Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Human beings are inherently religious.

We were cerated by God to worship Him.

He wired us that way.

When sin entered into man, our worship became inherently corrupt.

In our post-modern world, the common idea is that God is high on a mountain and that if man can climb that mountain, one will reach God, and there are many paths on that mountain which a person can choose to climb.

As a result, there are thousands of religions, philosophies, and worldviews, ranging from primitive animistic religions all the way to sophisticated religious systems.

But those religions, though differing widely from one in another in the details, nevertheless fall into two categories.

On the one hand, there is the religion of human achievement; on the other hand the religion of divine accomplishment.

In every religion other than biblical Christianity, man achieves salvation by his own efforts.

Buddhists seek nirvana by following the Eightfold Path; Muslims hope to enter Paradise by following the Five Pillars of Islam; Mormons seek godhood through baptism, membership in the Mormon church, accepting Joseph Smith and his successors as prophets of God, and going through the temple ceremonies; Jehovah’s Witnesses seek to earn everlasting life on earth by their morality and door-to-door proselytizing; Roman Catholics seek salvation by means of the Mass, sacraments, prayers, and good works that cooperate with grace to enable them to earn heaven.

(MacArthur)

One of the most profound descriptions of the Gospel found in the Bible is

Here we find words that no other religion in the world can share.

It is what separates Christianity from all other religions.

I want to tell you that we have been given the greatest gift of all time.

The free gift of eternal life.

The is the message of God.

This is the message of the gospel.

This is the message of Luke.

This is still the message of hope that we are preaching today.

God saves sinners.

He doesn’t save self-righteous people.

He doesn’t save the religious.

He doesn’t save the enlightened, the blessed, or the devout.

God saves sinners.

The dirty, wretched, broken, abused, addicted.

The outcast, the lost, the lonely, and the imprisoned.

God saves sinners.

As we go through the life of our Lord Jesus in the gospel of Luke, we are going to come across this matter again because it is at the heart of all gospel ministry to call sinners to repentance.

That includes defining men as they must be defined as sinners, measuring them against the law of God by which the Spirit of God can then produce repentance, pointing out the glories of Christ which can elicit by the Spirit faith.

And on the basis of that faith and repentance salvation comes.

This has always been the theme of true preaching.

This brings us to our text today.

Jesus’s popularity is growing and he is building his inner circle of disciples that he is going to train and build up.

Keep in mind that these 12 are the ones that will one day usher in the church age.

They will establish Christ’s Church and leave a legacy that will bring us to today as we continually await Christ’s return.

Verse 32 sums up the essence of what I read from Romans chapter 5. Salvation is offered by God only to sinners, only to self-confessed wicked people, not those who consider themselves good or good enough.

The uniqueness of the gospel starts with the fact that there’s only one Savior, and there’s no salvation apart from Him.

John 14:6, “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me.’”

Acts 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

John 20:31, “These have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and believing might have life in His name.”

The idea of all religions is that God, whoever they perceive Him to be, will save the good people – right?

– the moral people, the devout people, the religious people.

This is the most wide spread lie of Satan on the planet, that salvation comes to good people, whatever religion.

In Matthew chapter 23 Jesus looked at the scribes and Pharisees and said, “You’re hypocrites.

You shut off the kingdom of heaven from people.

You don’t enter in yourselves, nor do you allow any others to enter in.

Woe to you, hypocrites!”

He says it over and over.

“Woe to you, blind guides, fools, blind men.”

He says “blind men” again.

“Woe to you, hypocrites, blind guides.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” over and over and over and over.

And then He closes His diatribe, “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”

They were the most religious Jews, and they were on the way to hell, and they were producing other sons of hell.

That is always the lie of false religion, that God lets into heaven the good people.

That is not what Jesus said.

Go back to the text of Luke chapter 5. “I have not come to call the righteous,” – the good people – “but sinners to repentance.”

This has always been the good news, that salvation is not for the people who are good, and the reason is because no one is – what?

– good.

There’s none righteous, no, not one,” – Romans 3 – “there’s none who understands, there’s none who seeks after God; they’re all gone astray.”

Salvation is not for those who imagine that they’re worthy of it, who imagine they are righteous or pretend to be; salvation is for wicked people.

The Call of Levi

Levi (also known as Matthew) was a tax collector for the Roman government.

The Romans collected their taxes through a system called “tax farming.”

The system worked like this: First the government determined the estimated amount of taxes each district should be assessed.

Then they issued authority to someone to go out and collect those taxes, usually to the highest bidder.

That person would then spend the year collecting taxes by whatever means necessary.

He would often hire thugs and threaten people.

Whatever the tax collector gathered that was above the district’s assessed value, he was allowed to keep.

It was a corrupt system of extortion.

There were different kinds of taxes, just as there are today.

There were fixed taxes or poll taxes based on property, commerce, and income.

Then there were duties based on trade.

That allowed the tax collectors to rob others.

The people paid separate taxes for using roads and for docking in harbors, and also import and export duties,

and even a sales tax on certain items.

There was even a cart tax, in which each wheel was taxed!

The system was a breeding ground for graft and exploitation.

A tax collector could stop anyone on the road, make him unpack his bundles, and charge just about anything his larcenous heart desired.

(Hughes)

The Jews hated the Roman tax collector.

For a jewish man like Matthew to become a tax collector meant that The Jews who did this were the most hated of all Jews.

Matthew Levi was such a wretched traitor.

He extorted.

He took bribes from rich Romans.

He abused his own people.

He served the pagan idol-worshiping Gentiles.

And, of course, the Jews believed that only one God was the true God and all idols were blasphemous.

And so here you have a Jew making money by serving idolaters and taking the money from the worshipers of the true God.

They were excommunicated from the synagogues and equated with unclean animals.

They were not allowed to testify in court.

Levi was a rich person.

He acquired much wealth as a tax collector.

It was materialism that drove him into such an occupation.

But Levi was also a broken and empty man.

Like the Leper that was diseased, like the paralytic on the mat, Levi’s sin did not make him inaccessible to Jesus.

And so, Jesus comes to him while he’s still sitting in his tax booth and invites Levi to follow him.

This is transformation.