Jesus studies sick sinners like Levi the tax collector, calls them to a life of repentance, and fills them with joy.
Speakers
Matt Felton — teaching
Why tax collectors were the last people anyone expected
Summer series in Luke's Gospel: nine scenes answering one question — what does it mean to follow Jesus?
Last week's scene was the call of Simon Peter. This week's question: what was Jesus looking for in the men he called?
Israel lived in its own promised land under Roman rule. Like a prince living as a servant in the castle his father promised him.
Rome hired local Jews to collect taxes, making them traitors to their people and to their God — banned from synagogues, excommunicated with no hope of restoration.
Rome set quotas; anything collected above the quota the collector kept. With no tight regulations, collectors overcharged freely. Who would you complain to?
Capernaum was a major port city on a trade route, so Levi was doing very well. The great feast at his house shows he was living in luxury.
Luke says Jesus "saw" Levi — a loaded word in the original, meaning he studied him carefully.
Jesus came for the sick
Jesus sets his eyes upon sick sinners, invites them to a life of repentance, and offers them joy.
The Pharisees viewed the world like germophobes — only the germs they saw everywhere were sins. "Pharisee" means "a separated one."
Their problem was not taking God's holiness too seriously. It was failing to see that the Holy One stood in front of them, sent to transfer his holiness to those who had none.
They feared sin as contagious but never grasped that holiness could be transferred too.
There are only two kinds of people: those who are sick and don't know it, and those who are sick and know it. Jesus came for the second.
Carson: the twelve disciples "were not an advertisement for human potential; they were an advertisement for divine grace."
Our church must be a hospital for the sick — no category of person too far gone for our embrace.
Jesus called for repentance
Cut "to repentance" off verse 32 and you lose what Jesus came to do.
Mark 1:15 packs it all together: fulfillment, kingdom, faith, and repentance in one sentence.
Repent means turn around. Everyone was walking one direction — away from God — and Jesus shouted stop, turn, follow me.
Repentance cost Levi everything: his career, income, and security. Forty men waited for that booth, and Rome would never trust a quitter.
The defining mark of a disciple is that they repent — and keep turning from sin until they die.
Jesus created joy
Sharing a meal in that culture meant acceptance and approval, which is why the Pharisees were horrified and why 2 John warns against welcoming false teachers into your house.
H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "that haunting fear that somebody, somewhere is having a good time." Many picture Jesus that way.
Awkwardly, Jesus was accused of the opposite — a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
Levi had enough joy to throw a huge party and invite every friend he had left.
Application: practice evangelistic hospitality. Invite friends who don't follow Jesus to dinner with believing friends and talk honestly about him. Rice and water with the right seasonings is enough.
Application: joy follows repentance. If you're in a fog of joylessness, ask whether there is unconfessed sin, or whether fear, shame, or addiction is keeping you from turning.
Sorrow does not automatically mean you are in sin — depression sometimes comes uninvited.
Key Takeaways
Jesus studies the people everyone else has written off, then calls them.
You cannot come to Jesus until you admit you are sick.
Repentance is not the price of joy; it is the pathway to it.
Levi became Matthew, and in his own gospel list he still called himself "Matthew the tax collector" — grace magnified, not hidden.