Sermon Notes - Outsider

Key idea – Jesus accepts everyone. The door to faith is open to all people. There may be a challenge in changing behaviour or what we put our trust in, but Jesus longs to welcome all people, especially the outsider.

INTRODUCTION:

We looked last week at the encounter Mary had with an angel telling her the news that she would give birth to a king, the messiah.

The reality is that this would have been a scary moment, but she chose to trust God and submit to His will.

When we encounter God, it can freeze us in our tracks. I loved hearing people's sliding door moments as they obeyed God’s call on their lives.

What also freezes us in our tracks is when your name is called.

I remember when I was in high school, a hot day, cooling ourselves with our drink bottles. A teacher I really got on with, looked at me all soaked in water and said Daniel Hutchsion come with me. She didn’t take me to the principal's office; she took me to the teacher's staff room and paraded me in front of the other teachers.

Now, because Boaz’s middle name is Daniel, when I hear Maria say Boaz Daniel Hutchison, I wipe around and think what am I in trouble for now.

· I wonder what was going through Levi’s head and heart when Jesus called out his name?

o Because, as a tax collector, most people didn’t like you

§ I can imagine him thinking, am I in trouble now with this religious guy too?

· Let’s consider a little bit of information about Levi from Lynn Cohick and Michael Bird from Encounter Episode 2 (show Enc Ep 2 Clip 1)

o “Essentially, being a tax man was getting a franchise. You're allowed to man this trading station, you're allowed to work in this market, or you're on this border between two regions, and you're expected to get X number of dollars or coins or whatever it is to meet your quota. But anything beyond that you keep for yourself…Levi was collecting tax on the fish that had been taken from the Sea of Galilee and was now set to be sold. So, there's your profit gone. You know, you work all night fishing, trying to make a living. And then there's Levi there at his tax booth, taking your profit.”

Rev Michael Bird will actually be in Launceston over Easter speaking at some easter events.

· This is our second week in the Encounter series

o “Encounter – People Jesus Met, Then and Now”

We have our lifegroups starting back this week. If you would like to catch more of what is being shared, you can see in the newsletter the life groups times (which we will highlight more, later in the serves or you can follow the code and watch them yourself.

§ Today, we are considering people's encounters with Jesus that showed that the outsider, the one who never would have thought that Jesus would notice them, was welcomed by Him

· And that, regardless of what we have been told

o Jesus still welcomes outsiders today

· For basically all of human history, people have tried to scam other people

o And in this digital age, it happens regularly

o When I was in Uni, I had a call from a guy saying he was from Microsoft and that I had an error on my computer that was going to affect my computer somehow.

Of course, for payment, he would access my computer and clean it up. I fell for it and gave access. I learnt an important lesson that day.

o I was sold a lie.

§ You think you are getting help, and you end up with something that doesn’t match what you thought you were getting.

· In many ways, the modern world is like this

o We are sold this dream that because of our technology, we would be more connected than ever

§ And in some ways, we are

o And yet we are lonelier than ever

§ “The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared loneliness to be a pressing global health threat, with the US surgeon general saying that its mortality effects are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day” [1]

· Yet even in the crowd, in the weirdness of this overly connected and yet somehow not connected world, Jesus notices YOU

Mark 2:13–14 NIV

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth.

· Jesus notices Levi

o With all the noise, with all the crowds following Him, after a time of Jesus healing and teaching others

§ Jesus notices Levi and

Jesus notices you in a crowd

· Sometimes the world seems like a very big crowd of people

o And in the crowd, it is noisy, and we can feel overlooked and overwhelmed

o But we need to remember that God sees you, and that has been his plan from the beginning

§ To remind us that we are not overlooked

· Probably the most well-known passage in the Scriptures is John 3:16

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

· But sometimes ‘the world’ can seem big, impersonal, as if somehow me, me as an individual, is not seen, is not that important

o So, let’s do the following…

§ Change out ‘God so loved the world’ to ‘God so loved (you). For example…

· God so loved ‘Andrea’ that He gave His one and only Son

· God so loved ‘Jeannette’ that He gave His one and only Son

...

o Let these examples hang there for a moment to sink in as you go around the room and insert some people’s names that are sitting there in this way

Or consider the communities we live in:

· God so loved ‘Newstead’ that He gave His one and only Son

· God so loved ‘Launceston’ that He gave His one and only Son

· If you have ever thought

o No one cares about me

o No one looks my way

o No one notices me

§ This passage speaks against those thoughts

· Jesus notices a hated tax collector, an outsider, in Levi

o Stop and imagine for a moment that Jesus is walking through a crowd that you are in

o And then picture him stopping and looking intently at you

§ Not the angry eyes of somebody about to growl at you

§ But the intent eyes of somebody who sees you, all of you, all of who you are

Pause

And he wants to eat with you

· Have you ever cooked pancakes?

o You pour the batter in, and then wait

o And at just the right time, hopefully, as the bubbles seem to settle down in the batter, you flip the pancake

· Well, here in this encounter, Jesus is flipping more than 1000 years of history and understanding on its head

o For all of that time, God’s people had primarily believed that when you touched something unclean, it made you unclean

§ And that also meant when you touched ‘unclean’ people

· So if you associated with ‘unclean’ type people, it made you ‘unclean’ and cut you off from God and the temple

o But what we read here is that Jesus was with a whole bunch of ‘tax collectors and sinners’

Mark 2:15–16 NIV

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

o And it isn’t the first time,

Luke 7:34 NIV

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’

· And not only was He ‘with’ them, but He ‘ate’ with them

o Now, in our world that may still seem scandalous, but it was even more so in Jesus’ time

· Lynn Cohick in Encounter Ep 2 (show Enc Ep 2 Clip 2)

o “One of the amazing parts of Levi's story is that he gets a meal with Jesus. Sitting with someone at a meal at this time meant that you were in fellowship with them. It was a show of hospitality. But Jesus is to be this prophet from God that is stating God's law. And so, people looked at why? Why, Jesus, are you eating with Levi? Are you condoning his tax-collecting job, which is basically stealing from the poor?”

Jesus eats with all sorts of people  

· Here is the point, Jesus chooses to invite and eat (with all that eating signifies) with a bunch of people who were

o Outside of the religious system

o Looked down on by society in general

o Who effectively felt that God was outside of their reach

· Elsewhere, we hear Jesus speak about a banquet (Lk 14:15-34)

o  And in it He says

Luke 14:21 NIV

‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

o Now this is not saying that only the poor, crippled, blind and lame are invited

o It is saying that ALL people are invited

§ Even when considered the lowest of the low

· The outsiders are welcomed in!

Testimony time

· Through this series, we are going to see a snippet of a testimony from the encounter series, and in our share time, there is an opportunity for our own.

o Is not saying that life is perfect

or that there are only ‘good’ times.

§ or that everything in every moment has worked out exactly how we would have liked it

o It is…

§ Giving God the glory for His work and presence in our lives

§ Reminding ourselves of the great things Jesus has done

§ Building up the faith of others

· Testimony from the series

o We are going to watch one small part from the coming weeks episode about how one of the guests, Aaron McKitrick, a biker in LA, encountered Jesus (show Enc Ep 2 Clip 3)

§ But as I said earlier, you know, there I've been a part of and I'd seen a lot of evil in the world. And so to believe that was really, really, hard. But I kind of called him out, and I was like, God, you know, now's your chance. Like, if there was ever a time, it's now. And, uh, but you got to do something. And I was like, say something, move something like anything. And yah, he did…I heard my name…And then he said, I love you. Well, and I just broke. Yeah. And it was like, um. Kind of, in a sense, the first time I'd really heard that in like, fully believed it, like there was there was a weightiness in what was said that I'd never heard before, and I really believed it. (KARL: How did that change you?). It changed everything.

· But we also want to champion what God is doing in our local congregation

o Do you have a story like that, of your name being called or feeling the love of God in a situation?

Please share it during our share time.

I think we are all thankful for the GPS that are on our phones.

When I was in Hobart, we were having a leaders meeting at one of our elders' houses in houn valley.

She had put in such great effort to describe 3 different routes you could take to find their house, but she never actually gave us the address.

So I sat down with a map, followed the directions and asked her, going by your directions, do you live at …, Really, that's all I needed so that I could follow the GPS.

· But even better is when you can follow someone else driving ahead of you to your destination

· Well, here in this passage, Jesus says two profound things

Mark 2:14 NIV

“Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

and

Mark 2:17 NIV

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

· He calls people to follow Him

o He simply says to Levi, “Follow me” (Mk 2:14)

o This is freeing because Levi

§ Doesn’t have to know it all

§ Doesn’t have to have his life together

§ Doesn’t have to be a ‘good’ person

· He simply must be following Jesus and learning and growing along the way

o Yes, Levi, like the rest of us, will be called to more align our thoughts and our actions with the one that we follow

§ We read a similar story with Zacchaeus (Lk 19:8)

· Where it shows a change in behaviour from being with Jesus

o But the idea is that to be a Christian, a disciple, a follower of Jesus is simply to  

§ Cover yourself with the dust of your rabbi’s feet.[2]

· To walk where he walks and learn the words, the works and the ways of Jesus

[2]Yose ben Yoezer, the author of this saying, lived in the second century B.C. and was one of the earliest of the sages of rabbinic teachings. The full saying: Let your home be a meeting house for the sages, and cover yourself with the dust of their feet, and drink in their words thirstily

Sounds like a great saying for our lifegroups

o Jesus makes a profound statement at the end of the passage to remind everyone why He came

§ It was for the ‘sick’ or the ‘sinner’

o Jesus reminds us that we all have fallen short of God’s standards. Paul writes…

Romans 3:23–24 NIV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Jesus calls all sorts of people to follow him,

but they all have one thing in common

o All who Jesus noticed, all who Jesus ‘ate’ with, and all who Jesus calls have this one thing in common

§ They all needed forgiveness

§ They all needed Jesus to reveal to them just how much they were seen and loved by God

just how much you are seen and loved by God

CONCLUSION:

· Levi’s encounter with Jesus is such a ‘good news’ story for all of us

o Because the outsider is welcomed

§ For every person who says, ‘the roof will cave in’ if they go to Church, this is a good news story

o Also, Levi ‘becomes’ Matthew

§ Matthew wrote what we now know of as the first Gospel in our New Testament Scriptures…Matthew

§ So not only is the outsider welcomed in, but we are then released to a bigger version of our life than we had before we followed Jesus

· Levi was destined to sit at his desk and take money from those who didn’t have it to give

· And yet he becomes Matthew, apostle, a first-hand witness of Jesus Christ, and writer of the first Gospel

· We have heard a couple of testimonies today

o Levi

o Aaron McKitrick

o opportunity in our share time

Time of reflection/response

§ What is at least one thing that God seemed to say to me today?

§ What will I do with what I have heard?

Give people time for ministry of some kind

We can’t talk about an encounter and not make space for it