the same group of people.

And I don't think any of them go to church, and I don't think any of them know Jesus.

And she said, I feel like the Lord is calling me to share my faith with them, but I'm just so shy and I'm so afraid that what I've committed to do is I'm gonna go every single Wednesday night.

I get an emotional thing about it.

I'm gonna go every single Wednesday night, and I'm gonna pray for those kids at my lunch table that the Lord would use me to share my faith next year.

And so Wednesday after Wednesday after Wednesday, Sydney would go and she would pray for those that were in her class.

And do you know that next year, five of those kids from the lunchroom table, we baptized them?

Five of them.

Some of them today were serving as ministers and deacons at my previous church, still walking with the Lord now 15, 20 years later.

Sydney was the last girl in our group that I would have thought the Lord would use.

But the Lord uses the most unexpected people to do the most extraordinary work.

Jesus is not looking for your resume, y'all.

Jesus is not looking for your resume.

Jesus is looking for your willingness to leave the tax booth behind to follow after him in faithfulness.

That Jesus called unexpected disciples.

And Jesus kept unexpected company.

Most of us accept the truism that often it's the it's who you know, not what you know, that makes all the difference, right?

That we recognize that having the right people in our corner can present and open up for us opportunities that otherwise wouldn't be there.

And we also recognize that having the wrong people against us can kind of extinguish some of those same opportunities.

And so we network.

And rightly, people join civic clubs and country clubs, they attend events, some people even join churches so that they can rub elbows and be around the right people and to build the right network that would enable for them to have the right kinds of opportunities.

You know what Mark chapter 2 shows us?

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Jesus would get an F in networking.

Jesus would get an F in networking.

That Jesus had the wrong friends.

You'll notice what it says.

It says, 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.

That here's the picture.

That what Matthew discovered when he discovered Jesus is he discovered not just a teacher worth following, that was true, that was good.

But he also discovered in Jesus a friend, someone who would truly befriend him.

So Matthew goes and he decides, man, I've got a new friend, I've discovered Jesus, my life has changed.

I'm throwing a party, man, and I'm gonna invite everybody that'll come to the party to come and hang out at my place, at my crib.

We're gonna hang with Jesus, let all of them experience what I've experienced with him.

And so Jesus, Matthew does.

And the only people that'll come to Matthew's house, the only people who are willing to be seen in public with him are other sinners and other tax collectors.

Other people that are the outcasts of society, just like Matthew is.

Now, this is true in our society, but it's true tenfold during Jesus' time.

That you really, your social status in that time was really determined by the group of people that you spent your time with.

It was determined by the social, social circles that you ran with.

And so your morality, your class, your uh opportunities in life were largely determined by, and everybody kind of stayed segmented in their society, in their particular social circles.

Even more true was that the prestige of a rabbi was determined by the quality of disciple that he could attract to come and to be a part of the.

And to be one of his disciples.

So it's stunning, isn't it?

That here you have Jesus who ought to be leveraging relationships and impressing potential students that he could raise his prestige.

And you know what it says?

It says that he reclined at the table in Matthew's house.

He was with sinners and tax collectors, and they were reclining with Jesus.

The picture here is that Jesus is not just tolerating them, Jesus is not just talking to them, Jesus is befriending them.

That here he is, he's in the and the idea of reclining is an idea of intimacy, it's an idea of friendship.

If you were hanging out with the family, everybody would lay down on an elbow, you would recline with one another, and that meant we're gonna hang out here for a bit.

We're gonna have some conversation.

And here's the picture of Jesus.

That Jesus isn't with the Pharisees, Jesus isn't with the Sadducees, Jesus isn't in the temple in the Temple Mount, that Jesus is here in a sinner tax collector's house, hanging with sinners and tax collectors, and he's just chilling.

Like he's having a great time hanging out with all of the other sinners and the tax collectors that are there.

And here's the picture that Jesus doesn't just tolerate the outcasts of society, Jesus befriends the outcasts of society.

That Jesus doesn't make the same friend friends the way that we do.

He isn't seeking to raise his standing.

And this is why we have the scandalous question at the end.

Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners, the Pharisees ask?

Why in the world would this man associate himself with them?

Doesn't he know?

Doesn't he know this doesn't raise his prestige?

This damages his prestige.

Doesn't he know that this doesn't help his reputation?

This hurts his reputation.

Like, like, how on earth does Jesus not know that the people he's hanging with is dragging him down and not doing him any favors?

And so here are the Pharisees and the tax collect here are the Pharisees and they're trying to make sense of it.

But the reality of the matter is, is that Jesus just doesn't care what they think.

That Jesus isn't worried about that.

Because what Jesus is doing is Jesus is establishing for himself the nature of his kingdom.

You'll notice in verse 15 at the end, it says that there were many who followed him.

If you trace through the gospel of Mark, what you'll find is the word followed is how Mark, and when he writes, indicates a disciple of Jesus.

So what Mark is showing us when he says that many of these are following him is he's saying, this is what the kingdom's gonna be built out of.

This is who Jesus' disciples, this is what they look like, this is the character profile, these are the prime prospects for Jesus' church.

It's not the ones with money, it's not the one with prestige, it's the ones nobody else on earth wants to hang out with.

Now, I think here there is both good news and there is a hard question.

Like, like, here's the good news.

The good news is that Jesus is willing to be seen with you.

Jesus is willing to be seen with you.

You know, we ought to, we ought to never be shocked, but we ought to always be amazed at who Jesus is willing to associate with, and who with whom Jesus is willing to build his kingdom.

And why is that?

Because he's willing to use me, man.

Because he's willing to use you.

Like you recognize that you don't raise Jesus' status in heaven, right?

Like people don't think more highly of Jesus because he's hanging out with you.

I think sometimes we we miss this when we use this acceptance language, like I accept Jesus.

I accept Jesus, right?

Like, and I get the intention of that, but I I feel like sometimes it makes Jesus sound like he's the nerdy kid off in the back saying, somebody please pick me for the team, please pick me.

I accept you, Jesus.

Blasphemy, blasphemy, right?

Like, no, no, no, no, no.

Jesus accepts us.

Jesus accepts us, and it is not because we have anything to bring to him, it's not because we raise his status, it's because by his grace he wants us.

It's because by his grace he loves us, it's because by his grace he chooses to associate with us.

And so here is the good news.

The good news is that Jesus is willing to be seen with you.

But here, here's the hard question Are you willing to be seen with him?

Are you willing to be seen with him?

See, this is the hard thing that the disciples are facing.

Imagine being the disciples here, okay?

Recognize that it's not just it's not just Jesus' reputation that's in question.

It's not just Jesus' reputation that's in question.

That also in question is the reputation of all those who are following after Jesus.

And so here are these disciples, and they have committed their lives, they've left behind livelihoods, everything in their lives has has changed and changed dramatically and changed quickly.

They're getting used to like living with each other day in and day out, and like living with a whole bunch of men.

That can't be an easy way of living, right?

Like, and you can imagine they're just about the time in which they're beginning to acclimate to life now.

And what does Jesus do?

He invites a tax collector to come and hang out with them.

He invites a tax collector to come and to join a part of the group and to move in with all of them.

Can you imagine how difficult this was for the team dynamic and the team culture?

Like, all of them have to be saying, like, like, I have trouble with Peter, I'm not sure about Andrew's feet, but I ain't hanging with Matthew, right?

Like, what's the story here?

And you'll notice that the Pharisees don't go and they don't question Jesus, do they?

They don't do that.

The Pharisees go and they question Jesus' disciples.

It's almost, I think there's some cowardice involved there.

I really do.

But I also think there's something to it where it's almost like we expect this out of him.

He's kind of crazy, right?

Like, like this guy, we we we think he's unstable.

We aren't sure about him.

But y'all, y'all ought to know better.

Y'all have always just been faithful to the synagogue.

Y'all are always always just been blue-collar, hardworking men doing the right things.

Are y'all sure that you want to tie your family to this guy?

Are you sure that you want to tie your reputation to him?

And so there's the question, right?

Jesus is willing to be seen with you, but are you willing to be seen with him?

And that doesn't mean when you're at VBS or youth camp.

It doesn't mean when you're singing songs in the group of the church.

It means when there's social costs involved, are you willing to be associated and seen with Jesus?

When all of a sudden it's gonna cause people to think that maybe you're gonna be on the wrong side of history, are you willing to be seen with Jesus?

When it causes your grandkids or your kids to think that you're too old-fashioned, are you gonna be willing to be seen with Jesus?

When it's gonna cost you the invitation to the party that everybody else in your class is going to and that you so badly want to be a part of, are you willing to be seen with Jesus?

If it's gonna cost you the promotion that you've been working for all of your life and you feel like your time has come, and now you know that if you take a stand for Jesus, people are just gonna see you differently.

Are you are you willing to be stay?

Are you willing to be seen with Jesus?

Because Jesus says, Jesus says, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before the Father.

So this morning, the good news is Jesus is willing to be seen with you, even though you don't raise his standing.

But the question is, the question that was facing the disciples, and the question that's facing you is, are you willing to be seen with him?

Finally, I want you to see that Jesus came with an unexpected mission.

Jesus came with an unexpected mission.

I've always wanted to be one of those guys who's kind of a man of few words and only speaks when he has something profound to say, but I'm just not.

You know?

Like I'm just not.

Like, I love to think and to talk out loud and to process things verbally, and you know, sometimes I'll throw enough things on the wall that's eventually something kind of say, I'm not kind of one of those kind of guys, you know.

But a lot of the men that I most deeply admire, they are those kinds of men.

I think of a brother named Dell who was one of my elders at Iron City in my previous church.

And Dell spoke softly, and Dell spoke rarely.

But whenever Del spoke, I found myself kind of leaning in, right?

Because I wanted to hear what Dell had to say, because usually what Dell had to say had substance to it.

It had it had been well thought through.

It was it was profound and helpful.

This is how Mark uses the voice of Jesus.

Each of the different gospel authors, they use the voice and leverage the voice of Jesus in a unique way that kind of fits the theme of their writing.

If you read the Gospel of Mark, Mark is the shortest of your gospels, probably the first one that was written.

And what you'll often find is there'll be a short narrative, a short description like what we have here of what took place.

And then there will be a very brief quote, maybe a one-line quote from Jesus.

And the idea of the quote is the quote kind of clarifies what you've just read.

And so the idea from Mark is that he's going to use that voice rarely so that when he does, you lean in to really pay attention to what it is that Jesus has said.

And that's exactly what we see here.

That he's describing the misunderstanding that the Pharisees have about the nature of the kingdom.

He's describing about the misunderstandings that maybe we have about the nature of the kingdom, and he's showing that through the call of Levi into the disciples and the issues that are arising, the scandal that's coming as a result.

And now Jesus speaks to clarify that we might lean in and under and see what their misunderstanding was, that it might not be our misunderstanding, too.

That first you'll see that they misunderstood what they needed.

They misunderstood what they needed.

Now you have to understand that the way that the scribes of the Pharisees, the kind of Messiah that they were looking for, was a political messiah.

They expected that he was going to come in on a white victory horse and that he was going to establish a geopolitical nation here on the earth.

The throne of David was going to be quite literal, that he was going to overthrow Caesar, he was going to establish them as the dominant world power, and their theocracy was going to rule the world once more.

And they thought theologically that this was going to take place because they believed their righteousness, their own law-keeping was going to help usher in this new age, usher in this new kingdom that Jesus was, that the Messiah was going to establish.

So, in other words, they thought that their faithfulness was going to be rewarded by their God by sending and ushering in the messianic age that they had all been anticipating.

And so here's Jesus.

And Jesus says something that's interesting, doesn't it?

He says in verse 17, he says, 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 whom?

The righteous, but sinners.

This seems like crazy talk.

This seems like crazy talk, doesn't it?

We usually have a positive association with the idea of wellness, not with sickness, don't we?

We usually have a positive association with righteousness, not with being a sinner, right?

And so here is Jesus, and Jesus is seemingly using this in a derogatory sense, isn't he?

He's using the idea of wellness, the idea of righteousness.

But he's he's saying, I'm not calling them.

That's not who I'm looking for, that's not who I'm in pursuit of.

See what Jesus is pointing out is that they had missed it.

They had missed it.

The Pharisees believed that their problem was with Rome.

But the problem of the Pharisees was not Rome.

The problem of the Pharisees was their own hearts.

In fact, in fact, the problem of their heart was actually revealed through their lawkeeping.

That they weren't actually righteous, they were self-righteous.

That what their law keeping actually revealed was not a demonstration of their devoted love to their heavenly father.

What their lawkeeping actually revealed was that it was an exhibition of their own pridefulness to show their own strength, to show that they were worthy and deserving of a Savior, worthy and deserving of a Messiah, worthy and deserving of the rewards.

So here's Jesus, and he's saying, Let me tell you what the problem with the Pharisees is.

Let me let you know the fundamental issue of their misunderstanding.

The problem is that the Pharisees are too strong.

They're too strong.

They're not too strong in that Jesus can't overcome them.

Blasphemy.

They're too strong in that they don't recognize their need for Jesus.

They're too strong in that they are unwilling to humble themselves beneath Jesus.

They're too strong in that they're not willing to recognize that they're sinners.

They're not willing to recognize that they're deficient.

They're not willing to recognize that they can't be good enough and they can't measure up enough.

They're not willing to recognize it.

They're too strong for the kingdom.

Oh, this morning, I hope you're not too strong for Jesus.

I hope you're not too strong for Jesus.

When you think about all of the insecurities that you have, I hope that you don't look within and try to find strength there.

When you try to figure out how you can be right with God and right with others, I hope that your your first reflex and your first impulse is not to think about all the good things that you've done over the last week.

I hope, I hope that your first impulse is not to think about all the church services that you've attended.

I hope it's not to think about all the soup kitchens that you've worked in, all the nonprofits that you've served here in the nonprofit capital of the South.

Like, I hope your impulse is not to think, this is these are all the things that I've done.

I hope your impulse is to recognize who it is that you actually need.

Because you see, when you misunderstand what you need, you misunderstand whom he saves.

You misunderstand whom he saves.

That here the Pharisees believed that through their law keeping, they were going to establish themselves as the new pillars of the new kingdom.

They thought that they were putting themselves front and center to be most rewarded by God, to be most celebrated by the Messiah, to have places there within his court, influence within his kingdom.

And you know what Jesus says?

The pillars of my kingdom will not be the strong.

The pillars of my kingdom will not be the well.

The pillars of my kingdom will not be the ones who hold it all together.

The pillars of my kingdom will be the sick.

The pillars of my kingdom will not be the righteous, the pillars will be the sinners.

The pillars of my kingdom will not be the strong, the pillars of my kingdom will be the weak.

Jesse Ventura, he once said this.

He said, Organized religion is a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.

Can I tell you, when it comes to Christianity, I quite agree with him?

I try to quite agree with him.

Christianity is the only faith system on earth for which weakness is a prerequisite for coming.

That we are people who, because of what Jesus has done, humble ourselves beneath him and say, I can't do it.

You have to do it.

I messed it all up, you have to make it all right.

I'm too weak.

I need your strength.

That is, we recognize that what Christmas is all about is the fact that there was an Almighty God who humbled himself to come here and live on earth, but born of a virgin, live a painful and dreadful life, that he he might take a bunch of crumbling, cracking, weak rocks, stones, and that he might take it and fortify a kingdom out of it.

Not because we are good, not because we are beautiful, not because we are strong, but because he is strong.

Here's what I want us to do at the Orchard Church.

We're all new to this together, right?

I want us to normalize weakness here.

I want us to normalize weakness here.

Like I want this to be the kind of place that you don't have to come in and put on airs.

I want this to be the kind of place where you don't have to come in and plaster a fake smile on your face.

I want this to be at the kind of place where you may have to feel like you have to perform every day, all day in the rest of the world.

But when you come in here, you can feel the finished work of Jesus unburdening your shoulders where you take a deep breath for the first time because here, here, you aren't enough, and we all know it, you aren't enough, and we all agree with it, you aren't enough, and none of us are either.

Jesus is enough.

And so we come together as the church of Jesus Christ, acknowledging weakness as a prerequisite for the kingdom that we might celebrate him who is actually strong and actually righteous and actually well.

I think there's a picture that alludes to something that we've talked about a lot in recent weeks.

Think about what those scene was.

Here is Matthew's house.

It would have been likely a mansion.

He was a wealthy man, he was a tax collector.

And in that beautiful mansion, there were sinners and tax collectors that seemed like they didn't fit.

And reclined at the table, communing with those sinners and those tax collectors, there was the Son of God.

And they're partying and they're celebrating and they're laughing and they're having the time of their life.

Like it is the moment, one of those nights that you just you hope it'll never end.

You don't want it to ever go away because this is the moment, this is one of those moments in which you feel peace for the first time and joy for the first time in a long time when all of the crashing dreams don't matter, when all of the insufficiencies are gone away, because now you are communing in laughter and relationship with the Son of God.

And then on the outside of that mansion, looking through the windows, there's the Pharisees looking like this.

And they're watching the party take place, and they're watching everything that's happening, and everybody on the inside is celebrating, and everybody on the inside is filled with peace, and everybody on the inside feels secure, and everybody on the inside is filled with joy, and they are filled with anger and bitterness and judgment.

It's a foreshadowing, it's a foreshadowing of a feast to come.

See the wedding supper of the Lamb that we've talked about here in Revelation 19.

It is invite only.

And those who are invited are those who are weak, those that have humbled themselves before the Savior.

But when they come in, when they come in, they will join their king in the city of God, paved with gold, crystal in the sea.

And there, there, they will laugh and celebrate and be filled with joy and security and gladness all the days of their life.

And on the outside, looking in will be all those who were too strong, all those who were too righteous, and they will be filled with anger, with bitterness, with weeping, and with judgment.

That's the question.

The question that's facing all of us this morning is not are you strong enough to get in?

But are you weak enough?

Are you weak enough?

Let me pray for us.