FRIEND OF SINNERS

INTRODUCTION

JESUS PRIORITIZED THE GOSPEL

Mark 2:13 (CSB)

THE CALL OF LEVI

13 Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.

Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has driven out unclean spirits, he has healed Peter’s mother in law, he healed all those who were sick and demon possessed. 2 weeks ago Pastor Dustin preached the message about Jesus healing the man with leprosy by touching him, Jesus declaring through that act that he is God the Son and cannot be made unclean because he is holy. There is not ailment too severe, no diagnosis that worried Jesus, there were no sicknesses too small, there was no person whose eyes Jesus did not look into as he healed every single one. But Jesus will continue to remind the disciples and us today, that he did not come solely to heal:

Mark 1:38 (CSB)

38 And he said to them, “Let’s go on to the neighboring villages so that I may preach there too. This is why I have come.”

Last week 4 friends lower their paralyzed friend through the roof because they tried everything to get into the door. Jesus, when he sees the faith of these 5 men says “son your sins are forgiven.” This is why Jesus came, but he says,

Mark 2:10 (CSB)

10 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he told the paralytic—

11 “I tell you: get up, take your mat, and go home.”

Jesus had a specific mission, to preach the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe.

Jesus was full of compassion, and met peoples physical needs, but what a tragedy if he stopped there. To heal a leper and not also heal his soul. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost.

If preaching the gospel was the reason Jesus came, the gospel must be humanities greatest need.

Colossians 1:19–20 (CSB)

19 For God was pleased to have

all his fullness dwell in him,

20 and through him to reconcile

everything to himself,

whether things on earth or things in heaven,

by making peace

through his blood, shed on the cross.,

If Jesus came to make peace, that first means there was hostility. A divide between myself, you, and God Almighty.

Romans 5:10 (CSB)

10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

The gospel is quite simple. I am prone to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, at the expense of others and even my own good. Psalm 51 takes it further and says all of those sins are against God himself. We are enemies with God, battling with the actual King of the universe for control. The good news is that same God sent his own son who willingly laid down his life, shed his own perfect blood, died, to cover, forgive, and take away your sins, and to make peace with God. Reconciliation. AND God offers adoption, co-heirs with Christ, and an inheritance of eternal life. Hope. Security. Freedom from the bondage of sin.

Jesus came to preach the gospel, the greatest news there has ever been.

Jesus Prioritized the gospel, and so should we.

Are you in your Bible everyday?

Do you remembering the old self and praise God for how Jesus gave you the new self?

Are you preparing your mind to share the good news everyday?

Jesus Prioritized the gospel, and the Word of God is sent out calling people to repent, to believe, and to Follow Jesus.

Mark 2:14 (CSB)

14 Then, passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him.

JESUS PICKED AN OUTSIDER

Levi, who is Matthew, the disciple who wrote the Gospel of Matthew, is a tax collector. The tax collectors at this time, in this region, were Jewish men, who worked for the Roman Empire. The occupying, oppressing rulers. Levi was collecting and enforcing payment from his own people to give to the Romans. As we see in scripture, tax collectors also usually defrauded both sides, asking for more than Rome demanded and lining their pockets with the profits. Tax collectors were outsiders and traitors to their own people. Tax collectors were outsiders to the Romans, because they were just hired servants to them, not actual Romans. Outsiders don’t belong. Levi was an outsider.

Have you ever felt like an outsider?

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Summer School at Boone

Outsiders lack peace. Jesus Jesus, full of compassion, also knows that Levi is hurting. Living as a traitor to his people, stealing money from his employer, not welcome with anyone but the other sinful outcasts. Levi maybe doesn’t see any other option but to live this way for the rest of his life.

Have you ever been in a season where you know you are living in sin, sin that promises one thing but leaves you unhappy? And you stay in the same cycle of it because you just don’t see another option.

Jesus here offers Levi another option.

Here is a change in the method of Jesus displaying his power. To the paralytic he said, “Get up, take your mat, and go home.” But to the man engaged in a calling that degraded him, Jesus said, “Follow me,” and “he got up and followed him.”

With the offer we see that Jesus saw Levi, Jesus was brokenhearted that he was stuck in the cycle of sin, loved him enough to want more for him, loved him enough to call him to join him, to follow him, ultimately loved him enough to give his own life for him. Jesus picked an outsider.

What was Levi’s response?

Got right out of his chair and followed Jesus. I am not sure what or who he left at the tax booth, but Mark doesn’t want us to focus on that. Mark makes it clear that Levi, like Peter James John and Andrew did not hesitate, but obeyed the moment the command left Jesus lips?

Are you prepared to get up the moment Jesus says move?

Levi was also an outsider with the 4 disciples that Jesus picked. This passage says that Levi was set up along the sea of Galilee, that tells us that Levi was a tax collector most likely of whom? of fishermen. Jesus has 4 disciples, they are all 4 fishermen. That means this guys has most likely swindled them out of money before. We know Peter is the angry one, cutting dudes ears off, no real filter. James and John just want Jesus to call down fire from heaven to destroy a whole Samaritan village for being rude. I imagine they probably had some choice words and questions for Jesus decision to pick the tax collector.

Jesus knows what he is doing, and we know from the full list of the 12 that he picks different personalities, strengths, and weaknesses to create the team of men who will take the gospel out after Jesus ascends to heaven.

football team, soccer team: full backs, center backs, def mid, attacking mid, wingers and forwards

Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians that believers in Jesus are now apart of the body of Christ. Individual members of the body that has many parts, parts with different functions serving the overall purpose of the body. Jesus is the head of the body,

1 Corinthians 12:18 (CSB)

18 But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.

Just as Jesus was handpicking the disciples, fishermen, misfits, outsiders, intellectuals, and traitors…God is picking and arranging the body as he wants and Jesus is the Savior of the body, God looks at you and says that one, and me and says that one. The Bible is encouraging because God never uses the #1 draft pick

This body declares the glory of God to the watching world when it’s members seek to please God alone.

Jesus prioritized the gospel

Jesus picked an outsider, next

JESUS PLEASED GOD

Mark 2:15–16 (CSB)

15 While he was reclining at the table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who were following him. 16 When the scribes who were Pharisees, saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Lukes account tells us that Levi threw Jesus a “grand banquet” and he invited all of his friends…tax collectors and sinners.

We already discussed tax collectors and how they were seen as outcasts and traitors to their own people. Here we see them get lumped together with “sinners.” Now, every person who has every lived has sinned Romans 3:23 explains. But this is a kind of people group.

Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the New Testament Mark 2:13–17

(“Sinners” in v. 15 refers to Jews who did not keep the Law but lived like Gentiles. To the religious Jews, they were outcasts.)

Do you really think it is an accident that Jesus ends up in a room full of outcasts? I don’t either. One might even start to think that Jesus had a plan. To chose Levi for Levi’s good and for the good of his friends. There were many tax collectors and sinners who decided to follow Jesus it says.

The pharisees though, of course had a negative view of Jesus actions. In the Pharisees eyes, if Jesus really is the “son of man” the messiah that was promised, this great perfect high priest, then eating a meal with “these people” was unholy according to the law.

Leviticus 10:8–10 (CSB)

8 The Lord spoke to Aaron: 9 “You and your sons are not to drink wine or beer when you enter the tent of meeting, or else you will die; this is a permanent statute throughout your generations. 10 You must distinguish between the holy and the common, and the clean and the unclean,

In the same way that Jesus in Mark 1:41 was moved with compassion, reached out his hand and touched the leper, was “legally Unclean” eating with this crowd again makes Jesus unclean. The pharisees, as we know from the rest of the gospels, are not pure in their intentions and actually worried that the Messiah is unclean…they are looking for any excuse to dismiss Jesus as the messiah.

They are trying to find any reason to support their hearts rejection of him.

The pharisees are unwilling to allow this man to be the Lord of their heart and lives.

Is there an area of your heart, your life, where you are not truly letting Christ rule and reign?

Are you constantly searching for worldly wisdom to support your lifestyle? or rejection of jesus

Jesus taught and modelled a life that was 100% focused on pleasing God the Father. Jesus did not require the approval of man, knowing that it was fleeting at best…But Jesus was 100% God and 100% man, so do not think that the disapproval and rejection of the religious leaders just bounced off Jesus. Jesus felt this rejection. Jesus was human too.

Matthew 23:37 (CSB)

JESUS’S LAMENTING OVER JERUSALEM

37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

Jesus was threatened often while teaching, crowds tried to seize him, to throw him over a cliff,

Jesus did not allow the approval of people to sidetrack his mission.

In the desert, Jesus was tempted by Satan to prove he was the son of God, to prove his power, Jesus used scripture to fight the temptation and to please God.

On the cross, with a crown of thorns on his head, naked with nails in his hands and feet, as people yelled out “if you are the son of God get yourself down from there” Jesus responds Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing. Jesus fulfilled his mission to preach and purchase salvation by pleasing God even in death

Jesus experienced more rejection than we every will, but Jesus obeyed the will of God perfectly.

Are you allowing the fear of man to cripple you? To hinder you from pleasing God? To hinder you from caring for the outsiders? to hinder you from prioritizing the gospel?

Jesus sought to please God with every thought, word and action.

Thank God that Jesus cannot be made unclean by nearness to sinners; for his very mission was to find them, to save them, and to complete them.

JESUS PERFECTLY HEALS

Mark 2:17 (CSB)

17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus did not come to die for your improvement.

Jesus is not a supplement to your life. Jesus is not get rich quick scheme.

Verse 17 is a bold statement by Jesus. He claims he is the doctor that can make the sick well again. He claims that he is the savior that can make a sinner righteous. Like the lame man, Jesus has the authority to forgive sins and to tell the body to be healed instantly.

Hebrews 7:25 CSB

Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.

John 15:11 CSB

“I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

Colossians 2:2 (CSB)

2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ.

1 Thessalonians 3:10 (CSB)

10 as we pray very earnestly night and day to see you face to face and to complete what is lacking in your faith?

2 Corinthians 7:1 CSB

So then, dear friends, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (CSB)

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Timothy 3:17 (CSB)

17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

James 1:4 CSB

And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

1 John 2:5 (CSB)

5 But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him:

1 John 4:12 (CSB)

12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.

The gospel is not about making better people. The gospel of Jesus Christ makes dead people alive.

The gospel is one of healing your heart, soul and mind.

The gospel cuts out the cancer of sin, and fills us with holiness, and the fruits of the Spirit. The gospel is one that takes outcasts and gives them a family that will never abandon them.

1 Peter 5:10 in the KJV says

10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.

We are so satisfied with improvement, God is not.

Freeway, sobriety is not success, because a sober person can still go to hell.

Husbands, faithfulness to your wife is important, Jesus says success is loving her like Jesus loved the church and died on the cross for her. Husbands die to yourself, live for Christ, and love your wife out of that.

Cussing less is a great goal, but we are called to honoring Christ with every single word.

lashing out in anger less is crucial, the God of Peace promises to give you peace deep in your heart.

Battling lust and inappropriate content, praise the Lord you’re fighting: God the Father offers us a satisfaction in him alone.

Trying to have less anxiety attacks? Jesus says not to give some of it to him, Jesus didn’t say you are only allowed to pray a few times about the same old anxiety, but to give it all to him, persistently, because what? HE CARES FOR YOU.

Jesus Perfectly Heals

Will you trust Him today?

CONCLUSION

Jesus came as one with authority to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to preach the gospel like no one had ever heard.

Jesus came to preach the good news of the kingdom, and he would not be stopped.

Jesus picked an outsider, to join his blue collar fishermen. Jesus had picked you and me, and anyone else who places their faith in Jesus alone to save them and to be the Lord of their life. Together we are the body, the church, who together go and preach Jesus gospel of salvation to the world, making disciples who make disciples.

Jesus was not interested in the praise or man, but was soley focused on pleasing God the father. Jesus had a mission, to seek to save the lost, and he would not be stopped.

Jesus came to diagnose, to treat, and heal the cancer of sin in our bodies and minds. To complete us, by the power of teh Holy Spirit within us. “being strengthened will all power, according to his glorious might.” To fill us, to heal us, to give us his righteousness, to give us hope for a future where we will no longer be battling sin, but we will be holy as our father is holy, only by the blood of Jesus who died and rose from the dead.

We all have business with Jesus today:

Jesus came to seek, to find, to look in the eye with compassion, and save you. Will you repent and believe today?

Do you need to pray that you would seek God’s glory before your own?

Seek to please the Father and not man?

Christian, do you need to let go, and trust Jesus to heal that one thing you are clinging on to?

We are all in need of the gospel

We have all been outsiders

We all wrestle with other peoples approval

We all need the friend of sinners.

We all need Jesus.