Untitled Sermon (3)

Answering the call

Well good morning

It is good to be back

What has it been,

Three weeks

Or two weeks?

Either way,

It is good to be back with you all

I can honestly say

That every time I am out

I feel that pull in my heart

To be up here

Teaching the word of God

You know as I dwell on the past year

I think it is truly amazing what God has done

To be able to go from literally nothing

To a congregation of people that regularly come

And worship God together,

I have to be honest we truly have something special here.

Who knows what God has in store for this congregation

Or what plans He has

But I know,

That as long as there is air to breathe

You can count on God

So this morning,

We are going to kick it off with the call of Matthew or Levi

but more specifically I want to talk to you today about freedom

But more specifically what true freedom looks like

And you know the more I travel the world

The more I realize that freedom

Or the celebration of freedom is really

An American concept

Something we are all familiar with

Something that we defend

Speak about

Even brag about

And yet today,

I want to discuss a different type of freedom

Because contrary to popular belief

Freedom in Christ is a different virtue

A different idea

or mentality

Or a different concept than what we are familiar with

And as I was developing this sermon

I couldn’t think of a better example

Than that of the average soldier

Or even the average American

And I recall in fact that

I was listening to a teaching by a brilliant man

By the name of Andy Woods

I believe this came through in one of his studies on the book of Daniel

But either way

He hit on a point that I thought was absolutely true

And yet so absolutely easy to grasp

And it was this idea of freedom in Christ

And the entire argument of free will

Vs.

Our responsibility to do good and how that can make us feel trapped

But it was his comparison

To sin that really gripped me

And I recall how he stated

That yes of course we have the freedom

To sin

We have the freedom to live a life of debouchery

We have the freedom to live life on the edge

To drink as much as humanly possible

To have sex with as many people as possible

To live life out side of the confines or requirements of the bible

But the reality is that the consequences of such actions

Requires a stifling of this freedom

And let me use a common example

By drinking as much as humanly possible

What in fact are you giving up

That is in reality surrendering your freedom?

Are you losing the respect of others

Maybe the trust of others

Are you developing a reputation that will eventually prohibit

Your financial freedom further down the road simply because of the reputation you have gained

Maybe you’ve made a few decisions while drunk

That have cause you to act out in a way

That has cause legal actions to be taken

There fore taking away your freedom

Maybe it’s the freedom to sleep around

To have sex with whom ever you want

And whenever you want

But then later on you realize that such actions

Come with consequences

And you have to begin to ask yourself

Is this really freedom

Or is this entrapment at the highest levels of deception?

Is this sin disguised as freedom

But in reality playing into our very destruction

Galatians 6:7–8 NLT

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.

And so as we get into this passage today,

I want us to first take a look at

What true freedom looks like

The unusual acceptance of God

And our call to be different.

So if you would please open up your Bibles to

Mark 2:13–17 NLT

Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him. Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?” When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Prayer,

So what’s my number 1 rule here,

Always look at the context of the passage

Because its in the context where you find the details

Where you find the true meaning of the story

First and foremost notice Jesus is once again surrounded by people,

Which I find unique,

And maybe its just me but as a child I had always pictured Christ

Doing ministry alone

And what’s unique here, especially in the Gospel of Mark

Is that this is not the case

And so as you begin to understand the surrounding environment

It makes sense as to why Jesus was constantly telling people to keep quite

Or why he was constantly telling the demons to keep his identity secret

Because the reality is

With this many people around him

The probability of his mission of being sacrificed on the cross

Could come in serious jeopardy,

I remember watching a sermon with Billy Graham

and looking at him telling a crowd of nearly 50,000 people

That His real purpose in this life was to die

His real purpose was to be the sacrifice for sin

To become the Gospel

And so as you watch hundreds, if not thousands of people continually flock to his side

You can begin to see the full picture

Of what may have been going on through His mind

But then turn with me verse 14

And lets just read this

Because while it’s simple, it is profound

Once you take a look at the details.

Mark 2:14 NLT

As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.

So now first off

I want you to take notice that in Mark

Matthew is called Levi

Same as in Luke

But in the book of Matthew

The same story refers to this man as Matthew

And what this does is first and foremost, helps us identify that this man is actually Jew

Because Mark and Luke refer to him by his tribal name

And in fact in Old Testament times

It was the tribe of Levi that collected the Temple Taxes

And so as you look at the details you start to see the validation piece come together

But why is this important

Why does it even matter so much that this tax collector is a Jew

And this is where the context of the story truly comes into play

And look at what some of the commentators said about this.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 9: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) (Commentary)

The Jews despised their fellow tax collectors because of their duplicity or loyalty with the oppressive rulers and their reputation for dishonesty and corruption. Extortion was common, for tax collectors made their living from the money they could collect over and above taxes owed. The Mishnah or another book considered to be authoritative in nature, prohibits even receiving alms or tithes from a tax collector at his office, since the money is presumed to have been gained illegally. If a tax collector entered a house, all that was in it became unclean. The rabbis went so far as to permit lying to tax collectors to protect one’s property (m. Ned. 3:4).

Bottom line...

Mark (B. Jesus Is Lord over Relationships (2:13–17))

Tax collectors were considered traitors and extortioners. They were not allowed to be witnesses or judges in court because they were considered untrustworthy and were usually excommunicated from the synagogue. And yet here is the mystery and confusing nature of Jesus for Jesus came to Matthew and invited him into fellowship.

How many of us have made a mistake

Maybe taken the wrong path in life

And are now suffering the consequences of such an action

How many of us feel like Matthew here,

Where we feel trapped

Unable to recover from certain decisions we have made

You know I think this is what I find absolutely amazing about our Lord

Because Jesus doesn’t just look at the outside

He doesn’t just look at what you claim to be

He looks inside, into the heart of man

And judges us something entirely different

And you know the older I get

The more wisdom I gain

On understanding where life takes you

And you know as I see Matthew

And I see the choices that he made

The life style he chose

I see a man that is so unbelievably relatable to each and every one of us

Here is a man

Who in his own freedom

In his own mind, made a choice early on

To serve the enemy in an occupation that not only

Put him on outs with nearly all of society

But as John MacArthur Puts it

Put him below the Romans when it came to social status

Here is a man who made choices that utterly obliterated his life

And what I see here is a man, who just like you and I

Made choices when he was young

That have affected nearly his entire being

His entire way of life

How many of us,

Have made similar mistakes in the past

How many of us

Have gone out and in the freedom we have,

Have chosen to live a life style that we thought was going to bring us

Into happiness and fulfillment

But in reality

Brought us into bondage

You know I see it every day

Choices being made

Decisions being made that I know

Will bring about regret

Decisions that I know

Will bring about suffering

And yet the excuse I get,

Only God can judge me Chaplain

Don’t point your finger at me old man

I can do what I want

And just a ways further down the road

The same person has become a slave to the very decisions

They were certain would bring them freedom

They have become a slave to sin

And this is what you are seeing in Matthew

You are seeing a man

Who is disgusted with himself

A man who knows there is a better way

A man who knows there is a high ground to be sought after

But you are also seeing a man who doesn’t see a way out

A man trapped.

And this is the beauty of Christ

Because just at the right moment

God calls upon each of us

To make a choice

To make decision

On which path to choose

And let me tell you

When you finally submit to the path less traveled

When you finally submit to that road

That you know leads to God

There is freedom like no other

And not only that

But there is acceptance on a level

Like you never experienced

Look with me at Verse 15

Mark 2:15–17 NLT

Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?” When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Let me just ask a question real quick

How many of you read these last two verses

And were nearly brought to tears?

You know I can recall my own conversion

Where I was at a point in my own life where I knew

Beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was headed in the wrong direction

Where I knew I was walking the broad and wide road

The road that led to Hell

And I knew I had to make a change

Because all my life I had heard of the Love of God

The forgiveness of God

The acceptance of God

But for some reason

I ran from God

I wanted that freedom

I wanted that illusion of making my own sinful choices

But let me tell you

When I finally humbled myself

Sat down with my fellow sinners and accepted to the forgiveness of the savior

When I finally came to the cross

Confessed my sin

Not only did I find exactly what I had been missing my entire life

But I found purpose

I found meaning

And I found family.

I found a church

Another writer said

Mark B. Jesus Is Lord over Relationships (2:13–17)

As Christians, it happened to all of us. We who were once enemies of Christ are brought into an intimate relationship with him. And suddenly, what happened to Levi happens to us: The person we could not stand becomes in the most literal sense a brother or sister in Christ. Levi, in becoming a disciple, became a brother to the very people he had taxed in the past

You never had to be perfect

All you had to be was broken enough

To want forgiveness

All you had to be was an admitted sinner

That saw no other way to the father

Than through the blood of Jesus on that cross.

Look with me one more time at verse 17

And i love how the NLT puts it,

Because this is the heart of being a Christian

Mark 2:17 NLT

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Those who know they are sinners

Do your realize what that is a call to?

Its a call towards dependance on God

Its a call towards loving others

Its a call towards humility

and a way of life that is completely opposite than what we are familiar with

You know how many times during the day

We, fellow Christians, judge each other

Laugh at each other

Gossip about each other

Because maybe we don’t fit the mold of what the world says is acceptable.

And yet when you look at the example of Christ,

Here is God in the flesh,

Dining

Eating

Fellowshipping

With the worst of the worst

With those society casts out

With the people that no one else cares about

That is the heart of God

That is the reason he came

That is the example He is setting

And that is our call to be different

Ladies and gentlemen you have a chance to be the Gospel of Christ to the world

You have a chance to share Jesus,

Not only through the Scriptures

Not only by teaching them the Bible

But by being a living sacrifice, that is holy and pleasing to God

Sharing in him, His ambition for mankind

His ambition for humanity

And His idea of what right looks like

Before we release today I want to share two passages of Scripture with you

That i hope will allow you to connect the dots

Between not only this dinner party that Christ had with sinners

But will allow you to connect the dots on our responsibility as Christians.

Galatians 6:3 NLT

If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.

and

Philippians 2:1–5 NLT

Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Lets close in prayer

Numbers 6:24–26 NLT

‘May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.’