TEXT:
MARK 2:13-17
In Matt 11:19, Luke 7:34 we see the phrase "friend of sinners." Are you a sinner? You have a friend in Jesus. Jesus was comfortable hanging out with the outcasts and marginalized.
Are you a sinner? Don’t be afraid or hesitant to come to Jesus. He is a friend of sinners.
v. 15 says Jesus dined with sinners and tax collectors.
Eating symbolizes acceptance. Jesus accepted people just as they are, regardless of their past history. The scribes and Pharisees were astonished that Jesus accepted these people. They were outraged. But Jesus "danced to another tune." He embraces wicked sinners like you and I.
To the Pharisees, anyone who was not a Pharisee was a sinner. All non-Pharisees were sinners, and for this reason the Pharisees would not associate with sinners.
Two thoughts who Jesus accepts and rejects:
a) Jesus accepts sinners who repent;
b) Jesus rejects sinners who think they are righteous and see no need to repent.
This is the crux of the gospel: Jesus receives, forgives and saves sinners who repent and believe.
The only people who enter heaven are sinners, who know they are sinners, repent of their sinful lifestyle, believe, and come to Jesus.
The only people who enter hell are sinners who are self-righteous and do not repent and trust the Savior.
v. 17b, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Luke adds two words, "to repentane." In Luke 5:32 we read, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Who did Jesus receive? Sinners who come to Him in repentance..
There was a difference of the teaching of Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees taught a religion of keeping the Mosaic Law for salvation, Jesus, on the other hand, taught a religion of repentance and faith for salvation.
The gospel according to Jesus highlighted repentance and faith. Mark 1:14-15, “Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,15and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
The gospel of God is repent and believe.
v. 14, “As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’”
This is absolutely shocking because the man Jesus selected to be one of the twelve disciples was a tax-collector. To the Jewish mind, the worst sinner of all sinners was a tax-collector. Tax-collectors were the worst among the worst of people. They were the dreg of society, the most undesirable. Tax-collectors were "the scum of the earth," or "scumbags." This is who Jesus called.
To the Jews worse than thieves and murderers; were tax-collectors. No self-respecting Jew would want a tax-collector as a friend. But Jesus was different; he befriended them.
Tax collectors set up their booths in major sites where many people gathered, According to William Hendriksen, Levi's booth may have been on a major road from Syria to Egypt that crossed Israel, so that everyone who passed by had to pay tax.
This is how it works.
The Roman Empire sold tax franchises to the highest bidder. Because tax-collectors had to pay so much to win the franchise, they had to recoup their losses by overcharging the citizens. Consequently, all the citizens hated tax collectors because they overcharged their tax liability, and pocketed the difference. Tax collectors were allowed a commission, but often they charged more than a fair commission and pocketed the rest.
Tax-collectors were hated for three reasons:
a) They overcharged. And the citizens had to pay because the tax-collectors had big thugs by their side.
b) They overcharged their fellow Jew.
c) They gave the collection to Rome, the enemy of Israel. Hence, tax-collectors were considered traitors to their country.
v. 14, “He saw Levi.” In Matthew and Luke he is called Matthew. Probably, Levi changed his name to Matthew after his conversion, as Saul did, when he changed his name ot Paul. Because "Levi" was a hated name in his village, it made sense to change it.
Matthew is of Hebrew origin and means “gift of God,” or more literally, "gift of Jehovah." Matthew did indeed receive the gift of God, the gift of eternal life.
v. 14, “Follow Me.” How strange, no explanation, no need to break the ice, to a complete stranger.
Four things stand out with the words“Follow Me.”
a) "Follow me" is an explicit command;
b) "Follow me" implies complete commitment;
c) "Follow me" demands obedience;
d) "Follow me" implies sacrifice. Don’t just believe in Me; anyone can do that; follow Me. Jesus is looking for followers; not just believers.
Luke 5:28 adds the words, “And he left everything behind.”
Once he left his business, he could never go back to it again. If you were a fisherman, carpenter, farmer, or shepherd, you could always go back to your previous profession. But not a tax-collector. Once a tax-collector left his post, there would be many to take over the vacancy.
He had a lucrative, profitable business. So it was very hard to abandon it.
He forsook his riches and his source of income. He also forsook the power he had because money is power.
Tax collectors had a nickname: extortionists.
Levi was convicted of his sin of corruption, extortion, ad abuse of power; and being convicted, repented. Thus Jesus called him because of his sincere repentance sometime earlier. And I am sure that Levi rejoiced, because Jesus could forgive his sin of corruption, extortion, and abuse of power.
And because of repentance and faith Levi received a new heart, a new mind, a new, a new life, and a new nature, a divine nature. He became a new person.
v. 15, "And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus."
Mark does not say where the banquet was, but in Luke 5:29 it makes clear it was in his own house.
Out of gratitude, Levi held a big banquet in honor of Jesus. He invited all his friends, perhaps to testify what Jesus meant to him and how Jesus had changed him.
Here in California we eat fast; eat and run. In those days, they took their time eating. Dining would take two, three hours, or even more.
v. 15, "many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus." Why tax collectors and sinners? Nobody else would come; it was a stigma to enter a house of a tax-collector. So here you had the despised, the dishonorable, the outcasts, the wretched invited, and Jesus gladly associated with them.
v. 16, " When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, 'Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?'”
Scribes and Pharisees were always finding fault with Jesus. If you asked a Pharisee what his purpose in life is, he might readily reply, "to find fault with Jesus."
v. 17, "And hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'”
Who does a doctor go to? Not the well and healthy, but the sick. Jesus is the physician of the soul, a spiritual healer, so He goes about healing the spiritually sick.
Jesus does not go to the self-righteous, but to the sinner.
Two thoughts:
a) Jesus goes to sinners.
b) Jesus does not go to the self-righteous. So if Jesus never went to the self-righteous, how were they saved? They had to come to Him.
But to the spiritually sick, Jesus goes to them.
In Mark we read, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
But in Luke 5:32 it adds, "to repentance."
Repentance is the door to entry into the kingdom.
Repentance is the door to entry to forgiveness.
Repentance is the door to entry to salvation.
Christ was saying to the scribes and Pharisees, "You don’t need me, you are self-righteous. But these sinners need me. I go to them."
Today, if you see a doctor, you have to pay. Jesus is a doctor: he heals, forgives, and saves your soul; and all for free. Jesus is a physician who does not charge His patients.
Heaven is not made up of people who think they are good; but people who know they are sinful and therefore come to Jesus in repentance and faith.
Jesus called Levi in the first century, and He calls you in this twenty-first century.
He calls you to repentance, faith, salvation; and calls you to follow Him.
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