SERMON OUTLINE:
Jesus the Leader (vs 27-30)
Jesus the Physician (vs 31-32)
Jesus the Bridegroom (vs 33-35)
SERMON BODY
Ill:
• Adolf Menzel (1815-1905) was a German painter.
• In fact he is considered one of the two most prominent German artists;
• Of the 19th century, and was the most successful artist of his era in Germany.
• If you are visiting Berlin and you pop along to the Berlin art gallery,
• Look out for this painting.
• (Frederick the Great Address to His Generals Before the Battle of Leuthen.)
• Okay, it might not be the catchiest name in the gallery,
• But it describes exactly what the painting is all about!
• Menzel worked on this painting for two years (1859-1861),
• But he never finished!
• He never finished it because he died before the painting was complete.
As you study the picture:
• You will notice that Menzel painted generals and background,
• But left king until last.
• He only put in a charcoal outline of Fredrick,
• And he died before he was able to finish it.
• TRANSITION:
• Menzel’s famous painting is a picture of many lives:
• The background of career, interests, pursuits and achievement is complete.
• The faces of significant people like family, friends and colleagues are included.
• But the central and most important figure for life incomplete - the king is missing!
• For many people there is no Jesus.
• Jesus needs to be central in life of every person.
• May we never foolishly allow Him to be a blank figure in our crowded lives.
• Now in these verses today we will see one man who made the king central to his life,
• While others sadly left him blank.
(1). Jesus the Leader (vs 27-30)
“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’”
(1). An occupation (Vs 27a):
“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi
sitting at his tax booth
• Levi (also known as Matthew),
• It was not unusual for people to use more than one name or to take another name.
• i.e. Simon other name was Peter. i.e. Thomas other name was Didymus.
• i.e. Bartholomew other name was Nathanael, i.e. Saul other name was Paul.
Levi was a ‘tax-collector’.
• The main trade route from Syria to Egypt went through Galilee,
• And Capernaum acted as a tax station;
• It was a good station to be at, besides regular taxes paid by residents;
• Travellers had to stop, present their imported products to the tax official,
• And pay their taxes,
• With taxes paid they were allowed to go on.
• Matthew was apparently one of the tax officials working at this tax station.
• And each day he went to ‘the office’ or in his case the ‘tax-booth’.
Tax officials were very unpopular with the Jews of Jesus’ day (3 reasons why):
(A). THEY WERE DISHONEST.
• Often they were extortioners,
• Making themselves rich by taking too much money from their fellow Jews.
• The Roman government devised a system;
• To collect taxes as efficiently and as cheaply as possible.
• They did this by auctioning the right to collect taxes in a certain area.
• The man who bought that right;
• Was then responsible to the Roman government for an agreed sum;
• Anything he could raise over and above that;
• He was allowed to keep as commission.
Ill:
• When tax-collectors asked John the baptiser, how they should live;
• His reply was basically; “be honest!”
(B). THEY WERE TRIATORS.
• Tax-collectors were hated by the people;
• Because they were working for the enemy,
• Although they worked for them indirectly.
• Their employees were the Roman invaders and occupiers of Israel.
(C). THEY WERE SINNERS.
• They were disliked because they ignored the Jewish laws.
• This explains why the Pharisees called them ‘sinners’ (vs 30).
Ill:
• A sinner in the gospel accounts;
• Was someone who chose to live outside of God’s laws.
• e.g. If you worked on the Sabbath – you were a ‘sinner’
• e.g. If you did not follow dietary laws (ate pork) – you were a ‘sinner’
According to Jewish law a tax-gatherer was excluded from the synagogue;
• He was included on the forbidden list;
• That along with certain animals were considered unclean, to be avoided!
• Tax-collectors were even forbidden to be a witness in any case of law.
• In fact robbers, murderers and tax-gatherers were all classed together.
• On the social scale, tax collectors were on the bottom.
• (Even prostitutes had a higher social status).
(2). A challenge (vs 27b-28) “Follow me”.
• We only have recorded in the gospels Jesus calling six of the twelve disciples;
• We are not told how the other six were called to follow Jesus.
• But we know that to Philip, Andrew, Peter, James and Levi (Matthew).
• Jesus uses two key words to challenge them into action “follow me”.
The words “follow me” sound to us an incomplete invitation:
• If someone were to give you the same invitation to you and me;
• We would probably respond by asking; “Where are you going?”
• Notice that these men did not ask that question:
• They knew the cultural meaning behind those words.
• The issue in discipleship is never WHERE we are going,
• But WHO are we going with?
• To be a disciple of Jesus Christ;
• Meant from now on you were caught up in the leaders programme,
• To follow meant you were prepared to live by the masters agenda.
• Discipleship is not about the fulfilment of the follower,
• It is all about the fulfilment of the master’s purposes.
When Jesus called Matthew:
• He called a man whom all men hated.
• In fact as we have seen in this chapter the company Jesus keeps is not impressive.
• i.e. a leper, a lame man and some fishermen.
Quote:
• American author and humanist Mark Twain once said;
• (Sure he said it with a twinkle in his eye)
“Having spent considerable time with God’s people, I can understand why Jesus liked to be with tax collectors and sinners”
• When Jesus called Matthew he called a man whom all men hated.
• In fact as we have seen in this chapter the company Jesus keeps is not impressive.
• i.e. a leper, a lame man and some fishermen.
• But Jesus has the ability and power to see potential in these man:
• Not only what they were;
• But if they encounter him, then he can bring change in the most dramatic of ways.
Ill:
• An artist’s paintbrush in my hands will produce a coloured mess.
• An artist’s paintbrush in Van Gogh’s hand will produce a masterpiece!
• It depends whose hands it’s in
• A knife in my hands will cut up my dinner,
• A knife or a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon will save a life!
• It depends whose hands it’s in
• A rod in my hands will keep away a wild animal
• A rod in the hands of Moses will part the mighty Red Sea
• It depends whose hands it’s in
• A sling shot in my hands is a kid’s toy
• A sling shot in David’s hand is a mighty weapon.
• It depends whose hands it’s in
• Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in my hands is a couple of fish sandwiches.
• Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in the hands of Jesus will feed thousands
• It depends whose hands it’s in
• Nails in my hands might produce a metal sculpture
• Nails in the hands of Jesus hands bought salvation for the entire world.
• It depends whose hands it’s in
When Jesus the leader/master called Levi/Matthew to follow him:
• FIRST: He saved a lost soul.
• Salvation is always a person’s greatest need!
• SECOND: He added a new disciple to his group of followers,
• Following Jesus is always a group (or a Church) activity,
• I will stick my neck out and say, that you cannot follow Jesus in seclusion!
• THIRD: He created an opportunity to explain his ministry to Levi’s friends;
• And also to the scribes and Pharisees.
• Luke tells us (vs 29): Levi held “a great banquet”
• He wanted his friends and family to meet Jesus as well!
• Quote John Wesley:
• “No man ever he went to heaven alone; he must either find friends or make them”.
Ill:
• Yesterday I popped over to the centre to buy some ant traps,
• I have 100’s of them on part of my driveway that I need to get rid of.
• The lady in the shop was helpful, she said everyone is struggling with ants this year;
• I only have two of these poisoned ant traps left.
• Ants find food by sending out scout ants from the colonies to search for food,
• These scout ants go off in various directions,
• Often up to a range of 100 to 200 meters.
• (Depends on the territorial boundary and time of the year).
• Once food is found,
• The scout collects a little sample of it and marches back to the colony.
• He goes back using the shortest route and leaving a pheromone trail behind.
• Once in the colony the other ants analyse the food the scout brought;
• And they then take the trail set by the scout.
• TRANSITION: Ants very clever when one discovers good news;
• He goes and shares it with all the other ants!
• Now that is evangelism!
Notice:
• Luke informs us how costly it was for Levi/Matthew to follow Jesus
• (Luke chapter 5 verse 28):
• N.I.V.: “He left everything”
• (K.J.B. “Forsook all”.)
Ill:
• What Matthew lost and what Matthew found:
• He lost a comfortable job, but found a destiny.
• He lost a good income, but found honour.
• He lost a comfortable security,
• But found an adventure of the like of which he had never dreamed.
• In Jesus Christ a man finds a wealth surpassing anything;
• He may have to abandon for the sake of Christ.
• Note also:
• What Matthew left and what Matthew took.
• He left his tax-collector’s table; but from it took one thing:
• Quote Alexander White of Edinburgh once said:
“When Matthew left his job to follow Christ, Matthew brought his pen with him!
Little did this ex-publican realise that one day use him to write the first of the four gospels.”
(2). Jesus the Physician (vs 31-32)
“Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’”
Ill:
Doctors What They Say and What They Mean
• What they say: “It could be one of several things.”
• What they mean: “I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s wrong with you.”
• What they say: “I’d like to run that test again.”
• What they mean: “We have lost your blood sample.”
• What they say: “These pills have very few side effects.”
• What they mean: “You may experience sudden hair growth on the palms of your hands.”
• What they say: “There’s a lot of this going around.”
• What they mean: “We’ll give it a name as soon as we figure out what it is.”
• TRANSITION: Jesus uses an illustration where he pictures himself as:
• The good physician, the good doctor.
• His diagnosis will be precise and accurate and his cure will be effective!
• On two occasions Jesus referred to himself as a "physician" or "doctor,"
• Once in the sense of "physical healer" and once in the sense of "spiritual healer."
• When Jesus gave his first sermon in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth
• He referred to himself as a ‘physical healer’
• Using this imagery in Luke chapter 4 verse 23.
• Now here in chapter 5 he uses this imagery again;
• But this time in the spiritual sense (vs 35):
“‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’”
Note:
• Verse 30: The religious leaders were ‘grumbling’ against Jesus.
• They were grumbling to the disciples and Jesus steps in to quite his critics.
• The Pharisees only saw Levi and his friends as condemned sinners
• They had also decided that:
• Quote: “birds of a feather flock together”.
• Notice the contrast:
• The Pharisees saw Levi and his friends as condemned sinners
• Jesus saw them as spiritually ‘sick’ patients who needed help from the physician.
• Any good doctor is concerned for sick,
• Any good doctor must examine a patient in order to help them.
• Yet the Pharisees showed no interest in those who had needs.
• In fact they were repulsed by the sickness they saw in others.
• So Jesus tells them that they have been neglecting their duty.
Jesus’ defence for his actions was perfectly simple:
• He merely said that he went where the need was greatest.
• He would be a poor doctor who only visited the healthy;
• The doctor’s place is in the surgery or the hospital.
• It is where the sick people are!
Note:
• FIRST: The physician is trained to diagnose ailments.
• He sees those things which you and I cannot see.
• Unless he finds the cause of the trouble then he cannot find the cure.
• Jesus can diagnose the sickness of sin;
• And can reveal, exactly where that sickness attacks each individual life.
• SECOND: The physician, knowing what is wrong, then wants to help to heal.
• You or I might regard the illness as repulsive or ugly and,
• Therefore, shun the sufferer, but not the doctor.
• Jesus never turns from the sinner;
• But is always willing to apply the healing balm to whosoever will.
• THIRD: The physician will even risk their own life to save the one who is ill.
• Think of all the infectious diseases that mankind has had to deal with,
• From cholera to Ebola and how many doctors died trying to find a cure!
• Jesus did not hesitate to give his life;
• To find a cure for men and women’s sin.
Ill:
• The internet is still buzzing over that royal wedding Sermon.
• Like marmite you either loved it or hated it!
• American Minister the Reverend Michael Curry,
• Became the star of the Royal Wedding on Saturday with his 14-minute sermon.
• His stirring sermon was the most-tweeted about moment;
• Of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding.
• Many people enjoyed his preaching style,
• But as always with these occasions it is always the content that lets us down.
• Now here is my point:
• He talked about Jesus dying as an example of love,
• But that is not what the Bible teaches and that is not the gospel!
• Jesus did not die as an example but rather a sacrifice;
• As 1 John chapter 4 verse 10 puts it:
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
• The bit that Reverend Michael Curry missed out was key factor:
• Christ died not as an example but as a sin-bearer, as a propitiation for our sins.
• His death, not his example is the only cure for sin,
• There is no other!
Quote: Stuart Townend Hymn, ‘In Christ alone, my hope is found’.
“In Christ alone! - who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.”
(3). Jesus the Bridegroom (vs 33-35)
“They said to him, ‘John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.’
Jesus answered, ‘Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.’
He told them this parable: ‘No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, “The old is better.”’”
There are two reasons the Pharisees are upset in these verses.
• First they do not like the company of Jesus and his disciples.
• He is mixing with lowlife, with tax-collectors, with sinners.
• Second they do not like the attitude of this group;
• These ‘party people’ are….eating and drinking and…joyful!
If there was one thing lacking in the Pharisees it was joy:
• The Pharisees were a group of zealous Jewish leaders who took their faith seriously.
• They believed that the way they would please God and make it to Heaven;
• Was by meticulously following a long list of religious rules and regulations.
• In fact each day they tried to keep 613 commandments!
• While following 613 commandments would be hard enough,
• Over time Jewish leaders began to slowly add to these laws in the Midrash.
Ill:
• In the Mosaic Law, one of the commandments is to keep the Sabbath holy,
• Which means that Jews were not supposed to work on Saturdays.
• But to clarify this, the Jewish scholars;
• Created 39 separate categories of what “work” means,
• And within those 39 categories there are many sub-categories;
• With even more rules and regulations!
• TRANSITION: Why you live like that;
• You are always going to be failing, always going to feel guilty,
• And always going to be void of joy!
Ill:
• In a Charlie Brown Christmas,
• Charlie Brown was having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit.
• So Linus says to Charlie Brown:
“Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.”
• TRANSITION: That was the Pharisees attitude as well,
• They could have rejoiced at a sinner repenting but instead they criticise!
Jesus answers their criticism with a n illustration and a parable.
• The illustration of a bridegroom makes the point that there is a time to fast and pray,
• And a time to party and feast.
• He is the bridegroom so now is the time to party and feast.
• But says Jesus in verse 34;
• A time is coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them,
• (He knew that he was destined to die on a cross and so he gives a hint about it here).
• When that happens his disciples will fast.
• But that answer did not satisfy his critics.
• So he gives them a parable – a double parable that are self-explanatory(vs 36).
“He told them this parable: ‘No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, “The old is better.”’”
• If you sewed a patch of new cloth on a piece of garment that had been washed,
• Then the next time it was washed the patch it would then shrink,
• And ruin the whole garment.
• If new wine was poured into old wineskins,
• The pressure of the gas from the fermentation
• Would break the old wineskin and the wine would sip out and be lost.
• The old man made rules added to God’s good law;
• Was too brittle for the new wine of God’s kingdom.
• Judaism had become so inflexible that like that old cloth and new patch;
• The two were destined to pull apart.
• Jesus' mission involved a radical break with common religious practices;
• He brings is not a patch but a whole new garment.
• Jesus' teaching is like fermenting wine;
• That seems to almost have inherent vigour;
• And cannot be contained within an old rigid system.
Ill:
• At last week’s royal wedding;
• One simple photo has been going viral and this lady is now an Internet sensation.
• The photo is a fascinating portrait of what smartphones have done to our culture.
• A single woman is seen enjoying the moment with just her eyes;
• While a sea of smartphone cameras surrounds her.
• She is enjoying the moment;
• While the others are trying to capture the moment;
• Or are being distracted by their or someone else’s phone.
• Phot link:
• (https://petapixel.com/2015/10/08/woman-spotted-without-phone-camera-out-is-now-an-internet-sensation/)
• TRANSITION: The Pharisees were distracted by rules and regulations;
• Levi and the disciples, like the lame man, the leper and those fishermen and sinners,
• Where enjoying the moment – enjoying Jesus!
SERMON AUDIO:
https://surf.pxwave.com/wl/?id=PwtYc0BNO8lyu2KHFgFpOtTmf0420NQs&forceSave
