Follow Me

Introduction

Please open your Bibles to Luke 5:27-32.

Luke 5:27–32 ESV

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Caravaggio is one of the famous painters of the 16th century. He would influence art history as we know it in his influence of subsequent generations.

Caravaggio lived a troubled life. For much of his life he was in trouble the law. He lived a life of great imbalance and at times disrepute. These themes played out in his art.

Russ Ramsey would say, “Caravaggio’s art always majored on those things in life that we would consider profane, but he always intersected elements of the divine in those moments.”

Some of these works include, “The Death of John the Baptist,” The Death of the Virgin,” and “David and Goliath.”

Another, which I will show you now, is, “The Calling of St. Matthew.”

In this picture, I want to show you a few things.

These tax collectors are counting their ill-begotten money.

Jesus’ hand in the corner pointing to Matthew.

My favorite - Matthew pointing at himself.

In Matthew’s finger, we see the uncertainty and the bewilderment. You want to use me? Matthew knows He is unworthy.

Explanation

Luke 5:27-28 “After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.”

Who is Levi? Levi is the disciple and apostle Matthew and the author of the book of Matthew. In Matthew, we hear the name Matthew while in Mark and Luke we see, Levi. Most likely, Matthew had two names (Levi Matthew), and they chose which name they wanted.

What is a tax collector?

A citizen of a nation conquered by Rome who, using the force of the Roman legion, excised burdensome taxes upon his home nation.

Hebrew society equivocated tax collectors with robbers and evildoers. They were the lowest of Hebrew society.

Imagine of a nation overtook the USA, people in this room decided to sell out their friends, family, and community to taxes and engorge their own wealth with part of the proceeds. They would be considered a conquering nation’s government sponsored mafia.

Not the top of the dinner guest list - except for Jesus’.

Jesus command. “Follow Me.”

Why would Jesus ask a tax collector to follow Him? Because He can. And because He wanted to.

We think we do such a good job of picking out who God can use and who He can’t. God uses the people that we least expect for His Kingdom.

No amount of personal history keeps God from saving you and using you.

To disbelieve this fact is to disbelieve in the power of our God.

God is not constrained by the same things that constrain us.

We have the gospel of Matthew, because God called Him.

What a powerful picture of God’s faithfulness to His work to redeem us.

Jesus calls a tax collector, and we have the record of the rest of His works.

God saw the potential in Matthew

Levi left everything, rose, and followed Him.

Matthew demonstrates the two sides of following Jesus - to step towards Jesus and to leave behind your old life.

Jesus acceptance of Matthew was not an acceptance of Matthew’s life. It was a calling to a better life.

Too many people today think that the goal of Christianity is that Jesus would follow you - not that you would follow Jesus.

Jesus has to jump through the hoops.

Jesus has to conform Himself to look a little more like you.

Matthew demonstrates not simply following Jesus by abandoning everything that you have but by abandoning the only think you have left.

If Peter, James, or John had decided to leave Jesus and pick up their nets again, they could have easily done so. The Roman government would never have taken Matthew back after abandoning his tax office.

For Matthew, the only thing he has left is his job and the lush life it provides.

Not his family. Not community respect. Not a family trade.

For Matthew to leave Jesus would mean that He would return to nothing.

Jesus was Matthew’s final commitment.

It should challenge us to think following Jesus if we had to give the last of what we had.

Would we make that same commitment?

Luke 5:29-30 “And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?””

The philosophy of a Pharisee was to stay as far away from anything that corrupt them - both ritually and spiritually - before God.

The term Pharisee literally means, “Separate Ones.” They believed that one was made more holy and more pure not by growing closer to God but by removing oneself from everyone else.

Jesus’ eating with tax collectors was fundamentally opposed to the operating belief of Pharisees.

They couldn’t imagine spending time with tax collectors or sinners. Jesus couldn’t imagine spending His time with anyone else.

Luke 5:31-32 “And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.””

Jesus loves the spiritually sick. He, like a loving physician, moves towards those who need to be healed spiritually.

We live in a society that looks so different than the local church. The tendency is to be isolationists. We hunker down and love our own.

I believe there is great merit in finding solace in the local church with your faith family, but I think we see Jesus modeling for us a love for those who don’t look like us.

We go to those who are sinful.

I once preached a revival in a small church in MS. At the end of the service, someone told me, “You know, you would be a really good preacher if you didn’t talk about sin.”

That we have sinned is the fundamental human fact.

To sin is man’s condition. To pretend that he is not a sinner is man’s sin.

Invitation

When I have had a rough day or week where I have messed up over and over and over, and I can’t seem to get it right, I remember this quote of Brennan Manning - God loves us beyond all worthiness and unworthiness.

We worship, not because we are worthy, but because He is worthy.