Friend of Sinners

Good Morning

Talk about June 7th

Who is excited about the meal after service? I am more excited about the fellowship! Don’t get me wrong, I am gonna eat!! I am going to try and not talk long so we can eat, so let’s pray and then we will go eat.

Just kidding. Let’s pray and get into our verses for today.

Pray

Today we are going to be in Mark 2:13-17. Before we read the verses, I want us to think about how things were during Jesus’ time on earth. When we read the Bible, it is always important to read it to first understand what it meant when it was written. It can’t mean what it didn’t mean. We don’t get to interpret the Bible through the lens of our culture, our day. We have to know what it meant when it was written. Then we take that and apply it to today. With that in mind, I want to talk to you about if Jesus had come to earth today. He would have come for the same reason, to die for sinners. But He would have been put to death for the opposite reason that they killed Him in His day. Back then Jesus was killed because He was not holy enough, not exclusive enough, not intolerant enough. The religious leaders of the day kept themselves separated from the sinners. They didn’t associate with them, they didn’t even want to talk to them. They were self righteous and everyone else was beneath them. If you didn’t act the way they did, then you could be with them. They thought that they were holier than everyone else. They thought that they weren’t sinners.

Today, if Jesus were here, He would be killed because He was too exclusive. He preached that He was the only way. He preached an absolute truth, not a truth that is subject to your opinion. He would have been too intolerant. He would have told people about their sins and to repent. That they were wrong. He would have preached about repentance and belief in Him. He would have been put to death for being too holy. He would have been so different than our world, He would have set himself apart form it.

He would be the exact same Jesus as He was back then, but He would have been put to death for the opposite reason. Our world today is different than that of Jesus’ day. The Jews were righteous and moral. Today the world is unrighteous and immoral. So as we read our verses, keep in mind how times were back then. Let’s read our verses, please stand.

Mark 2:13–17 (NASB 2020)

13 And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them.

14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.

15 And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following Him. 16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating with tax collectors and sinners?” 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.”

Last week we saw Jesus heal the paralytic, and everyone left amazed and glorifying God. He fame is spreading and the crowds are getting bigger and bigger. We see that He had to go outside of the city by the seashore. This was because Peter’s wife was still mad about what happened to her house! No, Jesus wanted to reach as many people as He could while He was here. So in order to do that, He had to go somewhere that the large crowd could be, the seashore. While they were there, He was teaching them. This was Jesus’ main purpose, to teach and preach. He did the miracles to validate what He was saying. He wanted to teach the people about who He was and why He came. He came to point them to the cross and to show them their sins. He came to call them to repentance and to belief in Him. He came to teach them what the law really meant and to fulfill it. The religious leaders had added to the law so much that it became a burden. It became a tool that they used to set themselves apart from the people. It was meant to show how bad we truly are. How much we need a savior. How incapable we are to be good, or to earn righteousness. The leaders saw the Law as a way of isolation from the rif raf. From the common people. That was never the purpose of the Law. Jesus was came and told the people the truth that they were starving to hear. He came to offer what they truly needed worse than anything else, forgiveness, restoration with our father, a savior!

Mark tells us that as He was walking down the road, He passed by the booth of the local tax collector, Levi. There were two things that united the religious leaders, the hatred of the tax collectors and the hatred of Jesus. The tax collectors were the most hated people. They were the worst of the worst. They were considered traitors and sympathizers to Rome. They were not allowed into the Temple at all. They were outcasts. They hated them so much that they made laws that if a tax collector touched your home, it was considered unclean. They were allowed to lie to a tax collector without and fault. No one was friends with the tax collectors, except other tax collectors. No one wanted to be seen even talking to them. They would move to the other side of the road when passing them.

The Romans would sell the tax franchises to the highest bidder. Once you won the bid and started collecting taxes, you would become extremely wealthy. This was a wealth that came with a steep cost. It would cost you all your relationships and the ability to worship at the Temple. The people who were tax collectors, their god was money. All they cared about was money and getting more of it. They loved money. They loved it more than their families, more than their country, more than their religion. They forsook all of that for the money that they so loved.

The was a complex tax system back then. The Romans set a number for the amount of taxes that the collectors had to send to Rome. Everything above that number they got to keep. We think we have it bad, I have seen some estimation that the Jews had to pay upwards of 60% taxes to Rome. Some of that was the extra that the tax collectors would collect for themselves. This opened the door for a lot of shady things to be done. It opened the door for the criminal element to get involved in collecting taxes. The better you were at collecting, the richer you got. It was like a mafia we know today. They would employ the thugs and ex cons to do the dirty work, to intimidate the people into paying. All they cared about was getting their precious money. Who they hurt was irrelevant. They loved money more than anything else.

There were two different kinds of tax collectors. They collected two different taxes. The first kind was called a gabbai. That is ironic because that is what they said to their money, gabbai. The gabbai would collect the fixed taxes like, income tax, property tax, anything that had a fix rate to it, they collect. They collected the general tax.

The other tax collectors were called mokhes. There were big mokhes and little mokhes. The great mokhes lived in the big house way up on the hill, far away from everyone. They employed the little mokhes. Matthew was a little mokhes. These mokhes taxed everything. They put taxes on imports, exports and transports. They had a toll for roads, bridges, and harbors. They had a toll for how many wheels you had. They taxed how many legs your donkey had. They taxed animals, packages, letters. Just like today, a tax on everything. They could tax whatever they wanted, since they worked for Rome, there was nothing they could do about it. The mokhes and their taxes were the worst, they were not fixed, they were flexible taxes. You never know how much it was going to be. They could change it as they wanted. Now you know why they hated them so much. They would use whatever means necessary to collect, intimidation, pain, probably even kidnapping family members. They were the lowest of the low.

What Jesus did next was mind blowing!! He gave a cryptic message to Levi. He told him to follow Him. It was plain and simple and out in the open for everyone around Him to hear. Follow me, and he did. This was the exact same message He gave to Peter, Andrew, James and John. I can only imagine the look on the faces of those 4 men! We left everything to follow Him with a tax collector! What! I can just imagine what Peter was thinking and saying, he was not shy!!

That moment when Jesus looked at Levi, He saw into his heart and called him to salvation. The moment Levi got up, he was changed. His love of money, and power was gone! He had a new heart. He had new desires! Levi the hated tax collector, extortioner, the traitor became a disciple and writer of Jesus’ life. Levi gave up earthly security for eternal security. Lost a career and gained eternal glory. He gave up his material possessions and gain heaven. He knew that Jesus came for sinners like him. He wanted all his friends to here from Jesus. Levi gave up everything like the other disciples. But He could never go back to what he was doing. Peter, Andrew,John and James could always go back to fishing. Levi could never go back to tax collecting. That job would have been filled and not available again. He was known as a tax collector and no one would hire him to do anything. He literally gave up everything to follow Jesus.

We see next, the right response to salvation. Levi invited all his friends over and had a feast. He wanted them to hear what Jesus had done for him and he wanted them to meet and listen to Jesus. Jesus went to Levi’s house and eat with him and his friends and the disciples. Levi must of had a large house because this would have been a lot of people at this feast. Mark tells us that they were reclining at the table. This was a long slow meal. Not like our meals today, where we rush to get done and on to the next thing. This was the thing for Jesus. He wasn’t like hurry up and eat, lets get out of here before we are seen. He wanted everyone to know He was eating with the tax collectors and sinners. This is why He came to earth. The Jews would have never eaten a meal with the sinners or even Gentiles for that fact. To the Jews, eating a meal together meant they were accepting those they were eating with. Shared meals represented friendship. They would never be friends with the sinners and tax collectors! This blew the minds of the scribes that were there. They couldn’t imagine anyone that was a rabbi doing what Jesus was doing. It dumbfounded them so much that they asked His disciples why He was doing this. Jesus heard them and answered.

He told them that healthy people have no need for a doctor, those who are sick. He was talking about the scribes, they thought that they were righteous. The righteous don’t think they need a doctor, a saviour. Jesus knew that they would not listen to Him. That their hears were stone, their hearts were the opposite of Levi’s heart. Levi’s heart was ready for a makeover. It was ready for the truth that Jesus was giving. It was ready for repentance and salvation. The proud don’t need a saviour, only the humble. If doctors only saw healthy people, they would be in business very long. Doctors are there for the sick when they need them. That is what Jesus is here for, when were realize our sickness, He offers healing. He offers new life. He offers healing that is eternal not temporary like the doctors.

Then Jesus ends His answer with the most beautiful words! I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners! That is the good news! That is the scandal of the gospel, that it is for sinners. Who is a sinner, raise your hand. Jesus came for you, for me. We see that He doesn’t wait for us to get clean first, He doesn’t wait for us to be good enough first, or to do a certain amount of good deeds! He comes to our tax booth and calls us. He meets us in our sin, in our filth and nasty. He reaches out His hand and says come, follow me! All we have to do is reach up and grab His hand! If that is not good news then I have never and will never hear good news. We can see that there was a revival breaking out in Levi’s house. It says that there were many of them and they were following Him. The Gospel of the Good News was breaking up the Galilean mafia of tax collectors! The worst of the worst were walking away from everything and following Him. He is calling sinners today also. You don’t have to be good, the Bible tells us that none are good. So if you are waiting for that, you will never get there. There is no sin that is to big for His grace to cover. His grace is always bigger than our biggest sin. If you hear Him calling today, be like Levi and come and accept His forgiveness!

Let’s pray